Having a home decor

Packed away in my shipment (retrieved about a week ago at the port. See entry below), were some items that have helped me finish off my livingroom, so I am now officially decorated (for the most part. I mean, is anyone ever truly finished?) My godparents introduced me to the less-is-more school of home design this summer, and I'm a convert, as you will see.








It's a new thing for me to have a decor. I've enjoyed the process (primarily because the school gave us a settling-in allowance, so I didn't have to spend my own money. But also because it's been fun to mull over catalogs, talk about color schemes, surf websites to check out professional designers--and then go ahead and pick out furniture I really liked and marvel how it ended up coming together). I'm particularly thrilled (though can take no credit) that the poster from the Picasso exhibit here in Abu Dhabi this summer goes so well with the Cameroonian mask I bought on Thanksgiving Day 1996. Who can plan a thing like that? (Well, maybe some people can, but I can't. I bought the mask cause there is a grinning lizard on the forehead. I bought the poster with no thought of the mask. The home decor planets just aligned...)

That being said, I'm glad things are unpacked, hanging on the walls, and there is nothing major left to find. The only thing I'm truly considering is an accent wall. Any ideas for colors? What about which wall? Channel your interior interior designer and let me know...

K also got her couch (after months of waiting for the covers to arrive), which now looks stunning with her classy, non-Ikea dining table. Check it out!

The pork room

Yes, this is a post that can be read to grandmothers...

There is an European/North American ex-pat grocery store called Spinney's in Abu Dhabi. Most grocery stores here are a veritable United Nations where the world meets to buys milk, eggs and toilet paper. These fine-food outlets are modern, convenient, reasonably priced and feature amazing prepared-food counters with Filipino delicacies, Arabic shwarmas, homemade Indian fare and the ultimate olive bar. But Spinney's is considered an ex-pat grocery store because it's small and not much use, really, unless you really want certain brands (like Minute Maid orange juice) or certain specialty items (like Pop Tarts).

Or pork.

Spinney's has the bacon. And the Spam. And the sausage. And the proscuitto. It's all located in a back room behind a thin plastic curtain and a large identifying sign above the door: Pork Room. They have pork chops and pork loin. Spirals of kielbasa. Batons of salami. Ham slices for sandwiches. Fried pork rinds (who eats those things, much less imports them?). Cans of pork and beans. Vienna sausages. Lil' smokies. I had no idea there were so many different pork products until I saw them in one place.

I'm not a huge fan of pork, and I actually prefer the beef pepperoni they serve on the pizzas here. But you can't go into the pork room at Spinney's without buying some of the genuine article. K and I got some German salami with peppery edges. We will definitely go back to get bacon (for which there is no adequate substitute).

You need to understand: all these items, which you hardly notice on the shelves of your local Safeway or Trader Joe's simply don't exist here, except in the pork room at Spinney's. In the regular grocery stores, there's beef pepperoni and chicken mortadella. Cubes of ham substitute in the salad bar (in case you wanted a faux chef salad). But no pork. Not ever under any circumstances. It's not that people who don't eat pork simply choose not to purchase it. They choose not to look at it. There is no other white meat. Perhaps they'd prefer if it didnt' exist. And it almost doesn't, except in the pork room.

A thick packet of long-distance democracy

I voted today, and got that warm glow that comes from participating in a democracy, no matter how screwed up. The city of San Francisco did me the honor of mailing the four, 11 x 17, double-sided pages of California ballot all the way to Abu Dhabi. It caused a minor stir in the staff room when I unfurled it from the mailing envelope.

Those of you who are Californian--or who have been Californian--can picture the pages and pages of tiny print. Those who aren't Californian may have heard of the epic size of our ballots. The state's initiative system allows pretty much anyone to put pretty much anything on the ballot, as long as they get enough signatures for their wacky proposition or initiative. Which in California just isn't that hard. In places like Illinois, you can go into the little booth and pull a lever. In the Golden State, you get a voting guide the size of a Ph.D. thesis.

I didn't vote for many propositions this year since the voter's dissertation didn't come with the absentee ballot. Obviously, no on the anti-gay and anti-choice ones. Obviously, yes for the San Francisco initiative that proposed to name a sewage plant after George W. Bush (C'mon people! If we're going to have an initiative system, let's support having fun with it.) Mostly, though, I'm glad I got the ballot in time and was able to vote for Obama/Biden. It might not be the best time for the economy or foreign policy or, well, anything. But the system still works well enough to get a ballot across the world and back again.

Needless to say, if I can vote from the Arabian Peninsula, the rest of y'all have no excuse whatsoever. If you're not registered, go do it! If you are, get out and vote. And, if you're a Californian, be thankful that we didn't get all the way to Proposition Z this year...

