June 15 - July 10, 2007

It felt good to be back home after 6 weeks away - my own bed sort of feeling. The day after I returned I relished the heat after the cool damp of the Washington State. Three weeks after returning I was more than ready to leave again. I had this idiotic idea of walking on the corniche (waterside avenue) to Spinney's, the local upscale grocery store around noon. My idea was to shop and take the taxi back to our apartment. It was warm, but hey, I'm from Houston, I know about heat. I'm tough, and besides, I needed the exercise. Funny thing, though, nobody was walking on this normally busy corniche. The phrase "only mad dogs and Englishmen out in the noonday sun" floated to my mind like a hallucination as I was walked. The half-hour journey did me in. I stumbled into Spinney's, managed to make it over to the water bottle cooler, while holding on to a shopping cart for dear life. I thought I was maintaining my composure but people were glancing at me like "should I help her"; "Is she OK?". After cooling down a bit, shopping and checking out at the register, the bagger told me, yes, told me, he was going to flag me a taxi. Like, I'm not being given a choice - such a stupid lady. The summer temperature has been past 45 degree celsius (113 degrees fahrenheit) on a daily basis. It might be alright but somehow the coastal areas also maintain a high humidity level. I've read that historically - before the oil and air-conditioned buildings 50 years ago - in the summer the tribal people would travel inland to places like Al Ain (a desert oasis town) where it was just a bit cooler but much drier, hence, cooler nights. So now you know when NOT to plan your visit with us. Summer here is a place to hang out with a few remaining hardcore friends at restaurants, bars, indoor gyms, shopping malls, indoor souks and maybe a drive over to Dubai for a turn at the indoor ski slope.
We had Waleed's going away - as in back to the states - bash. The guys hammed it up with their cigars. I was offered one but graciously declined. We will miss that Lebanese rebel rouser. So many trips to the Lebanese Flower restaurant at his instigation. Our table was always over-ladened with more sharmas, tabboulel, fattoush, hommos and moutabel than we could ever eat. He even enticed some of us to eat Habra (raw ground meat).
It's a nice time to just cocoon, read a book, and watch the sunset over Lulu Island from the comfort of your own air-conditioned apartment. Lulu Island - the Emirates have just opened it up for tourists. Bob and I took a ferry over there early one morning and swam on the gulf side of the beach. It's got a way to go, amenity-wise, before it becomes a tourist destination but it was fun to have the whole beach to yourself. I snapped a shot of our apartment building from the island. As you can see it's very easy to cocoon here with workout, room-service, and sleeping all in one building. If something breaks down, I call maintenance. If I don't want to grocery shop, I call "Smart Grocer" across the street from us and they bring it right up. Dry cleaning is delivered.
Bob has also gone a few times to the golf course. He says, with the heat, it's not nearly as crowded - h'mm. He's also gotten himself golfing sandals and anybody who knows Bob, knows how rare this is - he rents a cart.

May 1st - June 14, 2007

It's been a long busy summer and like every expat living here, when the thermometer starts lingering around 110 degrees or more, I've tried to stay away as much as possible. I left at the first sign of heat, May 1, on the pretext of visiting my dad in assisted living in St. Louis and then helping my kids move out of their respective dorms, Chris in Alpine, Texas and Kara in Olympia, Washington. My dad was excited, as always, to see me. I have one word for Alzheimer's: It sucks! At least he still has his sense of humor. I asked how he was and he replied with a smile, "Dopey". After 2 weeks with Dad, a quick flight to El Paso and a 3 hour drive to Alpine (no airport in Alpine) I helped move Chris out. Incidentally, I now know what a 2-month-old, half-eaten, chocolate ice cream cone looks like when it's been left on a corner of a desk. The glue properties of the now plasticized ice cream that seeped through the cake cone and adhered to the desk, are very strong. I'm thinking of patenting that for some kind of natural, edible, super glue. Chris always has the most interesting science experiments. He and I drove a rented van to Tempe AZ and deposited his stuff in storage while we signed him up for his sophomore year at UAT. We then flew to San Diego and were picked up by my lovely sister, Sandra, and, after stocking up at Whole Foods, drove into MX. Chris and I stayed with Sandra and Larry (my sister and brother-in law) at their beach house in Ensenada, MX - just south of San Diego in Baja. It was a couple weeks of bliss; cool ocean breezes, boogy boarding and 4 wheel drive trips into the mountains. One photo shows Sandra directing Larry to turn the jeep around the one way, drop off road so we could drive back down the mountain. Chris and I, then, flew up to Seattle and Kara. Chris usurped Kara's Saab and drove it back down the west coast to MX where he's working at JacobsFarm/DelCabo's warehouse loading trucks with fresh produce on 12 hour shifts and maybe picking up some Spanish from fellow workers (the kind not learned in school). Summer jobs - don't you love it. Kara, in the meantime, was packing for a summer academic program in Beijing, China. I got to see an end-of-the-quarter presentation from a class she attended. It was illuminating to see the ultra-liberal west coast culture - at least by Texas standards. There were recycling bins for every kind of material and the students were actually sorting their trash and using them. Kara and I flew out on the same day, June 14; she for Beijing and I for Abu Dhabi, the same airport, opposite directions.

