I have never been this far East. My sense of geography was appropriately inadequate, sublimely unaware of the fact that it would take 6 hours to fly there from Paris, that a 3 hour time difference underlined the non-European centredness of the United Arab Emirates, and that the beautiful nature reserve island off Jemen, which I wanted to visit, was miles away from the UAE, at the bottom of the Arab peninsula. No Mediterrenean in sight.
The Paris hub assembled a truly international mix of passengers. I imagined Texan oil-rig workers, US military personnel, Indian wheeler-dealers, Arab tourists on their return journey, European real estate professionals, as I scanned the passengers waiting in the terminal for the delayed take-off. In-flight entertainment included the first lightening storm I have ever seen from above. It was a breathtaking spectacle to see lightening bolts form below, illuminating the storm clouds across a great expanse. Bright lights greeted from Dubai as we came close to ‘atterisage’. Once landed, we taxied around as if in Chicago O’Hare or Heathrow. Clearly we weren’t the only ones who had just landed, because an enormous gush of passengers assembled in the largest immigration hall I have ever seen, forming 30 or so endless queues, waiting to be processed by black-clad Arab women or white-dishdashed males. Never before have I seen so many people patiently waiting. Is this the new Ellis Island? Once in a while, a white-clad official looked across the sea of people from a gallery in this huge hall, shaking his head in amazement. My guess is, it took a good 1,5 hours until I got out of there, which is probably fast compared to immigrants’ experience in Ellis Island.
My friends had arranged a pick-up, which required going to a rent-a-car desk in Arrivals, where a friendly Indian from Kerala proceeded to phone the driver, who would take me to Abu Dhabi. Because he couldn’t communicate very well with the driver (as I had already experienced), who turned out to be Syrian, he called somebody else to do so. In the end, the Indian took me to a parking deck, sooner or late the Syrian arrived with his Mercedes, and off I was to Abu Dhabi, a 1,5 hour drive away.
Dubai is essentially a huge construction site. This was my immediate impression, confirmed on my daylight return journey to the airport. The Syrian driver, who has 6 children and been working in the UAE on and off for nearly 30 years, drove me past various arrays of half-completed skyscrapers, including the world’s tallest (for the moment), of which real estate investors buy chunks (e.g. several floors), only to resell them to someone who sells them again, so that by the time the skyscraper is actually habitable, a number of investors have already made a tidy profit. We then proceeded past huge industrial sites, the desert, spicked with villa villages and lit-up mosques, to arrive in Abu Dhabi, which is surrounded by semi-constructed suburbs with detached villas. I never saw the sea (Persian Gulf).
So I arrived in the compound, Mangrove Village, all in rose’ hue, at about 3:30 am. A brief chat with my friend, a look around the house, and into bed.
The children came into my room at about 8 am. We caught up over an extended breakfast, which included poolplay with the kids. I was briefed on expatriate life and requirements in Abu Dhabi, which can be inadequately summarised as well-serviced housing (working air-conditioning in particular, as summertime means 45 C and full-power humidity) adequate schools for the kids, household help and the ability to buy alcohol once the residence permit goes through. This compound featured a common pool area and gym. The compound beach faces a port area. I was reminded of British Victorian terraced housing, with a number of added features thrown in.
In the 25 C afternoon we joined a treck of mostly Land Cruiser-type cars outside St. Andrews Church in semi-central Abu Dhabi, to drive out into the desert. After about an hours’ drive we all stopped along a particular spot among sand dunes, where tables had already been set out, for this communal expatriate barbecue and carol singing. There wasn’t much mixing among the expats, though people walked up to the highest dunes to get a view of the endless desert, looking out towards Saudi Arabia. I chatted with an Indian, who has been here for 10 years, as well as with a man born and bred in the UAE, on top of a dune. The tone of our conversation was set by the Indian’s comment about the “forests” in the desert, those large, often fenced-in plantations of shrubs along the highways. Greening the desert had been the UAE founding father’s dream. He had united 9 tribes to create this country.
People began their barbecues and picnicking, as did we, once the sun had spectacularly set. As torches and candles were lit, the carol singing began. The organisers had brought an electric piano and a PA system, and asked the guests to shout out the number of their favourite carol song in the photocopied songbooklet, which had been handed out to everybody. So people proceeded to shout out numbers after the first song had been jointly sung, on a holy Muslim Friday night, in the UAE desert; Christmas carols sung under the starlit ‘Morgenland’ sky.
As Violette is barely 19 months old, we drove back a little earlier than most, my friends got the kids into bed, and we opened a tasty Bandol I had brought from CDG airport. Their first taste of wine in a long time.
