A day in the life of Magnus

Sooo... it's been said about me that I can be a little absent minded from time to time, particularly when I'm stressed or am juggling a lot of balls at the same time. This of course is absolute nonsense - I'll tell you about the last 24 hours of my life and let you be the judge.

Yesterday I had a lot going on. Tal (who had been visiting) was leaving. I was trying to secure an apartment (picked one out, love it, still waiting for the confirmation - it's in the Marina in a building called "Al Sahab", which I have no idea what means, but my money would be on something about a view, or sea, or water, or beach... but anyone who speaks Arabic [oh hi Flora!] or knows of a functional Arabic-in-the-latin-alphabet-to-English dictionary feel free to chip in!) I had about 50 different paper trails to follow up on, anything from TV license transfers in England to work permit issues in Dubai. I had to pack for Ethiopia and pick up a number of medical supplies (Eugene and I just learned that there's a cholera epidemic in the country... so lots of rehydration sachets and antibiotics). There was souvenier shopping for Tal's family and friends. I had to return the rental car and dress up nice for the Skyview Bar at one of the World's most famous hotels, the Burj al Arab. On top of everything, I was exhausted after an amazing Roger Waters concert the night before. You get the picture.

I started the day by figuring out that my ticket to Ethiopia had disappeared on me, which was rather unfortunate. That led to adding another to-do to the to-do list: calling Ethiopian Airlines. Unfortunately picking up the phone is optional among Ethiopian companies, and that option is apparently rarely exercised, so I never did get through to them. While packing my bags I managed to misplace my wallet while sitting in a chair, which led to Tal and I embarking on a frantic 45 minute search of the five foot radius around me - I hadn't left that space! After eventually locating my wallet inside my waterproof first aid pack (of course) I got lost in Dubai for 45 minutes or so while trying to get to my company's office to drop off some paperwork. After everything was finally taken care of, and we had downed a couple of cocktails in Dubai's most exclusive bar (we weren't actually too impressed), we headed to the airport to catch our respective flights. I found out that unlike the rest of the world Ethiopian Airlines can't reissue my ticket without five or six days notice, so I had to buy a new ticket and then dive into the bureaucratic process to get the original ticket refunded once here in Addis Ababa. The guys liked me, though, so they upgraded me to the front of the plane. After this, I go into the bathroom to change out of my posh clothes and into backpacking gear, which turned out to be a rather horrific experience, in between the fact that there was piss everywhere, a guy was getting repeatedly and violently sick in the stall next to me, and apparently that bathroom was the only place where the airport staff could get away with smoking, and five of them were doing exactly that. Flustered, I half-ran out of the bathroom, said goodbye to Tal, checked in, went through passport control and headed towards the gate - before realising that I'd left my wallet in that pleasant bathroom (yes, that was the second time I'd lost it that day). Rushing to security I found out that a kind hearted passenger had returned it to the security, but not before some other kind-hearted passenger had helped themselves to the foreign currency in my wallet. Still, I was ecstatic... who cares about $50 when it could have been all my cards and ID at the beginning of a backpacking trip to Africa? I slept like a baby on a plane packed with smugglers and their wares - after all, my friends at Ethiopian Airlines had hooked me up with business class (the smuggler thing is a long story, but basically two thirds of the passengers on the plane were traders from across Africa who were returning from Dubai where they had filled massive boxes with maybe 100kg of cell phones, electronics etc, and paying the overweight/bribing the Ethiopian Airlines station manager as well as the customs officers back home on arrival, because it's much cheaper than sending it by freight and having to pay tolls - I haven't come across that much blatant smuggling since the Paraguay-Brazil border).

