Al Khanzna- Day 7

Wow, what a day. I’m aching terribly at the moment.

I started the day with my first full meal in three days and it felt great. The hotel we stayed at was probably the nicest one so far; it had all the amenities, including a 5 star restaurant.

Breakfast was a buffet with all sorts of stuff, including fresh omlets and watermelon juice. Meredith joined me and we looked at the complimetary newspapers they had given us. In mine I read about the dissolution of the Hamas led coalition government in Palestine. Meredith read a story about a man in India who had just failed, for the 39th time a test he had been tring to pass so he could get a better job and a wife. The man was 79 years old and had no formal education. The only part of te test he was able to almost pass was ancient Sanskrit. He had a good chuckle over this.
After breakfast we did some internet stuff, then Jaber came to pick us up. We checked out, a bit ruefully on my part, and headed to Al Khazna where Jaber lived.

Jaber’s house and small town are situated about 30 or 40 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi. It seems like he is the officer who lives the closest to the actual Police headquarters where the work. Some of the other guys have to live in apartments in Abu Dhabi during the week. Apparently, this isn’t uncommon.

I was ushered into the main guest area and Jaber, pronounced Ya-ber by the way, took my sister and our companion Lynn to meet his wife, father, and others. I was actually pretty relieved that there weren’t a whole bunch of other people around; it was nice to chill out somewhere.

Jaber came back with his brother, Ahmed (pronounce by stressing the ahh, and putting a little ‘ch’ after it like ‘LOCH ness’—so its like ‘Och-med, just not too hard on the ‘ch’) We ate fruit drank some really great tea and watched Arabic music videos.

Jaber and I talked about some religiousy things. I definitely appreciate people with strong spiritual views, I like to hear how they understand and interperet things. I also have a lot to learn about Islam. I asked him about why it’s bad to be left handed, and he replied that it is not bad, just unlike Mohammed. There are things that have been ordered by god, things forbidden by god and things god wants us to do. For the rest, Muslims try to emulate the life of Mohammed—he was right handed, so they try to be right handed; his wives covered up, so their wives cover up.

After a bit Ahmed’s friend Khalifa (the ‘KH’ is said like you are almost gargling in the back of your throught, or maybe getting ready to hawk a loogie) came in. He spoke English pretty well, and we talked a bit. Meredith and Lynn joined us and we lunched. After lunch everyone left, we putzed around for a while and finally hit the road to do some horseback riding, and 4-wheeling on Khalifa’s ranch.

Before the ranch, though, we took a detour out deep into the desert. I thip part of the desert, the sand dunes were enormous and very breathtaking. Ahmed took the three of us in his truck and we went dune-cruising. It was very cool, almost like a roller coaster. We left the dune area, saw a small farm where some horses lived, then hit the road for Khalifa’s ranch.

The ranch was right off of some kind of highway and this is the first place we went to where they had dogs. Dogs, if you didn’t know, are considered unclean in Islam, and are pretty uncommon. They are really only kept outside and maybe for hunting and protection. Jaber said they were crazy, but I found them to be pretty funny and nice; heck I kind of like dogs, and when I snapped my fingers at one of them, she came running across the ranch to get some good ol’ lovin’.

Khalifa’s ranch-hand started prepping the 4-wheelers and getting one of the horses saddled. While the rest of us went into a small trailer for refreshments and air-conditioning. It was about 6pm now so the extreme midday heat had lost a bit of its edge.
By this point Rami, a different, younger guy from Northwestern, had joined us. He had been at the other Khalifa’s wedding and Jaber invited him along for some fun in the desert.

With the 4-wheelers prepped and ready, Jaber gave Rami instructions on how to use it and the two of them took off into the desert. After a while they came back and it was my turn to try.

Here in the UAE, safety rules, and maybe rules in general, are a little bit relaxed, so there were no helmets and pads. Just you, the machine, the wind, and the sand. I started out slowly, getting the feel for the gears and the clutch, and trying to find my comfort zone.