One of the advantages of living in a different culture is being able to notice the subtle differences in imagery and written words which reflect the attitudes and views of the establishment. Attitudes about women here have been changing at a breath-taking clip. But old attitudes still linger unbeknownst to author or creator.
U.A.E. has been the most advanced in the Middle East when it comes to women's rights. They have made great strides in advancing women's causes and freedoms here. Laws have been instigated to protect the "weaker sex". Women can walk freely on city streets with or without headcovering or male family member. Hecklers of swimsuit clad women on beaches have been prosecuted. Colleges with 'manly' majors (like engineering - no, not domestic engineering) are available to women. Women have been elected to minor positions in politics. . . . And yet one reads articles, see signs and realizes they're close but not quite there.
Last month was Women's Month. This banner was all over Abu Dhabi in the malls and on the boulevards. A sweet depiction of femininity encased in a protective cocoon of roses. This graphic was disconcerting to me and it was everywhere I turned. I had this impulse to print out a thousand of the iconic "Rosie the Riveter" posters and tact them up on top "Rosie the Shopper" banners so with that juxtaposition between the two female types, people would start to "get it". Since I want to keep living here, I bit my tongue and stopped the presses.
Articles here are amusing, not so much in what they say, as in what they don't say. An article about more Middle Eastern women who are choosing to stay single approached the issue as a problem of not enough men to 'go around'. One person the author interviewed, said that it was time to encourage men to have more than one wife as Islam allows men to have up to four wives. (The culture here, although changing, is still ingrained with the idea that every female needs to have a protectorate male.) The cartoon illustration for the article depicted a young vibrant couple walking past an old ugly - and supposedly spinster - hag complete with hook nose. Did this drawing imply that these poor spinsters were not able to get hitched because they were lacking in looks or did spinsterhood make them old and ugly before their time? Nothing was mentioned about - maybe - these women were opting for education and independence as opposed to servitude and being second fiddle. Or possibly they had an agenda to which they aspired that did not neccessarily include being a mother and a wife.
But these times are a-changing. A newly elected woman to the Bahrain legislature, despite being ostracized by conservative members of government for not wearing a head/face covering, stuck to her guns and refused to submit to her colleagues harassment. Hang in there lady!

I've gotten several requests to show the view from our apartment which looks out to the Arabian Sea.


My son, Chris, who seems oblivious of his spectacular surroundings as he's mesmerized by his own internet game.


This is the British Embassy compound. Spy that I am, binoculars work well observing the many formal garden soirees or when some distinguished sheik arrives.


The whole length of the Corniche [waterside] is in view. A panoramic camera is needed to capture it all. The Cultural Center and Marina Mall are in the distance. If you look closely, there's a flagpole which was the world's tallest freestanding flagpole for two months until Dubai, Abu Dhabi's rival, built a taller one. Also in the distance is the Emirates Palace, self-proclaimed 6-star hotel which charges $4000 a night and never has to make a profit because it's wholly owned by the sheik's family. The Red Bull Air Races took place outside our windows last week. The contest consisted of airplanes making unbelievable maneuvers between huge blown-up cones on the water complete with 360 degree vertical flips. An ex-U.S. airforce top gun pilot was one of the contestants.

