Get Down on Your Knees and Pray

It is prayer time in the shopping mall. No minaret’s call can be heard inside these chilly halls – Lebanese pop music plays over the loud speakers. Outside, cf course, the mosques cry loud and strong, and men run for ablution and sanctity. But in here, I know it is prayer time because my friends Ayah and Amal tell me they have to go and pray. No alarms go off on their cell phones; they do not glance at their watches. They just know.

As they have explained to me in intense conversations under palm trees, they have been praying for much of their lives. And not only have they been praying five times a day since they reached puberty, they have been keeping track of all the rules associated with it, such as knowing when you last ate and washed hands and last used the bathroom. This awareness is as automatic as being aware of is you have eaten, showered, or filled your car up with gas.

The three of us stepped through the glass doors into the cool tomb of Sharjah Mega Mall as we often do: two girls shrouded in black and me, wearing baggy men’s shorts that reach my calves and a brightly colored, modest t-shirt. Today, we are on a mission – to find an outfit for Ayah to wear to a mixed (men and women together) wedding reception tomorrow. She doesn’t like to shop and has put it off. But before we get started, Ayah announces, “I have to pray.”

Ironically, it is me, with my excellent sense of direction, who leads them to the mall’s prayer room. I have never set foot here, though I always notice it. I lean against the wall outside the doorway, preparing to wait.

“What are you doing? You can come inside,” says Amal.

I follow her down a winding hallway with walls covered in turquoise, Byzantine mosaic. The mall music has stopped, the dim mall light is replaced with warm brightness. I follow Ayah and Amal to a bench, where they tell me to sit and wait. They drop their purses next to me and disappear. Ayah goes into the prayer room of which I can see only a hint from my perch. There are bookshelves lined with Qur’ans, heavy carpets, and piles of shoes at the entrance. Amal heads in a different direction, to the ablution room – she has used the bathroom since she last prayed.

Things are quiet on the bench. I cannot hear anything from either room, and I am a little surprised. I associate mosques and prayers with overwhelming noise. But the prayers themselves are silent, or whispered. In the silence, I stare at the mosaics and loose myself in their abstract beauty. It is hard to believe these mosaics exist in the mall.

Before I know it, Ayah and Amal are finished. They are back at my bench picking up their bags. We leave the prayer room. We go to a cafe for lunch and chats, and we begin our shopping expedition. It is hard going; Ayah is picky and finding a reasonably priced outfit for her is difficult. Most of my ideas for shirts and tops turn out to be too “tight.”

“Does it describe?”

“I think it might describe,” They worry to each other.

Long-sleeved blouses reveal too many curves, skirts don’t flow out enough over the hips. Blazers, however, even cinched at the waist, seem to be okay. Eventually, despite my friends’ heartfelt attempts to explain, I resign myself to not understanding their definition of modesty.

Hours pass, and it is time to pray again. We head back across the mall in the opposite direction of all the shops. Ayah and Amal don’t think twice about it, but I can hardly believe it. It feels like were just here, like I was just on this bench in this pretty hallway. I have always thought that praying would be somewhat annoying, something interrupting your life five – five! – times a day. And now, as it interrupts our shopping, it seems like more of a looming, burdensome ritual than ever before.

This time on the bench, some women pass by me. I tense up initially, wondering if immodest me, with bare forearms and loose hair, will elicit dirty looks. But no one seems the least bit bothered by my presence. There aren’t even any double-takes. Perhaps, I think, prayer is not the time for judgment.

Ayah is not having much luck in finding a wedding outfit. “This is taking forever,” she grumbles. “We’ve been looking for hours, they don’t have anything. I’m going to have to go in an abaya or some boring thing.” We find a few dark-colored skirts that she likes well enough, but her father doesn’t like her in dark colors. “Baba says it’s depressing. He says it makes me look old.” I find this ironic considering I have never seen Ayah in anything over than a black abaya, but I keep my mouth shut.

To make matters worse, Ayah’s father keeps calling, asking where she is and when she’ll be back. We have been shopping for about six hours, and he wants her home. “He can heat leftovers,” she explains, “but he doesn’t like to.” She is becoming flustered, biting her lip and rocking back and forth. We decide to ditch Mega Mall and go to the Souk (the fake-traditional Arabic market), where things are cheaper. Ayah needs to call her dad; he won’t be pleased. But first, it is time to pray again.

If I were Ayah, the last thing I would want to do in such a mood, at such a time, is loose my shopping groove to pray. It would be an annoyance, an inconvenience. When everything feels rushed and overwhelming, I would feel that there wasn’t enough time. I would not want take even ten minutes for something else. But since I am not stressed out, I am able to find sitting on the quiet bench quite comfortable, even pleasant, away from the mall music and the sounds of shoppers’ stiletto heels clinking on hard marble floors. It suddenly occurs to me that praying five times a day, a practice I have always considered a huge bother, an obnoxious insertion of religion into real life, could actually be kind of lovely. To escape for a few moments five times a day, to be in quiet meditation could be restorative and calming.

And, indeed, Ayah is calmer when she emerges from the prayer room. She calls her father and speaks to him reasonably. He doesn’t seem bothered by the leftovers.

In the Souk, where Ayah manages to find a nice white outfit and purple hijab in the relative ease of ninety minutes, I ask her if she finds prayer restorative. She talks about connecting with Allah. I tell her that it has recently occurred to me that it might be nice to have quiet for a few minutes five times a day, to take yourself out of your own life and focus on something bigger. Ayah nods. “Yes,” she says, and smiles sagely. “That’s part of why Allah commands us to do it.” It is a happy accident, my random realization of something that a holy man knew over a thousand years ago. But sometimes even marathon shopping trips can lead to surprising discoveries, and uncover beauties hidden as deeply in a culture as a prayer room in a mall.

Adventures in Burkas

I am Darth Vader. Or breathing like him, anyway. It is suffocatingly hot under my niqab, or face veil, and I can hear my labored breathing, and feel the black cotton pulled into my mouth with each heavy breath. In, out, in out, Luke, I am your modest mother. Of course, with my head a faceless black orb, I suppose I resemble Vader in more than just his respiratory problems.

Living in a land where dress is one of the most controversial, loaded and complex topics to wrap my mind around, it seemed necessary that I experience veiling firsthand. I think that for most Westerners, it is difficult to imagine wearing the burka. We see pictures, and it appears unbearable. But even prior to coming here, I read countless interviews with Muslim women asserting that the burka is not restrictive. So I decided to see for myself.

When I bought my niqab at the custom abaya souk (shopping center) across the street from my building, I immediately went home and put it on. I was dying to know about visibility. The cloth is opaque, and it looked impossible. But, to my surprise, I could see. Things were darker and blurrier, but I was in no way blind. I was excited. Blindness had been my biggest fear for these women.

