Khalid Seeks a Wife

Khalid is looking for a wife. I find this out when I ask him if he has his own place, only to uncover a world with echoes of Jane Austen…

“Why would I have my own place while I’m still single? Here, we live with our parents until we get married.”

What age do guys get married, then?

“Twenty eight.”

And how old are you?

“… Twenty eight.”

Ah. So, you’re under some pressure…
Actually, he was joking with me: guys usually get married between 22 and 30 years old here.

Do you have a girlfriend, at least, I ask. 
“We don’t have girlfriends.” 
And, it’s not easy to meet girls; single men and women don’t mix socially. Even our lunch cafeteria has a separate table for women-only. Although, due to the mix of cultures, foreign travel, and Western influence in UAE, a lot of men do have relationships with women, Emirati and non-local, but in secret.

So, how do you meet girls?

“You get your female relatives to look for you. My sisters are out there, although I don’t trust all of them to pick wisely. There have been a couple of girls I've seen that I liked: I found out their names and got one of my sisters to research: 'Typical for you Khalid; you picked married ones,' she said.”

Can’t you use Facebook?

“Well women don’t post their picture on Facebook in our society, so it’s not a lot of help.”

Often, one of his sisters will invite a girl for coffee in a local mall and Khalid will go there covertly so that he can at least take a look at her. Some mothers are on the look out for schemes like this though, and won't allow it. In order to meet her and have a discussion, he may have to get engaged.

Dubai Mall 'Diving Men' Sculpture

‘My sister has found someone that sounds really good,’ he said to me one day; she may be the one. She is taking her to the mall on Saturday afternoon.”

But, when I saw him the following Sunday, he looked unhappy: “Another of my sisters showed up as well and she brought her two young children with her. They spotted me immediately and ran up; “Uncle Khalid, Uncle Khalid.” My cover was blown.

This is not an arranged marriage. Neither party is forced to tie the knot. Sometimes they have quite a long engagement, as they get to know each other, before making the decision to marry. It’s the initial meeting that seems difficult.

A couple of weeks ago Khalid was going to a wedding. Now there’s a perfect opportunity for you to meet girls, I said, as we shared lunch. But no; men go to a wedding feast, …just for men. 

At the end of the evening, most of the men leave; then, the groom’s immediate family (father & brothers usually) take the groom to the women’s wedding, place him on a throne next to his bride, and leave him there…

"My sisters are starting to despair of me; I haven't liked any of the girls they've found - they're beginning to think I don't want to get married..."

Link: Girls_of_Riyadh  is a book about looking for a husband in Saudi Arabia. It relates the trials of engagements and marriages, from a women's point of view. UAE is not Saudi, but there are similarities. Worth a read.

The Expat Bubble

I like to go for a walk in the morning; early, when the day is at its coolest. The only people around at that time are maids. I know they’re maids, not just because they are almost all Filipino, but they all call me ‘sir’.

“Morning sir,” ...and they say it like I’m taking attendance in a Grade 5 classroom; polite and practiced.

We've never had a maid in Calgary, Canberra or Cardiff (may I add at this point that we don’t have one here!), yet a lot of people, the majority maybe, have one here; some have a nanny as well. The houses are all built with a maid’s room – a small bedroom with a washer & dryer installed and a toilet with shower off to the side, often under the stairs. Every morning I see them washing the family car, walking the dog, going to the corner store, or even at 6:30 in the morning playing with a small child in the grass. And, I didn’t mention the pool boys and gardeners…

Mall of the Emirates - Luxury Brands

A friend of mine said: ”We live in an Expat bubble.” Expat means ‘voluntarily working away from their home country’ and the maids are expats too, but the term is generally understood to mean Westerners. We live in our air-conditioned apartments or villas, drawn in by our huge Western-style malls; shopping at UK or US –stocked supermarkets with their non-Muslim sections (ham, bacon, sausages and other foods we can’t live without), and nearby liquor stores supplying beer, wine and spirits from all over the world. And, with our servants…

Dubai Mall - Fashion Show

When you go to the supermarket a guy takes your cart from you at the checkout and puts the food on the conveyor belt. Then he packs your bags, puts them back in the trolley, and takes them to your car – just try and stop him! All for a modest tip.

If you want to eat out, there are wonderful licensed restaurants in the Western hotels (Rotana, Crowne Plaza, Hilton, Radisson); so many to choose from.

