Luxury,
Good Humor.
A Sudden Furlough Prompts
a Trip to the Oasis City.
The Fifth Letter
By Jack G. Vines
DATELINE:
Tuesday, April 2, 2003.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
The mercury hit 100+ over the past few days. My students were joking with me today when they said I would be able to see smoke over Abu Dhabi Bay from the war in Iraq. Well, I saw no smoke.
I suspect they were playing an April Fool's Day joke one day late. Arabs have a great sense of humor.
The other day I had all of my students take off their watches. We placed them in a pile. Then I wrote the total value of the watches on the board. Talk about luxury: one student had a twelve-thousand U.S. dollar watch! Altogether we had about twenty-thousand dollars worth of watches. I suggested that we sell them and send the money to the Iraqi people. No one responded.
Emiratis have a luxurious lifestyle and want nothing to interfere with that!
A Loophole
in the Religious Clause.
A factoid: Muslim men, or at least Gulf Arab men, can't wear jewelry. It is deemed to be sinful. There is a loophole in this religious clause, however, allowing the men here to spend large sums of cash on ballpoint pens, mobile telephones, and watches.
My office has just received a one-week furlough. The higher-ups are calling it "staff week." Who knows? The military may be reevaluating the situation in the Emirates and the Gulf Region. To date, I've seen no visual signs of anti-Imperialism. (Did I say that? I must have meant no signs of anti-American, anti-British sentiment.)
The Emirati people love their way of life — believe me, it is luxurious. Expensive watches make up a small portion of the elaborate signs of wealth.
I Plan to Visit the Oasis.
I plan to travel to the border of the United Arab Emirates during my "staff week" and cross over to visit the Sultanate of Oman and the Oasis City of Al Ain.
Al Ain is a true oasis in the center of the desert. It is also famous as the birthplace of His Highness Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, ruler of the UAE.
I guess the amazing fact is that although Al Ain sits at the edges of the Empty Quarter, an area of dunes between the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it is so lush and green. Most of the well-to-do families from the UAE live there.
A Desert Land Similar to Arizona.
From Al Ain I plan to tour the Sultanate of Oman, a desert land with terrain very similar to that of Arizona, USA. Moreover, Oman still maintains close ties with its colonizer, the British. Last year there were about thirty thousand Brits stationed there. The numbers are even larger today. Just last week the Omani-Emirati border was closed at the request of Sultan Qaboos, the ruler of Oman.
It is my understanding that security is extremely high in Oman right now, a state of readiness that must be directly related to the presence of so many British (and possibly American) soldiers. I have also been told that a large number of warships are stationed off the Sultanate's Coast. This most likely means that tomahawk missiles are flying over my head in the UAE to hit Iraq.
As I write, all is quiet in Abu Dhabi. Al Jazeera television continues to broadcast very graphic images of dead Iraqi women and children. They also show a fair share of dead coalition fighters. Death all 'round. My summary: All the news sucks. I avoid it.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Mr. Vines is an instructor for the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. He has worked in Abu Dhabi since July 2001. Not yet thirty, he has also taught in Japan. We would tell you more about him, but it just wouldn't be prudent.
You can communicate with Mr. Vines by E-mail
through the webmaster at threadspinner@corndancer.com
*This is the logical next step
toward the NEW World Order.
Step Four: *Your exclamations tossed like missiles o'er the level shore!
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