The only time I had done this before was when I was about 10, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t screw up. I was zipping along pretty good all day. I got the gears shifting down really quickly, as I am an experienced stick shift driver (pats own back) I did manage to jump a sand dune that had nothing on the other side and thus took a dive off of my vehicle. When I stood up and felt all my pieces in the right place I said a very heartfelt prayer of thanks--you would have too.

After the desert fun we took a detour to a campsite way in the middle of no where. One of the guys' friends owned this site and used it as a resort for tourists. They have Arabic style food, sheesha pipes and, best of all, a smoking hot belly dancer. This woman was unbelievable. Aside from the normal hip-shaking and spinning, she also did some death defying cane flinging. At one point she was doing her thing with the stick between her and some guy from the audience. Then she took the stick, had the man put his arms down, and whipped the stick all aorund his body without killing him. Very nice!

All the people there were staring at us because they were tourists, probably from Australia or something, and we showed up with not one, but 5 Emirates all in their traditional dress. It was basically like walking into some hot nightclub and getting the best seat and having the owner come out to sit with you. Tre Chic!

I'm telling you, you can't have a vacation like this on your own. We are so unbelievably lucky to know all these people.

After this we headed back to Khalifa's father's house for another traditional dinner. The cool thing about this guy is that he is an original bedouin and used to work with sheik Zayed, the founder of the UAE. He grteeted us with his traditional gun belt on, the kind that cross your body like one of the San People from Star Wars. Unbelieveably, he left and came back with two of them which he gave to Rami and myself. Look out Halloween!

Dinner was great, we had goat (again!) and bunch of other stuff. This time the goat head was in front of me so I had to open it. I tore the damned thing apart, but apparently I wasn't finished. On of Khalifa's brothers, Nassir, popped the brain out and hannded it to Meredith and I. We both took a bit of it much to the surprise of our hosts who thought we were too chicken. Then I ate half of the goat's tongue. Yes, I have now eaten brains and tongues. YUM! (They actually weren't that bad, but it was too hard to get over my bred disgust to eat the entire thing)

After dinner we took tea anc coffee (chai and cohua) and watche some videos Khalifa's father had made about the traditions of the UAE and the bedouin lifestyle. There were lots of gun spinning dances, and then a clip of Shiek Zyed hunting with his falcon. Finally the video showed us how the bedouins loaded their camels and trekked across the desert. Quite amazing. Khalifa and Nassir then started taking out the actual camel rugs and falncry gear that their family has used for the past 60 decades. Aparently, each item is worth 10s of thousands of dollars because no one makes them anymore. They are exquisite pieces of craftmanship and engineering. It was all very beautiful.

As we were leaving, I gave Kalifa and his brothers the only gift I really had which was my second to last Marvelkind CD. I told them to share it around so I could start booking tours in the middle east. They were really happy about it and kept asking me about the website and our myspace page and all that, so don't be surprised to see them in my network soon.

We got to our hotel in Sharjah really late and I fell into a nice, pain-killer induced sleep. (That fall in the desert didn't left me alive and unbroken, but not undented, mind you)

Al Ain- Day 5 Evening -Khalifa's Wedding

After a lunch with Abdullah, we went back to the hotel where I slept until it was time for the Wedding.

Here are a few things that I know about Arabic weddings: I think there are three parts. First an engagement where the families give their sons and daughters the rings and start arranging the formal parts of the wedding. This is pretty much like ours, except the bride and groom can only meet when someone else is around so no funny stuff happens. Then there is the Melka, which is the formal signing of the marriage certificate and all the paperwork. After this the couple is officially married. Between the Melka and the wedding the couple are allowed to see each other and get to know each other a bit better. Finally there is the wedding, which is similar to our wedding reception—a big party for everyone who can come.
I think there are huge misconceptions about arranged marriages in the U.S. People tend to believe that their way must be the best because that’s how they do it and how it’s always been done. One thing that has become really clear to me is that the only things we know about other people are the worst things. We get this in the news, in our gossip—the abnormal and bizarre become all we know about the rest of the world, and all they know about us.

