Thanksgiving

My visit to the police department was less than fruitful. I spent hours standing in line as countless post-accident odd couples struggled to get their story straight. These budding Oscar and Felixes would jabber loudly at the police officer until eventually the cop would throw his arms up in disgust and dispatch the arguing couple to negotiate amongst themselves. One of the things that makes police work so hard, is that an incredibly high percentage of the people that they interact with on any given day will be lying to them. Up is down, red is green, and so on. This is the very same thing that makes it painful to interact with the police (I absolutely hate being pulled over, although I'm basically a law abiding person) because dealing with a human lie detector, much like the mechanical variety, simply makes you feel guilty. I had the same reaction years ago when an employer sent me to a dismal, rundown clinic for a pre-employment drug screen. I had absolutely no cause for concern, and yet just taking the drug test made me feel both guilty and slightly degraded. 

When, after a long wait, it came time for me to approach the counter, the sergeant and I struggled to understand each other, finally agreeing that I should bring the car into the police lot for inspection. When I returned from moving the car he was busy writing up an accident report for another pair of misfits, and so I sat down and waited for him to finish. About half an hour later their paperwork was completed and the sergeant promptly stood up and left for his break. I tried to get one of the other officers to help me, but they insisted that I should wait for the sergeant, who, when he did finally return some forty minutes later, seemed to have no recollection of our earlier interaction:

"Two car accident?" "No just one car." Where?" "It was parked in Jumeirah Three, is that what you mean?" "No. Where car now?" "It's in the visitor lot." "OK, bring car here now."

Now, this guy is probably from Yemen, and he probably speaks four or more languages, so I really don't mean to criticize his english, which would have my non-existent Arabic pinned and howling in pain almost immediately if we could somehow pit our language skills against each other in an ultimate fighting cage match. But, explaining the fact that I had no clear idea how the scratch came to be, and that furthermore, I had nothing to gain by lying as the rental is fully insured, proved nearly impossible. He kept asking where we scratched the car, and, probably because he's in the business of listening to lies all day, he was offended by my perceived obstinacy, throwing his hands up in the air in the international hand signal for "you're full of shit, and I give up," and walking away. I think he had some idea that there was a communication problem, because he sent out a more fluent Emarati officer, who wore a festive police tunic, in what must be a nod to traditional dress. This new officer informed me that I should come back in the morning as they were "only dealing with emergency reports" for the remainder of the evening.

So, in order to reclaim Thanksgiving from the law enforcement blues, I drove to the store and grabbed whatever Thanksgiving staples I could find, which wound up being a giant halal turkey breast, a box of cran-raspberry juice, and some pear slices that came soaked in cranberry juice. Which, combined with mashed yams and asparagus, made a nice finish to a crazy day. After dinner we played scrabble, our ice skating plans long abandoned due to my lengthy stay at police HQ. 

When The Rain Comes

By morning the flood had all but disappeared, unveiling a trail of flotsam that led right to our door like some unwelcome guest. Because there is so little annual rainfall in the UAE, there's almost no drainage. So when it does rain, it floods. In fact the curb in front of our place floods when Makhboub hoses down the boat, which is every other day. Last night's rain came on suddenly. I was hunched over the computer straining to produce 1500 words on Argentine real estate when I heard the familiar tapping of cloudburst. I miss the dampening fall weather of Northern California but was slow to recognize the rain, as its sound was not only unexpected, but partially masked by the white noise of the air-conditioner.  When it dawned on me that one of Dubai's extremely rare rainfalls was upon us, I ran outside to collect our camping gear, which had been airing out on the porch. Then I put on dirty clothes from the laundry hamper (why soak the clean stuff, especially when you're running low) and ran to shut the windows on the rental car. 

I'd left the windows cracked open to allow some air flow. I don't know why but the Yaris smells really bad. We should have exchanged it ages ago for a fresher unit, preferably one with two working speakers. When you listen to certain Taj Mahal songs in this car, sometimes all you get is banjo, as Taj's honeyed voice is hard panned to the dead speaker. Despite being an occasional contributor to Wheels, I'm really not a huge car guy-- that's my Dad's job. Yet I will say that the stereo in our new car really makes a difference after driving the rental for several months, that and the keyless entry, I'm a big baby about manual locks.

