Sylvia's Journal

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We finally made it to the Belgian Café that is located in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Festival City. Dubai is divided in specialized sections that are called ‘Cities.’ There is the now very familiar Healthcare City, Knowledge City (where most of the foreign universities are), Media City where the media companies are, Internet City where the internet companies are and Festival City where, supposedly, festivals are.

Our mussel and Belgian beer dinner was a festival in and of itself. The place looked like it had been packed up and shipped from Antwerp and fitted within the walls of a Dubai skyscraper. As backdrop to our dining experience was the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, with its lights pulsating to the music of the water fountains that come to life every 20 minutes.

It was filled with Belgian nostalgia, Flemish ditties written on the walls (niet bij een ander/maar bij elkaar/zijn wij gekomen naar hier/om te genaken/en om te smaken/aan lied, aan spijs en aan bier.), old family photos and thick oak floor boards that creaked just like they do in Holland/Belgium. There were even thick red velvet curtains at the entrance to keep the damp lowlands’ winter air out.

On a shelf were old packages of detergent that flooded me with memories. In my youth many companies sold their products to parents via their children. I was a proud member of the Shell Junior Club (membership card and pin included) and prodded my father on Saturday morning to fill up with Shell so I could get my club newspaper. The makers of washing powders had us hooked on the cartoon adventures of 3 little boys whose names were the products our mothers were supposed to buy (Pre, Pril and some other brand). The so very familiar boxes were part of the décor of the Belgian Café.

Axel ordered the Monday special: unlimited mussels and draught beer for 2 hours. I ordered a bierplankje: 6 small glasses of different kind of Belgian draught beer, cubes of Dutch cheese, salami, mustard, pickled onions and gherkins. We both got a pointy bag with fries and mayonnaise and I finished things off with coffee and Belgian chocolate mousse.

Earlier we had visited IKEA which looks just like the IKEAs I have visited in Holland and the US – the same products with funny Swedish names, lingonberries, caviar in a tube, knackebrot. The only difference were the shoppers, mostly Indian, in their sarees and salwar kameezes. Even the kids behaved the same – excited at first and then utterly bored and screaming by the time the cash registers come into sight. It goes to show that there is such a thing as a universal shopping experience that can attract families with discretionary money to gladly part with it.

In the morning, while Axel was having his last PT session I treated myself to a visit to the fabric store of all fabric stores. The place was swishing with French Chiffons, Georgettes, Cottons from Switzerland and Japan, raw silks from Korea, silk sarees from India, three piece sets of pashmina, wool from Pakistan, French satins and boxes full of end cuts.

Being in a predominantly Indian neighborhood we joined a lunch crowd in an Indian fast-food/take out place and received an orientation to Indian sweets from a friendly man who bought us some sweets as part of the lesson. We were the only foreigners and everyone was very concerned about our happiness. It was the other end of the Dubai eating experience in terms of money spent and contact with the local population.

We are trying to get our return trip changed to accommodate the follow up visit with my surgeon but cannot figure out how to contact the airlines. They appear to have closed for the Eid holidays, which started tonight and continues till we have to go.

Today was a walking test for the new and improved knee. First we took a taxi to a French bread and coffee place about 500 meters from our hotel. After an overpriced breakfast we walked back the long way. The crutch was superfluous but it helps as a sympathy factor so I keep taking it along.

We took our bathing suits and headed out to one of the few public beaches down the coast. For 35 cents we were admitted and for another 10 dollars we rented two plastic chaises and an umbrella that flopped around in the wind but gave us just enough respite from the sun that we could read in comfort.

The water was warm and a muddy blue and the beach was full of obese people from Russia and Germany save a few skinny local girls. There were also a few local women with their men and babies – they remained in their layers of black cloth, head covered, everything covered, while their men and babies took most of their clothes off. Life is not fair for some women here.

To prevent a sliding of morals picture taking is not allowed on the beach, along with a thousand other things for which you can be fined and expelled. Taking pictures would be kind of sick anyways, given the voluminous clientele.

