Burqalicious Read online

  It was nice to meet Heidi after writing for weeks via Facebook. She lives in a mammoth villa in Satwa, which is an older area in the city, some of which actually has pavements for pedestrians and roads with less than six lanes. When we arrived at her place, the maid was leaving. Heidi proudly exhibited her washed, ironed and hung-up clothing collection and announced she hadn’t done any of the above since she moved in. Stacey’s jaw dropped only marginally faster than my own. I imagined my room at the flat I shared with Lucy, the mess spilling over the laundry bin to the point where it was so much a part of the furniture I didn’t even notice it till I ran out of knickers.

  Stacey and I have decided to embark on the flat hunt on our own, once our company-sponsored hotel stay has expired. The price of rent here is shocking, though. Probably more than sharing in central London. We’re hoping to share a room for a while if we can, which will make things cheaper.

  As I’m writing, someone’s just told me that I might not blog again. Ever. I’m feeling a little sick at the thought. Apparently, along with porn and dating sites, anyone with an opinion that might not be appreciated in Dubai is banned from expressing it via TypePad and other popular blog hosts. Facebook is allowed, however, so for now I must turn to writing notes on my favourite blue-and-white buddy. I can tell you now, it’s going to take some getting used to, travelling at the speed of Dubai.

  17/06

  Wanted: One Bacardi with Mexican hat

  It’s becoming glaringly apparent that Stacey and I have indeed landed ourselves in Dubai’s black hole — the quiet, older part of town that’s still semi-stuck in the nineteenth century. The glitzy, glamorous hotels and dazzling nightlife we read about before arriving lie slightly out of reach at the end of an enormous highway. Having thrown ourselves almost immediately into a routine involving our hotel apartment, an office and a deliriously heated walk home, we haven’t seen much of it yet.

  Tonight, I would have killed for a nice cold beer back at the hotel, but there isn’t even a bar. You can’t buy alcohol in Dubai unless it’s in a licensed establishment, and there aren’t really any hotels anywhere nearby that we’ve seen. The days of skipping over to the off-licence for a bargain bottle of cheap merlot, or a cool, inviting can of Stella are over. Stacey and I already both admit we took them for granted.

  Sitting at our computers and emailing each other all day, which has quickly become as routine as complaining about the job we moved here to do (to be honest, it’s dull, monotonous and disappointingly doesn’t appear to involve any proper deputy-type tasks at all), Stacey and I started dreaming of the mini Bacardi I smuggled into the country in my make-up bag. It’s been sitting on one windowsill or another in its little Mexican hat since 2004, and when it came to packing, I couldn’t bear to part with it.

  The time had come, I thought, to tuck in. We’d mix it with some orange juice and break the fast with a nice rummy nightcap. But — and you won’t believe this — on getting back to our apartment, mini Bacardi was missing. He’d gone AWOL. I saw him this morning, I swear. I’d placed him lovingly by the telly opposite the beds, next to a disgusting German aniseed concoction Lucy once brought me back from Hamburg. But when I reached for him, he’d gone.

  The maid must have nicked him. It’s the only explanation. She obviously left the German crap behind because she thought it was some sort of evil medicine, but my beautiful Bacardi baby … she swiped it for herself, to drink, no doubt, in a darkened doorway, or to exchange for a few thousand dirhams in a land where my blessed Mexican rum child is as precious as a newborn baby on the black market. I’m gutted!

  At least he’s gone to a good home, I suppose. At least he’s been enjoyed and appreciated instead of glugged in a last-minute attempt at prolonging a night of inebriated joy. Stacey and I face another night sober, but I suppose I shouldn’t be too annoyed, really. She could have taken my laptop.

  22/06

  Where everybody knows your name …

  Last night, Stacey and I cabbed it to a far more salubrious part of town, right near the Dubai Marina. It’s currently a bit of a crane-filled construction site that happens to overlook a pool of water; a rich man’s yacht-filled extension of the sea surrounded by apartment blocks. According to our guidebooks, behind a beachfront hotel called Le Méridien Mina Seyahi, hid a cocktaillovers’ paradise. We clambered out of the cab in awe of the glistening fairy lights and tottered down the sparkly path towards what was essentially a welcoming Garden of Eden to two Brits in dire need of some sweet intoxication.