But after a moment, I realized that there were, in fact, severe impairments to my vision. It was impossible to read my computer screen or a book, or to see anything but blobby shapes in photographs. All but the largest prints and patterns disappeared from textiles. At the same time, I was struck by my reflection in the mirror. As with everything else, the details were gone, but it didn’t matter because my head and chest were a giant, black expanse. Like seeing oneself in a mask, I had the odd sensation of looking at myself but not seeing me. The strange thing was that my reflection was oddly compelling. I was not wearing the abaya. I was wearing the complete opposite – underwear. I expected to look degraded, ghostly, and troubling. But instead my reflection was surprisingly sexy. I looked (or rather, the reflection, because, without my face, it didn’t seem to be me) mysterious.

With the addition the abaya, however, the mystery disappeared. With the long black robe, the reflection ceased to appear sexy and exotic, and took on a ghoulish appearance. It was scary. I was nothing but a specter.

My friend Beth participated in the social experiment, as I called it, with me. As we got ready, struggling over how to pin our veils and tripping over our abayas, it was strange to look through my veil at my friend, standing right in front of me, and not see her. I could hear her voice, but where Beth stood was a black shade. I felt suddenly lonely and isolated.

It took us several days to fully assemble our outfits. Not knowing where to buy a fully-veiled abaya, we had to go to various stores. Once we had the whole getup on, we went outside. We decided to venture out at night or our first experiment because I was worried about passing out from the heat during the day. I come dangerously close to fainting on a regular basis when I’m wearing capris and t-shirts. But we are still in the desert, and nights are hot. The first wave of hot air hit me, and I gasped.

This is not my first time covering up. I have worn hijabs and abayas when visiting mosques. It has always been really, really hot, and thoroughly uncomfortable, but I have never had a problem with veiling for a mosque visit. It seems fair and respectful. My obvious identity as a tourist also granted me a degree of freedom. During visiting hours, mosques are not open for prayer, and no one is going to mind if I wear the hijab loosely, stop to adjust it, trip over the abaya or walk clumsily in it.

But out here, on the street, it is different. I want to wear it correctly. I want to experience what it is like to be veiled in everyday life. This is surprisingly difficult. From the first step, I realize I have no idea how to walk in an abaya properly. I don’t know how to hold my shoulders or head. My natural plodding steps feel seriously wrong. The women here glide, so I will do that. I keep my body small, pull my shoulders in, and try to take small, elegant steps. The abaya is easier to walk in than I had anticipated, though it would be difficult to run. But I am still positive I look funny walking. I also want to adjust my robes, but I feel like I am fidgeting too much. Early in our walk, I need to scratch my nose but am at a loss of how to do it with the veil over my face.

Out in the burka, I feel terribly conspicuous. It must be obvious that I don’t know how to walk in this thing. It must be obvious that I don’t belong here. This is worse than middle school. This is not what I should be wearing.

At the same time, I am strangely invisible. The self-consciousness is all in my head. No one in the world but Beth knows that it is me, Jessie, underneath this veil.

Reminding myself that no one can see me is strangely calming. I have always had issues with the fact that veiled women are rendered invisible, but invisibility is a welcome alternative to feeling conspicuous in a costume I have no business in and no idea how to wear. And as I get used to the idea that no one can see me, that I am hidden in plain sight, I can focus more on how wearing a burka actually feels.

After the first blast of hot air, I acclimate a little and think I can do this. So I ignore the heat, and think cold thoughts, and look around through my veil. I am on my street, which I see every day. But all is different. Under the gauzy cloth, the street lights are orange halos expanding and contracting and making me dizzy. Headlights shimmy, throwing off my perception of where the oncoming cars actually are. Buildings are imposing, featureless shapes. My peripheral vision is seriously impaired, so cars – always a danger in these poorly designed, narrow streets – sneak up behind me unseen. Though on some level I almost think I am Darth Vader, surrounded in armor and untouchable, I also know that I am a dark shape out on a dark street. I know how difficult I must be to see; I have come close to walking into covered, shadowy women many times since moving here. Suddenly the ever-present threat of being hit by a car is much more serious.

My street is made of concrete high-rises, cars and people and street cats and mosques. It is hot, and all of these structures and all of this life give off their own, additional waves of heat. My sweat is starting to collect in the scarf around my neck, and I want to wipe it off, to fan my face, to let the air in, but I can’t. At a break in the traffic, when the brief absence of horns and engines provides a moment of relative quiet, I realize that I can hear my own, labored breathing.

We cross the street and head towards the corniche. The corniche is one of my favorite places in Sharjah, a wide, grassy walkway along a large lagoon. It is lined with date-palms and filled with pedestrians, exercisers, and families out barbecuing. At night, when it is cool enough to be outside, the tall buildings around it cast long, neon reflections over the water and the trash in the lagoon is harder to see. The water dulls the typical Sharjah smells of garbage, body odor and frankincense. I come here almost every night. There is nowhere I am more comfortable in Sharjah.

But even this, my safe harbor, is warped under the veil. To reach the walkway, we must walk through a grove of palm trees, planted in soldier-straight lines. Everyone loves this grove; we call it the “enchanted palm tree forest.” I have not seen a place with more green anywhere in this country. But now, despite their uniform rows, the trees seem to jump out at me. With my vision blurred and darkened, the enchanted palm tree forest looks less like a home for fairies and gumdrops and more like the realm of fiends.

When we reach the walkway, the brick paving on the corniche walkway gives me pause, as my depth perception has been thrown off and an uneven brick combined with long robes could lead to a face-plant. The slight breeze off the water cools me off a little, but creates the problem of blowing my veils around. Still, breathing is, mercifully, easier.

One thing that I like about the corniche is that it is less isolating than the rest of the city. People do not greet each other, but there is more eye contact, more half-smiles, less hostility. But that semblance of community disappears under the veil. There are lots of walkers on the corniche. They pass right by me, but I cannot see their faces. They are not wearing niqab, but they might as well be for all I can see. Their features and expressions are gone. There are so many layers between me and the world.

I remind myself that Beth is next to me, and look over at her. Of course, I can see nothing but a blob. We haven’t spoken much. “This is so weird,” I whisper to her, but it feels strange to speak. The veil is silencing. Though it in no way actually inhibits my ability to talk, psychologically, having a black shroud over my face makes me feel that I should be quiet.

So we walk in silence, past the shapes of humans and the shapes of palm trees, and I try to ignore the sticky sweat, the squeezing heat, until Beth says, “I need to sit down.” We find a bench, and Beth begins to talk quietly about the discomfort and heat, and the strange feeling of invisibility. By talking, I realize that I am, indeed, able to move my mouth, though no one can see. This is oddly freeing and fun. “I’m tonguing everyone,” Beth says, and I giggle, which feels really strange with my face covered. We sit for a while, making invisible faces at passerby, tonguing and crossing our eyes and clownishly widening our mouths.

As I make faces and watch the blurred forms go by, I begin to notice a pattern. Men are turning towards us. Startled, I realize they are checking us out. I cannot clearly see their faces, but their heads are moving up and down in the universal once-over motion. It is a motion that has become a part of my every-day life here, as I have my share of gawkers and stalkers, and men who assume I’m a Russian prostitute.

“How can they be checking us out?” I whisper. “They can’t see us.”

“They’re weird here.”

“Do you think they know we’re fakers?” I ask worriedly.

“No.”

