Projekt Gemüsebeet oder für eine Liberalisierung der Bienen!, Winter/Frühjahr 2012

Begonnen hat alles im Winter - und zwar damit, dass ich die blassen, mondsüchtigen Tomaten aus dem Supermarkt nicht mehr sehen, geschweige denn essen konnte.

Was macht man in so einem Fall? Richtig, man geht in das nächstgelegerne Pflanzengeschäft, bewaffnet sich mit Topf, Erde, Samen und Schaufel, und schon kann gebuddelt werden! Ich hatte mich für Paradeiser, Gurken und Paprika entschieden, und in meinem Übereifer versteckte ich mehrere Samen in der Erde der zwei Riesentöpfe. Ein Topf war für die zwei verschiedenen Paradeiser-Sorten, der andere Topf war ein Gurken/Paprika-Mix.

Hier ein Foto aus den ersten Tagen Anfang Februar: who is who?

Nachdem Paradeiser gerne ranken, zählte zu einem der nächsten Einkäufe sogar ein Rankgitter, das sich schlussendlich zutraulich an den Rand des Paradeiser-Topfes schmiegte und den mittlerweile größeren Pflänzchen unterstützend zur Seite stand. Die Paprika wurden anscheinend zu sehr von den Gurken eingeschüchtert und wagten nicht mal die Köpfchen aus der Erde. Das blieb leider bis zum Schluss so.

Im Mai entstand dann folgendes Bild:
 

Mit im Bild die alljährlichen Fensterputzer, die einem wieder vor Augen führen sollten, dass man sich ohne Vorhänge selbst im 13. Stock mit unverbautem Blick nicht allzu unbeobachtet fühlen sollte.

Sehr bald später habe ich entschieden, dass ein Topf zu klein für die vielen Paradeiser-Pflänzchen ist, und habe die Hälfte der Meute in einen weiteren Topf umgesiedelt.

Schnappschüsse der kleinen Lieblinge wurden natürlich auch festgehalten:

 

Soweit, so gut! Die Paradeiser-Pflanzen gediehen auch weiterhin durchaus löblich (wer mich kennt, weiß, dass ich bereits in Wien nur hartgesottene Pflanzen auf meinem Balkon aufnahm, die auch mit wenig Wasser auskommen) und erreichten schließlich mühelos den obersten Ring. Die Gurken-Pflanzen gurkten nach wie vor gemütlich auf dem Boden herum. Schließlich stellten sich auch die ersten Blüten ein, bei den Gurken etwas früher als bei den Paradeisern - nur leider bildeten sich keine Fruchtknoten!

Wer bis hierher gelesen hat, ist echt tapfer! Aber jetzt kommt die Pointe!

Was kann da der Grund sein? Natürlich! Es gibt keine Bienen! Oder zumindest nicht in der Öffentlichkeit. Vielleicht sind auch die Bienen noch nicht im 21. Jahrhundert angekommen, und müssen ihr Dasein weiterhin in den eigenen vier Wänden fristen? Ähnlich wie die einheimischen Frauen hier? Oder was ist sonst der Grund, dass der Honig aus dem (freizügigeren) Libanon importiert wird? Möglicherweise müssten auch Fremdbienen importiert werden, um auf Balkone wie meinen zu gelangen? Die Pakistanischen Fensterputzer schaffen es ja auch...

Für die Liberalisierung aller Weibchen, um dem Stillstand vorzubeugen!

Spitzzüngig? Gesellschaftskritisch? Vorurteilbehaftet? Ja, ein wenig von allem...

I am not qualified, May 2012

Some days ago I was eating out with a colleague in the evening and we made the mistake of both taking our cars. Everybody who knows the Marina Walk can imagine that even during the week on a less busy day, there is no way on earth that you can find two parking spots. So we had to park in the garage.

