Costa Coffee in the arrivals area of Terminal 1. It’s late April ‘08, 7am, touching 30 degrees outside and 22 degrees inside (thank God for air-con). The construction work on the brand spanking new Dubai Metro outside can be heard loud and clear, and the many Indian workers in blue overalls, carrying, pouring, hitting, sawing, can be seen through the sliding doors. ‘How are they going to cope with the heat at midday?’ I think blithely to myself, sipping from my latte (which incidentally cost me 80p).
I’m met by my new work colleague (blonde, slim, cute) and her boyfriend (medium build, spiky hair, Scottish) and exchange a few pleasantries. They’re about an hour late, caused apparently by an accident on some road or other (not completely out of the ordinary it seems) compounded by additional bad traffic (also a common occurrence). We talk about life in Dubai (‘Great’ according to them both, ‘much better than the UK’) and how much money there is to be made (‘Lots’). Soon enough he’s got to shoot off to work (‘Real Estate,’ he says with a knowing nod) and blondie and I catch a cab.
Out on the road (once more thank God for air-con) we find ourselves caught in traffic in a cab where the ‘Pine Fresh’ scent hanging from the rear view mirror doesn’t quite manage to mask the fact the driver has already been in his seat for 6 hours. Regardless of this, I’m simply enthralled by the ferociously aggressive driving practices I can see, and a maxim that seems to be ‘I’m driving here, get used to it’. Credit where it is due, the other drivers seem to be used to it many times over, diving (yes that word is diving) into spaces only a few millimetres wider than their vehicle. We pass through the traffic. A few very straight roads and a number of twisting, dizzying off-ramps later, and we are at my new flat. That is to say her old flat. Well, company flat. Ish.
In, look around the very Spartan furniture (‘I’d take the bigger room,’ she says, ‘it was mine and has air-con controls in it.’) dump my stuff, straight out again to Ikea for supplies. ‘Sorry what? Thought you said Ikea’. Sand to my left, sand to my right, straight road, straight road, Ikea in front of me. ‘Right then,’ I agree. ‘Ikea’.
It really isn’t so strange that Dubai has an Ikea. Once you have seen the way the roads are set out, not to mention the speed in which some of the buildings seem to go up, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the whole job lot came in a flat pack box with instructions in 5 different languages (none English, or maybe more aptly Arabic) explaining how you should ‘Slot tarmac A into sandbox 34,238’ and ‘Affix tower 84 to raised island D’. You’ve invariably not got the right tools (what size Alan Key do you need to build a bridge?) and as there’s bound to be bits of the pack missing, you lay it all out and do the best you can with the material available. Alternatively you’d also be forgiven for thinking someone with a kindly smile on their face and talking into a camera was about to say those special words ‘here’s one I made earlier’ and produce a shiny new shopping mall from under the counter made from bottle tops and bits of tinsel, resplendent with adjoining 5* tissue box hotel.
It is now February 2009, and rather like that Ikea ‘Ilknur’ wardrobe, drawer and TV cabinet unit you put together in a hurry a year ago, the shiny paint has chipped away from Dubai’s over-inflated construction market, and the rollers have come unstuck in the somewhat abused financial sector. What remains is an exposed and cracking strut, trying to bear the weight of a previous real estate boom that is heavily sagging, threatening to fall from the top shelf and make a very big mess all over the carpet.
The result of this shoddy workmanship is that people have been losing jobs left right and centre, and additional redundancies planned in such a meticulous way that local infrastructure designers could learn a thing or two. Still hindsight is a glorious thing, and rather like ignoring that crack in your roof that turns out to be subsidence, Dubai has been ignoring the warning signals for the past 9 months, finding itself well and truly stuck in the mud (sand?). The estimated 1500 VISA and work permit cancellations a day speak for themselves.
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