We left in the middle of the afternoon to go back to City Hospital for Axel’s second PT session. His therapist uses needles and goes for pressure points. Not altogether pleasant, but effective, Axel claims. I waited downstairs massaging my tingling fingers and resting my tired leg while continuing the exciting read about the history of the Khyber Pass that Douglas lent me. There are no women in the story and it is all about fighting; this, I think, is no coincidence. Get with it, guys, what is so hard to get about living in peace?

I wrote to my two surgeon friends, one in Cambodia and one in Egypt about the tingling. Both replied that it will go away once the swelling goes down. I feel a little better now.

We stumbled on a new shopping mall, another gigantic shopping extravaganza with a boardwalk along a marina with larger than life yachts. We had been lured there by an advertisement for a Belgian mussel meal with a hop-based beverage but, to Axel’s great disappointment, Sunday night was a dry night. Our luck! We had to satisfy ourselves with faux beer, accompanying an Italian meal in a Japanese-Italian (‘dual experience’) restaurant – the placemats feature a bonsai tree and an olive tree, very clever.

We watched the movie RED, just about the only palatable movie in town so now that I have seen it I think we are done with movies here, or at least I am. I am not sure what we are going to do the next five evenings here, watching TV and movies probably (like watching Terminator 3 last night, imagine that, me watching our CA guv’nor like that, how desperate can one get. Kabul is more exciting!)

I exchanged my hospital johnnie for my dress, signed the release papers and said goodbye to the Philippina and Indian nurses and the Bangladeshi man who served me my meals (Continental/Arabic/Indian). I left with one crutch, all paid for, though barely needed at this point. I can walk (slowly) without it already. The knee is stiff but healing rapidly. I am not sure about the wrist. My fingers are now permanently tingly, a condition that the surgery was supposed to fix. I am a little worried that the cure didn’t cure me.

With Big Eid in full swing now it is clear that I had my surgery just in time. Everyone is off for the holidays except the skeleton crews that have to keep essential services in the city going. It was difficult to schedule the follow up visit to the surgeon to get the stitches out. The first workday is the day we leave. The SOS people were worth their weight in gold once more by persuading the doctor to let me into the door before the office opens so that we can be at the airport precisely at our 10 AM check-in time.

Axel had physical therapy today. His MRI showed he has a tear in his rotator cuff – something he suspected but that we can’t do much about at this late hour. Someone has got to carry the suitcases back home. He has scheduled three PT visits between now and next week. The first one was today and he was quite pleased with the approach and the possibility of a non-surgical remedy. Our bodies are getting old and tears seem to be part of the living we do.

Axel’s computer also needed some attention from specialists – there is no Apple store in Kabul. The computer has a brand new CD drive. We are done with most of the fixing and we can start to recover. I foresee much reading and watching of movies.

I moved all our belonging from one side of Dubai to another before returning to Axel’s hospital. But he wasn’t quite discharged yet and so I continued without him to my pre-surgery appointments in the competing hospital.

The architect of the American Hospital must have had a mental imagine of a hospital as a shush-shush kind of place. In sharp contrast, the architect of City Hospital had something more lively in mind. It has places to sit and interact with each other and the world, rather than the sit-quietly places and rather subdued atmosphere of the American hospital.

Now it was Axel’s turn to pick me up. We walked across the street to a very fancy mall, for the merely rich and the very wealthy where they also had a modestly priced bento box lunch place. The only redeeming part of the mall was the underground souk representing various parts of the Middle East and Arab world: Egyptian, Turkish, Moroccan, and Syrian that sold the most exquisite wares from the region. We drooled over Kashmir shawls, hand embroidered by very patient people, and didn’t even bother to ask for the price.

The mall and the restaurants were as empty as the American Hospital. This is supposed to be High Holiday time: Eid, cool evenings, and pleasant days, but where was everyone? Could it be that Dubai is no longer the place where the very wealthy congregate?

We took naps until it was time to go to the movies (Eat, Pray, Love) and then did our initial shopping for basic supplies for our remaining 9 days here. And now it is my turn to fast.

As medical tourists we are exquisitely taken care of by Caroline and her colleague Asia from SOS International. We are one of their projects for this and next week but you’d think we are their only project. They schedule our appointments, tell us about the procedures, what to expect, not to do.

For years I have carried the SOS International card with me and MSH paid its fees. I never had to use it. Now I am learning what they are really about, service, awesome service.