On Saturday, we returned to the desert. This time, we wanted to have a peek at the Dubai Desert Conservation Area (DDCA), which included a fancy resort. We didn’t make it past the Al Maha gate. Despite persistent telephoning with the fancy Emirates resort reception, whilst the gate guardians looked on, we were not allowed beyond the gates. One had to have a reservation at the resort to enter the DDCA. Oh, and people with kids below 12 need not bother. The absurdity of not being able to have lunch at a hotel in the middle of the desert without a reservation struck me as an interesting twist on Arab hospitality and the ultimate faux-pas of the UAE hospitality industry. So we turned around and filled up on petrol, which is an awe-inspiring experience for every European; they might as well give it away for free!
Quite the opposite was the welcome we received at the Bab El Shams resort, also in the middle of the desert, half an hour away from the DDCA. Though we first headed for the desert restaurant, which was closed, we quickly found our way to hotel resort reception, where a charming employee offered us sweets and Arabian spiced coffee. After this ritual we found our way through the generously spaced pool area to the restaurant, which offered an ‘international lunch buffet’. Wee proceeded to pick from it for an extended period of time. Have you ever eaten strawberries in the desert in December? Their wine list was extensive, though the most ‘local’, Lebanese wine, was unavailable, as was the Entre-Deux-Mers, so that we ended up drinking screw-top New Zealandese from the other end of the planet, most fitting with the strawberries (which might have come from Israel, who knows).
Before arriving at the resort, we had passed by the remnants of a road accident, involving a very expensive Mercedes sports car and its mirror-sunglass Arab owner. We also saw some type of race track, which we interpreted as a motorcar race track, because expensive SUV’s were driving along it, though in fact it was a horse racetrack we saw, which had attracted ‘Tout UEA’ at about 6 a.m. this morning. Before we got that far, we had already passed by a prison or well-protected military garrison, set in flatish desert.
The resort is a modern-day oasis, I suppose. Landscaped pool areas, green grass, strawberries and many service staff in the middle of nowhere. Walking up the steps to the beautifully laid out roof-top “pizza restaurant” made this very plain. Sandy desert, far and wide, surrounded the resort – quite extraordinary. As we, and other multilingual expats, were having lunch outside, a group of Near Asian workers were in the process of setting up an event tent of sorts on the green grass. It did not make sense to me how they organised their work. Once in a while they would all be very amused. Maybe this was all set up for a wedding, some of whose (German-speaking) guests we came across in the lobby. Whilst I was waiting there for a few minutes with the 3 kids, two lady employees proceeded to cheek-a-pue Violette and fondle her brother – no tactile inhibitions! It was time to head back, and leave the assembling wedding party to their own devices.
When you drive along UAE highways, which struck me as very American because of their lane-width and signage, you often see people waiting on the curb – if not attempting to cross the 5-lane road, for whatever time-saving reason (time-saving indeed, as such moves often turn out to be mortal inshallah). Clearly, there is another social network and economy, not directly connected to the Land Cruiser-expatriate or Bentley-local elite one, which functions by some collective help principle, including giving people a ride. They make up 80% of the population, after all.
The US strip mall has, in the UAE, been converted into galleried bazaars, assembling shops along the highway, often placed all on their own, with no other urbanisation around them. Advertising plaques cover completely. Mosques are also strategically placed along highway exits, maybe as drive-in churches for the 5-times-a-day prayers, with a slight petrol station feel to them. On the foliaged mid-highway seperation strip, you can also see praying mats directed towards Mecca.
As one overspeeds along the highway, whilst Porsches and US compacts race past at even higher speeds, villa villages fly past. The architectural style would best be described as ‘Grand East German pre-fab concrete’. Hardly any of the buildings I have seen, be they tall, large or small, feature any raffinesse. Most are slab, made out of pre-fab elements, including the fences or walls that surround the buildings. Any décor is distinctly industrial, repetitive. I wonder how all the infrastructure – water, electricity and the like – has been shoved under the sand.
Returned from Bab El Shams that evening, we unwound by the pool and planned the next day (Sunday, a working day). The husband off to work, the kids in school, we drove into Abu Dhabi town with Violette. First stop was to be Marks & Spencer, which sits in a small mall, decorated with the largest of Christmas trees. The mini-mall stands opposite the ‘White Fort’, a 17th century original ruler’s residence, which would fit into the current Presidential Palace’s kitchen, I believe. Most visible upward mobility! Malling done, we wondered along Indian textile stores in the shadow of the city’s skyscrapers. Because there are no taxes of any note, other than a 5% import duty on everything that comes into UAE, prices are low, compared to most of Europe. And just about everything is shipped into UAE, befitting its trade post past and contemporary consumerist civilisation. Going to the mall has been refined into an art form of sorts, surpassing US suburban standards. Abu Dhabi’s best, whatever that means, is the Marina Mall, which unites Tiffany’s, Carrefour and Ikea. The weather helps, because in summer it’s so hot that nobody (with a car) walks outside, but spends time in private or public (e.g. mall) airconditioned space. Most of UEA’s oil is found in the Abu Dhabi emirate, which has surely encouraged its citizens to opt for ‘car country’. Just like in L.A., you drive everywhere. I suppose the idea of turning the traditional camel ‘caravane’ into a public transport infrastructure did not cross anybody’ mind. At least I saw a metro being built along the highway in Dubai city.