On arrival, I discovered that I'd been misinformed by the Ethiopian Embassy in London, and Icelandic citizens couldn't actually enter the country without first getting a visa. I had asked for that in writing, but they never got back to me... and I'm now facing deportation. Through a mixture of sweet talking and persuasion I managed to talk my way through that problem 'just this once', and they agreed to give me a visa for the duration of my stay. But then I remembered why I'd carried that $50 with me - to actually pay for the visa. No problem, I thought, I'll just go to the bank and get it from there. At this point the Africa factor kicked in... the phone lines were down for the whole terminal, so all banks were offline, and I couldn't take any money out. So... essentially I didn't have the money I needed to pay for that visa I wasn't eligible for.

At this point I went and found a guy I'd befriended while standing in line and waiting for Ethiopian Airlines in Dubai while surrounded by smugglers . He turns out to be from Malawi, living in Dubai, and more than happy to lend me the $20 I needed for the visa, and I avoided deportation and/or having to wait 36 hours in immigration until Eugene arrived. As a result, I think I've made a new friend in Dubai...

Have since been chilling in Addis Ababa. It's been outstanding entertainment so far. Already in the airport building I saw a crew of ten cleaners in neon pink overalls that was clinging to/hanging off the dozens of round white beams supporting the ceiling(which apparently needed dusting), about ten meters (35 feet for the metrically challenged) off the floor - mind you, with no form of safety harness, nets etc whatsoever. I had my first power cut, and learned that the government had decided to shut off all sms services as they felt the flow of information was getting a little bit too effective for their liking (according to a mobile phone saleswoman). I stepped into one of the Russian built Lada taxis that roam the streets here, asked for the city centre, and was dropped at the newly opened but rather modest "Friendship Shopping Centre" (note the contrast in naming traditions and ambition/ego with Dubaian projects like, say, "The World"), and stepped out to see an identical Lada lose its front wheel as it passed by me. Keeping in mind the cholera epidemic I decided to ask for the best restaurant in the area, and was directed to the pinnacle of Friendship (OK, fourth floor). There I found a beautiful place on a terrace overlooking the city, scannned the Ethiopian food section of the menu and found that none of it came remotely close to ringing any bells, so I ordered the most expensive dish, which came to $3. Beautiful meal, amazing views, and a good local brew called St George's.

Thus passed a day in the life of Magnus. Yes, I certainly deserve the absent minded digs - even if I've gotten better through the years and days like this one are now the exception. But I've also needed to develop a great capacity for getting myself out of trouble... God knows I've had the practise! Plus, it's always interesting...

First Impressions, part 1: On the surface

We'll see if I get around to writing part 2.

Quoth Wikipedia:

Amusement park is the generic term for a collection of rides and other entertainment attractions assembled for the purpose of entertaining a fairly large group of people. An amusement park is more elaborate than a simple city park or playground, as an amusement park is meant to cater to adults, teenagers, and small children.

An amusement park may be permanent or temporary, usually periodic, such as a few days or weeks per year. The temporary (often annual) amusement park with mobile rides etc. is called a funfair or carnival.

Theme parks form a more narrowly defined category of an amusement park. They are permanent facilities that use architecture, signage, landscaping to help convey the feeling that people are in a different place or time. Often a theme park will have various 'lands' (sections) of the park devoted to telling a particular story. Alternatively, an amusement park often has rides with little in terms of theming or additional design elements. The main difference between a theme park and an amusement park is that in a theme park all the rides go all with the theme of the park, for example The Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

Dubai, by this definition, is a theme park. To be sure, it is large, elaborate and impressive for a theme park, but it is one just the same. Let us, for example, take a look at some of the neighborhoods in the city. Dubai has various 'lands', 'cities' and 'villages' devoted to telling a particular story (or a particular theme). In those sections, all the attractions go with the theme of the park, for example, 'Dubai Media City' where I am currently staying is home to CNN, Al Jazeera and a number of other media companies, and has a huge park/auditorium that will host both Roger Waters (from Pink Floyd) and Shakira in the next month (yes, I have tickets, and am going). 'Dubai Internet City' is home to Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and other IT based companies. There is 'Sports City' with stadiums, a race track, golf courses and so forth, 'International City' which is an area apparently themed on various different countries in the world, and a "Knowledge Village", devoted to education and it's practical applications in society and business (does anybody find it a little worrying that so many others were "cities" or even "lands", while Knowledge and Healthcare only get to be a "village"? At least "Humanitarian City" gets the nod). My company is just outside Knowledge Village, which is fitting to those who say consultants are people who borrow your watch and then charge you to tell you what time it is (or in other words, parasites who suck up your knowledge and then tell you what you already know).