Today I need to take the Yaris down to the police station to get a "no fault" write up for an accident that never happened, at least not to us. The law in Dubai prohibits any auto body work from being performed without a police report. So when Vanessa initially tried to return the rental yesterday, the agency inspector found a longish scratch running along the driver's side rocker panel. The thing is, we have no idea how it got there or if they just missed it in a previous inspection, it definitely doesn't appear to be a fresh scratch.

I'm going down to the police station to get the report, so that I can get permission from the rental agency to return a car that I no longer need and never wanted. After that we're supposed to go ice skating in honor of one (or two) of Vanessa's departing co-workers. I fully expect to repeatedly fall on my cold cold ass. Should be a fun day.

Goat's Head Souk

With the desert still in our thoughts, our dusty crew drove into Al Ain around 4PM on Saturday afternoon. Al Ain, sometimes referred to as the UAE's Garden City, quietly hosts somewhere around 615,000 souls. It is the closest thing to my own hometown that I've found in the Middle East. Unlike Dubai, Al Ain has a downtown you might actually want to walk around in. I don't mean to be hard on Dubai, it's a nice city and I hate to see it's collagen filled lips in a pout.

We checked into the Al Ain Hilton and found it pretty much as you'd expect. The Hotel was clean and welcoming and even had a waterslide, on which I was definitely the oldest person not escorting a child. We had a relaxing, if unremarkable stay at the Hilton, and our camera stayed put in it's bag as I'm pretty sure everyone knows what a resort looks like. That night we were treated to huge buffet that featured at least one discrete food item per attendee. My own plate was piled with grilled lobster tails, grilled Iranian style chicken, grilled rice pilaf, grilled salad, grilled tea, and so on. The food was excellent, so delicious that it more than compensated for the instant coffee. 

The next day we managed to descend to the lobby just in time to join the group on a tour of the city's very active outdoor souks, or markets. Departing from Tim's Villa (he commutes home on the weekends) we made our way along a cobblestone footpath through a remarkably dense congregation of palms. Peering down form the elevated path we could see an aqueduct channeling Al Ain's natural spring water through the area. Shortly, we came to the goat souk, where we met some of the friendliest people we've come across here in the UAE. They were eager to have their pictures taken, even demanding that we return the following weekend with prints. These rural goat ranchers, many of whom are from Egypt, Yemen and Oman, are quite different from the Lamborghini driving Emarati in their 2003 flashback Von Dutch caps. Two of the men proudly produced their own cameras, which in each instance was a wether beaten camera-phone. Perhaps this is where the glut of discarded cell phones should go each year, they can become the polaroids of the third world.  

Our crew of excited new friends plucked an unbelievably docile goat down from their truck bed, depositing it in Vanessa's welcoming arms. The goat was significantly tamer than our two extremely spoiled cats, and made no attempt to wriggle free. We spent so long with the goats that we completely lost track of the group and wound up wandering around Al Ain on our own for the rest of the afternoon. I did have one of the team's walky talkies (when you write that term down it seems impossibly silly), but couldn't elicit a single 10-4 from our good buddy Francis. 

Downtown offered a ponderous number of Camel supply stores, many of which featured the image of a red crescent (think red cross) surrounding a camel's silhouette. These dromedary depots were packed to the humps with all variety of powder, pellets, and solutions dedicated to camel welfare, all laid out in a casual manner that brought to mind Toby's Feed Barn. The shopkeepers seemed completely baffled by our desire to photograph their storefronts, but chances are none of them read this blog anyway.

Nearly all of the UAE's small eateries, shawarma shops you might call them, offer a wide variety of fresh blended juices. So, to wrap up our exploration of downtown we bought ourselves a pair of smoothies and hailed a cab back to the Hilton, opting to spend the balance of our trip in or near the pool-- which is almost always fine by me.