I remember then about the covered-woman fetish. A few of our co-workers, other covered women, have talked about it, but I had a hard time believing it was true until now.

It makes sense, when I think about it. I have always felt that there is something blatantly sexual about the hijab, with its dual emphasis on mystery and modesty. I know that many women wear the full burka because their husbands jealously claim their wives’ beauty for their eyes only. This approach, in turn, encourages fascination among other men. I watch their blobby heads move up and down, checking out my shapeless form. They are disrobing me with their eyes, exactly the same way that they do when I let my calves see light.

At the same time, these men are told that good women are modest. Complete coverage is a way to proclaiming your modesty to the world, making covered women extra attractive to some men.

The knowledge that I am being checked out, that I can’t escape the uncomfortable stares even when I have covered myself up in a sack, is depressing and exhausting. Over the months, I have started to feel that covering up would almost be a welcome alternative to the stares. But they appear to be inescapable, and that reality makes the discomfort, the limited vision, inability to run, and shadowy invisibility of the burka seem entirely pointless.

It is hot, and I am depressed. Beth and I stand and begin to head back. I want beauty to make me feel better, as it often does, so passing the grand corniche mosque, I try to take in its architectural flourishes. I try to appreciate the orb of the palm trees. But their beauty is dimmed under my veil, and I cannot see them properly. Suddenly it hits me: countless women never get to see the world, in all its beauty, clearly. They will never see what a perfectly formed date-palm actually looks like, or the smooth, intricate lines of a flower petal. Maybe they have gardens at home, but what about apartment-dwellers? And what about the world beyond the villa walls? It is frustrating and uncomfortable to wear this outfit for a few hours one March evening. But women throughout the world wear this every day, for much of their lives. With the end of girlhood comes not only the knowledge that bras and tampons will be part of life, but the end of a clear view of the world. Do they look back on their childhoods as a half-forgotten time when their eyes were unobstructed?

I cannot be consumed with depressing thoughts for too long, though; the heat is really getting to me and I have to focus all my power on putting one foot in front of the other, not fainting, and continuing to breathe. Gone is the worry that I my walk is too clunky; I just need to get home. I am dizzy. This is like a sauna or a sweat lodge, but without the ability to take a proper, unobstructed breath of hot air.

When we have almost made it back, and I am sweltering and sick but sure I can make it, we pass our neighborhood mosque. Suddenly, the minarets come to life with a call to prayer. Everything visual, and much that is kinesthetic, is altered under the veil, so it is a surprise that I can still have such a strong auditory experience. Wearing this, nothing but the strangeness and the heat overwhelm. But the call to prayer, with its wavering cries, is as loud as ever. In a world where everything is half of what it should be, where faces are vague and undefined, where lights are distorted and scary, the only thing that is real and clear is the mosque, calling us to praise and submit to Allah.

The Ride of Her Life

“Oh, I had the worst Saturday,” says my friend Ayah, collapsing into her chair in the school staff room. “My dad’s friend came over, and he brought his son. Our parents used to talk about us being together, and he’s really cute.”

“Uh huh,” I say, encouragingly. One of the many things I like about Ayah is that she expresses thoughts and feelings about men other than fear and anxiety.

“So I spend all day cooking, and I made this really nice dinner. And my dad said they liked it, but he also said that this guy is interested in this other girl we know.”

“Oh, how sad!” I say. “I’m sorry. You really like this guy?”

“Yeah, he’s great.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Well, I’ve never actually met him, but I’ve been . . . aware of him for about ten years.”

I try not to look too surprised, and my mind immediately jumps to internet romances. Sometimes physically meeting the person isn’t the most important thing.

“But you’ve talked to him on the phone or something?”

“No, but my mom says he’s really nice and smart. And he’s so hot!”

“So you’ve seen him?”

“No.”

“Pictures?”

“No. I’ve seen his backside. Like, from the kitchen, and he’s facing away from me. And he has one sexy backside!”

I’m good at these kind of situations – hearing something that strikes me as completely strange but playing it off like it’s no big deal. Going to high school in Utah, listening to my Mormon friends talk about celestial marriage, prepared me for it. So I smile and nod understandingly. I can relate to Ayah’s story on a certain level – we’ve all suffered through unrequited crushes – and for the remainder of our conversation I attempt to think of it in those terms. I go through the motions, and say the right things, you’ll meet someone better, he probably wasn’t all that great in reality, it’s his loss, you’re so beautiful, you’re so great. But for the rest of the day my thoughts whirl around the oddity of her situation.

I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, I know that Ayah is a devout Muslim and most devout Muslims do not allow fraternization between unmarried and unrelated men and women. But there are no hard and fast guidelines to that rule, and every family enforces it differently. The two most common approaches that I have been exposed to living here are the relaxed custom of letting men and women talk to each other as long as they are in a supervised environment, and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the couple not meeting until the intention of marriage has been arranged. I have grown used to my other young, unmarried friends’ lip-biting anxiety at the idea of marriage and their wide-eyed talks on the predatory nature of men. These women will all marry relatively soon, but none of them express much desire to do so. It seems understandable, given the circumstances. As my friend Dima put it, “I don’t want to live with my family any more, we fight all the time, but sometimes I think it would be better to live with them than some bastard I don’t know.”

Ayah is, to an extent, different. She is twenty-two and from Lebanon, but spent her adolescence and university years in Toronto. She is extremely bright, but also extremely devout and she follows the rules without complaint. She cooks and cleans and obeys her father’s whims. She asks him permission to get coffee with me, and tries not to travel unescorted. When we hang out, she leaves when the sun begins to set because she is not supposed to be out after dark. She gives her father all of her salary. But she seems happy to do it, saying that the rules are in place to please Allah. The rules are blessings.

Her years in Canada left a mark, though. She has a (relatively) forthright acknowledgment of her sexuality. She talks all the time about how men – celebrities, men she “knows,” men she has seen on the street – are hot. She rarely speaks to them, but, though it is breaking the rules, she can’t quite bring herself to lower her gaze.

And, of course, she has a crush. It is difficult for me to even imagine a sustained wanting of someone you have never seen or interacted with. How strange, too, to feel that hearing that someone was nice, and glimpsing their backside, was sufficient information to form a crush. The situation reminds me a little of prepubescent celebrity obsessions – those awkward years of covering bedroom walls in pages torn from celebrity magazines, writing fan letters and reading unauthorized biographies. But that situation allows for the illusion of connection. Girls know the dream-boy’s face, interviews tell them everything from his favorite type of pizza to the name of his dog. Ayah’s crush is almost an entirely blank slate. But still she has it.

I like hearing her talk about her crushes and about how she finds men attractive. I am constantly fighting an uphill battle to stop myself from assuming that these women are oppressed, and her acknowledgment of sexual desire strikes me as a sign of freedom, independent thought, and self-awareness. And because she genuinely does not seem bothered by the rules, I am less inclined to judge. After hanging out with Ayah, I am usually left feeling a bit sorry for her, and quite glad that her life isn’t mine, but basically more at peace with this culture and religion than I usually am.

* * *

A couple of weeks later, we are sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts when an ambulance goes by. She asks me if I have ever ridden in an ambulance, and I can’t remember.

