A Green Desert

My thoughts lately is back to my homeland, especially the current state my country is in. With two huge typhoons devastating the nation, it is sad and tragic that our once green archipelago is now virtually barren and desolate.

In strong contrast, here I am working overseas in the midst of the greenest desert I have seen. Arriving here in Febraury 1994, I gazed down from the plane's window to see, for the first time, the boundless Arabian desert. Gazillion masses of minute sands with colours ranging from dark to light brown and light to dark red, depending on the city (also called emirate) you are in. I had this vision of a huge tent where I will be working in, with camels parked around its perimeter and sand touching everything, everywhere.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a thriving metropolis with luscious greenery and a very clean environment. Without thinking, you can imagine yourself to be in any other thriving metropolitan city - without a desert. You have to drive off to the desert if you want to be in the desert. Inland - it is concrete but with much planning because the concrete is laid out with a lot of green.

It is a fact that the UAE government spends millions of dirhams a year to constantly water and care for their plants. Every street is lined with trees and shrubs on both sides plus shrubs and flowering plants in the islands between the lanes. Here in Al Ain, the city is full of roundabouts of varied sizes, that are unique flower gardens in themselves - plus a piece of art or two in the middle.

If a country struggling with water resource especially during the hot summer months can keep their land this green, how much more can a country that has rains half the year and a land that will nurture anything that's sown in it?

We've been doing the easy and the quick for far too long. Perhaps it is high time we start doing what is difficult but right.

Simplicity in Death

There is no other event in a man's life more unknown to him than his own death. I mean, whatever happens after our last breath we do not really care much about do we? It is strange in the Filipino culture when we give more deference and pomp to the departed when they should have been given that whilst still alive anyway.

This thought I've been pondering on since the Eraserheads dished out that song "Oh honey when I die, dress me up in a coat and tie..." so funny how most Pinoys go puruntong in their everyday life and go off with a tux. At times, much to the financial difficulties of those left behind.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi (including his hometown, Al Ain) passed away last December 2nd. He was a great ruler and a man who could buy anything he wants. And yet, when he died, his body was wrapped in white cloth, his coffin a simple wooden receptacle of his mortal body witht he UAE's flag as cover. He could easily have had the black mahogany with gold gilded casing and cushioned satin linings that Pinoys often see in funeral homes usually costing a fortune, being a country's ruler yet he embodied simplitcity even in death.

His death echoes in many places and the sadness is more than enough testimony to a life well lived and a nation well founded. More than the trimmings and trappings that go with the passing away of a great man - the parade, the TV specials, the songs and peoms in his honour - I think the simplicity of having a void in one's heart, be they Caucasians, Arabs, Asians like the many Filipinos in this part of the world, is a more satisfactory tribute to the man who shaped this country from tribal and warring emir states. Sheikh Zayed is terribly and sorely missed.

Aw SH _ T!

The first time I heard it, it was pronounced "Aceed!" like /acid/ with a long /i/ and so it didn't twig. This is my two-year-old spilling ice cream on her shirt in the mall.

Then I heard it again, this time she spilled water by accident on herself while at home drinking. And my mouth stayed open for a few seconds longer than it ought to (giving me a slight jaw ache afterwards) and my eyes turned larger and a bit watery towards the end...of the realisation that my daughter is cussing. Not only that, she was cussing like me. Thoughtless git that I am, I'm a creature of habit and "Aw shit" has been a long time favorite expression of mine be it said in anger, joy, panic, frustration, sorrow, excitement - the works. You name it I have an "Aw shit" for any conceivable situation in the world.

This made me stop and think about cleaning my act a bit, for my daughter's sake. I've now modified it to "Aw shucks" a very lame version of the original which does not really embody the correct semantics of its predecessor. But shucks, I've got to try, right?

So Amber now says "Aw shucks!" like me when she accidentally does something that she shouldn't have. But impishly whispers the previous expletive and laughs like she's had one up on me. And that's coming from a two-year-old girl (she only turned two yesterday)! Shucks!

I knew some way or the other, I'm going to screw up this creature entrusted to me by the workings of biology...Aw shit!