Look out there

I rarely speak to my neighbors on planes, because I don't want to add to my feeling of being trapped. But, my neighbor on my flight from Abu Dhabi to Schipol spoke to me first. He asked if I spoke Dutch, and once my American-accented answer came out, he became more intrigued than your average plane neighbor.

"You aren't very well liked in this part of the world, are you?"

He was returning from a nine-day holiday to Oman with his wife and daughter, and although we talked for about an hour, I never got his name.

"There aren't a lot of you in this part of the world, except all of your friends who are sleeping down there". We were flying over Iraq, and he asked if I knew what the current troop level was on the ground, in a polite, loaded way.

My inbound flight two months ago took us over Turkey, then turned south to fly directly over Iraq and Kuwait. Then, and this time outbound and headed north, I thought, "Wow, I'm five miles away from Iraq" In the middle of contemplating this again, my new Dutch friend accidentally stopped my thoughts.

"What is that?" he said, pointing out the window.

By the way, it is a tense moment being 40,000 feet up and having someone look out the window and point with degrees of confusion and concern. We both craned our necks, looked out over the wing, down to Iraq. Iraq is still burning. As best we can tell, they were oil well fires. Hundreds of them, large and small, seen for miles. Most of them didn't seem controlled. Seeing it at night from our vantage point is now literally burned into my brain.

It is hard to distinguish which is more potent at this particular moment, having this memory of Iraq, or writing about this memory over a Starbucks jockey yelling "140 degree chai with cream" and "cinnamon dolce latte with soy". I am. Sitting. In. A Starbucks. In Los. Angeles. Not completely unlike Al Ain, where the only place to go is a mall, and the only good coffee is in a Starbucks inside that mall. But still. A week ago, I wasn't thinking I would actually seek solace in a Starbucks inside my home country. Much less that the likes of Starbucks and Gap and McDonalds are synonymous with American ways, and perhaps part of the reason why Iraq is currently burning.

It will probably take me two months to recall the events in the UAE, so I'll work backwards in time and start to unpack the events between the events of the zoo, Dubai, the malls and Oman. They are not as pretty as the events I posted while there, since I had no idea how far the UAE internet censors would come out to grab material they didn't like. Here's to freedom on the internet, and the return of some basic rights, 140 degree lattes be damned.

Last days in Al Ain

Two months ago when we came to Al Ain, we had three months to see if the jobs that brought us here were going to work for us. Somewhere inside of that we realized they were not, so we started the process of exiting and planning, sadly, our re-entry to the states, focusing on enjoying our time here while it lasted.

Last night, in typical New York and UAE style, we walked out to the largest main road and waited for a taxi to careen by to take us out for drinks on the town. Before the cab, an Emerati stopped and offered us a ride in his direction. In broken English, he said 'there are no cabs out here', here being our sprawling, walled off district. He was probably right. We jumped into his Land Rover and in what English he knew, he conveyed that his son is in EMT school in Vancouver, British Columbia, and that Etisalat is better than Du for cellular carriers. It amused me what could be conveyed with 20 words in common, and it made me wish I had more time here to crack the Emerati/Western divide. He dropped us off in the city centre, stunned that a national initiated communication with us, much less offered us a ride. Thirty seconds later, we were in a taxi to the Hilton Al Ain.

Drinks were of the going-away variety, with my now former manager. A couple of Stellas loosened up the conversation between an unlikely group of people; a whip-smart and worldly ex-military guy, Nick, and me. Over chatter about locals, travel, marriage advice and Avatar's cutting-edge graphics, I managed to not be sad about leaving my idea of becoming a global citizen behind on Sunday. One of the attractions to international work is living within the idea that from this location, wherever this may be, you can be anywhere in the world in 12 hours. Going back to Los Angeles in that context now seems the least interesting thing to do.

It was some of the best marriage advice we've received: keep communicating, and forgive each other for the things that annoy us about the other. Would the world practiced that, the jobs we came here for would not exist.

Methodical and wily Mother Nature greeted us with rain the day we came to Al Ain, and it is raining today, the weekend I leave. When I get back to Los Angeles, I will make my three-month checkup with my doctor, who will tell me again that I am cancer free. In some ways, I didn't skip a beat of life in Los Angeles, but was a world away between the rhythm. I read about meter in college. There can be structure to seeming chaos, if you majored in English Literature or smoked too much of something.