The Empty Quarter

I find myself absentmindedly thumbing through my passport from time to time, and recently noticed that my profession is listed as Muhrem on my UAE visa. I wondered what that meant so I ran it by our friends in Mountain View. Muhrem, describes a man's legal connection to a woman, either familial or marital, (sometimes both where tribal bloodlines are dwindling) as permitted by the Koran. While Vanessa isn't required to cover her head in public here, the concept of Muhrem traditionally indicates that I'm one of the few men she can let her hair down around.  As far as the government is concerned, my job is to be Vanessa's husband, and, should the police decide to come knocking on our door late at night, I have proof that my presence in our home is legitimate. While there are many unmarried couples living together in Dubai, and people seem largely unconcerned about shacking up, there is some jeopardy that non-marital cohabitation might become a problem if you run afoul of the law in some other area. 

It was in my capacity as Muhrem that I accompanied my wifemployer on her work retreat this past weekend. Thursday morning we sleepily loaded our bags and borrowed camping gear into the back of our friend Ed's SUV and made for Ibn Battuta, a single story sprawl mall boasting global themed buildings of varying stye. Reportedly, "It's a Mall World Afterall" was rejected during the naming process. Aside from all the sand, it's these thematic real estate projects that invite comparisons between Dubai and Las Vegas. 

From Ibn Battuta we joined a convoy of V's Environmental Group co-workers and began a longish drive towards the 650,000 square kilometer swath of desert known as Rub' al Khali, or simply, The Empty Quarter. Here the desert has a burnt orange overtone, an illusion created by a scattering of almost paprika like sand grains. I imagine this is the scorched skin of the desert, baked to a darker hue by the relentless sun. Whatever it is, you feel like you're afloat in the high seas, surrounded by sandy swells that never arrive.

After two hours or so, we left the main road and continued down a sandy path until all but one of the two wheel drive cars became hopelessly stuck. Getting stuck in the sand is apparently the desert past time, and very few of the 4x4's in our party would remain exempt. We came to a stop just across from a camel farm that breeds a very friendly, dark brown variety of Arabian camels. Myra, a Pakistani coworker of V's, noted that these gentle animals were very different from the two-humped bactrian type that she's used to seeing at home. These gregarious creatures seemed to enjoy their celebrity, and needed almost no coaxing to interact. So while most of us were off petting the livestock, a few industrious SUV owners managed to push and pull the small cars free, and we were off. We left the compact cars on the hard packed ground near the camel farm and ferried the marooned passengers up to the campsite.

Our location had been picked via google maps, and was more or less just a random set of GPS coordinates that happened to lie downwind from a decaying camel corpse. Occasionally, its alarming stench would punctuate the desert's sweeping beauty, reminding us of its potent lethality. As we unloaded our gear from the 4x4s someone made the suggestion that we lump all our belongings together and pass them down into the valley of the surrounding dunes in a coordinated bucket brigade style hand off. This plan relocated our belongings to the campsite with far fewer trips up and down the steep slope, but because we had borrowed a tent and sleeping bags (ours were custom made for Billy Barty) we had no idea what our equipment actually looked like. After pondering a cold sleepless night under the stars, of which I've never seen so many, even on the clearest night in the Sierras, I did eventually find everything and for once we managed to get our tent up before nightfall. The temperature had dropped by several degrees as the sun began to wane, and we still wound up fairly cold throughout the night even with our borrowed gear. Near dawn I got up and put the rain fly on, which improved our insulation favorably until the sun eventually chased us out of a now sweltering tent.

As this was a corporate retreat, meal responsibilities had been assigned weeks earlier via email, our appointed chefs grilling burgers and skewers of chicken until everyone was full. We contributed to dessert, toting a corpulent bag of marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars, and coaching various Poms, Scotts, Kiwis, Aussies, Seeth Ifricans, and a lone Spaniard towards constructing their first s'more. I don't think I'd had one in over twenty years myself.

After dinner I got my guitar out and somehow found myself providing the musical backdrop for a compulsory round of silly dancing. Seated around the campfire, each person was compelled to stand up and shake what their mama gave them, one after the other, no exceptions. I actually took up an instrument based on the concept that musicians don't dance, but I guess my skills were found wanting because I too cut a sandy rug. Revelers were heard late into night, with at least one co-worker adopting a new vodka fueled persona, about which he refused to comment the next day.

