Dressing Up In Abu Dhabi

My new favorite dress is one my dear Emirati friend (called Sunshine here) picked out for me. Actually Sunshine picked it out for herself, but it "needs a taller person," she said as she handed it to me in a shop in Abu Dhabi the other day.

It is a clingy, short-sleeved, knit dress in pink, black, and white. It has a deep v-neck in front and back, and it goes to the knee. Much sexier than my usual style. I could easily imagine an Emirati lady wearing this dress with her female friends; the women of the Gulf whom I've met are deeply feminine and stylish and love to dress up. But I wasn't sure I had the nerve to wear this kind of dress in my mixed-gender social gatherings.

Now our cultural style differences were confronting me head-on.

"I think it's too small," I said.

"Try it on," she said. Sunshine was covered -as usual when in public - in one of her elegant black abayas and shaylas.

I did. The dress was lovely, but I couldn't see wearing it further than my living room: it hugged my torso like a super-long girdle. The deep v-neck seemed to show more of me than any bathing suit I'd ever owned.

I opened the dressing-room door just a crack to show Sunshine, who was waiting patiently. She looked me over with her lovely dark eyes.

"Beautiful. Buy it," she said.

I bought it, not wanting to hurt Sunshine's feelings. But I'm glad I did: I wore it last night, to a fancy cocktail party on the water at a beautiful Abu Dhabi hotel. It was a perfect evening, weatherwise, and noone seemed scandalized by my attire, be he Emirati or westerner.

In the end, it seemed the perfect dress for a party in a cosmopolitan city.

Perhaps I'm advancing from merely admiring the stylish people around me to gaining the confidence to be stylish myself. The Abu Dhabi adventure continues.

Different Customs at the Clinic

Early this morning I arrived at the hospital for a check-up on my broken arm. That the waiting room was full of (Emirati) men and no women should have made me pause, but this always seemed to be the case when I went there: numerous men in the national (Arab) dress and me.

I tried to be nonchalant and took a seat.

Soon I noticed a man was staring at me. Then I realized he was actually glaring at me. Really glaring. I was dressed modestly and certainly not acting peculiar, so I decided he must have some kind of issue I knew nothing about. I picked up the newspaper, began to read it, and tried to forget he was there.

Then, at the receptionist's window, a light bulb went off in my head. Beyond the reception desk was another waiting room, and it was full of Emirati ladies.

"Am I in the men's waiting room?" I asked.

The administrative staff began giggling. The receptionist nodded and rather timidly answered, "yes."

Why noone bothered to tell me that I was repeatedly invading the men's waiting room, I'll never know. But I'm glad to think I added a little amusement to the staff's day.
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Feeling a lot more comfortable upon entering the ladies' waiting room, I still did not blend in: every lady patient at this particular hospital is covered - really covered - in black.

But a nicety occurred that I haven't seen back home in waiting rooms. When a new patient came in the door, she nodded to the rest of us females already present and greeted us by saying, "A salam alaykum," and then all the other ladies would answer "alaykum salam." (Please excuse incorrect spelling.)

In a clinical setting, that small greeting/acknowledgement warmed the atmosphere.

Cultural Mix, Cultural Divide

This morning as I sat at my laptop and closed my eyes, I felt as though I were in Maine. The sliding door beside me was open, and a breeze made the curtains billow and fall. It was sunny, the air was cool and dry, the temperature about 60 degrees. (It would rise to the upper 70s later.) This is the weather we wait many months for in the UAE. It is perfect.

Last night we had some friends over - all ex-pats. The ladies and I got on the subject of making friends with Emiratis, and the opinons were flying back and forth pretty fast. I'm not sure I got my own position across - which may be why I've turned to my blog.

Anyone in Abu Dhabi would tell you it's not easy to make friends with a UAE native, or "local," as they call themselves. One could live here for years without ever getting to know a local.

(Some reasons for this: it's a gender-segregated society and inappropriate for women to talk to unrelated men and vice versa, thus cutting down on interacting with locals by 50% for starters. Also, Arabic is a difficult language. Finally, the UAE has a history of foreigners coming here to work and leave without putting anything into the country, and this must affect how locals view ex-pats. There are so many ex-pats and so few Emiratis -the ratio is approximately 82% to 18%.)

Back to last night. One friend seemed put off that locals were not friendly to her. (I must add that she is a lovely, kind, polite and relaxed person.) Another friend present has lived in the Middle East for many years and is married to someone from the region. (She is equally wonderful). This second friend expressed no particular desire to make friends - or not - with Emiratis.

