Maybe it’s just me, but it really irritates me when people of English speaking nationalities make no attempt to speak the local language properly when living in a country foreign to them. I can understand tourists making mistakes, and will allow newly arrived expats a grace period of about a year, but the video depictred here really rubs me the wrong way.

The fantastically clean and efficient national metro system in Dubai announces your next stop in both Arabic and English. For all the millions of Euros it cost to build this transportation system, you would think they could have hired a professional announcer who could take the time to learn how to pronounce the Arabic words.

By the way, Deira is pronounced “Day-rah” and not “Deer-Rah”.

Living in Portugal for 9 years sensitized me to this seemingly blatant disrgard for local customs where the local language is admittedly difficult to pronounce, but do-able if you give it a little effort. Expats we know living there for decades still butcher the local language to such a degree, it’s almost comical. But I can’t help feeling it’s a disregard for the people and culture of the place they have been caling their home for years.

Now I’m off to find where I can take lessons in learning Arabic.

NOT a good substitute for paper towels!

People around here are obsessed with Kleenex. You know, facial tissue, those individual sheets of toilet paper stacked and packaged with perfume pretending to be something better. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in a public washroom here in the UAE and found nothing but Kleenex to dry my hands with after washing up. What ever happened to the trusty paper towel? Have you ever tried drying your hands with just one Kleenex? It doesn’t work. They either instantly congeal into a colloidal pulp or disintegrate and break down into individual fibers which then get all over my clothing making me look like the poster boy for Head and Shoulders shampoo. Have you ever had Chinese rice paper candy? Each candy comes individually wrapped in a little piece of rice paper, which is edible. The trouble is that if you try to unwrap each piece, the moisture in your fingers starts to gel the rice paper so you end up just putting the entire candy, wrapper and all, in you mouth. Drying your hands with Kleenex is a similar experience. And my hands are still wet.

I have big hands and it usually takes me three or four paper towels to get my hands dry. Using Kleenex to accomplish the same task raises the eyebrows of the restroom attendants (yes, every public bathroom has a full time attendant here) because it looks to them like I am trying to steal the entire box, one tissue at a time. I swear it takes about ten of those things to get my hands dry. Not very environmentally conscious if you ask me. But then again, the UAE doesn’t exactly have a small carbon footprint. Sorry – that’s UAE bashing and I promised not to do that anymore until I have lived here long enough to have the right.  I’m merely asking a question here today.

I even see boxes of Kleenex on the dashboards of most automobiles here. Do cars sold in Dubai have wash basins as an upgrade feature or are the people around here perpetually blowing their nose? I’m sure they are not being used for perspiration control, as hot as it is here, unless people want to look like they used a brand new razor to shave with that morning. Somebody please explain.

UAE camels lead the pack.

Emirati camels dominated the season’s largest and last racing festival in Kuwait yesterday.

Camels from the UAE won three out of four races on the final day of Kuwait’s tenth camel racing festival, with Freeda, a camel belonging to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, winning the main event: a 10-km race for females over five years old.

As they trotted across the finish line, the exertion of the race had caused their mouths to spew foam.  Child jockeys that were controversially used to race the beasts have been replaced with light machines that whip the animals’ back.

Racing camels do not have the velvet, shiny coats of thoroughbred racehorses; tufts of hair grow in patches over their muscular frames. Their long, gangly limbs, angled bodies and thin waistlines give them a model-like appearance, and the fastest ones can be worth millions of dollars.

Camels are plentiful in Kuwait, but most citizens prefer to eat them rather than race them, and the Bedouin see no contradiction in using the animals for transport or nourishment. Even at the track, the feast provided for the assembled guests included two large camels cooked tender and served on a bed of rice, their humps protruding from the trays.

This sounds like great fun and I am going to put camel racing on my agenda when I return to the UAE for the big exam.  I wonder if the losers are served for lunch?