Grand Mosque from Shangri-La

I took Carol for dinner at the Emirates Palace Hotel. You drive up the ramp into a courtyard. As soon as you bring the car to a standstill you are surrounded by uniformed staff that open the doors for you to step out then valet your vehicle away before you’ve even stepped into the hotel. This hotel is more opulent than most but the same principles of service apply at most of them. See the links below.

Our personal favourite is the Shangri-La. We both agree that our best meal ever was in the Pearls and Caviar restaurant there. This is set on an island behind the hotel sitting across the water from the Grand Mosque. As soon as they valet your car, a driver takes you from the courtyard to the restaurant, by golf cart…

Then, at the end of each day the maids gather in the park in small groups, with or without ‘their’ children and dogs, to grab a bite and share news of home.

http:/www.kempinski.com/en/abudhabi/emirates-palace/welcome/

http://www.shangri-la.com/abudhabi/shangrila/

https://www.jumeirah.com/en/hotels-resorts/dubai/burj-al-arab/

Lobby of the Emirates Palace Hotel

Bedouin Hospitality

We were only taking a shortcut to the beach… On a weekend break along the coast of Fujairah we found ourselves in a housing estate; the outside walls of the houses were spectacular. I got out and took pictures.

Front wall of house on Fujairah Coast

An Arabic man drove up and stopped: “What are you taking photos of?” 

The houses and walls; they are so spectacular, I told him. 

“Really?”

We drove off, but he followed beeping his horn and flashing his lights. We stopped and Carol lowered the window. “Would you like to see inside one?” he said.

‘Well, yes, we'd love to,’ Carol replied.

“Because this is mine, right here – please come in.”

The Bedouin are famous for their hospitality. As the explorer Wilfred Thesiger wrote: Even though starving, they would give their last food to strangers who came to visit, making sure they’d had enough before they ate themselves (see link below).

 Hand Painted Ceiling

Leaving our shoes by the door, we followed him through the main entrance into the foyer where, removing his headdress, he offered us a seat on one of several sofas. He called out to the maid ‘tea for the guests’, and introduced himself as Hassan. His sister joined us and then his mother. Carol and I speak no Arabic and they spoke only limited English making for an awkward start until his wife Ayesha arrived – she spoke English well.

Ladies Lounge

The women all wore brightly coloured clothes, not the traditional Emirati outdoor wear of black gown (abaya) and scarf (shelagh), although their hair was covered.

Eventually the tea was ready and we were ushered in to a lounge where the maid served us cups of tea, glasses of water and small sweets. They offered us lunch but we’d eaten so we declined; they didn’t join us but sat and watched. This made us self-conscious about which hand to use or whether we’d drop the china cups on the beige carpet.

The lounge was brightly coloured with an elaborate hand-painted ceiling. This is my house, Hassan said, and you may photograph anything you wish… except the ladies, of course. Of course, I said, knowing it’s a definite ‘no no’ to photograph women in the Arab world.

Men's Lounge

Hassan’s father called out from a room at the back. ‘He’s insisting we give you more food and orange juice, as a gift from him,’ Ayesha said. The maid brought orange juice and we drank it. They’d been to Europe she said but never Canada and listened in disbelief as we described the cold.

‘Did you want pictures of our house because you are building one?’ No, I explained, the houses here are very different from those at home; and very beautiful.

As we got up to leave, Hassan’s father Ali appeared: he wanted his picture taken with me.

Hassan took us through the rest of the main floor as we left. We realized we’d been hosted in the ladies lounge as we entered the men’s lounge on the other side of the foyer. This was a larger room in more conservative colours (greens and browns) and it had its own entrance, to the side of the main entrance: ‘so male guests can enter the house without disturbing the ladies’. Behind this was the dining room; Emiratis sit on the floor to eat; cushions set around the outside walls. I’ve eaten a meal like this and it’s no picnic!

We thanked them for their generosity and promised we’d call on them again if we returned to the area.

My friend Mohamed said: "I'm so glad there are people still inviting strangers into their house; with so many outsiders in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, I was afraid this tradition had died."

http://www.amazon.com/Arabian-Penguin-Classics-Wilfred-Thesiger/dp/0141442077

Fujairah Sunset - over the Gulf of Oman