  The Barasti bar occupies the space between the hotel and the beach. It sprawls around swimming pools, palm trees, the sandy shore and a host of beds on well-tended grasslands that you’re free to lounge upon at your leisure. In the cooler winter months it’s heaving, apparently, although last night we couldn’t even stand outside without dripping into a Dove-deodorised pool of our own bodily fluids.

  En route to the loo, we kept passing two businessmen who were (quite stupidly) sitting outside at the bar, and with every little trip these guys looked wetter and wetter and wetter. By the end of the night, not only were they slumped in a drunken heap across the bar, one of them was sweating so profusely he looked as though he’d just taken a running jump into the nearby swimming pool. Like a couple of Homer’s slurring friends from The Simpsons, they were getting more and more leery with every journey, and consequently less and less attractive, if that was even possible.

  We met M&M* inside the bar. He’s a great guy with a big smile. A friend of a colleague of mine in London introduced him to me. M&M in turn introduced us to his equally lovely work colleagues, buying us a couple of Coronas each in quick succession as we all chatted underneath the fans. Trying to ignore the beads of sweat sliding down my back beneath my new red TopShop dress, I did my best to focus on the novelty of being bought drinks without having to hint, or buy any first. This kind of thing never happens in London; certainly not in my social circles, at least! To get a drink from a male you barely know, he’s either drunk, or it’s happy hour and your nasty beer only cost him a quid.

  There was no happy hour in Barasti last night. I instantly warmed to this man of apparent power and generosity; so different to me yet clearly thriving in a world I know absolutely nothing about. He chatted with ease and regaled us with tales of his working week that made us laugh out loud (he’s funny too!). In turn, Stacey and I told the group about our experiences in Dubai so far. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ was the general consensus.

  I must mention that last night we also had our first encounter with a bunch of Dubai dickheads — a group of male expats who can’t hold a conversation without interspersing it with how much money they’re making. To top off their charms, they purchased two very expensive bottles of wine ‘to share in their rooftop hot tub’ and took great offence when Stacey and I refused to leave with them and enjoy it. In fact, the way they exited the bar can be described in no other way than in an ‘angry strop’.

  M&M seemed amused. I thought again what a gentleman he was as he saw us into a cab and promised we’d hang out again soon. I hope he means it. Thank Christ there are decent guys here, too. If we hadn’t met M&M in Barasti, I would have been left with a totally different impression of the local talent.

  As it was, it was an awesome night! And as we got our first glimpse of the mighty Burj Al Arab in its nightly display of changing colours, I suddenly felt excited to be in Dubai. It’s been a long time coming but I actually do feel as though I’m going to love this place now!

  27/06

  Arduous treks and torture …

  Getting a cab when we exit work in the evenings is proving impossible. It gets even more difficult as each day passes, in fact. I’m told that expats are moving here in their droves now, clogging up the roads, forcing up the rents, causing whisperings of imposing taxes. I don’t know who these people are, but they ought to be ashamed of themselves. It means Stacey and I can’t get a cab for love nor money, not that we have much of either. />
  Perhaps the cab drivers know us now and take a small pleasure in watching our dripping, bedraggled bodies waving and wavering helplessly and pathetically from the side of the road at the same time every day. I should imagine we’re a bit like one of these giant billboards you find every five feet in these parts, only moving.

  Kids must love us, too. ‘Look, Daddy, it’s the funny wet girls again,’ little Ahmed shrieks as his father frowns, thinking he’s far too young to be announcing such things. And then he spots us himself, sighs momentarily and watches us flop in the wing mirror of his humble Porsche Carrera GT.