By the way, the current Sultan of Oman is a childless divorcee. He overthrew his own father forty years ago to bring social equality and justice to the people. If that ain't a reason to visit or join the Sultan of Oman Facebook fan page or send a letter saying "You Go, Oman", I can't think of what else might be.

I set up this blog to be a travel journal, and I am daunted by the idea of continuing this concept stateside in environs I am well familiar with. As with everything, let's just see how that works itself out.

Scenes from Muscat

We found the enduring port city of Muscat, Oman, filled with proud, charismatic and friendly people willing to share a little of their slice of history and culture with us. Finally!

Our home for the weekend was Muttrah, a district containing the centuries-old port or corniche. Like most old parts of the city, land is navigated by walking down narrow lanes which are marked but quickly become labyrinthine when you turn any corner. Both businesses and residences are tucked into these facades.


The Muttrah corniche, from atop a 16th century fort built by the Portuguese during their occupation.

A while ago, a few kings made the country's legendary craft of tapping frankincense and myrrah trees for their resins famous. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, Muscat memorialized the trade with a giant incense burner watchtower high above the corniche. Everything smells good in the Middle East. Seriously.


The calmness of the sea stays at sea here. We headed to the corniche in the early morning to witness the quick collective pulse of business in the fresh and briny-smelling fish souq. A day inside begins with fishermen returning from sea and unloading their hauls in wheelbarrows to the back of the merchants' section. The hauls are dumped out and auctioned off to the merchants, who take their lots and begin selling to customers. Customers buy, then take their fish back to cleaning stations to have them gutted, scaled and chopped into pieces. This happens so quickly, the fish in the front in the picture below was no sooner auctioned to the merchant before a woman bought a full bag right there. At the cleaning station about ten minutes later, she told me it was all for dinner that night. The haul everyone is standing around in the photo was in the middle of auction at 35 Rial, about $90.


This man selling sardines was constantly rearranging them in the pile, looking over them as closely as customers did on their way by.


The merchants and fish cleaners each have long metal rods that they bang on the top of their blades as they slice to give them force enough to get through bone. Everyone yells over these methodical clangs of commerce at each other to buy, sell and tell stories.


Some of these fish were still flopping. He waved me over and asked if I wanted dinner.

Back at the cleaning station, a man watching his large fish being prepared told me it was going to become a curry for his large family that night. Mid-week, he would come back for another fish, after a day of chicken and a day of mutton. Friendly and excited to practice his English, he told me he liked coming to the market to buy new fish.

Neither of us wanted to leave the souq. It was the most welcome we have felt by locals in the time we have been here. I felt more like an expat than a tourist.

Tourists flock to the Muttrah souq, ourselves included. The souq barely contains the flurry of polite salesmen luring in customers to haggle over prices of Omani silver and frankinscense, Kashmiri silk and wool, and Indian and African imports. Food and dress are heavily influenced by India, and the crafts are typically in traditional Middle Eastern styles. This souq accommodates everyone, including nationals looking for abayas and dishdashas, the national dresses.

In such small lanes, you have to keep moving or risk getting haggled to death. About ten minutes after this photograph, it was packed.

Daylight shone through this painted glass dome in the souq depicting traditional Omani knives and jewelry.


Shopped out, we explored one neighborhood over, Old Muscat. We peeked in at the sultan's palace.

The sultan just added on a new wing. Two friendly guards let us take pictures.



Aggressively haggled but going strong...



Omani food is influenced by its neighbors across the sea. Indian curries and Persian biryani (rice, meat and dry spices) are common, all served over beds of basmati infused with clove and cinnamon. Fish, mutton and chicken are the most common meats.

On the drive in, I bought local junk food as a snack.

On the way out, we had a discussion about my snacking habits, so I bought a kilo of tangerines from the greens souq, instead.


And that is nothing more than a brief rundown of our weekend. Oman is geographically a stunning country, and friendly, two things that have gone missing from us here in the UAE. They're apples and oranges to compare; Dubai is certainly its own stunning place, but life and times in Oman attract me in a more elemental way. We are anxious to explore other parts of the country as soon as we can.

Whoa, indeed.