Today was the one day this week that we did not have any medical appointments and so we set out to explore more of the city and its thin history.

We took the spotless metro into town enjoying the high ride across what is called refrigerator alley – the Sheik Zayed multi-laned highway that goes from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and that is lined with the weirdest looking skyscrapers.

We picked up the Red Bus at one of the shopping centers that make you think you are in New York and descended at the restored Maktoub palace at the edge of the Creek.

The before and after pictures reminded me of the Murad Khani restorations in Kabul – here someone also saw beauty in what was utterly decayed. The spectacularly restored palace with its summer and winter rooms, its wind towers for natural airco was filled with pictures of the olden days.

Old is not very old here – going back at most two generations. In fact, some pictures were from the 70s when I was in Yemen. The Dubai from then was very much like North Yemen in the 70s. The transformation that happened here is phenomenal (whether you approve or disapprove) and it left me wondering, what happened here and what did not happen in Yemen?

We are starting to ask taxi drivers that question. The answers are very consistent: leadership, or maybe more specifically, enlightened leadership; leadership without greed or coming from a small ego, insecurity, a bully complex or what not. It appears to be leadership from someone with wealth, status and the weight of a power dynasty behind him; no need for games.

I noticed that females were entirely missing from the pictures – except for the room that was called ‘socio-cultural.’ It contained young girls dressed up to the nines after the celebration of their graduation from Quran school. All the others contained only pictures of the ruling elite, from young eager boys handling their falcons to old wizened rulers with their hands on their djambiyas, the crooked dagger that they carry right below their bellies, just as in Yemen.

Axel and I went apartment hunting. The day after his operation, and the day before mine, our current apartment lease ends and we need a new place to stay. We walked round Bur Dubai looking for short stay apartment rentals. Young Philippina or Pakistani clerks, eager to sign us on, showed us around.

We are staying in tonight, having food brought up (Peking Duck, seafood noodles), and watch a movie that Tessa sent along with Anne and Chuck in a care package. But when Anne and I came back up from the apartment complex’ sauna and jacuzzi we went straight to bed. Only the men watched the film. Today was vacation. Tomorrow we are on sick leave.

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Last night we had a late and outrageously expensive dinner (mostly because of the wheat- and grape-based beverages but also because the restaurant’s location) at the Dubai Mall overlooking the famous dancing fountains. The mall closed at midnight and was still full of small children who appeared more awake than we were.

This morning was my day of medical tourism. We took a taxi to a part of Dubai that is called Dubai Health Care City. The place is chock-a-bloc hospitals, specialized clinics, group practices and pharmacies. My appointment was in building 55, which made me wonder whether there were at least 54 other buildings.

I was swiftly diagnosed by Dr. Ali, a young surgeon from Pakistan (I think) who trained in Toronto and at Brigham and Women’s in Boston. He has scheduled me for carpal tunnel surgery on the 11th. He also ordered an X-Ray (done) and an MRI (Monday) to find out what is wrong with my painful knee. If there is something to be fixed in the knee he will do it right after the carpal tunnel surgery on Thursday. And so, this medical visit to Dubai is as much mine as it is Axel’s.

My new orthopod works in a medical group practice that made me reflect on care in Afghanistan. This place has everything Afghanistan doesn’t have: for starters, a large number of well educated nurses. All of them have been trained by the government of The Philippines, after which they left for greener pastures. The education of nurses has thus become a significant subsidy by the Philippine government to the UAE. It really should be the other way around.

And then of course there is the infrastructure of this place – uninterrupted water, electricity, salaries paid on time, internet at lightspeed, integrated machines that check your temperature, blood pressure and god knows what else with one push of a button. All the while I am thinking, why? Is this only about money or is there something else?

After our doctor’s visit we played tourists. We took a bus tour, a dhow trip along the creek and then a meal at one of my favorite restaurants with its cantilevered deck overlooking the Creek.

Returning at our apartment complex I marveled how we could just walk in from the street. No sandbags, no razor wire, no sign that says ‘No Guns,’ no metal detector. Things used to be like that in most places of the world – now this may be the only place left where the assumption of innocence and goodwill is assumed and trusted.