Open Doors

And just another picture of downtown San'a.  I was wandering through the streets snapping pictures of doors.  I'm sure that there are deep psychological reasons why doors, and for that matter bridges, fascinate me, and eventually I'll include a post devoted to them (the doors, not the roots of my own subconscious hell).  Beyond the psychoanalytical door that it will open into my tortured psyche, I can also tell you that I just really loved the very distinctive knockers.  I looked for one to buy at the various markets in the souq, but, not surprisingly, they were all attached to doors, as they doubtless had been for centuries.  Anyway, as I was snapping away this gentleman came up and asked if I wanted to take his picture next to the door.  Well, he didn't really know that much English, so the conversation was carried out mainly through sign language.  Often overseas, most notably in India or Egypt, when I've been in similar situations it was the precursor to a request from some tout for me to pay a fee for the right to have taken their picture (even if they initiated the exchange).  This just felt different, and it was.  I've made the point before that I thought the Yemenis were the nicest people I had ever met overseas, and this was just another example.  Apparently he just saw that I was taking pictures and thought that I needed some help.  After I took the picture, and showed it to him, he just smiled, waved and went on his merry way.  A silly story, but just another example to show how often the doors are open, even for Americans in the Middle East.

It Ain't Easy Seeing Green

Blame this posting on Andy Burkhardt.  He sent me that lovely picture of Vermont and now he has me craving green.  The Emiratis, bless them, do try really hard (probably too hard) to promote pretty flowering vegetation, but, well, we are in the desert.  It's hot - 114 the other day - and only going to get hotter, and drier.  Over the weekend we had our first sandstorm in around a month and a half.  All of this brought me back to verdant Zanzibar, so here's a picture of a walkway through the mangrove swamp.

We'll return to the swamp later for a discussion of popobowas and voodoo midgets.

Inertia

Here's a really interesting article by Sean O'Driscoll in the Abu Dhabi 7 Days.  It brings up some really insightful and important points in regards to employment and perception among young Emiratis.  What jumped out to me was the thought that maybe the Emiratis, much like the Americans, are a victim of their own success.  In the fall semester I constantly tweaked my students with the notion that the US is actually the 8th emirate, or that maybe the UAE is the 51st state.  In all sorts of odd ways we are more alike than most folks would ever imagine.

Wages Are Not Enough To Get Youth Working:

Young people in UAE demand big bucks for private sector jobs

Working for a firm in the private sector would be "stupid" and expats "cannot be trusted."  Just some of the views of Emiratis interviewed in a new study into the attitudes of young UAE nationals towards working in the private sector. Young people like these male graduates represent a big bottleneck in the UAE economy, according to the study.

Ninety-eight per cent of Emiratis have government jobs and the pay and working conditions are so good that few want to work for private companies.  It is, according to the new study by researchers from the Business and Economics facility of UAE University in Al Ain, almost impossible for private companies to match the pay of government jobs.

This is a problem the UAE government has been seeking to correct for some time.  A few months ago, it held a jobs fair in Abu Dhabi in an attempt to wean Emiratis off the massive and costsly government sector.  Not only is it a big drain on the public purse, it's also stifling the UAE's ability to compete - where are the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the UAE going to come from if Emiratis are far happier in comfortable government jobs?

The UAE University research, funded by the Emirates Foundation, found that young Emiratis had huge salary expections and their view of what they should earn in companies was "unrealistic at best."  Thirty percent of them expect a salary of Dhs 25,000 (gs - $6806 per month; $81,672 per year) or more, while another 10 per cent expect a whopping Dhs 35,000 (gs - $9259 per month; $114,348 per year) to Dhs 50,000 (gs - $13,612 per month; $163,344 per year) per month.

The survey of 30 Emirati men and 30 Emirati women aged 18 to 23 (average age 21) found that they had "uncompromising" views on working for private companies, which one young woman said would be "signing my death warrant" because of the longer working hours and lower pay than in government jobs.

The authors recommend a better balance between government and private sector wages to encourage young Emiratis to try working for private companies.

One male graduate quizzed in the study said he thought it was his right to have a well-paid job.  He said, "We are a rich country - thank God - and the government pays well because it can afford to do so.  "It is our right as nationals to have jobs that pay so well."