I didn't take photographs on yesterday's trip to Dubai. We drove in to drop off Whitey, the stray dog, to a rescue shelter who had room for him. It wasn't a trip I wanted to memorialize. Even though Whitey is a stray, I have never 'given up' an animal.

After that sadness, we made it our project to drive toward the Burj Khalifa. I challenge anyone to throw a dart on a map of Dubai and not find at least three things in the vicinity of that point; a new building, a whole lot of construction and a mall. We navigated through pylons and road blocks to a parking structure and ended up in the Mall of Dubai, across from the Burj.

The closer you get to the Burj, the more it looks like an illusion. Sleek and implausibly grand, it has some junk in the trunk on the ground, making it appear more massive the closer you stand. Its severe taper and height that has engineers rewriting textbooks dictate that you must stop walking and crane your neck to look upwards to see the whole thing. It is difficult capture the the building in one photograph unless you're standing five miles away. In a word: whoa.

Mall culture is not as much a social experience as it is an demonstration of an embarrassment of riches. The guy serving my espresso might make at day's end what I paid for that coffee. The tourist walking by me toting a glossy, ribbon-handled shopping bag in hand paid what I make in a month for its contents. A national walking by her carrying several very large and several very small boutique bags paid what we both make in a year for her shopping trip. The amount of money on, and in, the ground is stunning, both in its excess and absence.

This and a few other observations of life on the ground are taking shape in larger pieces... to be continued...

Where the locals eat

Behind Gucci handbags and black Range Rovers lies the Starbucks beverage as the cheapest of conspicuously consumed items. We grabbed our usual and headed for the weekend to Dubai.



We did not stay in the global citizen's designer waterfront this time. Deira is Dubai's original city center, filled with grit and commerce. Indian businessmen, and a few budget travelers hauling backpacks ambled through our hotel lobby. We unpacked, confirmed that even in this Indian and Pakistani neighborhood due north is still Mecca, and headed out to explore.



The Daniel Bouluds of the world are making delicious statements with their craft, but my lines into a culture are through experiences on the streets, where the locals eat.

Friday night, we ate at Abshar, an Iranian restaurant around the corner from our hotel. Iranian flavors are, in a word, raucous. The delicate palate-cleansing greens of arugula and watercress that customarily come to the table before ordering here were replaced with pungent lemon basil and mint leaves. Nick's lamb and spinach stew was heavily spiced with earthy flavors. Raw onion and garlic mincemeat paired off with heavily pickled cabbage. The saffron in my rice never got off the bench.

Every time we dine out we try to order a wild card item, in this case, a beverage described as "churned". Who can resist, we thought, and out came a carafe of a savory yogurt-based drink. As much we tried to dwell in the bold palate of true Iranian food, we were defeated by the drink, which had the flavors and texture of salad dressing. I now let the look on Nick's face sum up our feelings on events.



While an illuminating culinary endeavor (file away the combination of mint and lemon basil for later use), it was necessary to walk off the stomach pounding. Along the way, we passed a busy traditional Yemeni restaurant. A waiter noticed our pause and came out to hand us a menu for what became lunch on Saturday. The large pillowed front floor was for men only and dictated that we would eat in the 'family area' where Nick could dine with his woman in privacy. Curious, surprised looks escorted us back to our tent. Two different servers helped us, also curious but seemingly pleased we loved the food. In situations like these, I have no quarrel with tradition. We are guests and one encounter isn't going to change the world.


Yemeni food is based on rice, meat and fish, but the rice could stand on its own as a meal. Whole cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon tree bark and turmeric flavored elegant long grain rice. Yes, elegant, in its simplicity especially. The rice had its own subtle nutty flavor and texture and made me consider the possiblity it had been rinsed and soaked longer than it was actually cooked. Grilled whole hammour and stewed chicken were not so much jewels of the dishes as elements building out the platters. The chicken dish added on the flavors of tomato and paprika to this already spicy-sweet dreamland of a meal. Nick and I both decided to devote some time perfecting our rice-cooking techniques at home, using Yemeni food as a model.



To put it frankly, I ate myself stupid here, and would like to return to Al Tawasol Restaurant before we leave the UAE. At the very least, the Yemeni palate and process is a new inspiration for my own cooking. Tomorrow, we are headed back to Dubai for the day, and I hope to try traditional charcoal cooked Iraqi dishes then.



