Learning About Dubai

Ejo #5 – Alcohol Restrictions (and Loopholes) in Dubai

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Quite a few people have asked how David and I are coping in an Islamic country without alcohol.  Fear not dear friends for there is a plentiful supply to be had, you just have to be in the know about how and where to get it.  Of course there are restaurants, hotels and bars that serve outrageously marked up drinks at all hours of the day and night.  Usually the mark up is in the order of x6 and that includes tax.  Alcohol in fact is about the only thing in the UAE to be subject to tax (that’s such a dirty word to me now – not that it wasn’t before).  30% tax.  Blech!!!!  But if you want to buy alcohol to drink at home there are only two “official” suppliers in Dubai – MMI (Maritime & Mercantile International) and A&E (African & Eastern).  They sound like fun, right??!!

Actually we are very lucky in Dubai.  Some of the emirates, like Sharjah, are dry emirates where drinking or even posession of alcohol is illegal.  The rulers of Dubai probably realised that in order to attract people here (at least the big drinking Brits and Aussies) they had to be a little more lax, and thus alcohol IS sold in Dubai.  But (of course there’s a but), in order to buy it you need to get a liquor permit.  In order to be eligible for a liquor permit you have to earn a certain amount per month and go through quite a lot of red tape to apply.  You need to provide them with a letter from your employer stating your monthly salary and that you are contracted to work for a certain period of time, AND that they have no objection to you buying alcohol.  Then you have to give them copies of your passport and copies of your residency visa.  Good lord!!  And then on top of that you are only allowed to buy a certain amount of alcohol per month.  They impose a booze quota!!  This amount is dependent on how much you earn (as obviously the more money you make, the more you deserve to drink it away)!!.  And the cherry on top is that 30% tax they lug you with.

Let’s just say that the whole process is so drawn out and convoluted that we are yet to complete it.  We have actually submitted the application but because of Xmas, Eid, New Year, Chinese New Year etc, it might be another four weeks before we have our permit.  So where are we getting our booze????  I’m glad you asked.  We get it from a place called Barracuda.  Ooooh, that sounds ferocious!!  But it isn’t.  Barracuda is a little seaside resort two emirates away in Umm Al Quwain (about 55 minutes drive from our place).  It is also home to what is known as a “hole in the wall”, a hidden and quite illegal trove of liquid treasures (don’t tell anyone I told you).  A funny little fact about Barracuda is that it even exists at all in an Islamic emirate where alcohol is considered haram (bad, evil).  This question was answered recently when someone told me that the Sheikh of Umm Al Quwain actually owns it.  SHOCK AND HORROR!!!!  A Muslim making money from alcohol goes against the Quran’s teachings, but I’m not going to be complaining to anyone.  More of it, I say!!  And anyway, as far as I’m concerned that could just be a rumour.  But it’s a juicy one.

We’d been told about Barracuda and were quite keen to go as our duty-free stash was running out fast.  But David had also heard stories about “bandits” laying in wait for all the expats driving out of Barracuda and then involving them in minor car accidents.  Then, while the police are being called (because in the UAE if you have even the most minor bingle, the cops are required to attend in order to apportion blame) they would proceed to blackmail you: Give us money or we’ll tell the cops about your illegal stash.  These horror stories put us off for a little while but when our reserves were getting dangerously low we built up the courage and made a plan to head out!!

The day of the Booze Run dawned bright and clear.  What am I talking about?  I have no idea how the day of the Booze Run dawned.  I was asleep.  But at 9.30am when I did get up, it was bright and clear.  By the time we’d set out an hour later though, a big sand storm was blowing in from across the Gulf (damn Iran and all it’s infernal sand!!).  But we resolved to continue (after all, we’d had our last G&T the night before – we were out of options).  Unfortunately, the further we got out of Dubai, the worse it got.  Visibility was reduced, the car was being buffeted by strong winds and tumbleweeds were drifting across the freeway – with the attendant manic swerving of all the cars trying to avoid them (yes, avoid the tumbleweed, smash into the Yaris – sound decision).  It was almost as if Allah was trying to tell us something, trying to warn us to give it up. 

