Wasta

Wasta is the most important Arabic word while living in the Gulf. As opposed to Egypt where baksheesh (tips, but really petty bribes) allows you to gain some semblance of control of your life, in the UAE wasta defines your experience.

Wasta is your connections and your connections’ connections. The more wasta you have, the more flexible the rules and the more opportunity. As with the rest of the Middle East, everything is negotiable.

I experienced the power of wasta just a couple of months into my Dubai life. I was still waiting for my residency and my second tourist visa was about to expire so Hannah, Annika, and I decided to go to Mussandam, Oman over the long weekend for my second visa run and the Islamic New Year. In the UAE, the weekend is typically Friday and Saturday, but we had Thursday off as well. We headed to Oman on Thursday afternoon. A lot of other people had the same idea so the border crossing took over an hour.

We camped in Khassab, Oman for the night.

 We spent the night camping in Khassab (I’ve written about it previously here) and after spending the day on a Dhow cruise we headed back to Dubai. Fortunately, or so we thought, most people were staying for another day so it shouldn’t be as crowded as before. We joked as we exited Oman, guessing how long it should take us to get through the border, 10 minutes? 15 minutes?

When we walked in, we were excited to see only one person ahead of us in line. When we handed the immigration officer our passports, he said I could go get the car while he processed our passports. As I walked to the car, Annika came running out saying he needed me. He asked me why I was trying to enter the country on a tourist visa when I had a residency visa. I had a residency visa?! I wish there had been confetti cannons to help me celebrate, but instead he told me that I couldn’t enter the country without a hard copy of my visa and to contact my sponsor (Masdar Institute). When I decided to come to the UAE on a tourist visa, I was warned that I would not be let in if I had a residency visa approved, but not physically with me. I had incorrectly assumed that Masdar would notify me when my visa was approved.

As I tried phone calls and emails to get in contact with Masdar, Annika and Hannah called the US citizen emergency number. The consulate told me to ask if I could leave my passport as collateral and come back on Sunday or Monday with the hard copy of my visa. When I asked the immigration officer, he laughed before saying absolutely not. The consulate told me they would call me back. The Masdar provost responded to my email saying I was stuck at the border saying that he cannot send me my visa and they were notified it had been approved on Wednesday, but decided to wait to tell me until my visa was sent to them. My advisor at Masdar called me soon after to say that he couldn’t personally come to the border due to his own visa issues, but I may be able to have one of my relatives bring me the hard copy of my visa on Monday.

Hannah and Annika were both already UAE residents and did not have their UAE licenses yet so they couldn’t drive my car back to Dubai. Both of them had to be at work on Sunday, but there are no flights out of Mussandam except to Muscat on weekdays. While I tried to figure out how to get back into the country, they were trying to figure out how to get home without me.

Back to wasta. I called a connection, who at the time was an advisor to an important government official, to let him know I was stuck at the border. He immediately asked to speak to the immigration officer. As an American, I hesitated, but quickly remembered that this is normal in the Middle East. I asked the officer if he could better explain the situation on the phone. I casually mentioned that he worked for the aforementioned big wig. Less than a minute into their conversation, the officer is calling him habibi. He gives me my phone back and tells me that he will help me when the now very long line dies down. We wait for an hour as more and more people come in. I’m wondering if they’ll let me camp on the beach between the Oman and UAE border or if I’ll have to re-enter Oman and camp there for a few more days. (I love camping so much too!)

Finally, I re-approach the officer and he asks me to walk to his office with him. First, he lectures me on the importance of learning and speaking Arabic. Then, he gives me a receipt for my passport and his cell phone number, and tells me I can re-enter the UAE and come back to collect my passport with the hard copy of my visa.

Hannah, Annika, and I celebrated when we crossed the border (still no confetti canons though).  If it wasn’t for wasta, Hannah and Annika would’ve had to walk through the border, call a cab, and take a long uncomfortable bus back, while I camped in Oman for a couple more nights.

Celebrating a successful, drama free re-entry from Oman a few months later

Wadi Shab (Oman Hiking)

Most of these pictures are Sam’s per usual. (I am bad at taking pictures and bad at story telling so I will probably never become a professional blogger)

A long time ago, Abdullah, Annika, Hannah, Sam and I headed on a road trip to Oman. As we left the UAE, our #1 goal was making it back into the country on Saturday.

We started in Dubai, crossed into Oman through the Kalba border. After spending Thursday night in Muscat we headed further south, stopping at the  Bimmah Sinkhole and Wadi Shab (labeled “17” on the map) on our way to Ras al Jinz. On Saturday we drove back to Dubai from Ras al Jinz, breaking up the drive with some beach stops and an attempted visit to Nizwa Fort.