And yes, you can see the Burj Khalifa from anywhere in the sprawling mass. I affectionately call it the giant hypodermic needle in the sky. I do love standing at the crossroads here. Any direction you choose is a distinct adventure into another world. More to come, it was a weekend packed full of amazing experiences in Deira.

The cycle of life and living

My envy of Arabian cats is over. It turns out I was envying dumpster cats who aggressively facilitate turf wars by punking any other cat who comes within fifty feet of their dumpster. These bin cats are like watching a feline version of Goodfellas. They fight with such lawless high decibel crazy-eyed cat brain we actually stopped in the middle of the road to watch two cats fight yesterday. If they could pull brass knuckles out and hold a roll of nickels while fighting, they would. They're nuts. The only thing of interest to these punk cats are dogs. Dogs function as kitty UN peacekeepers. The cats will stop tearing the fur off each other just as long as a dog is present, and as soon the dog leaves, they will continue to smolder hatred for the other until something inevitably blows up again. As usual, the cats ignore humans.

Now that I'm walking the stray peacekeeper pup around the neighborhood, I've gotten to know the nearby camels' schedules. Perhaps more importantly, they now know mine. You know the reverse relief busts in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, the ones that appear to follow you across a room? That's what camels do when you approach, except that they can behave like a five year-old boy who has a crush on a classmate and charge across the room and kick you or spit on you in the process. I'm still very nervous to get close to them, because I don't want to upset them and have them run off and leave me responsible. Some dynamics never change.



Inside the house, we had couscous and lamb kofta last night. We have an ongoing conversation about the cuteness of animals making them harder to eat. So far, the lambs are losing, despite being really, really cute. I maintain that if they were not really, really tasty, this would not be an issue. I have penned the future fates of other lambs by writing down recipes we are making while on our journey.

An unintended consequence of dinner in the villa is that I am now fully implicated in affecting our environment. I had hoped to remain an observer and reporter, but our dinner scraps end up in a bin outside, providing funding for the bin cats' turf wars. Even the streets are complicated in this part of the world.



As Americans will put beef in anything, the Arabian Peninsula seems to put milk in anything. Dairy here is fresh, tangy, integral to meals and reinforces my belief that the best money one can spend on education is on a plane ticket to the region of interest. Food is such a potent access point into any culture that it inspires me to consider where I am now sitting in front of this Melon Milk, and where else someone might be sitting in front of their version of the same. Perhaps the Carribbean.



A while back, I lamented that the chicken pop corn we purchased did not come with its own pop corn boxes as displayed on the front of the product package. After this lamentation, Nick found some chicken pop corn that DOES have the pop corn boxes inside as displayed on the front of the product package. This very simple act of his purchase made me giddy for a reason that probably only makes sense to me, and possibly him. Not exactly a potent food moment, but certainly an amusing one.


We bring food into the house, observe it, eat it and throw away the scraps. Cats fight over the bins, the walked dog has no clue about his role, we hear more cat fights and see the camels. We will perpetuate the same cycle the next time we are hungry. And so it is, another dispatch from our little slice of sandy desert.

Other kinds of clean

Moms, meet an entire culture which also guilts their children into believing cleanliness is next to godliness. Cleanliness here dictates religious and social order, from which hand you use to eat (right), which hand you use to "clean yourself" (left) and when you wash yourself in relation to prayer times. I accept these customs, but fail to understand why every hygienic product available is made of Kleenex-type paper. No Bounty. If you need a paper towel it is a large Kleenex. Napkins are Kleenex. Kleenex are Kleenex. I'm guessing it's a king of Spain lisp thing. Some Sheikh somewhere used Kleenex as a paper towel and the rest of the country agreed rather than suggested a more durable alternative to Kleenex for every household use possible. That or when wells run dry they sputter out Kleenex.

'Feel it' is right. Feels like every other paper product, this on the back of Kleenex brand toilet tissue.



I did discover a sturdier product in the personal hygiene aisle. The Cool & Cool Magic Tissue is an interactive hygiene event. This pellet, when moistened, turns into something else, in this case, a disposable dishrag type cloth.



This engineering marvel is the size of a dirham, which is to say it is the size of a US quarter dollar. According to the copy on the package, you can actually CONTROL the temperature of the tablet-turned-dishtowel by choosing what temperature of water you rehydrate it with.