“I have,” she says, leaning forward. She was with friends at a mall in Toronto during Ramadan, and one of her friends fell forward on the escalator and had a seizure (she doesn’t think it was caused by fasting, though). She got to ride up front in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. “There were these two guys working, oh my gosh, they were so hot! One was part Turkish and one was Romanian. And they had these bodies, mmm! And we actually all ended up talking, and they were so cool!”

“You were talking?”

“I know, I don’t usually chat with men, but I was so interested in all the stuff in the ambulance, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. It was really cool. They have so much equipment in there, it’s like a miniature hospital. And we were all talking about our experiences being immigrants in Canada, and the Turkish guy was asking me about Islam, because he’d never really practiced it. They were the coolest guys.”

Ayah goes on and I sip my coffee slowly. She recounts details of their conversation, the green flecks in the Romanian’s eyes, the Turk’s biceps. She talks about the interesting gadgets in the ambulance. She tells me that, because she was sitting in the front seat, pedestrians and drivers in other cars looked at her, and she smiled and waved and felt like a celebrity. She sighs happily. “Oh, it was such an amazing day. Really, it was one of the most exciting days of my life.”

Ayah is twenty-two, never been kissed, never had a male friend, and her hormones are raging. She wants so desperately to interact with men that an ambulance ride and a casual conversation with the EMTs ranks as one of the most exciting days of her life. Of course, she would never admit to discontent or to wishing that the rules were different. And because she is so devout and so happy to follow the rules, I can’t wish that things were different for her. These are her cultural values and they are too important for me to just wish away. But I have never seen her eyes sparkle the way they did when she described that ambulance ride. I have never seen her smile so wide, heard her voice so full of life.

Belly Dancing and Secret Sensuality

Sweaty and tired at the gym, I meander into the aerobics/ weight/ kids’ play room. Generic Middle Eastern music blasts from the ceiling speakers; it’s usually either that or Western hip-hop (dirty Peaches songs are on the rotation, which I find amusing). And in the empty room, to the music I have been ignoring, a woman is dancing.

Not just dancing. She is belly dancing, but it is a belly dance unlike anything I have seen before. Her movements have a natural, mesmerizing grace. The shakes of her raised arm seamlessly flow down her body to her quivering leg. Her belly undulates and her whole body moves with it. It is like watching bluebells on a vine swaying in the breeze, or like fine, red satin being unfurled. It is sensuous. It lacks the eroticism of a tango and the wildness of salsa; it is as breathtaking as ballet but unrestricted by formal steps. The beauty of the dance is overwhelming.

I know this woman; we have spoken a few times. She is Jordanian but of Palestinian heritage, and once seemed confused when I said preferred Amman to Dubai because it didn’t fit with her concept of American tastes. Mostly she asks me about my weight and diet. She is overweight, though not morbidly obese like some gym members. Her body is lumpy, and as she dances her rolls ripple and sway. On most dancers, including the many Western belly dancers I’ve seen, this would look unappealing. But this woman’s limbs and torso are in such harmony with each other that the sight of a jiggling thigh does not look like an extraneous tumor hanging off her bone, but like part of the glorious whole.

How incredible that underneath her abaya, underneath all of the assumptions I make about Muslim women and project on her, is this dancing goddess. There is the old propaganda that Arab and Persian women are more beautiful, more sexual and seductive, than other women, which is why they have to be covered up. I think that notion is silly, but seeing this dancer almost makes me wonder if there is truth to it. It also makes me wonder what else is under that dark veil.

Everyone has their secrets, and everyone has the ability to surprise and enchant others with their hidden depths. But such moments are rare in this place. Often I feel that much of what is real and interesting is, metaphorically, veiled. In some ways, it is a fundamentally private culture, with its emphasis on covering bodies and hair and faces, and its encouragement of inter-family marriages. Windows are reflective, delivery-culture keeps people indoors. Even the houses have high walls around them, making the bleached stucco buildings that I would normally find appealing look like fortresses. People tell me that within those walls there are glorious gardens designed to evoke heaven as at is described in the Qu’ran. But the walls are off-putting; looking at the houses, I know instinctively that their wonders are not for my eyes.

This is not to say that I find people here especially secretive or unfriendly. I have had countless deep, personal conversations with Muslim friends. And there are plenty of facets to this culture that are on display. It doesn’t get much more up close and personal than prayer calls blasting from mosques for all the neighborhood to hear.

Most of what is out in the open, however, tends to be “new” Arabian culture; that is, a culture built on oil wealth. Everything sparkles. Buildings are covered in colored lights that blink and wiggle in neon seizures through the night. Abayas, a supposedly traditional garment, drip with jewels. Desert camping, that mystical tradition of the spice and silk traders, now consists of wired tents and dune-bashing SUVs. Famed Arabian hospitality means dozens of underpaid, indentured Filipino servants serving syrupy sweets. Textiles that were once intricate designs laced with gold, have become gaudy, overstuffed sofas and carpets that look like they came out of a hotel conference room. Heavy eye-makeup, once a Bedouin necessity that protected eyes from the bleak desert sun, is clownish.

That is what I see, anyway – usually. Except for today, when the woman dances and turns my world upside down for a moment. At times like this, I wonder if I know anything at all. I am a Westerner, and even though I have Muslim friends that explain customs and Islamic rules, who show me how to pin up hijabs and make cardamon tea, and sometimes even make me feel that I am cracking chinks in the armor around this world, there is so much that I don’t see. I had lumped belly dancing into the realm of tourist culture, but in reality it is alive and well in the general population. Someone, a mother, an aunt, taught this woman how to shake her limbs more sensuously than any Westerner has ever done. I suspect and sincerely hope that there is a whole, hidden world of memories and beauty and grace deep in the souls of these people and especially of these women. I only wish that it were easier for me to glimpse it.

The Obese Arab Emirates

The best thing a doctor has ever said to me about my weight is nothing at all. The worst is a condescending look and a warning that I should go down a couple of sizes. Those were my experiences with doctors, until a couple of days ago when I ventured into an Arab doctor’s office, as I stood on the scale, a good twenty pounds overweight, the smart, sassy, US-educated doctor proclaimed, joyously, “You’re not fat at all!”

I didn’t argue, but I must have looked a little confused because she explained that many of her patients are extremely obese. I knew that the UAE is in the midst of something of a health crisis, but apparently enough people here are so heavy that I look downright skinny.

The United Arab Emirates currently ranks as the 18th most obese country in the world, with a 33.7% obesity rate among adults. Last week, The New York Times ran an article on obesity in nearby Qatar. Qatar ranks higher on the health problem scale than the UAE, but the reasons behind the problem are the same – including passing on genetic disorders because of marrying cousins.

The obesity problem is both hidden and visible for all to see. When I first arrived, I did not realize that I was living in such a fat country. Because of the recent popularity rise of “traditional” Gulf region clothing – abayas and kandoras – visible evidence is often veiled along with hair and faces. Long black robes have a slimming effect on even the very heavy. Traditional Pakistani clothing consists of a long tunic and elastic pants, which is somewhat more form-fitting but flatters larger bodies.

