This blog began as a description of our life in Al Ain, UAE (United Arab Emirates). Brn worked at the UAE University Libraries Deanship for three years and Bss homeschooled our four children, D, B, P, and O. After returning to the the USA for five years, we are living in Abu Dhabi now.
2007/04/08
Road Camels
Before I came here, I read a book, Culture Shock UAE, that was pretty helpful, if a little dated in some aspects. One thing that the author warned about was being careful of camels on the roads (including a pretty funny story about a run-in a friend of hers had). But you never see camels on the highways now. But today we had to get off the highway to make a U-Turn, and as we came over a hill, there, in the road ahead of us, were two camels in our lane. Fortunately we saw them in time to get out of their lane.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Well, you see quite a few on either side of Route 66. That's because there are fences to keep them off the highway. In the old days, before the fences, there have been some pretty horrific accidents, especially at night.
We read that book, too, and after moving here found out it's banned in the UAE for some reason. (Magrudy's wouldn't order it for an acquaintance of ours.)
I was at the UAEU when Gina was teaching. We were in the same university division but she was in English and I was in math & computers.
As far as her book being banned in the UAE, possibly. However, I found if a store doesn't have something in stock (as far as books & videos go) they often fall back on "that's banned in the UAE. I took it to mean, I don't want to go through the hassle to order it for you and I hope you don't go to one of my competitors.
However, I do believe Gina's book is out of print.
I would be surprised if it was banned here, since I cannot remember anything that would be that objectionable in it. It was on the list of suggested readings for new UAEU employees. It does need to be updated, as the country has changed a lot in the few years since it was written.
These were actually off of Highway 11 on the way to Abu Dhabi
Marcus, you weren't the one who hit the camel (the story is in the book) were you?
brn,
No, wasn't me. I never had any close camel calls.
I had three "accidents". One did serious damage to my car & involved a local backing up w/o looking in back of his car.
A second one was a local not watching his front end as he pulled out of a parking spot. He was indignant when I alerted him to it. I wasn't angry, I just wanted to prevent him him from damaging the car, the nerve of me!
A third one was a minor bumper tap when I stopped at a stop sign. Can you imagine how silly I felt stopping at a stop sign?
The only one where we got the authorities involved was the first one. Though, I suppose I was supposed to get the authorities on all of them, but no damage of note was done.
Yeah, a couple of times I tried to get certain videos and the shopkeeper would tell me he did not have the video in question and it was banned. In a few instances I found the video at other locations. I asked why and they would usually say it had something to do with the "J-word".
Post a Comment