But we courageously persisted and as we drove past Sharjah and into Ras Al Khaimah, the storm abated and the blue skies once again shone upon us.  The aftermath of the sandstorm though was pretty spectacular to behold.  The roads where covered in drifting sand.  We were pretty well out in the desert by now so it was like the dunes were reclaiming the roads.  We took the exit to Barracuda and eventually made our way to the resort.  Now, when something is described to me as a “hole in the wall” I tend to process the image rather literally and so I imagined that it would be a little hut, hidden behind some palm fronds where you’d have to do a secret knock on the door to gain access to a dusty little shop full of crates of old bottles of Mateusz and kegs of home made moonshine.  Oh glory days, how wrong I was!!!!

 

The first clue that made me realise that this place was a serious operation was the full car park – spaces for more than a hundred cars.  The second sign was the supermarket sized shopping trolleys.  And the final sign was seeing it all with my own eyes.  This place is booze heaven.  For those of you from Australia, think Dan Murphy’s but with a bigger selection of vodka.  There is Australian beer cheaper than in Australia, and beer and wines from all over the world.  They had everything.  French champagne, even Grange Hermitage (under lock and key).  To say that David and I were like kids in a candy store would be incorrect.  We were like alcoholics in a liquor wonderland.  My eyes were popping out of my head – it was just the complete opposite of what I’d imagined.  It was magnificent.

 

And so we filled up a trolley, and with our car laden with clinking bottles, we took off for home.  Now, neither of us said anything but I know that I, for one, was a bit nervous about these so-called ‘bandits’ that were supposed to ambush us in a fender-bender.  Every car that approached us was full of malicious intent.  Every car that we overtook was skulkily suspicous.  I was so nervous that I (yes, I was driving!!) missed a turn at a roundabout and only realised it ten minutes later when we passed a rather large statue that we had definitely not seen on the way in.  We were lost!!!!  With 30 litres of illegal alcohol in the boot.  Oh well, I thought, it’s the beginning of yet another Arabian adventure. 

 

We followed some signs pointing to Dubai that disappeared once we entered an industrial zone, to be replaced by signs proclaiming that we were in fact in Sharjah!!  And we got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour.  Every time we moved an inch forward, and someone changed lanes behind or in front of us, I was horrified that the car would get clipped and the police would have to be called.  Because to get caught with illegal alcohol in Umm Al Quwain is one thing.  To get caught with it in a place where alcohol itself is illegal is entirely another thing.  An undesirable thing.  But somehow we managed to avoid an international scandal the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the ‘sex on the beach’ incident and managed to return home during an agonisingly slow 2.5 hour drive.  And thus ended our first Booze Run. 

 

But a few days before the end of 2008 David put a bottle of white wine in the fridge and said the ugly words, ‘That’s the last one”.  Plus New Year’s Eve was approaching.  Say no more!!  And so another journey was undertaken.  This time it went without a hitch.  We’re old pros by now!!  We bought some champagne (amongst several other things!!) as we had a grand plan all laid out for New Year’s Eve.  I was going to pick David up from work at 9pm and we’d go home to where I’d prepared a special dinner.  We’d kick back and relax, drink some French champagne (thank you Barracuda) and watch the amazing fireworks display from our 32nd floor balcony.  Perfect!!

 

Alas alack, does anything ever go according to plan??  Would it be as much fun if it did??  Two forces conspired to foil our perfect evening.  The first force was our beloved Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.  At noon on the 31st December, he decreed that all NYE celebrations were off.  Cancelled.  No bands, no concerts, no public parties, no public countdown and no fireworks.  It was an act of support for the Palestinians who are under attack from Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.  A noble act.