  Perhaps as other more fortunate passengers witness us waning from their air-conditioned cabs, they turn the other way, knowing they should stop and let us hop on in, but fearing our persistent perspiration will rub off on them and ruin their perfect journey. I have to say that ever since I moved here, I’ve never felt entirely clean. Stacey and I have taken to stopping midway in our nightly trek in an air-conditioned discount clothing store. Sweat dripping from every pore we peruse the lines in the latest Arabic fashions — umming and aahing in admiration, and then leaving without buying anything.

  I think the shop assistants are getting suspicious now. They’re starting to recognise us. We’re going to have to buy something soon, but that’s OK. Most things are only 25 dirhams, which is about four quid. It’s a fair trade for some cool refreshment, really. And if I get a pair of muslin slacks with detachable belly button ring thrown in, well … all’s fine with me. We really don’t have a choice anyway. By the time we reach this air-conditioned shelter, we’re so hot we’re about to die.

  Which brings me to another point. The labourers here. The city would have us believe Dubai is being built to the skies and out to the surrounding desert sands by Sheikh Mohammed, the man whose face looms over the road on a series of giant billboards. He’s everywhere, and everyone knows him. These self-portrait-style advertisements would, in America, be the kind to shout the services of kooky psychics or lawyers with doublebarrelled surnames. In Dubai, however, it’s the rather catchy title of, ‘His Highness, The Emir Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum; Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ruler of Dubai’ that we’re supposed to remember.

  For all his glory, he’s not building anything himself. Hell, no. The people who are actually building this crazy place are the ones standing by the side of the roads all day long (and not for an hour or so like Stacey and me). It breaks my heart to see them, lining up in their overalls like wilting blue oompa-loompas, waiting for their rickety buses at the end of a ridiculously long shift. They spend all day in this unforgiving heat, lifting, stretching, welding, hammering and braving heights that would make even pilots want to puke, in some cases. I’m told that some of them have to share beds on their labour camps, too, because they work in shifts and this is more economically sound for their employers.

  My co-workers have told me that some get their passports taken away when they arrive. Many were conned into coming here, promised they would earn far more money than they ever dreamed possible in their home countries (mostly Bangladesh or India). When they rock up here, however, they’re told that, hang on, no wait, your wages are far less than that, and you have to give your bed to someone else while you’re at work, too — sorry!

  They’re set to work like slaves. They can’t go home because many of them have sold their land and taken loans in order to pay for their own work visas, which are viewed as tickets to paradise (a bit like my plane ticket when I waved Dubai-bye to the folks at Heathrow). If they try to leave they’ll be chucked into prison until they can pay off their debts, which they clearly can’t do when they’re earning less than they’ve been promised. I’m told that most of these offending companies are government-owned. If the workers were to try and speak out for themselves they’d be told to shut up, basically. There are no human rights laws because profit margins would inevitably be reduced if there were. Slavery’s encouraged here, it seems, and looking at these people … well, I know it’s wrong but I’d rather not.

  It must be about 38 degrees outside at 6 pm, when we set off on our nightly voyage. And it’s dark. It’s annoying and uncomfortable, and yet it’s only a small taste of what these people are enduring in order to earn a pittance and turn this city of dreams into reality. It’s awful, but I find myself looking away. If I look too long, or think too hard, I feel guilty.

  Although it’s a tedious trek, the second leg of our journey is always saved by a certain giant Arab, riding a horse — on a billboard, I might add, about halfway along the Um Zaab’eel Road. It’s one of Sheikh Mohammed’s brothers, I think. The thing is huge and takes up valuable Nike or Coca-Cola space. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s even lit up. It must cost a fortune to keep him there, grinning beneath his keffiyeh, legs wrapped tight around his wild stallion. Of course, I’m not saying there are any metaphors here, or hidden messages to be found in this curious roadside rider, but it certainly stops traffic. Well, foot traffic anyway.

  To think … the most interesting thing on the walk home from my last job was a homeless man wanking off on a bench outside Bethnal Green tube station.