First of all, before my friends and family get upset about my move to the UAE, this story is from Saudi Arabia, not from where I will be moving. The UAE lives in the 21st century.

A Lebanese man condemned to death for witchcraft by a Saudi court will not be beheaded today as had been expected, his lawyer said.

Ali Sibat, a 49-year-old father of five, made predictions on an Arab satellite TV channel from his home in Beirut. He was arrested by the Saudi religious police during his pilgrimage to the holy city of Medina in May 2008 and sentenced to death last November for witchcraft.

See the original article here.

The Saudi justice system, which is based on Islamic law, does not clearly define the charge of witchcraft.  Sibat is one of scores of people reported arrested every year in the kingdom for practicing sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling. The deeply religious authorities in Saudi consider these practices polytheism.

Don't open these in Saudi Arabia

Made predictions? Death by beheading? Witchcrat?

Christianity embarassed itself 300 years ago with these same kinds of antics. The Salem witch trials and public executions of people that didn’t quite fit into society were “justified” because of the Puritan’s extreme interpretation of the Bible.

But Ali Sabat just made a prediction and this is interpreted as polytheism. I suppose carrying fortune cookies or one of those fortune telling magic 8 balls are also a captal offense in Saudi Arabia.  Is meterology considered heresy as well?

I did see a weather forecast on television when I was last in the UAE, so I am not worried about losing my head the next time I go there.  I am going to make it a top priority to befriend some Emirates and find out more about the culture.

Yes,  the UAE is in official mourning as the body of the missing sheik was recently found after a glider accident in Morocco. Sheik Ahmed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, head of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and younger brother of the emirate’s ruler, was ranked 27th in Forbes‘ most recent list of the world’s most powerful people.

Associates described the sheik as quiet and cautious, despite the fact that he was one of the most powerful men in the world.

The 40-year-old prince had no deputy director at the $650 billion fund, which invests Abu Dhabi’s oil revenue. Experts believe his death is likely to spark a power struggle within the emirate’s royal family. The sheik wasn’t part of the powerful clique controlled by his nephew, the crown prince, who is now expected to attempt to gain control of the fund and consequently control of virtually all of Abu Dhabi’s economy.

Doing this will get you jail time here.

In many Western countries this is sign means “good job” or “I agree.” However In most of Latin America, West Africa, Greece, Russia, the Middle East, and Italy it basically means “up-yours.” It’s so offensive in several countries in the Middle East that it’s giving this symbol is an arrestable offense.  And I thought the pretty girl at the bar liked me.

Two Emirates Airline cabin crew have been jailed for three months for exchanging lewd text messages. The court said the texts “fulfilled all the necessary angles of coercion to the commitment of sin”.

Sex text messaging is illegal here.

See this article for the entire story.  The headlines fromthe UAE also mention the plight of two expats who have been jailed for kissing at a restaurant.  Although Dubai and Abu Dhabi are more “relaxed” than the rest of the Middle East when it comes to the Islamic moral code, you still have to realize you are in a different culture here and obey the rules. Dubai reminds me of a cross between Newport Beach, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, but that is intentional, in an successful attempt to lure the rest of the world here for tourism and holidays.  Just don’t forget where you really are.

I’m glad I’m happily married.  I’d hate to be single and looking in the UAE. Getting to first base can get you thrown out of the game.

Before Sandstorm

I guess I’ll have to get used to these. What looks like a very smoggy day in Los Angeles is in reality one of the many sandstorms that come through this area when the wind kicks up. It’s not the car burying, run-for-cover kind of events that I always though of when picturing a sandstorm.

It’s more like wind with texture. Everything gets covered with an almost invisible layer of fine dust that is gritty to touch. I am told that these can get much worse to the point you can not see across the street. I’d hate to be the street cleaner after one of those. In a country that values clean shiny cars, and buildings, there has to be a great financial opportunity for a business where you can really clean up.

During Sandstorm