So what do Emiratis think of the research?  Is it fair and do they want to change the system?  "It's true and there needs to be change for boys," says Amina Al Suwaidi who has one boy and one girl, both under the age of five.  "The boys need to be pushed into the private sector and come up with new things, new ideas.  But for my daughter, like all mothers here, I want her to have a good company job so she will not be under pressure and can look after her own children." 

So the report is accurate?  "Yes, it is time for change, but not for the girls," she said.  "They need more time off and more stability so that their children are not raised by maids.  But for the boys, it is time to take over and learn new things.  Change there can only be a good thing."

Thinking of Vermont

I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing for Zayed University and the time I've spent here in the UAE, but I'd also be lying if I said that I'm not getting homesick for Vermont.  It was made even worse (better) by an email and picture that my friend Andy sent me this weekend.  Here's a picture that he snapped from the top of Buck Mountain during a hike he took with the excellent Heidi.  That view is very representative of Vermont, and also just about the complete antithesis of Abu Dhabi.  I'm down to less than three months until I fly out. and I can't wait to get back.

The view from Buck Mountain, and a hike I need to take as soon as I get back.

Zanzibar Slave Monument

I'll have more to say about my visit to the remains of the old Zanzibar slave market later on.  In the meantime I just wanted to post a couple pictures that I took of the slave monument outside the remaining holding cells.  It's very simple, but it's one of the most moving monuments I've ever seen.  At the time, I was really saddened by the fact that there was actually some trash inside the monument itself.  Because it's located on the grounds of a church, and because of the sombre nature of the subject, the monument itself almost felt sacred and thus the trash defiled it.  Thinking back on it, however, maybe the trash was more appropriate.  A spotless, glossy monument would have "sanitized" the slave trade, and Zanzibar's role in it, and that might have been a greater defilement.

Minaret

Over the years I'd hate to think of how many pictures I've taken of mosques.  Mainly I love their simplicity, although some of definitely more ornate than others.  Here's a picture of a minaret at the little mosque across the street from my hotel in San'a.  I guess I'm posting it because it gives a clear sense of the building material of ancient San'a, but also because it's so rare to get a shot looking down at a minaret.  In the old days a muezzin would have stood in the minaret and called the faithful to worship.  As you can see, while the muezzin is still live, his voice is now augmented by loud speakers.  Since there are so many mosques in most Islamic cities, and slightly different perceptions of when the five calls to prayer are supposed to get started (which may be caused by nothing more than simple variations in clocks), they usually end up starting at different times and the sound builds and rolls across the city.  The popular perception is that all life stops in the Middle East when the call to prayer begins, but more often than not the normal flow of life continues on uninterrupted (at least externally).  As we've discussed before, this is also impacted by country, city vs countryside, time of day, and day of the week.  I've included a link to a video of a recording of the call to prayer that I often show my students, partially because it is beautiful and partially because it includes some great pictures.  You can shut it off around half-way through, however, because the music starts, which is pretty but also obviously not authentic to the actual experience.

Bilqis

Here's a, sadly blurry, picture of a painting that hung in my hotel room in San'a.  Now, this may seem like an odd choice for a conservative Islamic country, but not if you know that subject of the painting.  This is the legendary Queen of Sheba, of Old Testament, New Testament (sort of), Quranic and Ethiopian folklore fame.  While the stories surrounding her vary, they agree in that she is historically tied to Solomon; although that ranges from some measure of infatuation between monarchs that is told in the Old Testament version to the Quranic sura telling of how she accepted monotheism after meeting Solomon.  In the Old Testament she doesn't even have a name other than the Queen of Sheba, but in the Arabic tradition she's known as Bilqis (pronounced something like Belkees).  Actually, and not surprisingly, we don't really know a lot about her, even down to the actual location of her kingdom.  Most people know of the Ethiopian connection, and that the Ethiopian royal family claimed its descent from her union with Solomon.  What is less well known is that the Yemenis make a similar claim, and one which I think has recently gained more historical credence.  Allegedly her state was centered around the Yemeni city of Mareb, which is often described as somewhere between "otherworldly" and "spooky", and not someplace that Americans could really visit today.  This, of course, makes me want to go all the more.

"I found there a woman ruling over them and provided with every requisite; and she has a magnificent throne."
Quran 27: 23