So far, so good! We went to have dinner at the Lebanese restaurant: cold Mezze, as usually. And we sat outside because even though it was already May, there was a sandstorm which brought a fresh, cool breeze which made it bearable to sit outside. Over some chit-chat we had finished our meals and upon paying our bill we had our parking tickets validated with a stamp of the restaurant.

Since we were not yet feeling tired, and the meal was quite filling, we decided to walk a bit as to check out the restaurants and the infrastructure of the neighbourhood. On the way I must have lost my validated ticket, but when I relaized it was gone, we couldn't find it anymore as the wind had been blowing so hard. I thought  "Never mind! I am wearing a skirt, and the employee at the entrance of the parking was a guy, so I can probably convince him very easily to let me out of the parking without paying the fine (of AED 250!)."

Hmmmm, when we reached the security-guy at the entrance and told him the story, he was not very understanding (note to myself: I guess I have to realize that my legs are no longer working!!!), and told me I would have to pay AED 250 to drive out with my sweet little Gracey. I almost begged him for mercy, and then we realized that we still have the other parking-ticket, and since we were entering the garage right after each other, we could find out the respective number of my ticket, as the ticket-machine uses subsequent numbering.

With this information we found out that the charge up to that point was about AED 120, which is still a bit over-exaggerated for 3 hours of parking, but better than AED 250. The only problem was: without the ticket he would still not let me out! I suggested to call his manager and talked the supervisor into the agreement that I would pay the current chargeable amount in the very moment, and in case they would not be able to handle like this with their accounting department or whatever, I would leave my contact-details. The supervisor asked me to hand in my Emirates ID (an obligatory ID-card for all UAE-residents), and the security guy would copy the details.

It turned out that there was no copy-machine available, and when I showed him my ID-card so he could take down the details, he told me "Ma'am, I am not qualified". I didn't understand at the very moment, but only when I finished taking down the details, I realized, what he was about to tell me. In a very polite, and shy way he had admitted not being able to write. All my anger was gone after the shock of realisation. I paid my AED 120 we had agreed upon and still being very European I asked him for a receipt, but he told me "I will be there, and you have to trust me that I will not jeopardize my job for your money."

I felt embarassed.

On tour with Michi, 05.05.2012

Michi (you might know her from a different post about Sardinia) had been in Dubai already last year, so I didn't have to take her to all the touristy places Dubai has to offer, but with her I discovered the "outback" of the UAE.

Our first trip took us to the East coast of the UAE: to Fujairah, supposedly the "greenest" emirate, with its small island within swimming-distance "Snoopy-island".

Here we spent a couple of hours at the beach, trying to figure out what the small holes and the sand hills close by could be.

Later on the solution was revealed: we saw some crabs digging their canal-system into the ground of the beach. And they were huge!!! I mean, I have never seen such creatures "live" before, and I really didn't have a clue how the holes came into the ground...

Even though Dibba is a really nice place: after this revelation, the humidity steaming up the place and the fact there was some oil in the water (probably because there is an industrial harbour not too far away), we decided to move on, and to search for Wadi Wurayah. Wadi stands for riverbed, and in this region of the world riverbeds are hardly ever actually filled with water. Instead, you can use them for a nice offroad-drive, usually leading through some greener areas and if you are lucky, you will even find pools or a spring.

On the road again...

Unfortunately we missed out on the actual turn into the Wadi, but instead we were rewarded with a beautiful view over the area we were supposed to go and it was quite impressive to see how much water must have flown through to cut out such huge pieces of the mountains to create this valley:

Later on we headed back and found the right turn:

following the other cars on the bumpy track:

ending up at a pool where locals were already splashing in the water. Maybe I would have to narrow down the definition of locals in this case: the crowd was limited to men swimming in the water and jumping off the rocks whereas women sat quitely and fully "wrapped up" (in their abayas, the black dress) in a picnic area close by watching the younger kids.

 

In this case we didn't want to draw more attention to us than we already did, being two young ladies of bright white colour, climbing up the few rocks to take some pictures and so we refrained from jumping into the comparably cooler water...