But in shop dressing rooms and in the gym, the abayas come off and the fat rolls out. Most of the women are big. They range from chubby, probably about twenty pounds overweight, to morbidly obese. Of about fifty gym regulars, only two appear to be of what is, in the US, considered proper weight. Of those, just one looks athletic. She stretches and lifts and jogs along with no jiggles or spills. The others stroll on the treadmill, lift weights, and then ask the Filipino receptionists for glasses of coffee. It is a stark contrast to my Utah gym, where hard-bodied rock climbers pump iron and run for miles.

Though abayas and kandoras mask the bodily manifestation of the UAE weight problem somewhat, the issue is evident in a trip to a store, restaurant, or, especially, my pre-kindergarten classroom. Like their counterparts in the USA, store aisles are overflowing with junk food. But unlike in the USA, it is difficult to find skim milk and anything other than white, marshmallowy bread. Restaurants serve heaping portions and Arabic sweets drip with sugary syrups. The problem is exacerbated by delivery service. Everything from groceries to ironing is delivered – including fast-food. It is not significantly more expensive to order in than it is to buy groceries, so delivery has become a dietary staple.

These are far from healthy eating habits, but lunchtime in my classroom takes poor nutrition to the extreme. I have never seen anything like my students’ lunches. The best ones have a hot dogs or a gooey, processed cheese sandwich or croissant buried under the piles of junk food. A lot of my kids open their Spiderman lunchboxes to reveal nothing but soda, potato chips, and sweets. Another popular item is the chocolate sandwich: puffy white bread with chocolate spread slathered in the middle. I strictly enforce the eat your sandwich! rule, which means that every day children run up to my desk, chocolate sandwich in hand, and proclaim, “Miss! I eating sandwich!” They flash big grins with rotten teeth.

I have spent most of the school year torn on how to handle this issue. I do not want the kids to eat junk food for lunch, but do not feel comfortable letting them go hungry. At the same time, I refuse to purchase lunch for fifteen four-year-olds every day. Despite numerous conversations with parents about the issue, every day I face piles of junk food.

There are obvious ramifications of such “lunches.” Ten of my twenty students have rotten teeth. Some have weak little points of enamel hanging out of swollen gums (think of the lizard man on a pre-schooler). Some have miniature teeth because a dentist cut off the lower, rotten half. Most have black, sick-looking stubs that give off a rancid odor during song time. One boy has no teeth at all but suffers from bleeding gums and poor word pronunciation. The students also suffer from the typical behavior and attention problems associated with too much sugar and poor nutrition. They are either hyper and distracted or sluggish from lack of energy. Most of them have sallow skin and dark circles under their eyes. These problems are exacerbated by Sharjah’s poor air quality and the nocturnal culture which puts them to bed around midnight and awake around 6 a.m.

As if the food culture weren’t enough of a health problem, people here are not encouraged to exercise. Sprawling Middle-Eastern cities and suburbs are exceedingly difficult to navigate as a pedestrian. Where there are sidewalks, there are extremely high curbs and very few ramps. My knees constantly hurt from jumping over the curbs on and off the sidewalks. There are even fewer cross-walks, which means that crossing the street is a terrifying, traffic-dodging affair.

Most US suburbs (and some US cities) are pretty pedestrian unfriendly, but we try to encourage exercise in other ways, especially for children. There are organized sport clubs and dance classes. The UAE only offers such things in extremely Westernized areas of Dubai, and they are marketed to ex-pat families. My school has no real PE program to speak of, let alone extracurricular sports teams. I have been told that this is normal in UAE schools. As for adults, I sometimes see adult men playing pick-up games of soccer and basketball outside. Women are unable to play because of cultural taboos and for the simple reason that abayas prohibit free movement. Those who join and go to the small, tucked-away, poorly equipped gyms are a small minority of the general population.

As an American, I know that it was primarily my country that exported this unhealthy lifestyle throughout the world. It saddens and worries me that wealthy, emerging countries like the UAE and Qatar are following in our fat footsteps.

Thinking Positive

In need of a visa stamp in my passport, I traveled to the UAE/ Omani border last weekend. For the five-hour drive through the sand dunes, my head was spun in circles by my conversation with Gayle. Gayle is a new American teacher at my school. Gayle loves Sharjah. It’s beautiful, she says. It’s fascinating; there is so much to learn.

The consensus among the other teaches is that Gayle is insane.

Sharjah is awful, ugly, boring, smelly, with traffic so bad it can take hours to cross town. With a few exceptions, everyone I know – newcomers and life-long residents alike, Westerners, Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Arabs, even including some Emiratis – readily admits that Sharjah kind of sucks. To ask a new acquaintance how they like Sharjah is a friendly ritual akin to asking a new acquaintance how they like severe road construction. There are smiles of commiseration and acknowledgment of the pointless façade of positivity. Replies generally range from, “Sharjah? No, Sharjah, is, well, Sharjah,” to, “I don’t like Sharjah,” to, “I fucking hate Sharjah.” When the reply deviates from the expected negativity, if someone admits to actually liking Sharjah, people are incredulous. And so, everyone things Gayle is a nutjob.

I, however, have doubts. Listening to her talk, starry-eyed, about cultural opportunities, beauty, and exploration, is like listening to myself in another life, a life pre-UAE. I talked like that about Kyoto, Japan, and Exeter, UK, where I’ve lived previously. I remember a friend’s visit to Kyoto three years ago. He was homesick for New York, and, anyway, he preferred Tokyo’s tall buildings to Kyoto’s shrines. We went to temples and I swooned over the small, delicate wonder of moss on stones and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Conversations with Gayle leave me feeling like I am missing something. What does she see that I do not? For months, I have awoken most days determined to see the beauty in this culture. But my morning walk to work, in which I usually come close to being hit by a car, am gawked at by a creepy man, cross paths with some scraggly sad street cats, and choke on sandy air, leaves me feeling disgusted with this place.

Sometimes I make lists of positives: things I like (Great falafel! Awesome curry! Cheap prescription medication!), exciting activities (Dubai’s art scene, film festivals), good things about veiling (Convenient on a bad hair day, and all the covered women get to wear sweats to work under their abayas).

There are things about UAE culture that I find positive. For example, women are allowed to divorce, though it it is more difficult for them to initiate than for a man. Women are also allowed to drive, vote, attend school, and occupy positions in Parliament. And though I have mixed feelings about veiling, I love that women here persistently try not to let it slow them down. They may be physically restrained by their abayas, but they still go into the ocean, fully clothed and covered. Sometimes the headscarves themselves don’t seem too bad. For every ten boring black or silly Chanel hijabs, there is one that looks elegant and flattering. And on the subject of women’s bodies, I think that for the most part, they have a healthier standard of beauty than we do in the West. Curves, especially hips, are prized, and they do not share our obsession with dieting. The UAE, however, is the 18th most obese country in the world, so perhaps they could use a little push in the diet direction.