 

But as powerful as the Sheikh is, the second force to toy with us was more powerful still – and even if the fireworks had gone ahead we would not have been able to see them anyway, for the entire city was blanketed in a thick, and rather spooky layer of fog.  Let’s just say that from our balcony we couldn’t see a single other building, or even a light (below is a photo of the night in question, and another taken on a regular evening).  And so, the evening was spent eating delicious food (if I do say so myself), drinking delectable bubbles and gazing onto a soupy whiteout.  And we still managed to have fun!!

 

Normal View from Living Room

NYE 2008

PS The Sheikh of Umm Al Quwain died in early January (RIP), so I wonder what will happen to Barracuda.  Perhaps we should do another run sometime soon!!??

Ejo #4 – Geography of The United Arab Emirates Plus The Dubai Stone

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For those of you who are unfamiliar with the geography of the United Arab Emirates (and I was one until I moved here), it is a country in the Middle East which is comprised of seven emirates.  They are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah and Ajman.  Even though Abu Dhabi is the capital and the largest (and richest) emirate, Dubai is the most populated with over 5 million people living here.  Most of Abu Dhabi’s immense wealth comes from oil but Dubai gets only about 13% GDP from oil and about 70% from tourism – and so that’s why it has the most developed infrastructure (and the most malls!!).  Each emirate is ruled by it’s own sheikh (always pronounced ‘shake’ and never ‘chic’), and Dubai’s is the beloved Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.  He’s a very forward thinking dude – when presented with the problem that Dubai had only 70km of coastline one of his advisors said they could probably add another 60km by building an island offshore;  the Sheikh said (possibly with his pinky finger poised elegantly at the corner of his mouth), “Why does it have to be round??!!”.  And thus was born Palm Jumeirah, and an extra 520km of coastline.

When we first got here I came with the best intentions of making a pretty big effort to learn the language of the country I was planning on living in for the next few years.  I bought a book/CD lesson plan in basic Arabic and started to teach myself.  I must confess that my efforts have waned as time has passed, simply because in the eight weeks that we’ve been here I have not had a conversation with a single Emirati.  I could learn the language to my heart’s content, become conversationally proficient, nay fluent, and it still wouldn’t do me any good because I wouldn’t have the opportunity to use it.  I suppose I could walk to up to any old National on the street and strike up a conversation, but frankly I can’t see that happening.  I still intend to go ahead with my lessons though, just in case.

If I actually wanted to learn a language I could use I’d be better off learning an Indian dialect or Filipino for the people that speak these two languages make up about 70% of the entire population of Dubai.  Emiratis make up close to 10%, nationals from other Arab countries make up 10% and western expats (eg. UK, USA, South Africa and Australia) make up the remaining 10%.  But everyone here speaks English (to some degree) so the motivation factor is pretty low.  Why bother with a new language if it’s not necessary??  Indeed.  I’m thinking of learning Italian.
 
The Dubai Stone.  No, this is not a geographical landmark in the vein of the Rock of Gibraltar.  Neither is it a linguistic artefact a la The Rosettta Stone.  Nope, the infamous Dubai Stone is a measure of how friggin’ easy it is to pile on the pounds here with the proliferation of amazing restaurants, brunch deals, “all you can eat” specials, and yummy cocktails on offer.  I didn’t in fact quite put on a stone (for my US friends a stone = about 14 lbs), but I was well on the way.  And I had to take some pretty drastic action to halt the weight gain (after all, I still have the Melbourne Stone to contend with).  Yes, I did a brown rice detox!!  Mmmmm mmmmm!!  Of course there couldn’t be a worse time of year for this self imposed torture – the amount of food, drink and merriment being bandied about the city is incredible.  Let’s just say I planned it to end the day of the office Xmas party (all brown rice and no cocktails makes Chryss an irritable girl).  And since then we’ve been able to moderate our diets more as we’ve settled into our apartment and started cooking healthy, home-cooked meals instead of going out twice a day, every day.  Of course we did decide to move into an area described as “the most exclusive square kilometre on earth” (let me assure you, it might be considered that one day but right now it’s the most exclusive construction site on earth. 