We left Dubai around 7pm on Thursday and made it to Muscat around 2am on Friday. Fortunately the only excitement was when we tried to enter Oman without exiting the UAE. It turns out when the immigration official told me to “go ahead and park” he meant on the side of the street, not in the next parking lot. We drove back to the UAE entrance on the exit side and walked over to get our passports stamped and to pay for our exit visas. This meant we had to drive back to Oman going the wrong way down the road. I managed to only let go of the steering wheel and scream once when a car started coming in the other (correct) direction.

The next morning we headed out of Muscat towards Wadi Shab, with a quick stop at the Bimmah Sinkhole on our way. I was slightly disappointed by the sinkhole. The water in the hole had some trash and even Hannah didn’t want to swim in it. It reminded me of the water fall in Antalya because there is a well developed park surrounding it.

Before going to Oman, people would always comment on how nice Omanis are. After the sinkhole, we stopped at what will be a rest stop in the future but is not open yet. As we were leaving, the car behind me honked at me and flashed their lights. When I pulled over they told us that one of us had left our wallet in the parking lot. We were about to drive back when another car came up to us with the wallet. They definitely lived up to the hype.

At Wadi Shab, we paid a guy to drive us in his boat across the shallow creek to the beginning of the hike. We knew swimming was involved in the hike so none of us brought our cameras or phones and we have no pictures of the actual hike. The first 30 minutes were underwhelming as we walked through the Wadi, but the walk in was well worth the rest of the Wadi when we got to the swimming portion. I chose to wear leggings and a shirt for the swim because I was not sure what dress was appropriate, but there were expats in bikinis and speedos. The water is not continuous and there were some slippery portions  and some rocky portions that made me wish I had worn water shoes, but eventually the water gets deep enough to properly swim. At the end, there is a waterfall inside the canyon   (google Wadi Shab Waterfall- it’s so cool) and a rope so you can climb the waterfall and jump off. Due to the rope swinging incident of 2011, I avoided the rope even though it looked like a lot of fun.

On our way out of the Wadi, the man driving us across the creek got pegged in the shoulder with a pepsi can that had been thrown from the highway above (in the picture below you can see how high it is). On all of our hikes so far, we have noticed a decent amount of litter. Currently, there are initiatives to encourage people not to litter and a lot of hikers will bring trash bags with them to pick up after others.

Boats to take you across the creek to Wadi Shab

After Wadi Shab, we quickly stopped for lunch in Sur at a restaurant that specializes in Omani, Indian, and Chinese cuisines. I find eclectic menus entertaining, but the combination of cuisines is quite common in this region. We finally headed to Ras al Jinz, where we would be spending the night after seeing turtles.

 When we arrived at our Ras al Jinz accommodations, the men working at the campground seemed surprised to see us. I had expected to be staying in tents, but instead we were staying in basic huts that even had beds and one of the huts had hot water. They insisted on feeding us dinner after we saw the turtles, even though we insisted that we were full and would be tired. They also wanted to dance after dinner, but that was creepy and a non-negotionable no.

One of our sleeping huts [Ras al Jinz]

We went to the turtle reserve around 9pm since turtles lay eggs at night. Before they would let any groups go out to the beach, they had to check to see if there were any turtles laying eggs that night, since February is not egg laying season. We were in luck! There was one poor turtle who would be watched by about 100 people that night as she laid her eggs. Since there was only one turtle, we had to wait for a few groups to go before it was our turn to go watch. I thought it was really strange. We all huddled around the turtle while she exhaustedly covered her eggs with sand. She was panting and would often stop moving because she was so worn out.

The backside of the only turtle laying eggs [Ras al Jinz Turtle Reserve]

On Saturday we headed back to Dubai with a few beach stops and a stop in Nizwa. We had wanted to see the Nizwa Fort, but we got to Nizwa at 4:30 and the Fort closed at 4. At one point, the road we were driving on just ended, and I drove through the desert to meet up with the next road.

We made it back into the UAE on Saturday!

Wadi Shu? (UAE Hiking, Part 2)

(All of the opinions, but none of the pictures in this blog are my own. Thank you Hannah, Sam, and Annika) 

Actually the Wadi is Wadi Shah, but I kept calling to it as Wadi Shuh and then Abdullah would correct me, Wadi Shah. Tomato, Tomato, Wadi Shuh, Whadi Shah as we say.

This hike was referred to as the iconic Ras Al Khaimah hike by dubaihiking.org. Of course there is a 10% chance that we were not even at Wadi Shah since there are no signs and about a 5% chance that we ended up in Oman at some point because we were basically on the border between the UAE and Musandam. The drive from Dubai Marina to Wadi Shah was about two hours which meant a relatively early morning for me. I managed not to be too cranky.

