Black Thursday ... again.

Several Thursdays ago, we were bombed (not literally but the shrapnel was almost as real) ... our 'flagship' project was cancelled. A good number of people were working on that in the Dubai office as well as our sister office in Detroit. Sadly, word from the Detroit office last week was that many of their people were let go including one of the Architects that did a stint in Dubai in the summer.

Yesterday was not a happy day in the Dubai office, it was our turn to face the grim reaper. I haven't heard who all or how many but the grapevine says 15% to 20% across the board. The Design side of the office let go of 5 people, our side released only one (luckily) . I'm sure that next week will be grim as we start to notice other faces who are absent.

In The News: This is the frozen north ... of the UAE

Yes, you read that right: the words UAE and frozen in the same sentence. Having survived my first scorching hot (and I do mean HOT!) summer in the middle-east, it is quite an irony to now see sub-zero temperatures and snow for only the second time in recorded history in the northern Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah on the weekend.

This is the frozen north ... of the UAE
Anna Zacharias
Last Updated: January 25. 2009 5:59PM UAE / GMT

RAS AL KHAIMAH // Snow covered the Jebel Jais area for only the second time in recorded history yesterday.

So rare was the event that one lifelong resident said the local dialect had no word for it. According to the RAK Government, temperatures on Jebel Jais dropped to -3°C on Friday night. On Saturday, the area had reached 1°C.

Major Saeed Rashid al Yamahi, a helicopter pilot and the manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, said the snow covered an area of five kilometres and was
10cm deep.

“The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped
mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow,” Major al Yamahi said.“The snowfall started at 3pm Friday, and heavy snowing began at 8pm and continued till midnight, covering the entire area in a thick blanket of snow. Much of the snow was still there even when we flew back from the mountain this afternoon. It is still freezing cold up there and there are chances that it might snow again tonight.”

Aisha al Hebsy, a woman in her 50s who has lived in the mountains near Jebel Jais all her life, said snowfall in the area was so unheard of the local dialect does not even have a word for it. Hail is known as bared, which literally translates as cold. “Twenty years ago we had lots of hail,” said Ms al Hebsy. “Last night was like this. At four in the morning we came out and the ground was white.”

Jebel Jais was dusted in snow on Dec 28, 2004, the first snowfall in living memory for Ras al Khaimah residents.

“I had flown there in 2004 when it snowed, but this time it was much bigger and the snowing lasted longer as well,” said Major al Yamahi.

At the base of the mountains, residents also reported severe hail on Friday night. “We had hail. Last night was very cold, but there can only be snow on Jebel Jais because it’s the tallest,” said Fatima al Ali, 30, a resident of a village beneath the mountains.

In Ras al Khaimah City, 25km from Jebel Jais, sheet lightning and thunder shook houses.

Main roads from Qusaidat to Nakheel were still badly flooded on Saturday, while temperatures at the RAK International Airport fluctuated between 10 and 22°C.

M Varghese, an observer at the RAK Airport Meteorological Office, told of the storms that hit the emirate on Friday night.

“We had thunderstorms with rain for more than 12 hours and we had around 18mm rain,” Mr Varghese said. “The rain, along with the cold easterly winds and
low-lying clouds, could have bought the temperatures further down on the mountains.”

Giorgio Alessio, a meteorologist at the Dubai meteorology office, said: “In thunderstorms, the rain comes down very rapidly from higher levels, and the rain that usually forms can reach the ground in some places as snow. In the next few days the weather regime is completely different and will return to normal for the season, with a maximum temperature of 23°C or 24°C.

“The night might cool down in the desert below 10°C. There is variability in the weather from year to year but it hasn’t shown a trend in getting colder or getting warmer.”

The RAK Government plans to transform the 1,740m Jebel Jais into the UAE’s first outdoor ski resort, using Australian technology that will allow tourists to ski in temperatures up to 35°C.

Abu Dhabi and Dubai also had heavy rain on Friday night.

Just the other day I was reading on Facebook about the snow back home, still quite a pile in Medicine Hat from what I hear and I was kinda thinking to myself that I kinda miss the snow (but not the minus 30 temperatures!) I guess the universe was listening!

A couple of articles and pictures from the Gulf News website:

Gulf News
Gulf News

Little Green Man From Mars?

An excerpt from a client's email last week; his comments on some project minutes:

Few remarks on your Report No. 10:
- In the attendance list e-mail addresses, please correct my name, is martin (not martian).

Ha ha!
Rule #1: Never ever mistake your client for a little green man from Mars!
Rule #2: See rule #1.