I rehydrated my Magic Tissue with cold water. This produced the effect of a cold towel. It's temperature did not fluctuate remarkably after it was rehydrated, and the towel performed all of the duties I would expect a damp personal towel to do; occupy my time for one minute, successfully pick up some dust on my dresser and occupy Nick's time for one minute while we discussed the qualities of the towel.



No personal cleaning products or fascination with them in the world wipe away the uncleanliness of dogs in this culture. Mohammed didn't like dogs, I'm told. In addition to being unclean animals, they keep angels out of houses. Black dogs are especially bad luck. The only dog that has made it into a piece of culture here is the Saluki, a beautiful, lithe hunting dog that one of the Sheiks has devoted time to repopulating to its former elegant status. My lay research on the internet suggests there are about 800 Salukis in the UAE, and everyone has to register them so they're not improperly bred.



This little desert dog showed up at the villa a couple of days ago, dirty, terrified and hungry. I've taken him under my wing, because I have a heart (that's going to break when we have to leave him behind). I bathed him yesterday and observed him; he acts like a fox that has had the stuffing beaten out of him so many times he'll probably never fully trust humans in his lifetime. He is a nervous, smart sweetheart of a dog. I am considering finding a way to bring him back and get him into foster care in the states. For now, I'm just keeping him clean, fed and comfortable, trying to 'feel it' in my heart to forgive a culture that tolerates abuse of animals.

Today's Entertainment

Today, we went to the mall. I bought some clothes. Then, we went bowling at the International Bowling Centre.







The confusion after my first ball knocked down nine pins and scored a "N/T" without me bowling for the last pin was resolved by the attendant. "Here, nine pins is counted as a strike". Awesome. So, we made up names for the N/T score, like "No Tell" or "Nice Try". Because of this new scoring method, I bowled the best game of my life at the Al Ain Bowling Centre.

We celebrated by having Moroccan tea on the Bowling Centre's roofdeck cafe.

The look on Nick's face summarizes our approach to figuring out the new environment so far.



I like tea.





Afterwards, we drove to the Carrefour and bought items for dinner. We decided to make nachos. We are tiring of kabob and rice, hummous and flatbread, tagine and couscous. So, Americanized Mexican dish it is. I have never made nachos before to my knowledge. However, we just watched two episodes of Extras here at the villa that Nick knows I have already seen when I was at home recovering from surgery in August and I don't remember those, either. That pretty much affirms any conversation or activity that happened with me between August and September of 2009 is my own Groundhog Day. Sorry, folks.

Modern Life

We've been tagged.


This tag was found on our back wall while walking the neighborhood today. The usual suspects like "you suck" or "dirty Americans" are guesses for now. Walking the neighborhood, by the way, consists of passing one massive walled compound after another while feeling it inappropriate to turn one's head to peek in the gates. A national boy passed me today on the street riding a chop style bicycle with low rider handlebars. He said hello to me in English. That was the most fun I have had all day.

The rest is a recount of our efforts to entertain ourselves this week.

Knowing the laws that govern Halal food, that it is made without chemicals and the meat (if applicable) is raised and killed respectfully is all the justification I need to feel better about eating food products for the purposes of entertainment...



Chicken Pop-Corn is Halal and quite well-spiced considering its intentions as a food item. We ate these and were amused by them. I was disappointed that this box did not contain collapsible Chicken Pop-Corn serving boxes as displayed on the front of the product box.



Pocari Sweat. We first spied these on the shelves on day two or three of shopping in our new home. It took us two weeks to actually buy one, place bets on what it tasted like and test our sample. Pocari Sweat tastes like a heavy, flat, salty-sweet can of sweat. We did not finish it. By accident, I managed to frame into the photo the bidet and toilet off the dining room, and am deciding whether or not to devote a blog post to encounters with bidets and the hand shower nozzle thing present in every Western bathroom here. But, I fear that blog will take the form of a Pocari Sweat can; you'll know roughly what's inside based solely on the title.

We can't download movies here due to licensing agreements. There are no video stores. Television channels are without warning scrambled some of the time. Our IP phone doesn't work due to the Internet speeds from 1995. So, envier of cats is my new hobby, next to making up words describing new hobbies as a hobby. Local, semi-feral cats are the only creatures who seem to embrace this pace of life. They've got it figured out. Sleep most of the night, wake up, observe some stuff, eat something, play with other cats, sleep most of the day. My intention is to follow them for a while, documentary-style. I decided this five minutes ago, so your patience while I solidify my research methods is appreciated.



