Arabian Winter

With the temperate weather of the winter lamentably behind us, I will share some of the weekend fun had in the dunes with visiting family, friends, and colleagues. In February, my sister's sister-in-law was in the Emirates for a conference and routed the return trip with a weekend visit to me. With a 9am Friday morning arrival, there was little else to do but indulge in a huge brunch at noon and take a dinner desert excursion.

My first taste of these standard excursions was early in my arrival to the region on the first night of Eid Al Fitr in 2009 (see blogpost "Toasting Eid in the Desert"). At that time, one of my colleagues had us do the now-famous "jump shot," into which which I coerced my sister-in-law and her colleagues into compliant submission. The initial response to this exercise is patented...the "subjects" mumble something unintelligible and the body language is one of reluctance lacking enthusiasm. Once a few shots are snapped and images are reviewed, the enthusiasm factor rockets and everyone wants to do it again and again until the perfect shot is snapped. Below see some distinguished US Attorneys and judges perfecting the jump shot:








As the triathlete of the crowd, my sister-in-law was naturally the best jumper!





The standard excursion goes to a location near the Saudi border and a local driver wearing traditional dress picks up the group in town near a supermarket. We ran into the market to ensure we had our soft beverages of choice in his cooler and set off for our adventure. About 40 minutes into the drive, there is a standard stop where the tires have to be deflated to about half because now the driving is in the desert and this is how the tire can "grab" the dune angles. A good driver will take the face of a dune on its side and then slide down the dune as if hydroplaning. And if full entertainment value has been factored, the Beastie Boys are blaring and it's a bit of a show. It was definitely a show to this crowd! Here's one of the camels on display at the tire letdown spot:



Once the sun set, we enjoyed a traditional dinner of lamb, chicken and beef kebabs, cardamom-scented rice, hummus, and bread baked over fire in this camp:



And dusk in the desert is always magical...



Consultants from Europe were invited into my convertible Jeep for a self-guided excursion into the desert with two other local ex-pat colleagues in March, where the jump shot was again met with anemic enthusiasm. Within moments, there was an insatiable need to "perfect" the shot irrespective of the effort required.







And, of course, the cyclist in the group took the jump shot to new heights of expression and excellence:



On this trip we encountered the desert hyacinth in situ, which looked much like a succulent. These flowers dot the landscape where they have self-germinated the winter prior and aren't easy to find.





Once the temporary foreigners cleared out, the resident foreigners headed into the desert regularly on the weekend afternoon to catch sunset from a different vantage point, start a fire (to keep unwanted critters away), and make dinner. There's always something new to see or experience. Here are some snaps of various spots and the "chef" among us, checking the marinated tuna with a headlamp to ensure a rare result in a dune surrounded by basalt and jasper deposited by a river that disappeared a couple million years ago.

Chronology. Who Cares?

It's almost Memorial Day. It's hotter than hell. Again. Ice now included in the washing machine cycle b/c the tap water is too hot. I don't drive to midday appointments away from the office or on the weekends when I can't be sure that I'll secure a covered parking space and prefer to take cabs. I may take slice and bake cookies and place them on my black soft-top roof and see how long it takes for them to bake when it's Ramadan and everything slows to a grinding halt. And it's even hotter!

So I am dreaming of cooler days and nights...such as the mid-December evening the night before I departed for the US for the Christmas holiday. I attended my first wedding at a palace since the bride is a member of the ruling family. Her father's house was the setting for the grand affair but it was actually held in an exquisite tent, erected flush with the side of the house such that I did not notice that it was a temporary structure.

I decided to "go local" and had my hands done. Below is an image from a magazine because I didn't manage to snap a photo of my own hands. I didn't have all my fingers done and once it was Christmas, 10 days later in Miami, my hands looked awful because it was fading badly and no longer "cool." This art form and cultural practice dates back 5000 years because henna is regarded as having blessings and is applied to the hands, feet and the body for good luck and for beauty at celebratory or festive occasions. I sat on a henna-stained vinyl couch with the city's best known henna artists with two barefoot Indian women outlining the pattern I chose - one on either side of me - from little plastic tubes filed with natural henna, blended with eucalyptus and clove oil to enhance the color. Twenty minutes later, a fan was turned on me to set the henna. Thirty minutes later, they scraped it off and applied Vicks Vapor Rub to bring out the color faster because it first looks like a faint orange stain and then matures to a deep brown within 24 hours.



A work colleague picked me up in her Porsche that night and we found the palace with seurity at the gate. Of course, the other ladies in attendance had drivers dropping them at this entrance so my friend dropped me and I waited for her to join me after she found a parking space...one can always note immediately who the westerners are by the "do it yourself" behavior. We presented our elaborate invitations and were shown the entrance to the party. I've never seen such a beautiful space for a wedding....the ceilings seemed to be midnight blue and over each table there was a cascade of individually threaded orchid blooms falling from the light source over the round tables that were mirror tops with only candles on them. "More is more" was not the theme here. We found the sisters of the bride who had invited us and were introduced to their mother. We thanked them all graciously for including us in the beautiful evening.

We enjoyed about nine courses of food that was French-inspired but also Arabic...very eclectic and delicious. The ladies didn't throw money on the runway and the dancers were hired from Morocco. I was told that the male performer was very famous in the Gulf and he was singing "live" in another room because he could not be in the same room as a couple hundred ladies spanning at least four generations without their abayas. There were screens at various points in the large hall where he could be observed.

The groom entered the party with the bride but not before an announcement was made to cover up because he was arriving. It was an extremely memorable night especially in how different it was to the weddings I have attended in hotel ballrooms.

With a few hours sleep, I boarded a very early morning plane for New York and spent a week there seeing friends, attending to tedious personal administration matters, doing last minute shopping, explaining my hands to friends and strangers alike, and generally freezing my ass off.

A week later I was in Miami for Christmas and enjoyed the much anticipated pig roast my brother-in-law prepared while he smoked the Cuban cigars I brought back for him from the Middle East (despite the fact they were manufactured 90 miles away). Here's the chef enjoying a scotch and a smoke while the pig roasts in the "caja China."



The "caja China" is an insulated cooking vessel on wheels where the coals go on the top. When I first looked at the pig, I thought it looked like something one would see on "the Sopranos."




I helped him turn the poor thing and what all Cubans love is the crisply skin, which is cut into squares and called CHICHARRON for guests to pull off with their hands.





Scotch, pork, Christmas....it's all "haram" where I live. It was a great Christmas Eve in Miami!