Hello Dubai!

"Hello Dubai" jumped off the shelf at the local bookshop last week. "Skiing, Sand and Shopping in the World's Weirdest City", seemed a very apt subtitle. 

Years ago we spent a week in Dubai on the way home from an extensive trip to India. Landing at the airport was like landing on the moon – wide open spaces, futuristic-looking buildings and an almost eerie silence after India. At the time most people were coming to Dubai to shop for jewellery and electronics. We took a 4x4 safari in the desert, barbecued in the middle of nowhere, beneath the stars, and checked out the camels up close. At the end of the week we piled into the fullest bus I have ever been on (South Africans and their shopping) and made our way home. 

I haven't really thought about going back - in many ways it does seem like "the weirdest city" in the world. - I worry about all this desalination, buildings on sand and the materialism it seems to represent. From all accounts it has become more so in the last 15 years since we were there. And yet, everyone seems to be going there. We even know people who live there. My husband is currently travelling overseas via Dubai. It seems like you can go anywhere via Dubai these days. 

In "Hello Dubai", Joe Bennett gives a cynically sympathetic  take on the city-country as he embarks on his journey to  discover the real Dubai. He points out that in a very short space of time, Dubai has become a global hub of trade and finance, has attracted people from all over the world, both to work and as tourists, and has erected buildings that everyone knows. On the other hand, there is the excess and opulence combined with what seems like the exploitation of migrant labour. 

Bennett is very funny and I have had a quiet giggle at some of his anecdotes and rolled my eyes at others. If you are planning to visit or know someone who lives there, I would recommend this book.

Bennett Joe, Hello Dubai is published by Simon & Schuster

Thought for the Day

Every time I open the newspapers my heart wants to break for the people in Somalia. I read that 6 of the 8 regions in Somalia have been struck by famine, affecting three-quarter of a million people. There are haunting images of malnourished babies and toddlers, queues of people hoping for food and water, against a background of an unfriendly landscape. People are dying every day and it seems that aid cannot be delivered fast enough to keep pace with the crisis.

There are also disturbing pictures of war and struggle while people fight for their freedom in other parts of Africa. The pictures don’t show the most vulnerable women and children who are being displaced, who have had their whole lives turned upside down. In Greg Mortenson’s book, Three Cups of Tea he says that “in times of war, you often hear leaders say ... ‘God is on our side’. But that isn’t true. In war God is on the side of refugees, widows and orphans.” I hope that he is right.

It is overwhelming to watch the suffering of people and I realise that I cannot help everyone. I do believe that if we do our best to help the people around us, in any small way, we contribute to the greater good of all humanity. Often we don’t do anything because we think that the need is so great that we cannot make a difference, but in the words of Rabindrath Tagore:

“Not hammer strokes but dance of the water sings the pebbles into perfection.”