More Al Ain pics

Some more pics from the Al Ain trip.

The gate to the Al Ain Oasis (a dense date palm plantation)











Me at the Palace Museum posing with hanging pottery; Me looking down the well; The old fort; K relaxing with the Koran

Oasis day

Al Ain (rhymes with "sane") is a sleepy oasis town about 2 hours from Abu Dhabi. K and I rented a car and drove there today to take in the desert landscape and local museums. After five days of sleeping in, reading, unpacking my shipment, doing some further home decorating and chilling out, it was time to get out of town.

It was my first time driving in the UAE, and I was nervous. The drivers here come with fearsome reputations. Two colleagues have already gotten into fender-benders, and traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in all seven emirates. The guidebooks are plastered with warnings about speeding sheikhs in Porsches and death-defying taximen. I gripped the wheel of our rented Camry a little tighter than usual as I merged into holiday-light traffic and pointed west to the desert. Turns out I didn't have anything to worry about. There was plenty of room on the road for Porsches, Range Rovers, Mercedes and K and I tootling towards the desert at a conservative 100 km/hr.

The desert...wasn't. The much-beloved Sheikh Zayed, founding president of the UAE who served from 1973-2004, is famed for "greening the desert." And green it, he did. All the way from Abu Dhabi to his hometown of Al Ain. K and I were expecting rolling dunes, the glare of the sun off the white (or orange) sand and maybe a picturesque camel on the horizon. What we got was a grass- and palm-filled median strip and a dense border of scrubby trees along either side of the eight-lane highway. When we did catch a glimpse of a dune through the trees, it felt like a major achievement.

Al Ain itself is much smaller than Abu Dhabi and it's two interesting museums are well-worth the trek down Sheikh Zayed's desert-garden highway. The first is an old fort full of pictures of how Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other now-bustling metropoli looked way back in...1962. Answer: desolate, shack-filled fishing villages. And this was four years after oil was discovered. It is absolutely fascinating to think what has happened in a mere generation or two. The other museum was actually Sheikh Zayed's childhood home, one of several palaces in the region. It was interesting to notice the Arabian definition of a palace--yet the compound of simple two-story buildings would have been the height of luxury when everyone else lived in a goat-skin tent. The Al Ain Palace Museum, as Zayed's homestead is now known, is a major tourist destination for foreigners and Emeratis alike. Which provided lots of opportunities to sneakily snap photos of women in abeyyas and ghutra-wearing guys.

I have really wanted to show you all traditional Emerati dress in its natural habitat, so to speak. But you don't go around taking pictures of people just because they look like sheikhs. And, if you asked them, they might get offended. Even worse, their deepest suspicions about ignorant Americans would be confirmed instantly. Surely, relations between our two peoples would continue to deteriorate and all because I wanted a picture of a man in a ghutra. So, K and I did that thing where one person pretends to pose, coincidentally in front of a group of black veils and sheikh-like head gear, the true subjects of the photo. As you can see, we were trying to be super-sneaky. As you can also see, we were less than successful.

Imagine our total shock, when an abeyya-clad woman asked to take a picture of us! I am NOT making this up! She had a fancy Nikon with a zoom lens, and damn if she didn't ask to take a picture of K and me with her friend. So, of course, K asked her to take another one with her camera. Voila! An Emerati woman wearing an excellent example of a fashion abeyya. Note the sparkles on the cuffs and veil. And K and I as western women tourists, complete with Crocs and baggy t-shirts. I can only imagine what this nice young woman is writing on her blog tonight. Feel free to channel her in a comment below (beverage of your choice when next we meet to the winning entry...).

Moments like these are the reason I travel. Get out, see a palace in the desert and palm trees on the highway, spend an hour trying to sneak around with a camera, and end up grinning next to someone who did what you couldn't. Then go back to what's familiar and try to fit people into neat little boxes according to their language, religion or outfit of choice. It never works.

I watched a little of the first Obama-McCain debate, and there was much going back and forth about who has met which foreign leader. But what I want to know is who has met which foreign people? Who has had to cross cultures? Negotiate boundaries? Remain flexible and appreciate what's given rather than what's planned? I always get into the most trouble when I stick to The Plan rather than going with the flow (most of you know the story of how I got myself, 45 students and 9 teachers arrested in Cameroon. How, for those of you who don't? By being a control freak). The stakes are certainly higher when you're the president. Which candidate has more experience doing that? Hmmm? I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we all know who I'm talking about...

But enough about the election. I'm kicking back and thinking about Al Ain, about driving through the greened desert, about the fort and palace, about the cool abeyya woman who made our day. K and I were too amazed to even ask her name. I wonder what she's thinking right now...