  01/07

  Lunch break, in ten easy steps …

  As is probably becoming apparent, my life and weekday habits are unrecognisable, compared with what they were a few months, even weeks, ago. Lucy emailed, asking whether I’d become a ‘Letterbox’ yet. In truth, I had nothing to say about my clothing for once, besides the fact that I can now wear everything just once before having to wring it out. I find the topic of locating food in the middle of a working day far more interesting to report on. So, in response, I crafted a simple step-by-step guide to illustrate exactly how quickly the monotonous habits of old can change, depending on where you choose to lay your hat and call home.

  Lunch hour in London

  Step 1: Exit office via lift, step onto street outside.

  Step 2: Break into instant goose pimples, folding arms against chest and performing high-pitched brrrrrrrrr noise for added acknowledgement of shitty weather.

  Step 3: Walk/run round corner towards nearest shop featuring predetermined, desired edibles.

  Step 4: Glare at local ‘suits’, all with more money than me.

  Step 5: Peruse the numerous options on offer: sandwich, salad, sushi, burger, chips, quiche, Chinese, Indian, Thai, etc. Make purchase.

  Step 6: Head to TopShop/Zara/Sainsburys/New Look/Accessorize, etc.

  Step 7: Glare at local ‘suits’, all with more money than me.

  Step 8: Spend unjustifiable amount on Visa card just because it’s easy.

  Step 9: Glare at local ‘suits’, all with more money than me.

  Step 10: Head back to office, eat gorgeous, pre-packaged, hunger-busting lunch.

  Lunch hour in Dubai

  Step 1: Exit office via lift, step outside into office car park. Dodge speeding vehicle covered in sand.

  Step 2: Break into instant sweat, flapping arms about to create human fan while feeling the unfortunate fabric under my arms develop sudden wet patch.

  Step 3: Walk round corner towards four-lane motorway, developing instant tan.

  Step 4: Glare at local Arabs, all with more money than me.

  Step 5: Stand at crossing for twenty-five minutes, wondering if a food shop exists among the furniture stores in what was once a barren sprawl of sand dunes across said motorway.

  Step 6: Cross motorway. Discover no shops selling food anywhere, except random, rundown Baskin Robbins and ‘closed’ Indian restaurant.

  Step 7: Glare at local Arabs, all with more money than me.

  Step 8: Spend no money on anything, thanks to having no bank account whatsoever and not really needing a deep scarlet, camel-printed chaise-longue.

  Step 9: Glare at local Arabs, all with more money than me.

  Step 10: Head back to office, narrowly missing desert safari 4x4 collision in car park. Eat another of yesterday’s cheese slices
.

  I think that pretty much sums it up.

  03/07

  Car park wonderland …

  Having listened to our lunch-break woes on finding absolutely nothing food-worthy among the maze of motorways, furniture and carpet stores, the American who sits opposite me in the office kindly informed me that there’s a place downstairs which sells the ‘best samosas in the world’ for one dirham a pop, which in London would be free. Almost. It’s cheap, anyway.

  With hope in our hearts, Stacey and I took the SLIT-ME downstairs. That’s the Slowest Lift In The Middle East, for the uninformed. And it really is. It’s one of those lifts that seems to stop at every floor, even when no one gets in or out, and when people do get in it’s always at the last minute. Consequently the doors shut halfway and then slam back again as a little hand reaches through, frantically grabbing air as you roll your eyes, tutting. Annoying.

  Anyway, we finally got downstairs and in spite of following his directions found nothing except even more furniture shops. There must be about six on the ground floor around a giant car park and they’re always void of people except for a gaggle of Arabic men perched on stools in the doorways, waiting to sell you a bed the size of your grandmother’s entire living room. There were no food shops that we could see. We asked one of the men, who then stood up and led us into the blistering heat of the car park, towards what turned out to be a coffee shop shrouded in green plants and flowers. How mysterious. He then disappeared, leaving us to push the door open and tentatively step inside.

  The sight was breathtaking. We took what little breath we could through the cloud of shisha smoke that slammed our faces. All around us sat Arabs in traditional whites, puffing on pipes, shovelling food into their mouths from giant steaming plates, watching cricket. They ignored us, even as we stared like two white rabbits caught in the lights of a mesmerising wonderland.