(I was not the author of those minutes by the way, I would never do such a thing).

Anniversary

"Up there where the grass grows lush and green"

Tomorrow will be 7 years since my Dad passed away. Hard to believe its been that long. He is still very much a part of our family through memories, photos, stories.

When my Mom visited Dubai, she said that she thought Dad would have loved Dubai. I kinda disagreed, I don't think he would have liked Dubai at all ... the traffic, the humidity, the unfamiliarity ... he was not a carefree, easy-going traveler as I recall from some of our family vacations as a kid. As we discussed it further, my Mom clarified her thought: Dad would be proud to see what each of us "girls" has accomplished career-wise, personally, independence, intelligence. He would be especially proud of his Grandchildren, we often lament that he is not here to see them grow and for them to know him personally. My nephew has definitely inherited "Grandpa Herb's" talent for inventing and building things!

Where ever he is, I hope he is watching and is indeed proud. Life is good for me and he is a big part of who I have become. For that I will always be grateful.

On this anniversary date, in his honour, I usually go to "coffee row" at Tim Hortons, wash my truck (which used to be his) and change my radio to the country music station. Since there's no TH's here (and Starbucks is not the same), my truck is back home (he is probably cringing that I now drive a Mitsubishi - blasphemy!) and country music is virtually non-existent here, I may have to change my tradition a little bit ... I wonder if I can find a Calgary Sun with some wuzzles???

The Comforts of Crazy Busy

When I arrived in Dubai last year to start my new job, the markets in the Gulf region and Dubai in particular, were nothing short of frenzied. My second project here was the concept design of a 5-tower residential project in Abu Dhabi. The first of the 5 towers to be launched, about 350 apartments, sold out in less than 30 minutes! That's more than 1 apartment per minute ... if ya took too long to fill out the paperwork, you were SOL!

Incidentally, that project is currently inching along towards construction and was recently plunked back in my lap after being breifly passed over to another colleague. Working on the concept design was a new and interesting experience for me but construction documents is where it's at! I'm excited to have it back in my portfolio cuz now we're getting down to the nuts and bolts of how to build the thing!

There is another, less benevolent reason that I am happy to have that project back.

Our office has thus far riden the econonic low-tide fairly steadily. Things were a bit hairy back in November though: in the 10 days I was away in Canada, the economic climate of Dubai did a complete about-face! I left behind an extremely hectic workload and returned to find my bread-and-butter projects were haulted. Fortunately, I had other projects to fill the void (I was a teensy bit relieved to have some breathing room!) But others in the office were not so lucky and there were some sad good byes just before Christmas.

December was a slow month, partially because of the economy, partially because there was an abundance of public and religious holidays with a few extra days tacked on to mourn the death of the Ruler of Umm Al Qwain. But come January, people returned from vacation, work resumed, things were settling back into a routine.

For a good portion of last year, we had one gargantuan sized project that's been chugging along towards construction. Ten towers on a single site, a big job that has consumed the lives of much of the office here and several of our sister offices around the world (apparently I was nominated to work on that one; I was flattered but I resisted. I don't yet have even one tower under my belt, let alone ten!) Throughout all the hoo-hah that is a way of life in Dubai, this project has been a steadying force, the ballast that keeps the ship sailing upright.

Unfortunately, the ship has hit rough waters. Yesterday morning the rumour mill was on fire and a short time later, it was announced that the gargantuan project has fallen victim of the credit crunch like so many others. This is very bad news. Where management has thus far taken a "wait and see" stance and lay-offs have been minimal, this is a fatal blow.

And the timing was not great either! Last night was our company annual (Christmas) dinner to celebrate a highly successful 2008 for NORR. We were hosted at the extravagant Atlantis Hotel, which is itself, a NORR masterpiece that was completed this fall and kicked off the festive season with a Grand Opening that was over the top, even by Dubai standards! However, our event last night was a subdued one (except for one rather entertaining solo dance performance by an over-indulgant Michael Jackson wanna-be) and was inauspiciously dubbed, "the last supper". No official word yet as to who will have the sorry task of cleaning off their desk come Sunday morning.

As a footnote to yesterday's bummer revelation, an email came through late in the day saying that another, smaller project also went south. My co-workers have not seen that one yet so if there were long faces yesterday, there will surely be more long faces and probably some tears next week.

