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July 2005 Part of the charm of living in old world Arabia is the hours spent haggling in the crooked, narrow alleys of the old souks where you’ll be offered a stout Turkish coffee and interesting conversation that leaves both people smiling. Then off you go to the fish market, where the Gulf shrimp are so fresh and delicious, you’ll kiss your fingertips. Next stop is the fruit and veg souks where produce is squeezed then bagged at a mere fraction of grocery store prices. But the recent announcement of the demolition of Abu Dhabi’s souks is bringing this way of life to an abrupt end. Typical of the warp speed transformation of the UAE, the souks are being replaced with shopping malls. Hundreds of marginalized workers are unemployed. They are out of a job and I am without an address. Imagine, if you can, an entire country without street addresses. I’ve heard that Napoleon established the street number system in Europe. I don’t know if that is true, but I accept it at face value. So, without street addresses, how can they possibly manage to deliver mail? The short answer is they don’t. You want mail; you go get mail at a post office box. Well, that certainly simplifies things for the postal system. No hassling with unions or uniforms, no dealing with fussy mailbox specifications, no listening to customer complaints about delivery delays.

In countries without house numbers, people rely on landmarks for what we know back home as addresses. They use whatever structure is nearby: the clock tower or the Lexus showroom building. Lucky me. The landmark closest to my place is the fish market. Had I only known when I selected my elegant hi-rise apartment with the stupendous view of the Gulf. Although, as my friend Trudy says, it could be worse…I could be living near the slaughterhouse. 

With the exception of street addresses, the face of the UAE is changing. Anyone who imagines camels when they think of the Arabian Gulf state of the United Arab Emirates is very out-of-date. A couple decades ago, the UAE was a sparsely populated desert and camels were a legitimate form of transportation, meat, milk and shade.  Shade! In survival terms, they were the desert version of the buffalo. And not unlike the buffalo, camels may end up on the endangered species list, relegated to zoo-like existences, which is no way to pay back dedicated and loyal service to humankind.
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Oil was discovered in the early 1970’s in the UAE just at the time the country was being formed. Add a visionary President and presto! Its skyscrapers and seven star hotels are everywhere you look. Although, in outlying areas you can still get an idea of what the country was like before. Nothing but sand and more sand. Sometimes a sand storm. But if you’re lucky…... On the road to Dubai, we spotted them and slammed on the brakes for a photo op. Dozens of freely roaming camels in all sizes but only one shape. One hump, if you please. Ignoring us, they went about their business snarfing up scruffy plants. How anything grows in a country where it never rains is a mystery to me, but I digress.  During the past few years, the UAE has earned a reputation for being a glamorous destination.  World-class tennis matches. The world’s richest horse race. Shopping malls so gargantuan that even my sister, Laura, would wear out. Far-out technology and award winning architecture. Where do camels fit into this picture?

With luck, we happened to stumble onto the last camel race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Entrance is free, but all bets are off. Muslims do not gamble. Otherwise, camel racing is pretty much like horseracing. They line up, someone makes a loud noise, and off they go. We didn’t really catch all that was happening, mostly because we don’t understand Arabic, but as he called the race, the commentator grew very excited, so even we knew things were heating up. Every now and then, he shouted ‘hubba, hubba, hubba,’ which means; well, I have no idea what it means in Arabic. 

As camels go, your typical zoo-camel looks goofy and does little else. Put a camel on a racetrack and you see a completely new animal. Camels actually run on those spindly legs and they look like prehistoric animals when they do because they run with their necks stretched out parallel with the ground, giving them a very un-camel like appearance. Even walking, camels look strange because they move both legs on one side of the body, then their legs on the other side. This is an animal I have ignored in zoos my entire life, but since living here, I have grown to appreciate the contribution these creatures have made to sustain life in inhospitable conditions for thousands of years. 

First myth out of the way is the camel’s hump is not filled with water, but instead, it’s filled with fat. As the camel dehydrates and goes without food during long desert treks, the fat nourishes the camel and in so doing, the hump shrinks to the point where it deflates. As deprivation continues, the hump hangs over the side of its back and this is the signal your camel is in a desperate situation. Hopefully by then, the camel reaches an oasis and after a short rest, the hump plumps back up. Marvelous, really.
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It’s no secret that camel racing has been the subject of recent controversy, as young boys from poor countries were being used as camel jockeys.  Apparently, there were some programs on American television and reports by non-governmental organizations saying these children were being badly mistreated and held prisoners. They made it sound like children were being snatched out of Cub Scout meetings and smuggled into the country in potato sacks. I don’t have first hand information to refute that, but news reports on this end told a different story. Sad as it is, in neighboring, over-populated countries where poverty is unimaginable and people are literally starving to death, it is not unheard of for a parent to sell a child to feed the other six. In any event, the issue is now resolved. The child jockeys returned to their home countries to face the hunger and homelessness they had just escaped. I don’t know how they felt about it, but I can imagine some of them did not look forward to the trip.  Without lightweight jockeys to ride these creatures with the fragile legs, will the camel’s remaining service to humankind, that of camel racing, become a thing of the past? Not quite so fast - this is just in: robots will ride the camels in next season’s races. Robot jockeys!  Curiosity alone is bound to revive camel racing for at least a season or two. From a remote control device, does the operator push a lever to make the jockey whip the camel harder or throw up its little robot arms in victory?

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The good news for the region is the unprecedented speed of its economic development, but in so doing, the need for camels disappears. The camel simply has no reason for being. What happens when working animals become useless? For those creatures too big and ugly to be taken in as pets, do they just die out? One thing is clear: now that everything’s mechanized in the UAE, including the jockeys, the camel’s future is shaky at best.  Camels just don’t fit into the scheme of advanced development.

The following are Bonnie's previous articles for the magazine:

Life In Abu Dhabi ~ In The UAE 
Living Abroad On Bush Dollars ~ Sinking Dollar
Swiss Rental Cows ~ Get Your Own Cow .
Prehistoric Underpants - The Iceman Of Bolzano, Italy
Retire In A Wealthy Nation ~ Switzerland ~ By Bonnie Burns
My Swiss Bank Affair ~ Opening An Account
First Read Manufacturer's Instructions - Moving Day In Switzerland
Thanksgiving In Switzerland ~ Turkey Day
Christmas In Zurich - New Toys And Old

To contact Bonnie Click Here
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