In the morning, I walked out into the desert until I was out of sight and ear shot of the group. The silence there is intense, and several of our fellow campers complained that the solitude exposed a low ringing in their ears that is presumably drowned out by Dubai's incessant drone. Looking around, with dunes on all sides of me, I could see the movements of birds, beetles and small animals written in the sand, tiny weaving tracks that traced inexplicable routes and patterns. 

Our own presence in the Empty Quarter must have altered the landscape in ways that will be legible for some time to come, despite our best efforts to pack our trash and leave things much as we'd found them. It is a strange thing to see an essentially hostile environment like Empty Quarter temporarily populous. It's a place where the borders of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman and the UAE dissolve into anarchic confusion, a place that belongs to know one in particular. If not for our four wheel drive cars,  portable shelter, and gallon upon gallon of drinking water, this quiet country would surely have swallowed us whole. 

The Notyssey

Dubai is like a fertile weed that has grown well beyond the confines of its formerly vacant lot, spilling suicidally into the desert and sea. It is a place constructed entirely of diamond encrusted Quakgrass, tangled in its own winding limbs, choking entire colonies of itself off, only to replace them with newer, shinier encampments. You can imagine what a visit to the local licensing agency (DMV) might be like. As our friend Phil puts it, "Dubai is efficiently inefficient," meaning that in its frenzy of growth, the municipality has churned out rule after rule to stem whatever crisis might appear, erecting layer upon layer of decree. And so, allow me to tell you about our eight magical visits to the licensing agency. A number which assumes that my final visit will be successful, which is a bold, perhaps brazen assumption. Let me see if I can recreate the series of events for you, it went something like this:

Saturday afternoon we finalized our agreement to purchase a second hand car, and, with our new pal Domenico riding shotgun, the three of us managed to exit the freeway successfully and drive right to HSBC's car loan branch by our third attempt. Dubai is growing at such a breakneck pace that by the time you visit a location a second time, the surrounding maze of rerouted roadways and exits will have changed so thoroughly since your previous visit, that successfully arriving at your destination will potentially prove more difficult the second time around. I think this is because the foreknowledge that would normally make it easier to return to a given location, actually just makes it more confusing and frustrating the second time around. As Domenico had originated the loan at this same office, this most certainly proved to be the case as we ticked off several laps around the Sheikh Road.   Upon arrival, roughly ten minutes before closing, we were informed that the loan application could not be initiated without providing a Dubai Driver's License number and expiration date, something the HSBC call center had failed to mention, and which neither of us, in our capacity as borrowers, were able to offer. At that time, I considered this to be a crushing defeat. I have since revised my standards.

Sunday morning, which marks the start of the work week, we set out for the Bur Dubai Licensing office, confusingly located in Al Barsha. Eventually, we found parking in large tract of mud that brought back childhood memories of my families second pair of hogs, Ron and Nancy, so named as to dampen our sympathy. We made our way into the lobby of the agency and were immediately intercepted by a traditionally dressed, almost contemporarily mustachioed man who said merely, "License. This Way." Thus taking us each by the arm, our stately new friend reversed our course, piloting us (he wore aviator shades) towards a small office off to the side of the foyer. The sign over the office entry way announced that it was a private outfit dedicated to the business of typing. A similar practice dominates the immigration office where, in order to extend one's visa you must first visit the typing office and sit at the mercy of its severely inconvenienced typists, who take occasional breaks from their, no doubt hilarious, office banter to peck a few choice characters into whatever form you need filled out that day. I have chosen to believe that these hard working men and women, normally paragons of productivity (unlike myself), are hampered either by 1970s computer technology, or perhaps a bad case of spyware set off by those riotous farting baby clips that made the rounds a while back.