What it means though is that there is a multitude of eateries – high end, mid-range, fast food, all types of cuisine, pubs, bars, wine and champagne lounges – all on our doorstep (within 1000m in fact) so the temptation to indulge will always be great.  Insha’allah the temptation to fit into my bikini will be greater.

Merry Xmas all.
Talk to you soon
Kisses
Chryss

PS.  I was driving around the other day and was extremely amused to see a milk truck beside me.  Naturally this was no ordinary milk truck but a “Camelicious” milk truck.  Oh yes, Camel Milk Goodness!!  I was very sad to have not taken a photo of it to share the joy with all of you but as funny as it seemed, my life felt more important at the time.  But if I’m ever in the car with David and we see it, I’ll get him to take a photo of it for sure!!!!

Ejo #3 – Various Types of Employment in Dubai

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As far as I’m aware there is virtually no unemployment in Dubai.  Probably because it is such a fast growing city and the global economic downturn is yet to have a real impact here.  So there are a multitude of employees in every sector.  You know the stereotype of the construction workers: a dozen men sitting around watching one guy digging the trench?  That’s what it’s like here but everywhere.  We’ve eaten in restaurants where we’ve been the only customers there and there are ten waiters.  You walk into a bookshop and there are six people behind the counter.  At the pharmacist there are eight.  Every store in the mall has a security guard and at least four assistants (even the very small ones) and every single toilet in the malls (and there are scores of them) has a fulltime cleaning attendant.  I’ve walked into a Starbucks and ordered a coffee from five people at once (because they all just turn to look at you and you have no idea who’s supposed to be taking the order).  You get the idea.

 

The most obvious/flagrant example of this is (naturally) in the construction industry.  There are literally tens of thousands of construction workers here, all imported from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  A lot of them are doing actual construction work but many of them are employed in ‘support’ roles.  And the best support role I’ve seen so far is a guy sporting a broom by the side of the road sweeping up the sand, dust and dirt created from the construction site into a little pile.

 

And that’s his job.

 

Sometimes, he’ll (accidentally??) push the pile too close to the road and a car will drive over it and he’ll have to start all over again.  But his job is not to move the pile, or clean up the pile.  His job is simply to make the pile.  And he’s only in charge of his single pile because ten metres down the street there’s another guy making his own pile, thank you very much.  At the allotted time, some other guy, whose support role is to come around and clean up the piles, will do so.

 

And that’s his job.  All day, every day.

 

Another great one is also linked to construction sites – and the apartment we’ve got is in a very new area mostly still under construction (in fact it’s the first of eight buildings to go up so cranes and bulldozers are going to be a fact of life for us for years to come).  Picture this: At every road where there is an intersection which construction vehicles are required to use, the workers have set up a (pretty good) system whereby there is a worker sitting at each corner of the intersection, and each worker is connected to the one on their left and the one on their right by a rope (forming a rope ‘square’ around the intersection).  The ropes have little fluorescent flags attached along their length for added visibility.  And they use these ropes in a ‘traffic light’ fashion.  So, if you were driving along the street (theoretically) doing the 40kph speed limit and you came to one of these intersections but there was no tip truck to cross in front
of you, you would simply drive over the rope lying on the ground, wave to the 15 guys standing around and be on your way.  If there was a tractor or a hot, sweaty busload of workers to cross, you’d find yourself subject to the rope being pulled taut across the road in front of you, while the rope that had been the tractor’s ‘red light’ is released and lays flaccid on the road.  Marvellous system.  Once the offending vehicle is through the intersection there is a synchronous lifting and dropping of the appropriate ropes and off you go, again waving to all the guys milling around.