Another thing I find positive is their professed love for the desert. Camping has been an important part of the culture since the days of the Silk Roads and caravans. Recently in the wealthy Gulf, it has become a luxurious activity. Tents cost thousands of dollars and come equipped with X-Boxes, and camel riding has been traded in for dune bashing in SUVs. But everyone, rich and poor, goes out to enjoy barbecues on the lagoon. The walkway is crowded every night with Arab and Pakistani families sitting on straw mats, laughing and talking. The groups tend to be separated by gender, but everyone is smiling. It is wonderful to see. Picnics are, I think, a great equalizer of humanity. They exist in every culture, and most people seem to enjoy them.

I run through my lists in my head but they don’t sink in very well. So I walk down the street straining my senses, trying to see through the trash and brown sky, trying to see the enchantments that dance through Gayle’s vision. I go for walks on the water and turn myself over to the palm trees and the lagoon’s shimmering blue-and-white skyscraper reflections. There are streets in neighborhoods far from mine that are narrow and quiet. Magenta Bougainvillea flow over the stucco villa walls, and I can almost believe that I am in a quiet San Diego neighborhood. Even the calls to prayer, so often noisy and robotic, can, if a particularly talented muezzin has taken to the minaret, sound melodious and hauntingly beautiful. There are lovely things here, and they are in plain sight. I just have to open my eyes to see them.

Still, these good things seem few and far between. A patch of perfect palms can be easy to overlook when those trees shade hordes of men eye-raping me. The fact that women swim in hijab seems to matter little when their fathers refuse to let them go to the store unescorted. There are good and beautiful things here, but they are shiny facets on a tarnished stone. I don’t think it’s possible for me to be starry-eyed about Sharjah. The best I can do is to remember that nothing is ever absolute and take my moments of peace where I can get them, before someone throws glass at my head.

The UAE’s Culture of Fear

Last week I wrote about how, ironically, I feel relatively safe from terrorism living in the United Arab Emirates, despite my violent and oppressive neighboring countries. As if Sheikh Mohammed were offended at my expression of secure feeling about anything in this place, this week has left me looking over my shoulder.

A few days ago, I was walking home from school with two friends. Our conversation turned to travel. Places we’d been, places we’d like to go. Fun places: New Orleans, Rio, Amsterdam. Beth and Courtney were recounting their Amsterdam experiences when they realized they had both stayed at the same disgusting youth hostel. There was squealing and laughter and big silly grins. We tromped along, skirting the SUVs parked in the middle of narrow streets with their hazards blinking, my friends exclaiming over their discovery. Then out of the edge of my eye I saw something flying through the air. There was a shattering crash. I looked around, confused. There were large chunks of glass at my feet.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Glass. Glass flying.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone threw glass at us.”

“There was glass, flying at our heads.” Beth pointed to the glass on the ground. “Do you see that? If it had been a foot closer, it would have hit you!”

I looked up. By its landing location, the glass had clearly come from the apartment building across the street from ours. At its base, and directly across from where we then stood, is the small grocery where I do most of my shopping. I looked around. The sky was brown with dust, but free from flying shards. I couldn’t see any human forms silhouetted in the windows. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Do you think it was an accident?”

“No,” said Courtney. “They threw glass at us.”

The chunks were heavy and white-rimmed where they had broken on the asphalt. I imagined them embedded in my skull. I imagined a shard slicing open my cheek, scarring me for life. I started to shake.

We walked home quietly. Later that night, I needed to go to the store. After psyching myself up for a while, I crossed the sandpit. I kept my eyes on the sky, watching for glass.

There was a good deal of discussion about the flying glass the next day. Some of my coworkers reminded us that people throw trash out of their windows all the time. “But do they throw glass?” I asked. “Everyone knows glass is dangerous.” They shrugged.

Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps they were just throwing out trash. Perhaps they threw the glass at us because we were laughing too loudly, perhaps it was because we were uncovered. I’m inclined to think it was a combination of the two.

* * *

Yesterday, a UAE newspaper published a story about how police are now doing door-to-door raids searching for unmarried couples. This has left the ex-patriots living together out of wedlock in a state of panic. The likely sentence for such a crime is a year in jail; a possible alternative is lashing.

This week, I will receive a medical exam as part of my residency visa process. A friend told me not to worry unless I had recently taken drugs or was pregnant. Neither of those apply to me, but it’s horrifying to think that were I pregnant, my primary worry would not be about the baby but about jail time. Unwed pregnancy is not explicitly illegal, but because one-on-one interaction between unmarried men and women is, the unwed, pregnant woman has clearly committed a crime.

This week, I had a conversation with a Muslim friend who told me about the countless times she was sexually harassed while wearing hijab (a headscarf). This week, I was followed home from the gym. This week, another friend got a new stalker – her electrician.

It’s been a scary few days, but it’s far from the first time I’ve been frightened here. I maintain that people here seem to feel relatively safe from terrorist threats, but the culture of fear is thriving in other areas. Foreigners, men and women alike, are afraid of the UAE government. International news stories about Dubai often focus on Western ex-patriots being arrested for having sex or kissing in public. Both tourists and residents are afraid of crossing the invisible line where PDA becomes a crime. Many laborers are afraid that the government will take their visas, or that their employers will deny them pay. Everyone is afraid of being hit by a crazy taxi driver (especially because no one wears seatbelts) and of going to the doctor where blood tests are administered by gloveless hands in a dirty building.

Sometimes I think that ex-patriots here are paranoid, or that all the fear is part of the typical immigrant experience. But the fear does not stop with Westerners and Southeast Asian laborers. The Muslim women that I know express fear of men. They are told from the time they are young that men are creatures to be feared – an attitude, which in turn, normalizes inappropriate male behavior. Not only are many Muslim women afraid of strangers, they are afraid that they will be married off to a man they don’t like, they are afraid that he will take more wives with whom they don’t get along or that he will give another wife control of the family, they are afraid of being raped and possibly helpless, or possibly blamed, in the eyes of the law.

There is often a nervous tension in the air. Though I might be projecting my own anxieties, I think that there is, on a meta level, some fear. After last year’s financial crash, Dubai is afraid that its shiny, sub-prime city is unsustainable. The press practices self-censorship (though the art world seems more free). The UAE as a whole is, if not explicitly fearful of, at least intimidated by Saudi Arabia next door.

Personally, I worry regularly about sexual harassment and assault; some of my ex-patriot friends have been victimized this year. I worry about being arrested for accidentally breaking some unknown Sharjah decency law (I follow the dress code, but a grumpy police officer might decide my t-shirt is too tight or that showing collar bones is the same as showing shoulders – I don’t trust anyone here). I worry about telling people I’m traveling to Israel this summer. I worry about going to the gynecologist and admitting that I am unmarried and sexually active. I worry about being arrested for walking down the street with my one male friend. Now I can add flying glass to my list of fears.

I am well acquainted with scared societies; I am from the USA, after all. Our fear is alive and well, and, I find, inescapable. It is in the media and in our every day conversations. We are afraid of terrorists, kidnappers, germs, muggers. But, for me, those fears are on life’s periphery – I am not especially nervous about any of them and think that such threats are often exaggerated. When I am home, it is annoying to hear about fear. When I am in the UAE, I am genuinely afraid.

