| The Transformation
Of The UAE |
| What’s
A Poor Camel To Do? |
| 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. |
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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?
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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. |
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| Mail aside,
there are other good reasons for addresses, such as, people have to find
you for deliveries and that sort of thing. After living here for a couple
months, I got into the elevator of my hi-rise apartment along with a Pizza
Hut delivery guy and blurted out, ‘What’s my address?’ He didn’t
know either, but somehow he was delivering a family-size Super Supreme
to my next-door neighbors.
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. |
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Offshore
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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.
.
Mail aside,
there are other good reasons for addresses, such as, people have to find
you for deliveries and that sort of thing. After living here for a couple
months, I got into the elevator of my hi-rise apartment along with a Pizza
Hut delivery guy and blurted out, ‘What’s my address?’ He didn’t
know either, but somehow he was delivering a family-size Super Supreme
to my next-door neighbors.
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. |
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| 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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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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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?
A friend told
me some people keep camels for sentimental reasons, but living in high-rises
as most city dwellers do, a pet camel is not very practical. Of course,
a small number of camels are still used for the ever-dwindling number of
camel races, but other than that, not many people depend on camels for
survival anymore.
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.
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?
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:
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