 

And they do seem to like it when you wave – their faces light up and they always wave back.  This might come from most immigrant workers here being rather invisible, so I guess they enjoy their existence being acknowledged at all – which David and I ALWAYS make an effort to do.  It is rather a depressing fact of life here that these men and women travel far and wide to come to Dubai in the belief that it’s the land of milk and honey and they’ll make a fortune but when they get here that dream is shattered and they get caught in the trap of working 14 hour days six days a week.  They earn barely enough to survive and send what money they can back home to their families which they stay separated from for years.  And they can’t leave until they pay back the recruitment firms who paid for them to come out here in the first place.  They can’t afford housing so they live in labour camps and they can’t afford cars so they get bussed to and from their jobs every morning in old buses with no air conditioning.  It’s not a happy life.

 

So pretty well every menial job in construction, janitors, maids, nannies, and all but the managerial roles in hospitality are occupied by these immigrants.  And most of them muster up a smile for you, even though they earn less in a month than we do in a single day.  It’s awful and sad and my initial response was to throw money at them – for serving me, for cleaning the toilet after me, for cleaning our apartment (even though the property developers paid for them to come), for delivering our furniture, for assembling it.  In reality though, I realised that if I keep doing that I will send us broke.  And it won’t fix the problem anyway.  I could never pay for them all (even though I would love to).  I can however treat everyone I come across with respect and kindness, and to be honest it is this which has assuaged my general feeling of guilt the most.  It is something to contend with every day.

 

A story:  I was at a mall the other day (there are malls in Dubai I hear you ask??, why yes, dear friend, this town is known to support a mall or two) and after hours of malling around found myself gravitating to the food court for a bite to eat.  I sat down and ate and observed a young Indian lad of about seventeen, looking very dapper in his janitor’s uniform of grey pants, red shirt, black belt and shoes.  This boy, this young man, had taken such care with his appearance that he looked like he was off to the prom with his childhood sweetheart instead of picking up crap off the floor because people are too ignorant and too lazy to put it in the bins themselves.  His clothes were perfectly pressed with crisp creases down the front of his pants.  His shoes were buffed to shining and his hair was perfectly coiffed, every strand in its place.  And this guy, who probably earns less than 50Dhs a day (2 bottles of water cost more in a restaurant) walked through that food court with more dignity and self-respect than anyone else there.  And he looked so sad, because he just had to know that he would never have the opportunity to do anything better or easier or something that could make him feel good about himself.  And it just broke my heart because I can’t change that for him.  His life is set at seventeen.  It’s devastating being faced with that everywhere you look, and apart from what I’m already doing, I just don’t know how else to cope.  I can’t walk around being devastated all the time but neither do I want to become desensitised to their plight – and that does seem to be the easiest (and most common) method of dealing with the problem.  I want to find a balance where I’m not just supporting a system that treats other human beings as slaves and ignoring the problem. 

 

On that note, I shall end this ejo with a brief description (by popular demand) of the Arabic hand gesture I referred to in the last post.  And let me add I was the recipient of it whilst out driving again this morning, this time by a man!!

 

Shape your hand by touching all four fingertips to the tip of your thumb, then point that towards your mouth (about 15cm away) and move it rapidly backwards and forwards.  That’s it.  It looks kind of like the gesture for ‘eating’ or an Italian ‘Mamma Mia’ but I’ve only ever seen it where I would expect to see a raised middle finger (and of course that gesture may get you deported apparently).  I have no idea about the origin of the gesture but perhaps it’s a polite way of saying ‘eat my dust’ because right after they do it, they race off at a million miles an hour and leave you in a cloud of dust.

 

PS Since I started this ejo a week or so ago there have been lots of redundancies in the real estate/property development fields but most of these people were overpaid expats anyway.  All the current buildings that have commenced construction will continue to go ahead and I can’t really see an end to the multitude of immigrant employees because they’re so damn cheap and there are so many of them.

 

PPS Thanks to everyone who’s written to me in response to my ejos.  It’s lovely to hear from all my friends and get updates of life back home.