I knew what my "first friend" was saying. I've been cut in line many times in Abu Dhabi, and I know some local ladies have no interest in talking to me because I'm western and because I'm not Muslim. However, I also feel fortunate that I have made friends with an Emirati woman and with two western ladies married to locals. In last night's conversation, I said it's surprising how open these women are, once they're comfortable and also once they are certain no men are around. If I have them over I make sure no repairmen are coming, that M is at the office, that the sheers are pulled across the windows.

My "first" friend implied that having to make these accomodations was perhaps unfair to me, that maybe I was even compromising my own culture to appease these ladies' requirements. If I can't share my ways, if I can't have a drink while they are over (not that any of us drink during the day or drink a lot, mind you), then maybe I can't even be myself with them.

I'm not sure I answered her views adequately. But I don't at all feel that I'm compromising my ways for the sake of these friendships. Rather, I see it more as reaching out to someone different, as a small effort that is richly rewarded with new friendship.

My Emirati friend is someone I connected with almost immediately. We both have lots of children, we both like to talk about things that are close to our hearts, we both struggle with the demands of large families. In addition, I really like and admire these women for their sense of style and their committment to their Muslim faith. They have each inspired me with my own committments to my own values and my own faith.

Abu Dhabi Days Are Passing

This picture - of a setting sun near my home in Abu Dhabi - seems to capture my mood of late.

Perhaps it's the shortened days as we approach the winter equinox. Maybe it's that Christmas is two weeks away, and soon it will be the end of another year.

It could also be due to a discussion about family life I enjoyed yesterday in my home, an experience I know I cannot duplicate in the U.S. It was during my book club. I was one of two Americans in a group of nine women.

"We are both from Africa," my friend from Sudan said to my friend from South Africa when they were introduced. There was also a friend from Switzerland, one from England, two friends from Wales and one from Jordan. It was terrific.

Whatever the reason, I'm increasingly aware that our time in Abu Dhabi is going fast. Before I know it, next summer will be here. I'll be standing in a room full of brown boxes, sighing as I think how bare the walls are without our prints hanging. We'll be moving home. This is something I long for and dread at the same time.

Last weekend my eight-year-old was accidentally hit in the head with a hockey stick. When I first saw his handsome blond face, his nose and mouth bloody, my heart did a leap. I thought the skin under his nose was cut straight through to his mouth.

I get strangely calm when my children are hurt, but as I wiped his cuts and discovered they were not serious, alarms still rang in my head. I wished we were home. I've made two visits to emergency rooms with my children thus far in Abu Dhabi, and the care was excellent both times. But I still wished I were in my own country.

Of course the main pull towards home is missing friends and family. Recently, too, one of my best friends back home experienced a tremendous loss. The distance between Abu Dhabi and New Hampshire was heart-wrenching. These are the times I long to blink my eyes and open them to see pine trees and snow.

Most days, though, I like Abu Dhabi so much I know it will break my heart to leave. When my ten-year-old tells me about the nice boy from Yemen he's made friends with, or my 16-year-old arrives home, as he did yesterday, energized by a school competition in Cairo, I think I could stay forever.

Seeing People, Not Nations

"Now this is where you should've had the camera," my husband said when he picked me up at the Abu Dhabi Ladies Club the other night. It was 10 p.m., the end of an international bazaar/fundraiser for special-needs children in the area. I'd been volunteering at the United States table.

I looked around the large room with its multi-level, white marble floors, high ceiling and glass-lined, curving stairs. It was a colorful a scene: there were numerous flags draped over the upstairs railing and ladies on the ground floor in bright cottons from South Africa, black abayas from the U.A.E., and brilliant silk saris from India, to name a few.

At the countries' individual tables, the diversity continued. Azerbaijanis displayed rugs of rich reds and browns, Italians offered expensive, hand-made lace shawls and modern art, and Jordanians presented skin-care products from the Dead Sea, among others.

At the U.S. table, myself and two other Americans were selling t-shirts, pens, mugs and the like with the U.S. Embassy logo on them. (Local Emirati children who stopped by were most interested in our few Mickey Mouse trinkets.) Beside us were ladies from Eritrea. We were in business attire; they wore floor-length, gauze-cotton dresses and head coverings and some wore elaborate jewelry.

With my husband's comment about the camera, I realized I've gotten so used to the variety of cultures in Abu Dhabi that I've begun to not notice it. I've made friends with many of the women present. I've stopped seeing the countries and started only seeing the people.

Near closing time, an Emirati (in national dress) stopped by our table, introduced himself, and asked how long each of us had been in the U.A.E. He welcomed us to his country. He'd gone to college in Washington state and loved his time in the U. S. He wished us well. I hope I'm as friendly to visitors when I return to live in New Hampshire.

It was a nice evening.