Then there are "the Silly Islands" - three huge man-made islands in the shape of palm trees that protrude from the shore, and a separate cluster of islands that make up a rough world map (known simply as "the World"), each representing a "country" (which must be reasonably marketable; there are certain noticeable absences, such as Israel). And I still haven't mentioned "Dubailand" itself, the collection of amusement parks that is rumored, once completed, to exceed the size of the city itself.

Anyway - my first and ongoing project here in Dubai is to find myself a place to live. What will it be? England or Italy in International City? The Golf Tower in Sports City? The Wave in the Marina? The search will go on for three more days before I take off to Ethiopia on holiday - I'll keep you posted.

Again

Yesterday I moved - yet again.

I have an idea what lies ahead. Another apartment hunt in another foreign city. Another bureaucracy and a fresh batch of inefficient utility companies. Another set of table manners to learn and try not to mix with the sets I knew (to a degree) before. Another six months of discovering at the worst possible moment that I've yet to stock up on shoe polish, or lightbulbs, or aluminium foil. Another period of months or maybe years where I will need strain my senses 24/7 with the effort of understandingthe language, the culture, the people around me, until I find myself zoning out of conversation and come home at night surprised at how exhausted I am.

But then... that apartment hunt will be sponsored by the company, and will hopefully fill up with the first full furnishings I've ever bought myself. The utility companies will give me an insight into how society works here (and what prompts people to publish a three-hundred page guidebook entitled "the Dubai Red Tape"). The table manners will be learned in a cosmopolitan society over what's reported to be a selection of fantastic restaurants from the world over. When I find out I'm out of shoe polish or aluminium foil I will use it as an excuse to get to know the neighbours - who might be locals, or might be adventurous foreigners like me - either way they should be fascinating people. The months and years of effort I'll need to put into learning the culture (and hopefully the language) will cause me to need extra sleep for months, but hopefully it will eventually be richly rewarded with understanding the way it has been in the past.

The truth is that I love the adventure and the uncertainty that lies ahead. Yet again, I've made a choice - and yet again, despite the challenges, I'm glad for it.

My new nickname

As I lay in bed the morning after dragging six friends and friends of friends out drinking until very late last Tuesday night I received the following text message, around the time normal people were getting ready to go to work:

"You are a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea bear and I blame you."

This was in reference to the Bad Idea Bears, characters from Avenue Q, the puppet show/musical I saw the other day. They are sort of a massively obnoxious version of the angel and the devil on the shoulder, if we assume the angel has irrevocably fallen. They tend to come out to offer bad advice when the main characters are facing some difficult issues:

Main character: "Now that I'm out of college, I really must set about finding my purpose in life."
Bad Idea Bears: "Buy beer! Buy beer! Buy beer!"
Main character (has a revelation): "Maybe I'll buy a sixpack!"
Bad Idea Bears: "No... you're on a budget. Buy a case! That way you'll save money in the long run!"
Or...
"I have a really important day tomorrow... I really shouldn't drink."
Bad Idea Bears: "Absinthe Daquiries!"

Needless to say, I identify very closely with their philosophy, and react quite positively to being called a Bad Idea Bear.

This is all nice and well, until we consider the fact that I am a consultant. As such, my job is essentially to sit on someone's shoulder when he or she is facing an important decision, and offer advice.

Taking this thought one step further, as I recall, in Dante's Inferno, the Kings' advisers are one layer further down in hell than the Kings themselves. Yes, the Middle East does have monarchs, and yes, my company does advise some of them.