Who’s Afraid of the Middle East?

I’m going down to South Park to have myself a time. I’m a big fan of the show. I’ve watched it for years, but I especially love watching it when living abroad because it makes me feel connected to my “real world.” The latest episode, “200″ revisits several themes that South Park has featured over it’s fourteen-year run, including showing the prophet Mohammed on screen. Watching the show today got me thinking about Western concerns regarding Islam and how different some of those concerns can seem over here.

In the “200″ episode, Mohammed needs to show his face to save the town of South Park. This is an issue because, after the 2006 Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy, media around the world halted any depiction of prophet. That year, South Park ran a two-part episode titled, “Cartoon Wars,” which tackled the issue, coming down on the side of free speech and not letting fear rule our lives. At the end of the show, they had planned to show an image of Mohammed, but Comedy Central ultimately censored it. This was especially significant because in July, 2001, the character of Mohammed had figured prominently in the South Park episode, “Super Best Friends.” This Mohammed was not only shown in human form, but as a superhero, flame-throwing friend of Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Krishna, and other religious figures. The change in acceptability illustrates just how much the world itself has altered in the last decade. A few short months after South Park showed Mohammed as a super best friend, Western attitudes towards Muslims changed dramatically.

But you would hardly know that from living here. Dubai, of course, is a business city, which not only tolerates but courts Westerners to its sunny shores. Even Sharjah, though it doesn’t seem to like us and our values much, wants us here for economic reasons. Whereas Muslims going to Western countries face problems with visas and airport security, we are allowed to pass easily in. I do not have a residency visa, but I am allowed to stay here by hopping across the Omani border every month to renew my tourist visa. The UAE government is constantly passing laws prohibiting Southeast Asians, Indians, Pakistanis, and the other, non-Western people who make up this country’s workforce from doing the same thing. They are the ones looked upon with suspicion.

The Western media portrays us as frightened of Muslims and Muslims as full of hatred towards us. I have been to the UAE, Jordan, and Oman, and in those places I’ve felt that the two sides might not necessarily get along, but there very little flat-out hatred or fear (at least fear of suicide bombers, anyway).

In fact, the word terrorism is rarely heard here. Perhaps this is because the Arabs think the subject is too loaded to talk about with Westerners, especially with Americans, but I suspect it’s not. After all, they are willing to talk about all sorts of topics that Westerners might typically consider problematic: veiling, oil, the war in Iraq, Israel and Palestine. Their views often differ from mine. The conversations are sometimes uncomfortable, but we have them. I think that we don’t talk about terrorism because, unlike in the fear-flooded USA, it’s not something that the general population spends much time thinking about. Everyone is allowed here, as long as they speak the language of money.

Yet the shadow of terrorism and war is here. When people do talk about terrorism, they mention the supposedly secret understanding between the UAE and Al Qaeda. It is widely assumed that the UAE pays money to Al Qaeda in return for safety. Of course, I do not know if this is true or not. But I know that Iraqi soldiers live here, that countless supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas live here. My friend tutors a family acquainted with the Bin Ladens. I can never quite forget that I am just across the water from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and down the road from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but at the same time it feels so safe here that terrorism seems like an issue for those other places, both near and far, to deal with. Everyone acts like the UAE is invisible to the extremists on all sides.

Like terrorism, the depicting Mohammed, while it is a serious issue in the West, has not taken hold of the UAE’s public mind. This is, by and large, because the government has taken away the possibility of it becoming an issue. UAE law is more-or-less based on Sharia (Islamic) law, so it is illegal to show images of Mohammed – even his Wikipedia page is blocked. Like most things in most religions, the specifics of the rule are open to interpretation. The Qu’ran does not explicitly forbid depictions of Mohammed, but the hadith (supplementary texts) do. Historically, Sunnis forbid all representation, whereas Shi’as accept respectful depictions. The rule exists to prevent idolatry. Some Muslims take the “no idols” rule to the extent that all depictions of humans are forbidden, but UAE law does not go that far. Around my neighborhood, I often see shop mannequins with covered faces. I also often see the faces of various Sheikhs blown up to cover entire buildings and painted on mountainsides (which, to me, seems dangerously close to idolatry, but I’m not religious so what do I know?). But by limiting free speech and legally forbidding the depiction of Mohammed, the UAE has all but guaranteed that it will not happen. Some rebellious artist might one day attempt to illustrate him, but that artist would be arrested faster than you can say, “Inshallah.”

But maybe not. It is strange and ironic that issues Westerners have directly concerning Muslims are not such a big deal in a Muslim country. The UAE, however, is not your average Muslim country. Though things did not feel significantly different during my trips to Jordan and Oman, I was not there long enough to really know. The UAE straddles Muslim and Western ideas more so than Jordan or Oman; it seems that this feeling of isolation from Western fears of Muslims and Muslim fears of the West will sooner or later be challenged. Terrorists threats will become real here (Al Qaeda has referred to Dubai as a “whorehouse” in the past), or enough Western artists will want to depict Mohammed that free speech will become a center-stage issue. In the meantime, I can watch South Park through a website that the government hasn’t yet blocked and think about how different things are back home in my “real world.”

The Brothel at School

My “nanny” at work has tonsillitis. Her name is Jean, she is in her mid-forties, with a grown son and an amazing work ethic. She has experience teaching small children, yet she keeps her mouth shut as I muddle my uncertified way through lessons. Her official title is “nanny;” at the start of the year I attempted to refer to her as my assistant but it didn’t take. She, and everyone else, says “nanny.” She calls me “Miss,” which I hate. I tried to put a stop to that at the beginning of the year, too, and it also did not take.

Jean is Filipino. Like hundreds of thousands of other Filipinos, she has come to the UAE under a strict contract that guarantees her bad pay (far less than minimum wage), sharing a school-owned apartment with twenty other nannies while paying rent and utilities, no insurance, no flight reimbursement and no paid holidays. In contrast, I, an American, get an apartment that I share with one person paid for by the school, flight reimbursement, paid holidays and summer vacation, and basic medical insurance. Despite the horrible conditions, Filipinos are among the many nationalities that flock to the UAE because the $275 a month pay is better than what they would get back home.

Jean will lose a few days pay because she is sick. The school nurse gave her medicine because she can’t afford to go to the doctor. And, in the meantime, I have been working with a new nanny named Lulu. She is a floating nanny, which means she spends most of her days cleaning up preschoolers in the bathroom, and mopping up the constantly flooded floor.

Lulu is probably near Jean’s age, but whereas Jean is all smiles and laughter even as she tells me about the most appalling aspects of her situation, Lulu’s discontent is visible in her sad eyes and lined face. She tells me she taught preschool in the Philippines for over ten years, and she misses teaching. She cuddles the kids and promises them sweets and when I return to class after recess she has gotten them quieter than I have in months. The light is off, their heads are on the table for the brief rest time I like to sneak in between lessons, and the room is silent. A smile flutters on Lulu’s hot pink lips.

