Stings from the Wild
The Second GenerationBy A.M.B. Apalisok
Dubai-based Writer
Moon Over Dubai
One doesn’t take an evening walk in Dubai by the light of the silvery moon. Dubai has a golden moon that lords it over the city’s skyline on evenings. I still have to see a single star and think it a phenomenon.
Which is to say that my country is a lucky one. Most of our evenings have starry skies and our days, sunny or not, have wondrous skies of light to deep blue and clouds of all sorts that change hues from white to orange to gray and purple as the day wears on. Dubai’s skies are leaden, bereft of character in its slate gray vastness and where clouds, if ever there are, are mere wisps that soon disappear.
Our skies may be the envy of painters, but it’s Dubai’s skyline that’s the envy of contractors and construction engineers. It is a city bursting with real estate development, booming at a pace such that it is portrayed more precisely as “an enormous construction site.†Never mind the weather.
Stepping out from a cold airplane and airport at the wee hours of dawn, I gasped for breath in those few steps I took from the terminal to the car. The desert air is unbelievably dry and hot; it was as if my face was covered with freshly pressed warm towels. How can people live here? I thought.
Everything is air-conditioned is how. Even small structures like police outposts and the humblest of hovels are air-conditioned.
Outside the gate of the Philippine Consulate is an air-conditioned outpost of the local consular police, so-called because its sole duty is to protect consulates of other countries. The latter I noticed in a neighboring emirate where the local Filipino community’s leaders brought us to their place, a decrepit villa they’ve managed to rent and repair and subdivide into small air-conditioned one-room units that serve as receiving room, bedroom and kitchen, an ingenuous and efficient 3-in-1 arrangement.
Locals in Dubai are far outnumbered by foreigners, who comprise some 92 percent of the population. This figure is somewhat higher than the national average of 85 percent. It is expected that the ongoing nationwide census will place the population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 5 million inhabitants, close to half of which will be made up of Indians and Pakistanis. Others expats are from neighboring Arab countries, northern Africa, western countries with multinational companies and, you guessed it, the Philippines. Filipinos in the UAE number well over 200 thousand, with some 500 workers and job-seekers arriving every day.
One can understand from this demography that no foreigner is given UAE citizenship. Foreigners with proper passports and jobs can stay here for as long as they wish, as Indians have for generations since this place was once a British protectorate. But to become a bonafide citizen is out of the question.
There are seven emirates (for which our provinces could be the nearest equivalent) in this country. Seven emirs, or rulers, in years past united themselves into the UAE. The capital is Abu Dhabi, where our embassy is.
Abu Dhabi owns 86.67 percent of the country’s total land area. The remaining 13.33 percent belongs to the Emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. The size of land is no deterrent to development. Dubai’s trajectory tops them all.
It is said that this Persian Gulf boomtown has emerged as the world’s fastest growing city. Some 24 percent of the world’s building cranes are in Dubai these days. More are needed.
Oil-rich investors who plow profits into real estate fuel this cosmopolitan city’s frenzied growth. Add the fact that Dubai has little government intervention and isn’t constrained by bureaucratic red tape and perceived corruption that bedevils other places, and the result is efficiency.
This regional center for business and tourism has drawn people to its free market economy. An added boon is that Dubai is a safe base for multinational companies in the Middle East.
Where booms and chances are, Filipinos are. Even with our very real job diaspora, I’m still amazed that all the cashiers of a supermarket here are Filipinos. Inspired by Aga Muhlach’s movie (Pinoys here jokingly give this reason) or not, like anywhere else, some make it, others don’t. If one must hitch his wagon to a star, well, with its cloudless skies Dubai has no visible star all these weeks that I’ve been here.
There are realities as there are expectations. We are duty-bound to avoid falling victim to our own high expectations.
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