Old Dubai

If you read scathing articles about Dubai by the likes of A A Gill and Johann Hari, you would think that us ex-pats go out of our way to avoid mixing with the locals.  That's certainly not the case in the Sand household, but it does happen to be the case that we don't come across Emiratis very often.

This can be attributed to a number of reasons.  Firstly, there simply aren't that many of them.  I've seen estimates ranging from the Dubai population being as high as 20 per cent Emirati and as low as 10 per cent in a population of 1.87million (estimated in 2010 which means that could be radically wrong as there have been one or two changes since then).  Second, although the Sand Warlock meets people of every nationality every working day, he doesn't meet many locals as they're not supposed to drink.  Thirdly, the best local spotting pursuit is walking the malls on a Thursday or Friday night when they tend to go out and about with their families shopping, going to the cinema or enjoying the deliciously random activities on offer in malls here: Iceskating, skiing, going to an Aquarium, playing arcade games, buying gold nuggets, going to KidZania, the place where kids can try out various careers including brain surgery (!) or Emirates air steward, etc.

It's true that this is the time when you would see locals out and about, but, they're with their families.  It's not exactly an opportune moment to pop over and say: "Salaamaleikum, kayfalal (Hello, how are you) alhamdulelah (I'm fine thanks to God).  An a Sand Witch, An a min London, fi Ingeldra (I am the Sand Witch from London, England).  Please, tell me about your culture."  Frankly, they would probably think you were mad, which would be fair enough.

The more time you spend here, though, the more likely you are to meet the locals and learn a bit more about their lives now and BO (I've just invented that for Before Oil).

Take one of my bosses who is a longstanding English ex-pat who told me this rather tragic tale about an Emirati she knows who can well remember what life was like before Dubai became a boom town. 

The chap, who is probably in his 60s, he's not really sure as he doesn't know when he was born, so, like many of the older Emiratis, he simply picked a birthday.  He can remember as a child making the journey from Abu Dhabi to Dubai by camel as one did during the days before the roads were built and when the Bedouin were the primary population.  One moved around according to the seasons in search of water.  This journey, which now takes an hour or so by car, took three days by camel.  Now, you know, I love camels, but I think would have fallen out of love with them after three days of sitting on one in 45degree heat.

Part way through this burning hot journey through the desert, members of his family realised his baby sister, who was being carried in a camel pannier, was missing as she had fallen out on to the ground.  It was a while before anyone noticed, probably because they were all comatose with boredom watching the perpetually shifting sands and suffering in the heat. And, because the baby herself would probably have been too dehydrated and subdued by the heat to cry out.  By the time they realised and got back to the spot she had fallen, she had died, either of injuries from falling from the camel, or a heat-related sickness, be it dehydration or some form of shock. 

It makes you think, doesn't it?  There is a tendency here among some ex-pat circles to dismiss the locals as spoilt and lazy because of the generous benefits endowed upon them by the Government and the preferential working conditions they enjoy.  But the fact that many of them endured or have parents or grandparents who endured, Medieval living conditions casts them in a rather different light. I think if I was an Emirati who could remember times before air con in cars and in buildings and sitting on a camel for several days just to find enough food and water to stop me from starving to death, I'd probably want every possible indulgence I could get my hands on.   

Where on earth is the petrol?

Here's one answer to the question of how the hell the UAE has a fuel shortage in The National. It would seem that subsidised petrol prices are causing suppliers problems. I don't think people will be terribly amused if prices go up, but then, their patience with fuel shortages will only last so long. 

The love affair with the car in the UAE is not just about laziness, it's about necessity.  It's already too hot to walk anything but the tiniest of distances and there's no way the public transport system will be able to pick up the slack if people have to leave their cars at home.

Well I never

Justice can be pretty swift here thanks to the lack of juries and the like.  The "fashion gang" I posted about yesterday turn out to be from Saudi Arabia.  Their sentencing is reported here

What it's all about is anybody's guess.  Can't imagine that the haute couture handbags, shoes, perfume and clothes they stole aren't available in Saudi Arabia.  What can it all mean? 

Under Your Abaya

I remember watching a comedy show when I was a kid which featured a sketch where a woman had a fake pregnancy bump under her dress which opened up and became a receptacle for shoplifted goods.  I can't remember which show it was but it was at the Russ Abbot or Little and Large level of sophistication.  The joke was that she was above suspicion because surely no one would have the audacity to carry out such a sneaky method of theft.