Like most people I know here, Lulu complains a lot about school and about Sharjah. She hates Sharjah for its dullness and the typical negative attitude towards Filipinos here. She hates our school for its bad, often late, pay, long hours, poor facilities, and the administration’s disrespect. I have heard most of this before from Jean and the other nannies, but Lulu tells me directly that things are worse at school this year. When I ask why, she tells me that a few months ago, the rules changed. Things are different now. Now it is more difficult for the nannies to make extra money; “they make it very, very hard for us,” she says.

I know what she is talking about, though neither of us mention it specifically. Lulu is talking about Mr. Karem.

Mr. Karem was the Lebanese public relations officer of my school. He wore wingtips and shirts halfway unbuttoned to display waves of grey chest hair. He was boozy during Ramadan (as well as the rest of the time) and greeted women with hand clasps that lasted a little too long. He was in charge of the nannies’ visas and housing; he was also in charge of their supplementary income. That meant, I learned quickly last August, that he ran the brothel that operated out of the school parking garage.

I do not know the particulars of the brothel’s operations. Long-time teachers and a few nannies told me that anywhere from about 50% – 75% of the nannies at school worked the parking garage. From talking to the nannies, I got the impression that though the work was offered, they were not pressured to participate. Because the money was so infinitely better than school pay, it was hard for many nannies to resist.

Throughout my first several months in the UAE, the seedy business in the parking garage was discussed in hushed tones and vague generalities. Nannies would complain of working late. They spoke highly of Mr. Karem whenever his name came up. Their praise contrasted sharply with the teachers’ gripes about his ineptitude, drunkenness, and inappropriate behavior. Early in the year, while I was complaining about my broken air conditioner that Mr. Karem had yet to fix, one of the long-time teachers mentioned that he ran the brothel under the parking garage. At first I thought it was a lie. Even in those early days I could tell that several of my coworkers are pathological liars. But the brothel in the parking garage kept coming up. Everyone, even my trustworthy co-teachers, even my principal, knew about it. They all spoke of it matter-of-factly but without many details, in the typical fashion of well-known secrets. Several coworkers casually suggested that I could hang out by the parking garage at night, or watch the security tapes, if I didn’t believe the brothel at school was real.

Though I was ultimately too scared of the police and my school administration to check out the parking garage, I did try to ask Jean and a few other nannies about Mr. Karem. Once they finished singing his praises, they made statements like, “some nannies work with Mr. Karem,” and, “you can work with him or you can’t.”

I spent those first several months feeling conflicted about the issue. It’s sad and terrible, and speaks volumes about the true horror of the nannies’ situation that so many of them would voluntarily participate. But I also feel that if those women chose to work at Mr. Karem’s brothel, it wasn’t my place to judge them. I did not know what I would do if I was in their situation, and choice counts for a lot, in my opinion. But the knowledge that such a thing was happening at my school, where I sang the ABCs and dried tears, was disconcerting. Thinking about it too much made me sick. I was still getting my bearings in the UAE, and the brothel was an additional, enormous thing that was wrong here, another piece of surreal information that made me wonder where on earth I was.

Then, one day in January, Mr. Karem was gone. My boss told me that he had been fired. The nannies had long faces for weeks. I often saw them talking covertly in corners. Jean, though I am almost positive that she never worked for Mr. Karem, told me that his leaving was a, “big problem. He helps the nannies.” I kept expecting to hear that he was back, that the whole thing was a rumor. Mr. Karem gave the impression of being a permanent fixture at school. He had worked there almost since its inception; it seemed impossible that he could be fired.

I later learned that Mr. Karem slept with most of the nannies, fathered several children and carried on relationships with a few of them. One day in January, two nannies got in a shouting match over their relationship status with Mr. Karem; each claimed to be his girlfriend. They yelled about it in front of the high school, just as one of the Sheikhs that owns the school walked by. And, like that, after nearly twenty years of drinking, and wheeling and dealing at my school, Mr. Karem was gone.

And now Lulu, and most of the other nannies, struggle more for money than usual. At the same time that Mr. Karem disappeared, restrictions were tightened on the nannies’ other, legal part-time jobs. Jean had worked evenings as a caterer. Now she and the other nannies are really making it, or not making it, on 1000 UAE dirhams, or $275, a month.

The Horror of Life Uncovered

I have mixed feelings about the veiling of women in Islam. This video, which a Muslim friend sent to me after a discussion about veiling, exemplifies many of my problems with it.

This video preys on and encourages fear. Men are wolves on the prowl, incapable of seeing anything but a woman’s body and sexuality. They are waiting in the dark to pounce on her. They are also snakes, hissing and tempting in the shadows. The world itself is an ominous place where danger lurks around every corner. The only acceptable response to this world is to run, terrified, from the unseen monsters.

Unless, of course, one dons the magic hijab. The veil is presented as a literal lifeline, and protective armor. One of the most common explanations for veiling is that it prevents men from seeing women as sex objects; it forces them to interact on an intellectual level. Veiling, however, far from guarantees that men cease to see women as sex objects. If a man is a pervert he is going to stare whether he can see your hair, or your knees, or not. And for some men, veiling increases the objectification of women. Hijab and burka pornography is extremely popular here (if you have a proxy server to get around the UAE’s decency laws, that is. And everyone has a proxy server). In those images, the veil adds a level of debasement. The anonymous porn star becomes much more anonymous when her face is covered.

Just as veiling does not prevent perverted or socially inept men from objectifying women, visible hair does not cast a spell that causes men to turn into Neanderthals or rapists. Whenever my Muslim friends tell me about how men are animals, I always feel slightly confused. What about all the men who are not animals, who are just people? The vast majority of men that I know and care about do not stare or photograph strangers on their cell phones, and they are not wolves. They are attracted to women and appreciate female beauty – just as I appreciate male beauty – but they see women as people and interact with them as such. Are all these decent men I know completely emasculated? I think that really it comes down to cultural differences and what you are accustomed to. After all, shoulders can be a big deal if you’re not used to seeing them. But videos like this perpetuate the idea that this is standard, normal male behavior.

In this video, the only acceptable way to view men is as animals, and the only acceptable response is either to cover yourself up or to be terribly afraid. There is no alternative, such as, say, viewing men as people instead of animals and talking to them. It propagates a false understanding of everyday male-female interaction. And not only does this video give women a false impression of men, it gives men a false impression of men. It teaches men that they are predators instead of people. Men who are raised to respect women and to see them as fellow human beings have a greater sense of their own humanity. It warps a man’s sense of self to see his entire gender depicted as animals, just as it warps a woman’s sense of self to see her entire gender depicted as victims.

And by giving men the sense that what is masculine is what is animal, inappropriate, and dehumanizing, it gives them permission to act that way. Some men take advantage of this permission; they stare and stare hard. In the video, permission to behave inappropriately is underscored by the movie’s imagery. The uncovered woman wears a slinky red dress – the color of seduction – and red lipstick. She is, in the world of this little movie, asking for it. It is only when she puts of a hijab – here shown in virginal white – that she is saved.

The whole system seems so backwards to me. If you want men to respect women, teach them that women are people and not sex objects. And, if you really want to protect women from dangerous men, encourage self-defense classes. Covering up the woman is dealing with a symptom rather than the root problem.