The one above is probably five months old and has some not-good infection on his nose. Also, it meows in a sickly way, but otherwise seems quite content to stare at me while I'm staring at him. Or her. My research was not very thorough on this one. It seems well-fed and curious.




This one acts like a she, though I have not confirmed this fact. "She" behaves protectively of the other younger cats roaming around, and takes long "you have nursed the life out of me" sized naps. I found her here out by the pool. Nick actually pet this cat.

Nick said it best: for a country that spent centuries roaming the desert and can now see Avatar in 3-D at the mall, society needs a little ramp-up time.

Dubai

We have decided that in order to make our lives work here, we are going to have to get out of Al Ain every weekend and do something a little more lively. So, we went to Dubai this weekend.

Turns out, most of Dubai is under construction.


What is finished is beautiful in its big city way. This is the marina...


And the Gulf is warm, very salty and lovely. That's a replica of the Bahamian Atlantis in the background. One $25,000 per night suite is just not enough for this planet, so they made two, and put it here.




Awesome food....
That's a Johnny Rocket's.



I kid, I kid. We ate fantastic Thai food on the Dubai Marina waterfront. Nick's dish came with a little bit of jicama carved like a duck, complete with peppercorn eyes and a bit of carrot for a bill. Nick had the fish, I had the duck and lychee red curry. Why he got the duck carving, I do not know.


One last beach shot...


All told, Dubai is a place that casts aside stories of building houses on sand, and instead turns its eyes towards a Las Vegas optimism that keeps churning with fantastic restaurants, accommodations and other accoutrement of distraction. And like any oasis in these parts, we will be back.

This weekend, fingers crossed, Muscat, Oman!

Oopsies...

We accidentally ascended the highest peak in the UAE a few days ago...





The Jebel Hafeet, which looks over the Empty Quarter (that's Al Ain in the background). Really, we were just hungry for a recognizable lunch to ease our transition...so we drove up the mountain road to see what the resort on top could offer us.

I will say the rock formations are unusual and interesting in a sci-fi kind of way, but I had much the same impression I did when I moved from the American West to the northeast of the same country and mistook Mt. Washington in New England for a hill. That probably says more about me than the geography.

As g-d wills it....

In some way, we're all captive.

Al Ain is a millenia-old oasis in the desert. The ethnography and archaeology here by my research dates back three, four thousand years. I imagine humans then found entertainment in watching other humans and animals carry about their business. Today, we're no exception; the day of our arrival we watched one of three annual downpours flood our street. We stood outside the villa walls just to see who could drive through the lake that formed on the street outside the driveway.

Another thing to do here is go to the Al Ain zoo. Full disclosure: I am not a fan of zoos. But I am a fan of meerkats and big cats, who are suited to zoos, really. Think of it. A cat that does not in fact have to patrol a perimeter and hunt their own food but instead sleeps all day in the sun and waits for someone to throw in nutritionally balanced meals? It doesn't matter what size the cat is, the mentality is the same. They don't really care about you unless you are failing to provide something to them.

I have no idea what runs through a meerkat's mind; they're just darn cute.






One of the most difficult adjustments I am making moving from the states where we are constantly bombarded with information and The Next New Thing is the complete lack of all of those. The ability to access those things exists here, but it is culturally absolutely unimportant and awkward to attempt to affix that life to this one. Al Ain is a crude downshift into a slower life that doesn't necessarily mean a lack of things, but more a mental housecleaning to reframe the addictive behavior of unconsciously checking our cell phones, twitterberry, facebook, the news crawl and email. I am the worst culprit of this. A number of times expats have told me to get rid of the BlackBerry mentality. It was one of the first pieces of advice I received, actually, and I get it now.

I am not a fan of zoos, but today, the lazy puma, the rhino finding the perfect spot on the log to rub an itch and the giraffe staring quizzically at me while I stared quizzically at it reminded me of the imperative of simplicity as a lifestyle. I have come halfway across the globe to absorb the idea, but the notion is going to make going anywhere else really, really pleasant.