Should I be worrying about this? More importantly, should you or those worried about peace and stability in the Middle East be?

On the information we choose to ignore

I thought of adding this into the previous post, but I think it needs a post of its own.

Friday I decided to join my dear friend Hazel (from Malawi days) to her lecture at Kings College. She's doing a Masters degree in Environment and Development at one of the country's (world's?) most prestigious colleges, and I was welcome to sit in (why didn't I do this earlier, again?). The lecture was about land rights in Southern Africa.

In two hours I learned how it was exactly that native farmers in Southern Africa were forced to give up the lands they had owned since the beginning of time to white farms, and were themselves confined to 'homelands' in just 6% (and some of the worst 6%) of South Africa's farming lands, besides being the overwhelming majority of the population. Sort of like a concentration camp with an open door policy. I learned how in Rhodesia (today's Zambia and Zimbabwe) the land was divided in a highly scientific way into five agricultural zones, rated by desirability from 1 (virtual Eden) to 5 (virtual hell. In future years, Western media will regularly report 'droughts' in your area following insufficient rainfall. This, however, will constitute an utter waste of column space, because it's going to happen seven of every eight years, and thus does not constitute news, or indeed, a "drought". Do not attempt to make a living of agriculture here, because you, your extended family, livestock, pets and the tse-tse flies that feed on you will probably die. Can I make myself any clearer?). Guess who got virtual Eden, and who got virtual hell.

As a side note I also learned about the German genocide of the Hereros people in Namibia in 1904. This was literally a side note, the professor only mentioned this in one sentence - but I got curious, and started digging. It turns out that a hundred thousand people were killed within a year (significantly more than the population of my own country at the time). Some died when their water wells were poisoned, others were chopped down with machine gun fire (field testing for the trenches of WWI?), and the rest were driven into the Kalahari desert to die of thirst.

Is it just me, or is this something I should have known about already? Even if I hadn't actually been there, celebrated Christmas there and nearly moved there? Quick poll - had anybody heard about this? It's ok though, because the German government apparently expressed regret in 2004, while rejecting any notion of paying damages, as "it would be unfair to Namibia's other groups to only compensate the Hereros". That I found to be a rather unfortunately worded statement that made me very worried to find out what else went on there. Or in other countries for that matter, I don't think the Germans were necessarily any worse than the other colonial powers.

I decided not to dig deeper. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I had a concert to go to.

Enginn veit hvað átt hefur fyrr en misst hefur

Sorry - but some things are best expressed in a particular language, in this case Icelandic. It is an old saying, and roughly translates thus: You don't know what you have until the day you lose it.

I live in an amazing city. Yes there's all the major attractions, such as the Chelsea-Arsenal Cup Final, West End Theater, Live 8, and the upcoming Olympics, but it goes so far beyond that. It's the little things.

This weekend I crashed a lecture at one of the top universities, went to a club to watch five bands from the underground music scene, ate at a five star restaurant disguised as a pub, watched the (American Football) Superbowl with a nice mixture of the fanatic and the clueless, and had a little leaving party at my apartment that at one point featured eleven people from ten nationalities, started out with samba and candlelight, passed through some remarkably successful dining, and ended up with an impromptu mosh pit with the accompanying body slamming somehow forming in my kitchen (Thanks Hazel for all the help and to my family for the secret family recipes. Who would have thought I, of all people, would be sharing recipies with a group of six guys???). Tonight I'm going to watch a show called Avenue Q (think puppets making crude jokes and having sex on stage), and tomorrow I'm going to a talk given by Wangari Muta Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Price Laureate.

The problem, of course, is that none of this is new. The city has been this dynamic, amazing and interesting since I first moved here, and will continue to be so long after I leave. But I haven't always taken advantage of it. Suddenly, with ten days to go until I leave London, I'm soaking up London life, and loving it. I always loved it, but somehow I'm loving it - more.

Goes back to living in the moment. If you're waiting for something to happen before you can be happy, you're doing something wrong. Be happy now.