And yet, there at the licensing agency, I did not allow these previous frustrations to concern me as I settled into the institution grade seating and watched Vanessa's application trickle through the works. After a time we were informed of a logistical problem that we'd in fact been expecting, as Vanessa's California license had expired in the months since her arrival in Dubai. This had come out the night before when it finally occurred to us to check. Luckily, a solution was at hand, we just needed to visit the Deira Licensing branch, where a certain Mr. Hamdam would dispatch this particular bureaucratic road block. In the meantime, I was sent to the adjacent, and similarly independent eye exam concession, located just outside the licensing building. Clearly, some sort of vendor pecking order was in effect because the eye exam shack, which one would hope might possess at least the slightest glimmer of medical proficiency, was really just a couple guys with some eye charts and a swamp cooler. I know this, having poked my head in to inquire after the fee, knowing full well that any self respecting semi-official paper pushers would only accept cash. So I trekked back to the lobby, where the softly glowing ATM machine declined our card, despite the presence of cash (no, really) in our bank account. I think the receipt said something like, "listen, you seem like a nice guy, but I don't know this HSBC character that's supposedly holding your cheddar, so uh, maybe try the gas station, I can't help you." And I did, but the gas station ATM offered a less eloquent dismissal, "go pound sand" it said firmly.

As an aside, I should mention that this was a brand new ATM card, recently delivered via messenger after extensive phone negotiation with the bank. We had used the card exactly once previously, thus ending a nearly three month period in which the only way we could get cash was for Vanessa (who has almost no free time during banking hours) to show up at the branch. My own presence at the bank was near meaningless as, pending my recently completed residency visa, I was not eligible for UAE banking privileges. In fact, we've actually transfered money to our US account to cover bills, and then found ourselves forced to withdraw some portion of that cash from said account just to cover a rash of unexpected typing charges. This deadly ouroboros of bank fees still plagues my waking thoughts. The ATM saga began when a run of ATM card fraud prompted us to change our pin online, which although offered as a service, doesn't actually work. And thus our first ATM card was seized by yet another tough guy ATM.

Day two of licensing hijinks continued basically along the same path. At the Deira branch we found Mr. Hamdam was on vacation, but his understudy filled in nicely, only to reveal that their eye exam hut had been hamstrung (and this seems like a good time to mention Pat and Dick, my families first pair of hogs circa 1979) by a malfunctioning printer. A short walk revealed that the neighboring optometrist had closed early. Mr Hamdam's understudy did happen to mention that, not only was there a suitable optometrist in the hypermarket near our apartment, but there was also a small licensing office up on the second floor of the store. So, we made our way to our third licensing office of the day, successfully obtained our eye tests, (and I quote: "do you wear glasses for distance," "yes, I do," "that will be fifty Dirham.") and proceeded up the escalator to the licensing office, which we found nestled in a deep corner of the hypermarket near ladies hosiery. Here we were told that Vanessa's application could not be processed without a letter from her employer indicating that they had no objection to her obtaining a driver's license. After considering my application for a moment, the gentleman behind the counter informed me that I should go see Mr. Hamdam at the Deira branch. We had, seemingly weeks earlier, been informed by Aviator Mustache that my then visa status, approved pending a health test, was acceptable for obtaining a license. Turns out, he was wrong.

I have subsequently navigated the health test maze, itself an exciting round robin involving four hospital visits, and emerged victorious, or at least HIV and Hepatitis negative with no worrisome blots on my chest x-ray. None of which is a joking matter, although I do find the testing policy disingenuous at best when one considers the constant, tidal flow of pervy business travelers in and out of the region, combined with their reciprocal mass of "night laborers," who are surely here at the mercy of  questionable visa sponsorship by the Al Swearengens of the arab underworld. And while I myself am not quite a kept man, my presence here, as sponsored by my lovely wife, is completely at her discretion, and includes the letter she signed permitting me to obtain a driver's license. As Aviator Mustache and his sidekick apparently joked to Vanessa while I was out arguing with cash machines, I'd better keep in line.

The next three visits to various licensing agencies were fouled twice by broken printers, "COME BACK SIX PM!" barked a startlingly wall-eyed and furious bureaucrat. Clearly he'd spent the entire day explaining the same problem repeatedly, until he could no longer bare to be civil about it. I was also deflected by a scheduling mishap-- turns out the Bur Dubai at Al Barsha Licensing office closes at 2:30, I got there 2:37. Vanessa did successfully obtain her license on Tuesday morning, and the car loan has since been approved, which puts us right on schedule to regroup with Dominico next Monday when he returns for Rome for a scant, anxiety inducing twenty four hours. I'm sure the loan finalization and title transfer will go fine.