After light shopping, we drove to the fish market. This area seems to catch Abu Dhabi’s origins, as a trading and fishery centre, most. Out-of-service- dhows have their funerary yard here, opposite moored ships hailing from Iran, India and god knows where else. Just outside the fish market, older men offer their fish-carrying services, with a plastic tub. We declined and moved inside. The variety and freshness of the fish exhibited is pure pleasure to take in. Though at this time of day it wasn’t very hubble-and-bubble, it was a thriving, noisy market nonetheless. The sight completely obliterates ones’ European concerns about fish population depletion. Maybe there are no more tunas to speak of in the Mediterreanan, but here! Purchasers of fish can have their bought catch taken to a grilling or baking station at the back of the market. All done and tasty, they can be picked up a few hours later. Brilliant!
Though I was tempted to go for an extended walk among the multi-ethnic ‘pietons’, Abu Dhabi is not a city one gets to know by walking. There is simply not much to see and discover, compared to Istanbul, Basel or San Francisco. You’ve got the skyscaper city center, the relatively ugly Corniche, government buildings, which look like the ones of those secretive corporations outside Washington D.C., flanked by residential areas of varying degrees of drabness, among which some apparently spectacular private palaces are sprinkled. Wide roads criss-cross the lot. So we drove to pick up the children from their pretty school in the middle of a building site, where a new ‘quartier’ shall soon shine, and headed back home.
Dressed-up as an angel in the afternoon, the oldest of the three kids was to be part of a Christmas carol event organised by her new school. That is why we trecked to the Emirates Palace Hotel, which is so grand that it features a sloped palm garden driveway to its Arab Versailles entrance. Tires squeek on marble. The performing kids and parents were assembling in the huge hotel halls (not just one!), once again populated by an enormous number of staff. We had some tea. The kids delivered a wonderful show, next to a small lit-up Christmas tree – the one from the mall would have been more appropriate here – and were offered hot dogs and yummy mini-burgers by the hotel, afterwards. It was quite a sight to see expats gathered on a Sunday to hear their children sing, for all to hear who were in the hotel. UAE-Muslim tolerance of other religions and their rites is clearly high. I doubt the local Hamburg mosque could have organised something equivalent in Hamburg’s Four Seasons.
After this big occasion, we decided to stop by a Lebanese place to get some take-away, naturally waiting in the car with the motor on. No Lebanese wine, this time, either, though the restaurateur promised to arrange for it next time, if one called in advance. After dinner at home, we sat on the porch with a Dutch couple, old friends of my friends, who had arrived in the morning, to check out schools and housing, as they too were moving to Abu Dhabi early next year. They had lived in Oman for a number of years, before returning to Holland. The sultanate next door to UAE has a stunning coastline, is enclosed by a breathtaking mountain range; its architecture is attractive, human scale and referential to Oman’s building heritage. ‘Western fun’ and skyscrapers in Dubai are a 4 hour drive away.
It’s been a desertwind of a weekend. The next day, I need to return home, so a car was arranged. The driver had come from Palestine (Ghaza) – not that day, ofcourse - and lived with his wife, a teacher, and young child, in one room in one of those villa villages by the highway. He showed me his paycheck, 1500 dhirams net per months (about €300; PS: the trip to Dubai costs ca. €60.). UEA offered varying degrees of opportunity, which is ultimately assessed in the eye of its beholder. €300 is an opportunity for someone from strife-torn, economically-depressed Ghaza. The Syrian driver surely had economic reasons for returning to the UAE for work, as do all the hotel staff and the expats they serve. Unfortunately, I only met one ‘local’ Abu Dhabian, though one must not forget that they only represent roughly 10% of the actual population.
As we hit Dubai, we hit a traffic jam. It gives you a little more time to wonder who on earth is going to live in all these half-finished skyscrapers. Will they remain, or will a huge sandstorm cover them up, whilst the rising sea-levels eat up the beach compounds and palm islands? But that is not the point. UAE is a young country, going through enormous, well-financed change, quite rapidly. The construction sites are but an outward symbol of ‘inner’, non-visible change. Maybe the comparison with post-war Germany, building-into-the-sky early 1900’s New York, or sprawling 50’s L.A. is more helpful, to vaguely understand what I have seen.
Dropped off at the airport, the check-in, security and passport control was a swish affair, quite the opposite of my arrival. The duty free area did not strike me as a ‘shopper’s paradise’ – given, what I had heard – it’s a bit tacky, really, with ‘international standard’ items. I was glad to board the plane to get back to a world, where I had my bearings. But whose world is that, really? The Malayan sitting next to me, told me about his current assignment; to purchase an apartment in Monte Carlo for an Abu Dhabian.