The way it’s been told to me, when a man has completed his studies and has settled himself in a position, it is clear what type of family he will be able to afford. The parents begin to look for suitable wives and husbands within their class brackets. They meet the parents and the girls and choose the ones who seem like a good fit for their sons or daughters. After they have spent some time doing their research they show their son or daughter some of the choices they have. Then the son or daughter chooses whom they would like to meet.

Though the parents arrange the weddings, no one, at least in Emirate culture, is ever forced to marry someone they don’t like. There are stories about people who marry their daughters for money, or to someone that ends up treating her badly, but again, these are generally exceptions. If you think about it, if it were bad for people they wouldn’t do it, so the cases where problems arise must be far less than the times where everything works out for the best.

When you think about how messed up things can get in the dating world of America, it doesn’t seem so bad. American statistics put the divorce rate over 50%; in the Arab world it’s almost non-existent. I’ve seen more unhappy marriages in America than I can count so how can our way of courtship be better; in fact I would argue that America might be broken in this regard.

Anyway…

The Wedding

We arrived at the wedding around 8:00 pm. Meredith and our companion Lynn were both dressed in abayas and traditional garb. M father and I had on Khandouras and Goutrans and the entire traditional Emirate garb. We probably look pretty ridiculous to the common American, but I, for one, fit in so completely most of the other men were openly shocked when I spoke to them in English: “Salaam alekum.” “Hi, how are you?” Huh?? They said I looked Turkish or maybe Lebanese.

The wedding was at some amazing 5 star hotel (there pretty much are only 5 star and higher in the Emirates). The women were ushered through a small nondescript door into the women’s room. All of the women wear completely black abayas. Some people describe them as looking like big black tents; I think they look more like black ghosts. This covering is to make sure the other men can’t see them, because they are only for their own husbands. Most of these abayas, however, are lavishly detailed with all sorts of embroidery. These ladies, though covered from head to toe in black, are VERY high maintenance. They don’t come cheaply. Under these black sheets are lots and lots of insanely decadent gold jewelry.

We men parked the car and walked over to a patio where all of the men stuff was going on. Right away we saw all the people we knew and that was great. There were probably 250 people men there already, so I was glad to Khalifa on his day. I think I’m so used to people being so busy they don’t have time to talk, but it was still a bit early so he was there to greet us.

All of the little boys came up to us and they had their little guns with them. We were about to witness the traditional gun dance of the U.A.E. I’d rather just show the video I took, but I don’t have it posted yet.

Basically there were two lines of men, maybe 20 on each side. They each had these little canes, camel jockeying sticks or something, and the music started and they slowly began to bob. There was a man running back and forth between the lines getting the men into the dance. Then they started singing their song. After a bit, other dancers started showing up between the two lines and spun their guns. They flipped them around and spun around and ducked and dodged and all sorts of stuff.

The song intensified and other guys appeared with these flimsy swords. They started play fighting and doing duck walks and jumping like trout. Very interesting.

Then after about thirty minutes or so, the cal for prayer rand across the city and the music stopped so everyone could pray. We were ushered into a waiting room to be in the air conditioning and have refreshments. Every few minutes somebody would walk by and everyone would stand up and shake hands with him and then sit down. There was lots of standing and sitting.

After some time we were shown to the dinner table where I got to eat camel for the first time. Dinner was good, but I wasn’t too hungry because I was growing a camel baby in my guts from the milk I drank earlier in the week. Once dinner was over, that was it. The wedding was done—at least for the men. All said and done, maybe two hours.

We ended up standing around in the hotel lobby for another 2 hours waiting for the women, with no clue what was going on in there. Finally, we called my sister and said she had to come out so we could go. We got them out eventually and headed back to our hotel.

Now, according to my sister, the women’s area was a completely different story. There was belly dancing, cakes as tall as a man, swords, singing, lots of covering and uncovering, smoke machines, flower petals, and all types of food and drink. The brides, all three of them, each took about 20 minutes to walk amongst the other women showing off their dresses and makeup. I can only imagine what it was like. Obviously, it’s not the men who need to be impressed by a wedding; keep in mind the average emirate wedding is 80-90k dollars.