In Abu Dhabi, anybody who's anybody always stays at the Emirates Palace. Suites go from $4000 to $14,000 a night - that's ONE night. I am a nobody by these standards. Bob, Kara and I decided to pay a much more nominal fee for a guided tour to see how the privileged lives. The whole top floor is kept open for the sole use of the royal families from the seven emirates. Never have I seen so much gold leaf - on the walls, on domed ceilings, archways and pillars. There was even crumbled gold flakes on top of my Cappuccino.

As far as we travel we can't escape the more ignoble parts of our culture; still, we find comfort in this familiar Americana.

Speaking of base culture, Dubai, in keeping with it's thousand+ years of being a trading center where east met west, is having its DSF (Dubai Shopping Festival) a government sanctioned city-wide event where the main draw is, of course, shopping. Kara and I must experience this before it ends on the 31st. We leave tomorrow with Gaby and her college-age daughter for a overnight sorée to that big bad town where shopping never stops. The fabulous, Dubai Museum, art galleries, and the textile souk is also on the agenda.

Monday,
January 22, 2007


Both Chris and Kara were able to fly in from college for the Christmas break. Having never been on an overseas flight I was proud they both succeeded in making their connections in Frankfort and Amsterdam respectfully. After realizing she had a six hour layover, Kara took the train to downtown Amsterdam to satisfy a curiosity about the city. In fact, I suspect, she booked her flights with this in mind. What was I worried about?!

UAE celebrates National Day on December 2nd. This was the day, 35 years ago, when seven trucial states organized themselves to form a country. Quite an accomplishment for people where tribal warfare had predominated for 2,000 years. The UAE flag colors are black, white, red and green. On this festive occasion the cities are festooned with red and green lights which are kept up all month - a nice coincidence for those of us, infidels, celebrating Christmas. The first week-end of National Day, there were fabulous fireworks here in Abu Dhabi and, for once, Bob and I had the best view right from our apartment.

Speaking of Christmas, before coming here, I had gotten a general Middle Eastern synopsis of living here from Bob's company with a slant toward some of the more strict Islamic countries. The packet seemed to infer that there should be no outwardly show of Christian celebrations. So, when I saw the first Christmas tree display at the mall, I just stood there and tears came to my eyes. I quickly dried my tears before anybody saw a middle-aged woman balling right there in the mall. Later, I found Christmas decor almost as common as in the U.S. Just to show my appreciation and the fact that the kids were coming for Christmas I bought a 2 foot laser optic tree. That and the Christmas bath towels and stockings hung with care on window ledges constituted our total seasonal decorations.

After Christmas the family went to Egypt - Cairo and a Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. Cairo lived up to it's reputation of filth quite well. Also, Bob invented the 20 foot circle 'tip' zone. That is: everybody within 20 feet of you is expecting some sort of tip irregardless of what was or wasn't done for you. Of course, we had the usual souvenir sphinxes shoved in our face. This goes on all day long. Kara's idea was to just walk very fast and look straight ahead and they can't catch you. Besides that, everything was good. Oh, Kara spent about 30 minutes negotiating the price of a quality hooka pipe at the bazaar. Wish I had gotten a photo/video of that. She and "Oscar" were really having fun adjusting the final sales price. I have finally found out Chris' expertise. He can immediately figure the the exchange between whatever money to whatever money: Dollars to dirhams; dirhams to Egyptain pounds; whatever - just like a human calculator. We also took a hot air balloon ride over the Nile at Luxor - amazing. Some temple and tomb walls with carved relief had 3000 year old paint still on them - quite colorful. Our guide with a college degree in "tourist guidance" was quite animated and knew more facts and figures than we could ever hope to remember. (see photo of guide, Waleed, on faluca boat ride and describing hieroglyphics) Since Chris couldn't play internet games on this trip he was quite sociable. Bob and he became involved in a cut-throat ping-pong tournament organized by passengers on our Nile cruise boat. The match was well attended between exotic stops along the way.