this emirati life

Things are going to be slow at the office this week with ramadan wearing people out and Eid about to start next week. There was a lot of chit chat today, and I found out some interesting things.

First, it's almost impossible for a westerner to meet an emirati family. The women are kept more or less locked up. There is a separate entrance in every house for men and women. Even siblings are separated when they turn 13. Some emirati girls sneak out and try to have dates with boys. If they are caught (there are special police patrolling the corniche, a popular area that runs along the sea) they are arrested and put in jail. Most emiratis have arranged marriages, and the potential groom will normally send his sisters to the house of the girl he might be marrying, and they check her out for him. It's very expensive to get a divorce here, but if you are caught having an affair both people are killed (men usually by hanging, and women by stoning). And an emirati woman who marries a foreigner loses her emirati benefits (they get housing and health care), but the same does not happen to an emirati man if his spouse converts to islam and becomes a UAE citizen.

Second, playing chess is considered haram, or, forbidden. This is because some imams think it takes away from time that is supposed to be spent praying.

Third, it is an accepted thing that most pakistani men have, um, relationships with other men. Almost everyone I work with, except for the frog, are pakis, and they discuss this as if they are talking about the weather. I was pretty shocked to hear that homosexuality is rife in the pakistani community because it's illegal in UAE and punishable by jail or removal from the country. But the pakis were like whatever, what's the big deal? That conversation started because the frog told me that I shouldn't take taxis after 10 pm, and that if I did, not to get into a taxi driven by a paki because he might abduct me (one thinks this is wishful thinking on the part of the frog). The pakis jumped in and said "oh no, they only do that to boys".

Fourth, since everything is supposed to be bigger and better in the UAE, I get special attention because 1. I have the biggest hair (which currently looks like a 70s afro) and 2. I'm the tallest person in the office. One of the retired generals who now work in my space came over during this part of the conversation and asked me how tall I was (the height conversation started because I said I thought a taxi driver wouldn't abduct me because I'm too big) and then he said "you must be at least 6 feet tall". Figuring his grasp of english measurement was equivalent to my grasp of the metric system I said "no, I'm only 5'8"". A short silence ensued, and then the general said "You must be at least 6 feet tall, because I am 5'8" (he's 5'4")". Realizing what I had said embarrassed him I admitted that yes, I am 5'8". Now everyone is calling me "the amazon".

Fifth, when I was commenting on the fact that UAE was able to build a metro in less than two years, but at a huge cost, when they have not provided public transportation to anywhere else in the country, I was told "yeah, sheik [one of the sheiks in charge of UAE] had a temper tantrum because he wanted a train, so they built one". UAE is one of the few countries I've visited with no bus service between cities. If you want to go to a remote part of the country, your only option is to rent a car (which has it's own dangers as rentals here are renowned for being unreliable and breaking down in the middle of the desert). There is a bus that goes from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, but there's no station for it, it's always crowded, and there is no set schedule for it.

And, about the metro, it opened Wednesday. There is a gold class car that is supposed to be like business class on a plane (considering the entire metro line only takes 45 minutes to traverse, that seems a bit over the top). There were technical difficulties that caused huge delays because the emiratis riding the trains (which are computer controlled and have no driver) kept pushing the emergency button and stopping the trains. The paper yesterday had a huge article that people would be fined the equivalent of $200 for doing that.

Sixth, the worst thing you can do in UAE is run a red light. In fact, my colleague AH said "You can kill someone here, but don't run a red light". I looked this up on line and it's true. There's a huge fine and jail time because of the potential that you could have caused an accident or a death, even if you didn't.

If you kill someone here you can pay the family blood money (what ever amount they think the life of the person you've killed was worth) and then you don't even have to go to jail. This is especially true in the case of women. Most killings here are kept out of the press unless the case is so high profile that the public has found out about it.

And, finally, this (http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090912/MAGAZINE/709119988):

Muslims are extra careful when dealing with fruits and vegetables mentioned in the holy Quran because we consider them very healthy and respect their holistic qualities. When eating a pomegranate we make sure to not drop any seed on the ground or forget it on the plate because one could be the seed that blesses us to go to heaven. The heavenly paradise of the Quran describes four gardens with shade, springs and fruits — including the pomegranate, which, legend has it, contains a seed that has come down from paradise.