Dubai bashing

I haven't lived in Dubai for years now, but left with great difficulty and judging by my continuing interest in Dubai news I guess I still love the place. There is much Dubai bashing going on lately, fuelled by this article in the New York Times, it seems. While some of the facts are disputed already (apparently the figure of 3000 cars abandoned at Dubai airport is misrepresented and the number of cancelled visas is not offset by the number of new visas granted) it is most interesting to me to find this tone of Schadenfreude levelled at a Middle Eastern success story. As if it was somehow just that one of the few Arab economic successes should fail. Do we prefer the alternatives of repressive financial basket cases such as Egypt and Pakistan? This article is another rant at the perceived shallowness of Dubai and it's inherent unsustainability, entertaining even if I disagree, but with the best commenting I have ever read in a blog, ever.

Big Things

A quick blast from the past. Why do Kiwis love the big things in life. Are they making up for being a small country? Are they inordinately proud of those little things that they make them bigger than in real life? Who knows, at least it's entertaining:

  

Vodaphone rant

With every house move there has to be a rant, because the least fun job when leaving a country is the cancellation of bills and accounts. Water rates, rent, car insurance, tax, landline phone, internet, mobiles... I could go on. Cancelling involves navigating through imprenetable websites, waiting for hours on the phone to atrocious hold music, sending letters and visiting dingy offices.

The prize for most ridiculous excuse for refusing to cancel a contract so far goes to Vodafone New Zealand. Vodafone has a track record for flakiness, cancelling international roaming just as I leave for Australia or changing contract details without notification, inevitably resulting in endless calls to the outsourced call centre. From the beginning, despite signing a contract in person in the shop, my bills said "Mr.". Knowing the haphazard results from calls, I never bothered changing it. When I called to cancel my account today I was informed that I could not do this because I was not male as per the account details. The fact that I know the date of birth, password and any other details was to no avail. Even the supervisor was adamant that they would see my passport in person to verify my gender. The back and forth went on for so long that I was starting to doubt my identity at the end.

Oh well. I guess I will be trying to find a male who can make the call for me. It's almost like being back in the Middle East...

Three Soweto Entrepreneurs

All throughout my youth I had heard of Soweto, the South Western Township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, hotbed of ANC activity and location of frequent uprisings and clashes with the Apartheid regime. So I was pretty excited to finally be going to see it. I had heard all sorts of descriptions and been given advice, from the "you can't go on your own, you'll get mugged" to "why do you want to go, it's just a slum" to "you'll love it, it's such a hip and happening place". So thoroughly confused, I took a drive there with George, the father of a friend of a colleague of Stuart's. George is my first entrepreneur. He is 70 and retired from a job at a bank. He took a course with the Tourism Authority and now drives tourists through his home suburb. Apart from his in-depth knowledge of the area, having lived there since the 70's he also has some interesting stories about life under Apartheid and some pretty definite political views: "I don't give a man food, I give him the means to get his own food." I met my second entrepreneur (or rather both of them) as we were driving through Pimville, a small part of Southern Soweto. As we were driving along, I saw a large red elephant by the side of the road. It turns out that Lebo and Isaac had collected steel reinforcing rods, wire and red onion bags and were building a life-sized elephant. They had based it on a photo found in a magazine and drawn designs based on this to decide where the steel rods should go to form the base of the elephant. After covering the frame with onion sacks there were going to smooth it with cement to make a realistic-looking animal. These were then for sale. Pretty cool. If you want to buy one for your garden let me know and I'll give you their mobile number. I met my third entrepreneur at lunch. A cousin of George's (who seems to know everyone in the neighbourhood) Robby runs a B&B/restaurant/marketing firm. He co-ordinates with the large car companies such as Mercedes, Audi and Lexus to showcase their new models to potential buyers in Soweto. Despite it's large and increasingly well-off population and the building of many shopping malls in the last decade, Soweto still misses out on car showrooms. So Robby fills that gap by putting on a party and drawing in the customers.