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Published: June 27th 2007
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Camel Jockey
Nad Al Sheba - ficks Border Patrol
“Lets go to Oman, the borders just down this road. We can take some more shots; it’ll be great”…an inspired idea Ficks; so simple, so easy, just themselves and their passports in a white peugeout 205 hire car, hardly any money, phones that don’t work on the network in Oman. Perfect. So they drive down the road towards the border patrol, they pass through the first and show their passports, they drive through No Mans Land..too late to turn back now. They stop at the Oman border, show their passports, are asked to park the car and get out, walk to an immigration centre, get interrogated by an Oman soldier..an unhappy Oman soldier, fill out paperwork, have their passports taken, try to remain calm, sit and wait…wait some more…try to remain calm, start to talk to each other about their respective countries embassies and how they will be fine..try to laugh..try not to panic…really try not to panic.
An hour later as they drive back to the UAE Ficks looks across and smiles at Saz…feels it best not to say too much…just smiles.
Camel jockeys
Eye’s wide, tongue flapping on cheek and at full throttle the young
Camel stampede
Nad Al Sheba - saz camel is only metres away from certain freedom. With a squeal of brakes and a cloud of sand the Toyota Landcruiser shudders to a halt as the two camel trainers jump from open doors and bolt towards the escapee. They catch it before it gets out of the gate…. JUST.
Saz and Ficks are exploring the gate at the Nad Al Sheba race track… for camels.
Saz looks up at Ficks grinning like an idiot on his newly acquired Arabian Steed. It’s not really his but you wouldn’t know as he smiles stupidly and grips on for fear of death. “Welcome, welcome” explain the camel trainers as they help him dismount. The camel kneels down after a few harsh calls from one of the trainers and Saz is instructed to climb aboard. She flings over a leg and squeals with surprise at the unnatural and sudden heaving motion as her new friend rises to full height. Ficks snaps a few frames of the smiling Saz, who has not only never seen a camel before but is now on the back of one and it’s not just any run of the mill, back yard dromedary, its a racing one!
camel photographer
Nad Al Sheba - saz Building site photography - 4 shots in 4 hours
Saz and Ficks have their first assisting job, with a Swedish photographer, using large format, taking pictures of a Mulitplex building on a building site…right in a building site, literally. They arrive at 4pm, outside the Dusit Dubai and meet the client in his Range Rover. Briefed and ready to go they help set up the camera, get the film out, check the exposure, check the composition, get ready for the shot, wince as a cement truck parks up in front of them and ruins it.. so they pack up and move on., realising very quickly Dubai has no site safety systems in place as they scramble over electrical cables, under fences and set up next to a deep excavation, a very deep excavation. Some hard hats later they feel a little more comfortable as they settle in and wait for dusk to fall to get the shots..shots of a half finished building in the desert(32 stories built, 38 to go), shots they endure 4 hours of sitting in the heat for, getting covered in sand for, risking life and limb for, try and keep dust out of the kit for,
get the film ready for..for four shots in four hours.
Traumaphoned!
You’re joking!!! Ficks exclaims loudly and with a look of disdain directed at the cowering “Certified NOKIA mobile phone repair agent”!
Ficks has naively returned full of optimism and hope that this time they* have actually fixed his phone’s speaker from crackling or not ringing at all, that it is going to keep working once he leaves the shop and that the phone is physically present and actually back from the repair centre!
“Sorry I forgot the repair centre is shut on weekends”….
Traumatised by broken promises and sweating profusely from the 40 degree mid day heat Ficks is ecstatic that the ringer in his phone is now appearing to work properly. He is not ecstatic that he has made six or more visits at all hours of the day and night to get back one mobile phone and that he has now lost any number that was saved in it!! As consolation he does have Raman’s number saved in the phones memory! Perfect. Who the F#$K is Raman!
They* varied each visit from one to four vertically challenged, shoulder shrugging, blank faced sales guru’s that
desert dam
Hatta - Saz selectively spoke and understood English and who would only recommend a collection time when they definitely weren’t working!
Diving in the desert
Finally Saz has learnt the art of clearing her mask, you simply blow out through your nose, look up and the water comes out! So now the 5 academic sessions have been completed, the tests sat, the pool sessions finished, the first two open water dives made and finally she has only 2 last open water dives before she is a fully qualified Open Water Diver…it doesn’t seem long enough somehow! So Ficks and Saz go to Musandam, in Oman, on a coach for 2 hours, with 3 scuba instructors and 11 other students, at 5:15 in the morning and make the last two dives together…in the sea, in the desert. They sit together on the Dhow boat for two hours as the follow the rocky coastline to the dive site, get briefed, put on the weights, the BCD, their masks and fins and step off into the clear blue sea. More mask clearing, more buoyancy and fin pivots, more buddy breathing and then finally a proper dive, 20 metres down, swimming amongst coral with Lion
sand!!
Dune conservation area - Saz Fish, Cuttle Fish, Angel Fish, Arabian Bat Fish, Sea Slugs and Sea horses, a turtle (no killer jelly fishies!!). Both weightless, both loving every minute of it…..
Magic magelis - Jai’s palace
“No I said turn left at the U turn in front of the second Choitram on Al Wasel road after Al Manara St and then right at the next big Mosque on the right hand side, not turn left and complete the u turn then turn right after the Mosque on the left hand side!! Call me when you get closer”. Jai hangs up on Ficks without a goodbye.
After several embarrassing and impossible to understand phone calls Saz and Ficks park outside a huge yellow villa with large black gates. Unsure if this is “the first large villa after the big open dirt area after completing the u turn at the choitram supermarket and taking the first right and then right again at the next big Mosque”, Ficks and Saz cautiously enter the villa grounds.
Approaching the main villa they see paths either side and a row of smaller “magelis” units running along one wall. Might be one of those? Ficks thinks to himself. Not too
bad. Bit smaller than I expected. Actually Jai said to go around to the back near the pool and that the “security man” would show them the correct Magelis. Creeping around the side of the main mansion, after ringing the door bell to no avail, they come across the “security man” who had obviously been sleeping in the mid-day heat. “Jai, Magelis? Oh. Follow me. Welcome, welcome”.
They enter a small doorway, without a door, and are shown a matchbox sized, half finished room full of junk. Saz is horrified, not only by the size, uncompleted state or pile of junk in the room but the well used and never cleaned mosaic bathroom attached. Ficks calls Jai to confirm they are looking at the correct rental space that will cost them 6000 dirhams, $2000AUD or £900 odd pounds per month! “we can clean it up and fit a door …“ Ficks hangs up, without a goodbye, and they return to the car in fits of hysterical laughter. One has but a single choice in such a situation… laugh or cry!
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