I don't believe I am on the chopping block just yet, knock on wood! As I said, I am happy to be back on the 5-tower project (and, more importantly, they are happy to have me ... I think?!) not just because the experience looks good on my CV or that it is exactly the kind of work I like to do or even that I have an affinity for it being my first real project in Dubai. While most of my co-workers are mulling about, pondering the uncertainty of their futures, I have deadlines, emails, conference calls, meetings and stacks of drawings to be reviewed! If I was running my ass off, crazy busy during the height of the economic frenzy, I am even more crazy busy now that there is a "slow down" ... and there is a certain level of comfort in that.

Random Pictures

Some random pictures now that I finally got my new video camera and my laptop to play nice:

This is the normal view from my balcony:

This is the view from my balcony with 89% humidity!

Was down by Dubai Creek and the cultural area near Ruler's Court yesterday and it was a beautiful day:

Learning Arabic

assalaamu 9alay-kum (Peace be upon you)

kayf Haal-kum? (How are you?)

abaa ala9allam arabee insha’ allah bas Sa9abah (I want to learn Arabic, God willing, but it is difficult!)

I am taking a class at The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding to learn to speak Arabic. It cost 1250 dirhams (about $413CDN) for 18 weeks including the course material and teaches spoken Arabic of the Gulf region (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia). It started in October so we are about half way through. It is Ladies only (presumably there is a Men only class at another time) and it doesn't teach any written Arabic with the exception of numbers, which I had already learned from reading licence plates. At some point when I feel more ambitious I will start to work on the written though, even just knowing numbers has come in handy. However, for now, if I can have a basic conversation with a native Arabic speaker and be understood, that will be success.

The Many Faces of Arabic

One of the challenges of learning Arabic is the MANY different variations of the same language. There’s standard/classical Arabic which is considered the mother tongue and (I’m told) this is the language of the Qur’an; it is understood by religious scholars and academics but almost no one else. Then there’s Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dialects which are common here ... Lebanese, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, et al. And then there's the North African varieties which are all somewhat different again. Even our geographically close neighbors in Saudi Arabia speak slightly differently than the Emiratis. From time to time, I will hear my Arabic-speaking co-workers switch mid-conversation to English so as to avoid mis-understandings or just to clarify what the other is saying. So when I enlist my Iraqi and Lebanese co-workers to help me with my weekly homework assignments, it is not always helpful since my Emirati teacher seems to (or just chooses to) understand only Emirati Arabic.

Wikipedia

As an aside in the category of things I did not know before I moved here: Iran is not an Arab country. They are Persians. The official first language of Iran is Farsi. Mistaking an Iranian for an Arab is a little like comparing a Canadian to an American.

The Romanization of Arabic

The other challenge in learning Arabic is that it is a very loose language when it comes to spelling and grammar. That is compounded by the fact that what I am learning is “transliterated” Arabic using the English alphabet and there seems to be a lot of latitude in the cross-over. An example: one of the first projects I worked on here (and still am!) is in an industrial area of Abu Dhabi called “Mussafah”. However, the Municipality of Abu Dhabi website spells it “Mussaffah”. When you drive into town, there are two signs along the highway within sight of each other, each with a different spelling and both different from what I was using. None are right or wrong, there are no set rules for the transcription process so me thinks they make it up as they go.

Fur Balls are Normal

The biggest challenge of all are the sounds used which have no equivalent in English unless you consider horking up a fur ball by an English-speaking person as English. Next, one must train the ear to distinguish which horking sound is the correct one as there are subtle differences:

9 … my course material defines this as “a strangling sound at the back of the throat”; think big fur ball.

kh … as in Scottish “loch”; a small furball

gh … like the ‘kh’ but in the back of the throat like a Parisian ‘r‘; small fur ball with a "roll" to it

dh … is a ‘th’ sound as in “this”

DH … is the same as the ‘dh’ sound except louder, thus the capital letters; think of thomeone thpitting with a lithp

H … a loud exhale; think of breathing in someone’s face, as in "does my breath smell bad ... HHHHHHH?"

"... blah blah blah ..."

There is an episode of the 'The Simpsons' where Bart is trying to train Santa's Little Helper (the family dog) to behave or he will be put to sleep; what the dog hears is ... blah blah blah blah sit blah blah blah blah lay down blah blah blah blah roll over.

I hear a lot of Arabic around and I feel a little like Santa's Little Helper ... blah blah blah blah Hello! blah blah blah blah God willing blah blah blah blah Thank you. The odd word pops out that I acutally understand which is kinda cool!

Hashish

In one of our classes recently, one student (a Chinese lady) was reciting a paragraph in Arabic that she had composed which talked about her family going to the park and having a pic-nic on the grass. She did not know the word for "grass". Turns out, the Arabic word for "grass" is "hashish". Once the Irish girl and I stopped laughing, we explained to our young Emirati teacher (and the others in the class who didn't get it) what hashish is in English. Not too sure what the Arabic word is for "marijuana".