The Fantabulously Mumtasic Five

Once again Abdullah was flinging himself from one rock to another while I tripped over pebbles and Hannah lamented the lack of swimming holes. We walked through the canyon and at one point tried to climb up the side to a plateau, but got to a point where we had to turn around and continue on the beaten path. Unlike our last hiking trip, we saw almost no one except for three other tourists who were backpacking. There were a decent number of goats toward the beginning of the trail, but none joined us on the hike. The rocks and extra large boulders were a lot prettier this time and it was very quiet except for the wind (aka car sounds). The hike recommend on the hiking site was circular and about 13 km. We did an uncircular 10 km.

As we hiked out of the Wadi, local families had started to populate the base for their evening picnic. As drove out of the mountains, lots of cars had congregated around one mud pit and there were two Jeeps “mudding” while people looked on. Entertainment stays the same no matter where in the world you are.

Road construction in the UAE always includes construction scarecrows that are dressed as construction workers holding flags and look way too realistic as you are driving. Often, there will be real live construction workers standing next to the scaredrivers.

 

Wadi Shawka (UAE Hiking, Part 1)

The biggest plus to living in the desert is the lack of greenery. There’s no yucky grass, weeds, or trees to make me sick! (Instead there’s pollution and humidity)

In January, we explored two wadis, Wadi Shawka and Wadi Shah. The wadis require some “scrambling” over rocks or across rocks over water, which is so much more fun than normal hikes. Of course, the trails aren’t marked so it is a little more adventurous than Acadia and a lot warmer.

First hike was Wadi Shawka, which is east of Dubai. 

The first hike we did was Wadi Shawka, which I think is in Fujairah, but google says Ras Al Khaimah. My tiny little car can’t make it on the jeep roads so half of our hike was walking along the road into the wadi. The UAE Hiking Club was having an outing at Wadi Shawka the same day we went so there were signs directing us to the wadi. We were not expecting to be sharing the hike with so many people. Wadi Shawka is famous for its swimming holes; we were disappointed that so many people were there when we first showed up. Following the advice of other hikers, we climbed above the first swimming pool and went on our way to the next two.

Our Unwanted Friends

Due to the water, the options were to climb over the swimming pools or to wade through them. Hannah and Sam decided to walk through while Larson, Abdullah, and I climbed.

Hello

I personally thought the water was freezing. It did feel good though because it was quite hot out that day. Everyone but Hannah ended up getting sun burned because not all of us applied enough sunscreen.

Braving the Freezing Cold Water

The hike was a lot of fun and we decided we have to hike again soon! Stay tuned for Wadi Shah.

Where is the Rasha Grand Mosque?

On October 21st I optimistically assumed my medical tests were going to be scheduled soon after I got my biometrics done (aka fingerprints). I finally went and did my medical tests today! They required another trip to downtown Abu Dhabi, but fortunately I knew that from the beginning and the trip was a lot smoother than my last adventure.

I have realized that the rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Dubai is very similar to the rivalry between Georgia Tech and u(sic)GA. Abu Dhabi obsessives over proving it is better than Dubai and Dubai wonders “Who is Abu Dhabi?” It hurts a little to describe it that way, but this helps:

(I miss football)

Back to 2015. The medical tests were super quick. My appointment was at 10am, I showed up at 10:25 (if I wasn’t only half Arab I would have gotten there at 11), and I was done by 10:40. I don’t think a single person who worked there even talked to me. They give you a number when you arrive and then at each step Siri announces your number and which room to go to. The worker in the room quickly sticks needles into your body or takes x-rays and then you walk out. Pretty painless except for the needles. I wouldn’t be surprised if they also inserted a gps tracking device, which I know my parents would appreciate.

Outside the Grand Mosque

After the medical center, I decided to go to the Grand Mosque on my way back to MI (what us Masdarians call Masdar Institute). I was excited since I would make it there in time for the 11 am tour. Of course when I got there, I remembered that I don’t enjoy tours because there are other people on them so I decided to read a little bit on wikipedia while I walked around. (Thankfully I did otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed the subtle fiber optic lighting!!)

Subtle Optic Lighting Highlighting the 99 Attributes of God

The mosque is beautiful, but opulent. It reminds me more of a palace than a place of worship. It’s also definitely aimed at tourists and I wish it did a little more to educate visitors on Islam. When I visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul they basically had a poster series on women in Islam that spanned the (always really long) queue. There is a fine line though between education and shoving religion down people’s throats so I came up with a couple (untrademarked) slogans:

• We aren’t terrorists!
• We respect women!

This chandelier was too much

A more tasteful chandelier