I deserted the desert in favor of cooooooler climes. If you are looking for me i have gone south. alsmost as far as you can get. sand dunes and sea shores but not endless red desert.

i will hopefully getting back to blogging at satellite movement but not more desert dame. http://satellitemovement.blogspot.com/

Ay Ay Ay Ay AY, So i moved to Dubai and the first job i am doing is site supervision.
I am on site in the Green Community, a construction site in the middle of the desert. My company, bar 1 indian woman and 3 philipino secretaries is almost exclusively 300 MEN, arab. Yep, Life is certainly interesting.
I get to wander around a ginormous site, checking paving quality, locations of plants, solving problems where problems are found. Tis all fun and games and pretty interesting. There is a lot of sand flying around.!!!!and Green, well, currently it is far from it.

At 6.30 everymorning I get up to walk the dog. We walk about 10 minutes and then Im too 'dog' tired, excuse the pun, to do anything. So I sit down in the sand and let him run free. It is most beautiful, the sand is a little cool, the air is misty and finally with a slight moisture and coolness. Dusty runs to and fro and all over the shop, left right, up down, nose to the ground. Every now and again he runs back to me for a hug, checking up on me.
Taxi's drive past tooting at me, they are the Orange Omani taxi's. Kids ready for school wave at me, and cars toot. Quarter of an hour later i stand up to walk back home. Dusty if he's feeling well behaved will allow me to put his lead on, if he isn't, he will run off again.

And all the while I try to imagine that the beach is an ocean beach. That im down on the coast and there are whales out in the water, that the school kids are wearing the yellow sunhats and that there is a good bakery around the corner where I can get a Danish and a fruitshake, where the lawn is covered with the fronds of norfolk island palms.

Hi Niree,
Well, we are definitely incredibly busy and the more girls in the office the better!!!!!!! I would send an email together with a PDF folio to
shankcox@emirates.net.ae, attention Geoff Sanderson and Justin Meek. Make sure you address it to both of them. Make sure you get onto it pronto because Geoff will be in Australia in a week or two and would probly want to meet you!!!!! I don't know what your commitments are but I imagine you would be 'very attractive' to the company if you were available to come 'sooner' rather than later. Mention that you have lived overseas, it makes a difference to how they assess whether you are appropriate or not, because this place 'can' be hardcore to adjust to for some, others just slip into it.
I don’t know what your skills are, I presume you are a CADette if you are at ASPECT, however the nice thing here is you don’t HAVE to use it all the time (I barely use it at all (cos i can't), spend most of my time swapping between illustrator, pshop and hand drawings), because we have a drafting team who are brilliant. Presentation and design skills are tres’ importante,- Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Corel etc and plant knowledge would be helpful but you pick it up here as you go anyway.
The projects at the moment include: Phase 2 of the Zoo, the University Project which I am working on, Design of the first 10 of the 28 parks, a water park (like a theme park), a Salinity plant, small bits’n’bobs like Palace gardens, commercial spaces and there is a very very very good chance we will get a UNESCO project.
I don’t know if you have experience putting packages together- ie. Technical/detailing etc. but that would be good, and if you have run any of your own projects make sure you mention it.
The work environment looks like an old flinders lane studio, tis'nt exactly plush, but the people are mostly great to work with and there are some crazy characters, good 'souls'.

Life here is curious, sometimes incredibly interesting and wonderful and other times it drives you completely effing bonkers. I have been writing about it on this site, so there should be plenty of food for thought for you. The rains brought along by the indian monsoonal winds are about at the moment which is nice, it is cooler and the whole mood is very different - my dog is going ballistic and loving it. I am hoping that summer is coming to an end, but I am probably tempting Murphys law in saying so. It is apparently not as hot as last year, but its bin freakin hot enough!!

Anyway, if you have any questions, you know where to find me.
cheers

Fast Cars and Shepards Crooks

One of the regular sights at the international hotels here in Al Ain is the congregation of shiny expensive, inevitably hotted up, vehicles. Anything from a shiny red ferrari lying low to the ground, prowling along with a local at the wheel, to a pumped up new Chevy truck with overscale mudflaps and whatnots, also with a man in white, a local at the wheel.
Last night I was standing waiting for a taxi home and witnessed no less than 30 cars drive up the intercon driveway, looking for somewhere to park in the entrance. The congregation of cars, mercedez, audi, BMW, Range Rover, Ferrari, prowled by and either found somewhere to park, or dissapeared. And the men who got out of the cars slowly filled the hotel lobby with a sea of white, milling around, talking, old and young, and each with a shepards crook.

Usually it seems, this indicated a wedding, from what I can tell it is like a modern version of a traditional bucks party. The ingredients being many men, old and young, fast cars, a 5 star hotel, a majilis or a garden setting, and a shepards crook.
I get the feeling, although I have never asked, that it is very much 'mens business' and in the same way that aboriginal mens business is off limits to women, so, it seems, is Emirati men's business. But, like I said, this is only an assumption, and I haven't asked.

Regardless, it remains a beautiful example of how this country sits on the crux of contemporary and traditional, of the 21st century and an ancient time. I find it such an amazing juxtaposition : Red Ferrari and a bearded old man in a long white robe with a shepards crook.

Definition of frustration:

You are walking to work, half way between your house and work and a car slows down beside you. It drives, following you, tailing you slowly as you walk, you turn a corner, it turns a corner. You cross the road, it pulls over to the carparking next to you. The driver winds down the blackened window and leers out at you, you ignore it. You find a way to walk where the car can't follow, turning and walking along a gap between two buildings. What can you say, what can you do. Any where else you could respond, you could yell at them to 'eff off', you could salute them with your middle finger. You could do something to put yourself back in the power seat, elevate yourself above this harrassment. But, you don't know who they are, what power they hold, what lies they can tell. All you can really do is try to ignore it and avoid it.

Here, yes, you can call the police, and everybody will tell you they take it very seriously. But you know if I called the police everytime this happened, I would run out of credit on my phone. It happens on average once a week.

*Plants update: The rosemary can't take the heat, it died.The pennesetum is hanging on, the jasmine is going great guns and the cyperus is struggling. The Sessevium (creepery succulenty thing) looks like it is planning a coup and will with a bit of luck take over the entire balcony.
*Heat update: The western wall of my house gets so hot now I have had to move my makup to a cooler spot. Everything was melting.
*Social update: a club in Dubai called zinc was the venue for the best club atmosphere I have experienced since I left Frankfurt, that whole tribe feeling where everyone is getting off on dancing and the music.
*Food update: The Lime Tree cafe in Dubai is the place to go when you feel like you need a check into a place which feels normal
*Clothes update: Alright, I admit, I did some clothes shopping in Dubai. Found these fantastic silk fishermans pants in Zara and am now chuffed at the thought of finding a tailor in Al Ain to copy the design to make some linnen ones, and some ones out of sari silk.
*Travel update: The bus to Dubai is like an oven, I recommend you find somebody who can drive and rent a car, tis a lot more comfy
*General Mood Update: Ok, so I am not as grumpy or stressed as I was two days ago but ask me again in about two weeks.