"Let him buzz off"

Last week just before the New Year's break, the Manager of our Production Department was in a particularly jovial mood, full of piss n' vinegar in fact. Usually its me who's on the receiving end of his terrible jokes because he's known me for a long time and knows I probably won't get too overly offended. But on this day it was our Iraqi colleague who was in the humour-hot-seat.

Mohammed (the aforementioned Iraqi colleague) has been a very supportive and patient language tutor and most of what I know so far is because of his help. Since our boss has learned virtually no Arabic in the 8+ years that he's lived here and since he was totally asking for it and since I had just learned a new phrase the day before, I said to my Iraqi friend, "khalli walli". Those who were within ear shot who understood it cracked up immediately because in my very limited Arabic vocabulary, that phrase fit the situation perfectly ... the 'polite' translation of "khalli walli" is "Let him buzz off" or, loosely, "tell him to go to hell". Since I've known my boss for a long time too, I also know that I can say such things and get away with it. He couldn't have been too offended as later that day, he asked me to repeat the phrase so he could learn it and has since started using it himself.

shwaiy shwaiy (slowly slowly!)

So my progress in speaking Arabic is coming along. Any time I feel sorry for my poor English-speaking self trying to learn this crazy Arabic stuff, I need only think if my Chinese class-mate. She is learning a very difficult language via another language that is not her native tongue from a teacher whose English is limited and whose accent is hard to understand, even for me! She is doing very well though, better than I am actually!

In The News: Ruler of Umm Al Quwain passed away

Published: January 02, 2009, 14:42
Shaikh Khalifa mourns death of Ruler of Umm Al Quwain

Abu Dhabi: President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan mourns the death of Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Umm Al Quwain, His Highness Shaikh Rashid Bin Ahmad Al Mualla, who passed away Friday morning in London.

A week long state of mourning has been declared during which flag will fly at half mast, while all ministries and other government departments and institutions will close for three days beginning from Friday.

XPress
The Gulf News
Arabian Business

We are waiting to hear an announcement as to whether tomorrow (Sundays are work days here) is a day off for the private sector as well ... cuz there just haven't been enough days off in this country in the last month or so ('lill bit 'o sarcasm there: National Day was December 2, then there were 5 days off for the second Eid, Christmas, Islamic New Year and now Gregorian New Year, it is estimated that Goverment employees worked about 5 or 6 days in the last month).

Happy New Year ... is it 2009 aready?!

Happy New Year!!! Sending out best wishes to everyone for 2009.

New Year in Dubai was cancelled. On December 30, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai announced that New Years in Dubai would be rung in "with a sombre tone as a token of solidarity with the Palestinian people and with the Gaza Strip in particular." In case you hadn't heard, many people have died in the Palestinian Territories from attacks by the Israeli's.

Tourist hot spot Dubai has had all New Year celebrations cancelled by ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum over the attacks in Gaza.

Hotels were trying to rearrange their plans amid confusion over the extent of the order.

It calls for Dubai to mark the New Year "with a sombre tone as a token of solidarity" with the Palestinian people and with the Gaza Strip in particular.

The manager of the four-star Arabian Courtyard said there would be no music or dancing to ring in the New Year, although the hotel's restaurants and bars will stay open.

It was unclear if other hotels would follow suit. Most said they cannot yet comment on whether the ban will affect the city's champagne dinners and raucous bar bashes.

Organisers also said they did not know if a concert by pop star Shakira in Abu Dhabi will go ahead.

Some celebrations have also been cancelled in Jordan and Egypt in solidarity with Gaza.

Google
The Gulf News
Arabian Business

Alcohol, music, dancing, etc were all banned (at public functions anyway) and there was to be no countdown. Apparently there is a huge fireworks display every year which was also cancelled. Some of the bars and clubs still held their functions sans alcohol and music since they had sold tickets and brought in some big name celebrities but some cancelled them altogether. I believe the other emirates partied as usual.

I was invited out to a New Years house party with my boss. I was blasted with silly string, boo'd off the stage in guitar hero and forced to wear party hats "Madonna-style" (there's a whole 'nother side to my boss when he's away from the office!). We had a few drinks (which was allowed in a private residence), BBQ'd pork ribs (non-Muslim Canadian crowd) and did a count-down to the big moment with champagne. It was a nice time.

My NY Resolution is to keep the blog up to date!!! I know, I said that before and it didn't happen. My other NY resolution is to get to work on time every day. I know, I said that before too.