I started thinking about that long-forgotten sketch thanks to this case reported widely in the local newspapers today.  I can almost hear the heads of those in the Dubai authorities spinning while they wonder what they are going to do about these woman who sneaked out of a series of designer stores with thousands of dirhams worth of shoes and handbags stuffed into their robes.  Despite its Vegas-style reputation, Dubai is still a conservative Muslim Emirate where the wearing of the Abaya is not necessarily encouraged but merely accepted as the done thing among locals and those from other Gulf states.  Having it abused in this way must be a big, big deal for them.  They can't demand to search the robes of women shoppers because they would take huge offence at it, in part due to the conservative codes about physical contact and in part at the suggestion that anyone from such a wealthy community would steal.   

In 7Days coverage of the incident, they are described as "Arab" which can be a shorthand for "Arab but not Emirati".  I think it's fair to say that if they turn out to be from a traditionally non Abaya-wearing culture, the authorities will probably be extremely tough on them for abusing the national dress. 

This lunatic woman I know

So, yeah, this lunatic woman I know who is, like, totally obsessed with camels has had a full page feature published in today's Khaleej Times about Dubai Camel Hospital.

Now she just needs to find a home for her feature on the Camelicious camel mik farm as the features ed at the KT literally said: "Er, no thanks, no more camels".  Any suggestions, let me know, peeps, and I'll pass them on to, er, my split personality.

You can't see the pics online so here's some camel photos that were taken on the day just to keep you/me happy.

Oh Boyah

Thanks very much to my chum at 7Days newspaper for helping clarify what the crackdown on "boyat" will mean in Dubai.  You can read the paper's informative article here

Bad PR move, authority chaps. One of the ways Dubai attracts incomers from all over the world is by painting itself as a tolerant society compared with others in the region.  It can't really call itself that if women who like to dress a bit blokily risk being taken off by the cops for a good telling off and then being jailed if they fail to reform.

Mind you, it seems that this is largely aimed at young women, ie students, and young, Emirati women at that.  As I've said before, if you're a reasonably affluent ex-pat, you can do what you like within reason as long as you do it within the privacy of your own home or don't annoy a local person or someone in authority by doing it. There's also a perception that locals that get in trouble with the law are likely to face a less harsh punishment than ex-pats and poor migrant workers, but I suspect that may not be the case in these circumstances.  

The police officer quoted in 7Days implies that boyat are sexually attracted to other girls.  Obviously in a more tolerant society, he would know that girls who dress a bit blokily, don't always necessarily like other girls, some just like to dress blokily.  Being gay is illegal in Dubai, though, so, it would appear that this is a crude attempt to stamp out lesbian tendancies among the Emirati youth which makes it rather more than a bad PR move.

Mad about the boyat

The more time you spend in a place, the more you start to peel away the layers to find out about the usual and the unusual things that make somewhere both unique and simultaneously akin to countries all over the world.

Proof that there is nothing new under the fierce sun danced in front of my eyes this morning when I saw this article on cross dressers in Dubai.

Cross dressing women targeted in Dubai campaign

Well gosh oh crikes a blimey.  That is really not something I expected when I came here. 

What I didn't expect was this counterculture-style movement of "boyat" - women who dress like tomboys and have short hair under their abayas and head coverings. It's reassuring that even in a restrictive society, not everyone conforms, they find ways to step outside the perceived norm.

I don't know why I didn't expect it.  It's human nature that if rules are enforced, some will rebel against them, no matter what the consequences might be.
The boyah quoted in the National's article said something in her childhood home life led her to become one. I can only speculate on what they might be but I can see the attraction of saying "no" to femininity.  I think it's fair to say that the teenaged me would have spied the beautifully but heavily made up ladies in six-inch heels prowling the malls and wanted to rebel and do something totally different rather than resign myself to four hours doing my hair and makeup before leaving the house. 

I am not sure exactly what the authorities mean by "targeting" them.  It sounds rather sinister to say the least. According to a three-year-old article I found from the Economist, boyat is a phenomenon that spread throughout the Gulf region.  I don't know if it's an example of women in a patriarchal society leaning towards the masculine as an attempt to assert power.  Maybe it's a rebellion against the expectation that they will marry and start breeding new Gulf residents when they are barely out of their teens.

I wonder if the authorities will now lean towards "treatment" of a so-called gender identity disorder, consider banning boyat or continue a previous attempt to educate these young women about the virtues of femininity.