Saltymoon

Each day, late in the afternoon, I depart on what I have termed my lone lunar ramble, a tour of our corner of Jumeirah that deposits me on the shores of the Arabian Gulf with just enough sunlight left for a short run. This walk/run only revealed itself as a solo venture because my hard working wife seldom makes it home from the green salt mine in time to join me. Please don't assign any bitterness to that term, the salt mine is Miller family shorthand for the workplace, an expression that resonates with this anti-carreerist soul. I could not be more proud of her hard work and accomplishments, having waited so long for the building world to catch up with her hard won knowledge. 

The lunar nature of my jaunt derives, in part, from the initially coarse quality of the sand. When I cross the midpoint of this extremely wide beach, the sand takes on the smooth tropical grain of Costa Rica or Hawaii. This is because of Dubai's immense off shore dredging project, an undertaking which pulls the soft floor of the seabed up into the light of day so that it can be reconstituted into man made islands and redistributed by the truckload along the city's shore. Each twilight the long shadows of winter nudge the senses into a state of confusion amidst November's unexpected fever.

Add to that the fact that I am an alien here, and revel in the feeling of detachment that comes with this, as I have the luxury to observe from amidst the relative invisibility afforded me by my hobo resort wear. I'm like Twain's displaced yankee, albeit from the west and lacking a machine gun. In this way, being here is not unlike my personal experience of junior high school, this time without the oversexed aggressivity of classmates. That sort of hormonal/adrenal frenzy is reserved for the UAE's roadways, which aren't so very different from the hallways of PJHS.

A few days ago, the big toe on my right foot was attacked by a camouflaged rock. I was strolling down the beach in my usual state of post-run disarray when this dense congregation of atoms reached up and bit me. My response was to howl in a manner that even my eleven day old niece would find offensive. Sonia has already established a quiet dignity that I can never hope to emulate. As such, I've been absent from the beach for a few days, but I should be making my re-entry soon. I did make one limping circuit recently, carrying the camera with me to document my route. Immediately outside our gate I ran into Makhboub, our villa's resident handyman. Vanessa and I were recently rewarded with a fish of our own from one of Makhboub and Nabil's weekly trips, I've also been invited to come along sometime, which is exciting. We successfully gutted and scaled our prize, a local hamour white fish, opting to bake it nestled in a riot of cilantro and lemon, all wrapped up in tinfoil like an insane birthday present.

Currently, our beach is home to a perimeter of red flags which are intended to keep visitors out of the water, although there is no signage indicating why, and in some places the flags are at least 50 yards back from the shore. At the sailing club, a beach near our tiny apartment, a sign perched atop an improvised fence announces that the sea is "Closed for Renovations". I have never seen the ocean fenced and corralled the way it is here in Dubai, where private beaches are often closed in by 12 foot tall fences that run some 30 yards out into the water. There's not much that can be done about the current biohazard, aside from waiting, as this poorly documented health risk is the result of untold tanker loads of raw sewage that were covertly dumped here. Eventually, a whistle blower phoned in the strange behavior of a driver seen pulling back a manhole cover that had been outfitted with an improvised handle, lowering his truck's hose down the opening, and opening the release valve. These sewage transfer drivers have apparently acted out of frustration as Dubai's grossly impacted sewage treatment plant regularly has lines of trucks waiting for hours on end to empty their bowels.

While the not-so-free local press is typically allergic to controversy, they did wisely chose to cover the sewage scandal, although one wonders what percentage of Dubai's vast army of impoverished day laborers are actually literate. In any event, the typical cast of scatophobia averse bathers, as seen in the water on any given afternoon, seems to represent a broad socioeconomic cross-section of Dubai's inhabitants, so perhaps these brave souls are just avowed antibiotic users. As for me, I'll be staying dry for a while yet.