From the Khaleej Times

A story from the other side of the world.

My Job today

Here's an idea of what I got up to:

Woke up at 7:02am. I never enter 7 exactly into my alarm - those 2 extra minutes somehow mean the world to me.

Without eating breakfast and driving away while leaving my unopened Red Bull can on the roof of our car, my Partner Bas (A Dutchmen)and I were due 1.5 hours west arriving into the Capitol of the UAE - Abu Dhabi. I will tell you one day the wierd things I see on the side of roads. I really have no energy to capture your imaginations right now with the incredibly bizarre.

We arrived at downtown around 9 am and reviewed our notes over some coffee. We had 2 big meetings today with some very interesting people.

Meeting #1 - Mr. Masood Al-Awar, Executive Director, Sales and Marketing of Sorouh
This company is 2 years old. Look at what they are building. They are worth over $6.5 billion. Holy Shit. Mr. Al-Awar will only sit facing South East. He is really into Feng Shui. We also found out that he was the Emerati Champion in Snooker. This guy now develops these iconic projects. How'd he do it? I'd ask him who he knows and look into his last name.

After our morning meeting discussing the Mega-Projects being built in Abu Dhabi vs. Dubai, we head for lunch at an outdoor Cafe downtown. On the streets in the sun it's hot, but in the shade it made us keep our suit jackets on.

Meeting #2 - Chairman of Pearl Dubai Mr. Abdul Majeed Al Fahim
This property development project is in a class all it's own. Among other things, we talked about the Haffa mountains in Oman and Niagara Falls. His Lebonese advisor had a love for Amsterdam and nicotine gum. Oh yeah - the Dubai Pearl - crazy project.

After this meeting, we made some more calls and drove our tired selves home, again watching and experiencing things that just make no apparent sense to the newly arrived Westerners.

Wander, another co-worker, and myself took a good jog around International Village where we live, while Kuljit, another partner cooked a spicy curry rice. It's my turn to cook tomorrow.

Off to bed. Another busy day tomorrow. I get my UAE Drivers Liscence, get to pick up my free passes to the PGA tournament here this weekend (Woo Hoo!) and another meeting with another ridiculous development project.

Lots of love

Switzer

Perspectives

It's all about perspectives. Very rarely do people get or take the chance to see the story from the other perspective. The accumulation of all your surroundings, what you've heard, what you've learnt, and what you've been told all mold your vision of the world. Your ideas of what is right, what is wrong, what is just, and what is evil all come from the same ingredients - the environment in which we live in.

Stepping outside that environment, you begin to see how much your ideas, your values, your definition on good vs bad, right vs wrong are put to the test. We see our thoughts become an accumulation of the subjective. And we are all creatures of habit. We find something that works, and stick with it.

I am struggling to find my own ideas of objectivity, wondering if they even exist at all. I'm using a map with no roads, no directions, no legend. But if you don't know where you are going, any way will take you there.

I remember the first time I thought of all this nonsense. Bits and pieces of it were filtering through my mind, but I was never able to put it together into some sort of semi-focused idea.

It happened my first day in Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia over a year and a half ago. I've always remembered a joke Jerry Sienfeld would tell, about the Chinese and their use of chopsticks:

I'll tell you what I like about Chinese people. They're hanging in there with the chopsticks, aren't they? You know they've seen the fork. They're staying with the sticks. I don't know how they missed it. Chinese farmer gets up, works in the field with a shovel all day. Shovel. Spoon. Come on. You're not plowing 40 acres with a couple of pool cues!

First time I heard this I thought it was funny, but interestingly true - Why do they continue using chopsticks? Forks are so much easier, aren't they?

But then eating my vege curry in this Indian restaurant, I noticed there was no cutlery. No chopsticks even. Everyone was using their hands, eating the rice and veges off their banana leaf plate. I thought this was bizarre and messy - but I did it anyways. When in Rome....

By the time my next serving came around, you get the hang of it. Seinfeld's joke came to mind right away and these thoughts began to pour in. Here we are joking about the Chinese and their chopsticks. Yet I'm sure their are plenty of people who laugh at us Westerner's for using cutlery.

'But they have perfectly good hands' Jerrydeep Seinfeldpor is telling a crowd, somewhere in Bombay at this very moment.

It's all about perspective.

Rain in the Middle East

It rained one day here in the UAE and the water is everywhere. Roads are closed and parking lots are pools. The wierd thing is, however, is that it rained a week ago now. The water is still here.

Interestingly enough, the parking lots, streets and roads have no drainages here. It doesn't rain in UAE the Emirates will tell you; there is no need for drains. Usually it's so hot that all the water stays trapped as moisture in the air.

An even more bizzare story is that there was snow out near Abu Dhabi, the capitol of the UAE, in the mountains. Snow in the Middle East - first time in 100 years the news says.

Today I finally bought a baskeball so I can play on the courts outside my apartment. Shooting hoops is a great outlet, and I've already met some other players. I'm living in the Morrocan Building here in International Village. The best games I am told are down near the Russian buildings. I will check em out tomorrow.

Speaking of International Vilage, this reminds me of The World Project. It was completed just a few days ago. It's nuts.

Made it

After a 2 hour wait in the plane on the ground in Brussels, we finally took off way behind schedule to London's Heathrow Airport. Another hour waiting on the tarmac until we were able to disembark, pretty much assured the 4 of us that we were going to miss our connecting flight to Dubai. After 2 more hours in line-ups and taxis, we arrived at Heathrow's Radisson Hotel for a night stay, on British Airlines expense none the less.

We checked in at around midnight, and by 4 in the morning, we managed to find nearly all the other disgruntled BA passengers who've been put up for the night in the hotel because of their missed connections as well.

One lady will now miss her best friends wedding, another girl will miss 2 days on her 5 day vacation to Singapore, and for us, well for us it means that we arrive, now arrived, at 8am on Sunday morning - the beginning of the work week here in the Emirates. Great.

But we are here, and we have started our project. By 3pm we found ourselves in an Exposition on the Project Developments that are going on now here in Dubai. I found myself shaking hands and exchanging business cards with Millioneers, if not Billioners, while media cameras were snapping away. Fuck off these Sheikhs have gone mad. It's truly amazing what they are doing, and one of my next posts will be focused on the crazy things they are building and planning to build here.

But now I am dead tired, and I need my sleep.

Dubai

One of my goals has always been to work in the Middle East.

A few minutes ago, I was just told that my next project will be in Dubai.

I leave next week.

Can you beleive this shit?

To Begin

Excitement is in the air. It's a potpourri of people and their stories here in Belgium at the Head Office. Everyone is hear for a few days before heading back out into the field. Dutchmen in the Bahamas, Americans in Columbia, Germans in Abu Dhabi and a UK'er in Dubai. These are my type of people, this is my type of scene.

I am reading Kevin Sites' book 'The Hot Zone' and a paragraph caught my eye, which sums up our excitement.

"there is a duality at work here that is hard for me to comprehend. I am enticed by the geographic disjuncture of my journey, the shock of sensory overload, the new smells, structures and lives that wash over me on these drives. Simultaneously, I am lulled by the comfort of it all; the fact that there is too much to understand. Instead of a reporter, for this moment, I am a dog with my head out the window, the rush of air creating a comforting buzz that silences the need to know more - at least for now."

Happy New Year Everyone, and I hope that you all get to stick their heads out of the window and enjoy the ride.