More Dubai, dunes, and Doha

The Emirates Towers, across from my office building on Sheikh Zayed Road in downtown Dubai.

Last week brought another fine example of globalization as a colleague and I took a break from our desks to represent the company at the Korean Investment road show, held at the Address Hotel. We heard pitches from a variety of government ministers about Korea’s resilience to the effects of the recession, and discussed opportunities for them to enter the Dubai market.

I returned to the Trauma Centre at the end of the week to sit in on a contract liaison meeting, where the hospital operator meets with the client to discuss progress and to ensure that any obstacles that may prevent the operator from fulfilling the terms of the management contract are resolved quickly. Hospital accreditation is a major focus of management here (as it is elsewhere in the world), and with a major re-accreditation scheduled for 2010, there are lots of internal-audit-like tasks to complete. The committee gladly accepted by offer to try and complete a project or two on some facet on hospital quality (related to accreditation goals) before I leave. I’m excited to get started on these projects, as they will give me good perspective on the unique challenges of the internal clinical environment.

Signing a contract to take home my leftovers from the Belgian Beer Cafe.

I met a girlfriend for dinner mid-week and had my weekly dose of cultural embarrassment as I had the apparent audacity to ask for our leftovers to be packed up... not a frequent request in a rich city like Dubai, apparently. In my defense, we were in a casual pub, more than half of our meals remained, and my cupboards were nearly bare. Excuses aside, it took the staff a good 15 minutes to find something suitable to pack up our food in... and they settled on a massive cake box that could have transported a multiple-tiered masterpiece. No chance on slinking out of the restaurant inconspicuously with my leftovers. I thought that was the end of the scene I was making, but no... 10 minutes later, the waiter approached with a full contract for me to complete in order to allow me to leave the premises with the food. Good god. Unfortunately, this practice apparently stemmed from the tragic food poisoning death of two children last year... lesson learned, next time I’ll finish my meal on site and leave it at that.

Outdoor artwork in front of The Address Hotel.

This weekend, I benefitted from the very good luck of my Canadian nurse friend Kelly, who is a self-professed ‘contest winner’. She has won an average of $6,000 annually in cash and prizes over the last few years, and seeks out every opportunity to put her name in new draws... the odds really seem to be stacked in her favour! While I was camping in the mountains of Fujairah, she was celebrating Halloween at a party in Dubai, where she won the prize for the best female costume. The prize package included (among other equally great items) a free desert safari for two... lucky for me, she took me as her ‘plus one’, and we found ourselves ‘dune bashing’ over a seemingly endless sea of red sand on Saturday.

Sliding sideways down a dune on our desert safari.

Total tourist kitsch, I admit, complete with a sandy photo shoot directed by our big burly driver, a beautiful sunset, camel rides (the poor camels... not the nicest life for them), dressing up in traditional garb (I felt decidedly anti-feminist as I heard myself asking the attendants to ensure that my face was properly covered for photos), and a barbeque dinner accompanied by a belly dancing show under the stars. Our burly driver evidently plays multiple roles in the safari organization, as we saw him moonlighting as a very necessary bouncer, protecting the lone belly dancer from throngs of Indian men who literally swarmed her after the performance... quite off-putting... not one drop of chivalry among them.

Spectacular... sunset in the desert, perched dune-top.

Already two days into a new workweek and I’ve managed to add another new stamp to my passport, as I was sent on an ‘errand’/visa renewal run to Doha, Qatar on Sunday. More or less a glorified FedEx run to drop off a package, but it gave me an opportunity to (briefly) see a new city in the Gulf Region and to meet a handful of former company employees who are working on the development of a massive teaching hospital/research facility under the guidance of the government.

I was really encouraged to hear that there is a different attitude to equality and continuing education in this facility than I have experienced in Dubai... they are making a big effort to build in policies for equal salaries for equal work – regardless of the nationality of the worker – and actively promote the ongoing education of their workers. While these concepts are the basic building blocks of HR at home, they sometimes seem to be a little lost in translation in the Gulf.

Holding on for dear life as our tall camel rights himself.