There is a special moment in the life of every Dubai resident, let’s call it the “Point of Adjustment”, where the crazy haze of this futuristic bubble smack bang in the Middle East somehow start to makes sense.
This is the same point when your jaw no longer aches from hitting the floor on a daily basis, when realising you dropped $150 on the cheapest bottle of wine at a restaurant elicits cries of jubilation rather than clammy-palmed panic, when instead of shutting a car door as you hop out you turn to a nearby doorman and deliver an expectant “thank you”.
I think I can pinpoint it, the moment I “got” Dubai. The revelation came not standing 800 metres in the sky on top of the world’s tallest building, or petting a penguin in the middle of the mall (that sounds cruel, let me clarify – petting a penguin in an artificial ski slope in the middle of the mall). I was in a taxi, at a traffic light, on a Friday night, two months after I arrived in Dubai in September 2012. Up ahead I saw a furry sort of frolicking, inside a red Lamborghini.
“What a fun-loving dog,” thought I. “Perhaps a corgi.”
My point of adjustment came just moments later, when out of the window popped not corgi nor cocker spaniel, but a monkey. Wearing a suit. A monkey in a suit.
The one-and-a-half years since that point (which has been disappointingly devoid of any wildcats on Ducatis) must have been the fastest of my life.
And my response? “Huh”. That’s all. I didn’t break out into peals of disbelieving laughter, or reach for my mobile phone to capture this – by all international norms – bizarre occurrence. I simply said “huh”. I barely even bothered to share the story with my new Dubai acquaintances, as the few I did almost instantly trumped me with their own versions, starring cheetahs and snow leopards.
The one-and-a-half years since that point (which has been disappointingly devoid of any wildcats on Ducatis) must have been the fastest of my life.
It has been demarcated by amazing highs and lonely lows, living 14,000 kilometres away from the land that nurtured and spat me out into the world. I didn’t know a soul before I made my way Middle East-wards, on the whiff of a job at an English language newspaper. Now I have cherished friends and a not-long-enough-suffering boyfriend.
Since I have been in Dubai I have had almost enough experiences to fill a life time (almost). I’ve travelled to 18 countries, like Yemen and Iraq, I’ve learned to surf (very badly), and picked up enough broken Arabic to fool hawkers that I’m fluent, yani. I’ve learned about different cultures and connected with people whose backgrounds are entirely unrecognisable from my own.
I have mourned the absence of trees, ubiquitous New Zealand beauty, and silence, but rejoiced in the multicultural environment and cheap price of shiitake mushrooms (really, I don’t know why, but they are cheap!).
My mum may say I’ve … what’s that word parents use?
Matured.
But as I start to look offshore and on to my next potential destination, I certainly hope that is a Point of Adjustment that is entirely reversible. I’ll reconsider at 30.