Last Day in Abu Dhabi
Trip Start
Mar 23, 2008
1
4
Trip End
Mar 2008
Abu dhabi,
United Arab Emirates
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Club was much the same as it was on Monday. Not much progress on the building work and bulldozers lay sleeping alongside more fat white people. Although a stunning slender brown person came and sat next to me. Me and my companion tried to work out whether she was trying to make herself "look good", or was she perhaps a lipstick lesbian or a pickpocket? Either way it was quite unexplainable why she would have chosen to stretch out her fine form alongside three noisy children when there was at least a hundred other empty sunbeds to choose from. She smiled her pretty smile a lot at me, so I concluded that she had mistaken me for someone famous and smiled back.
My companion and I had the burkha/hijab conversation again. She was very convincing and won the argument on her use of "dogma", but I always feel pleased at being able to articulate at least the other side of the argument a little. I do have a friend who took up the veil and spoke often of how it liberated her. I told my hostess about this, and the African tribes things, but she was having none of it. She won the debate fair and square I think with her view that it wasnīt essentially not for a woman to take on the responsibility of manīs desire. Fair point. I had a glass of wine to celebrate.
Actually walking later in the day I saw a burkha clad being and was SURE it was a man. Something about the gait, that betrayed the maleness. Also the fact that it was hailing a taxi seemed rather contrary to what I had been led to believe. And big hands. It had big manly hands. Could this be the evidence of the terrorist hot bed that I have been looking for? I am reliably (?) told that criminals in the UK are using burkhas to conceal stolen goods. Imagine. I always used a raincoat with sewn in pockets - just think what you could stash in a burkha? Just more anti burkha propaganda I think (I say this despite being persuaded today that said garment IS the work of the devil).
Taking of the work of the devil. In todayīs Gulf News there was an article on how several "foreign" women had confessed to witchcraft and were being suitably punished by the Emirati authorities. Apparently they were begging and knocking on peoples doors asking for money.....clearly the habits of a witch if ever I saw them. This place is getting odder and more intriguing for sure.
Apart from the male with the veil, our walk this evening was fairly unremarkable. I found a newspaper and bought the kids some luminous pop and chatted as much as polite society would allow to the Asian shopkeepers. There seems to be lots of tailoring shops around here and motor spares shops (I mentioned Baghdad Motors more than once I think). Not two industries that you would think naturally sat together well (unless you want fitted seat covers for your Hummer). Only Ahma Opticals stood out as being different next to Al Zeen Tyres and Said Abad Tailoring.
This evening the whole bunch of us together with a friend (who was clearly not enjoying living in the UAE very much) went for supper. It was another buffet occasion of Asian persuasion. The kids loved it and I marvelled at our British-ness as ALL FOUR adults present witnessed a cockroach making itīs way across the salad bar and shrugged our shoulders and mumbled in a frankly embarrassed way "oh....I think it will probably be alright". Being the canny lass that I am I went for the hot food (itīs what it says to do in guide books), but the others crunched into their salads in a very on-the-edge fashion I thought. Respect.
So, a good last night in Abu Dhabi. In good company, drinking good wine and with a warm evening stroll across a very civilised city. Sometime soon I may write about my uneventful journey home (or I may not of course). You can bet I will be back on line, however to record my impending visits to Ethiopia and Sudan (France I will keep to myself if you donīt mind).
