“Walking with donkey, it is 3 or 4 days from Abu Dhabi to Ruwais.” I struggle to keep my face straight. I moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this year, and I expected it to be the modern paradise everyone sees in pictures of Dubai. Instead, I find myself in the middle of the desert, two hours from anywhere, in a small city of 20,000 people sitting on top of an oil field, a camel race track, and not much else.
It’s a broiler of a habitat. UAE is literally one of the hottest countries in the world. Daytime temperatures sit at 95-115° for 9 months of the year, with heat waves jumping up to 120°. The miles of empty sand are otherworldly – in fact several Hollywood productions have come to this area to film fantasy worlds for films such as Star Wars and The Matrix. The nearest water is 50 miles away in the Gulf, the temperature of a hot bath, and salty enough to raise your blood pressure just by looking at it. This desert receives only half as much annual rainfall as Death Valley.
Modern technology only reached this region in my lifetime – 20 or 30 years ago. And now I am talking to a man who lived here in the times before highways connected the wide Empty Quarter Desert of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Every weekend I drive into the city, and every weekend I pick up hitchhikers, sometimes one, sometimes a pair, sometimes my little Toyota is packed to the brim with half a dozen bearded men sitting on each other’s laps like an Arabian clown car. They work on the oil fields and appear like ghostly mirages, standing on the road in between sand dunes, miles from anywhere, waiting for a ride. I always stop if I’ve got an extra seat.
This hitchhiker is different. My average hitchhiker is in his 20s, from India or Pakistan, and doesn’t speak much English. This man is in his 50s, from Africa, and speaks great English. He tells me he’s been in the country since the 1970s, before development. He amazes me with the details of his life – only visiting his family back home once every 5 or 10 y ears, living in a tent and traveling by donkey as he and others like him built the oil fields and apartment complexes. He’s from Somalia, and has built a very successful life for his family working this way.
“How did you survive this heat?” I ask him. He gives a small laugh. “We just sat, brother” he tells me. “No working in the hot times. We made our camp in some palm trees. We put sheets in the trees and put little water on the sheets. The sheets block the sun. The water makes cool air. Sometimes a small wind comes. When the small wind comes, it is like heaven. All day we sat, waiting for the small wind.”
I continued to drive and drive, always in motion. Listening to the stories of strangers. Eventually I left Arabia and moved to Europe. I continued like that, always in motion, meeting new people and listening to new stories, for 10 years and over half a dozen countries. In my next installment we may fast forward to Spain, Croatia, or Istanbul. Wherever it is, let’s hope it’s somewhere a bit cooler.
Simeon Brown 