Eid Mubarak!

Ramadan ended last night at sundown. I sort of expected a collective cheer or a particularly jubilant call to prayer, but the evening proceeded normally. This morning, I went to the gym (Yes! The gym!) and was amazed to find the little cafe open and a bunch of sheikh-garbed guys downing orange juices and coffees. In public.

It was weird to see people eating so blatantly. It's weird to know I can too, if I want. I've been in the UAE for about two months, and one of those months has been Ramadan. It's hard to remember what it was like before. Will kids start leaving their plastic water bottles in class again? Will the regular school day seem long? (We still get out at 3:20, so I doubt it. But after a month of 2:10 dismissal...) Will I think less about food or more? How long will it take to forget about the last month's restrictions? Everyone seemed to adapt so quickly back on September 1. Maybe reverting back to old habits will be just as seamless.

As I write, families are gathering throughout Abu Dhabi, exchanging gifts and feasting. K and I are thinking about grabbing some lunch. At lunchtime. What a concept. Tomorrow, I'm told, will be the equivalent of December 26, with malls open early and post-Eid sales. We don't go back to school until Sunday, so there are still a few days left to sight-see, kick back and, yes, eat in public.

Eid Mubarak!

Primal shipping

I saw the global economy up close today. It felt a little like visiting a slaughter house. My consumer illusions are gone. I will never look at a shiny UPS truck or the stacks of stuff in Target the same way again. Cause I know what it looks like before it's unloaded, unboxed, dusted off and prettily displayed. I've seen the backstage of capitalism run amok.

I have been to the port.

The thing is, the Port of Abu Dhabi isn't even that big, as ports go. But it's still acres and acres of container-covered tarmac; rows of semi trucks lined up at the gate; forests of shipping cranes 40 stories high, and machines shaped like capital Hs, like something out of Star Wars, that roll around on huge spindly legs and crank up containers five, six at a time. Guys in dusty jumpsuits loading and unloading. Guys in nautically inspired uniforms inspecting, stamping and fee-collecting. Guys in slacks and short-sleeved dress shirts, jostling for position in the endless lines at the miles of counter, waiting for forms to be written (handwritten!) in triplicate and stapled in the correct order.

Then there was me. I had the school's pick-up, the heroic school driver and four boxes and a duffle bag to find in all that commerce. Find it I did, in a warehouse right out of the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But it couldn't be mine without two hours of red tape shuffle. I stood amid the various groups of guys, the only woman in the whole place, and marveled that the richest country in the world still processes customs using ditto spirit masters. It's a fancy name for those things you put between sheets of paper when you want the writing from one paper to show up on the other one. I saw them used today for the first time since second grade. It got me thinking about the hard facts of development. This is a country that can afford computers, training and tech maintenance. (This is a country that can afford the Chrysler Building.) And yet...it must take more than money and will to upgrade from spirit masters. I wonder what it takes.

I did a lot of wondering today, as I carried my ever-growing stack of documents back and forth between groups of guys. I went from the warehouse office to the customs shed to the main customs building and back again too many times to count At each new counter, I was treated with the utmost respect and ushered to the front of every line. (Women in the UAE typically go to the front of the line, especially in situations where very few women are present. This was certainly one of those situations.) It was impossible to get frustrated because it was clear everyone was doing their best. It was very possible to get confused, and I forgot to get the right color paper twice and didn't have the right stamp once. I even got a refund when one inspector accidentally charged me for an inspection I didn't get.

Speaking of inspections, somewhere in the process, I managed to convince another inspector not to go through my boxes with a fine-tooth comb, as is done with all personal shipments for the sole purpose of weeding out material that doesn't jive with Islamic culture. Knowing my audience, I opened my duffle bag and pulled out some underwear while the school's heroic driver mumbled, "Only teaching papers and supplies for children" strategically under his breath. The inspector told me to zip everything back up and stamped the next form vigorously.

Despite the success of our inspection tag team, the driver did convince me never to ship anything by sea again, if I could help it. He did this by recounting the joys of picking up air freight every time we got into the truck to go back to the customs shed (or another now-familiar location.) "So quick, so quick," he would say longingly. "And everything is inside."

At the very end, though, it was quick. I got the last stamp and handed the final form (blue) to the warehouse guy. The forklift guy lifted my tiny little pallet (pallet-ette) into the pick up truck. I gave him $3 (which turned out to be too much. Whatever.) and we sped out of the port.

Though my boxes were scarred and lopsided, only two picture frames broke and four stemless champagne glasses made it across the ocean completely intact. So, I'll raise one of them to the port, to the guys, to the science fiction machinery, the spirit masters, and even my very short smuggling career.