My Desert oasis

What’s up everybody?! Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I’m back from a several month blogging hiatus to enlighten you all on my second year of living overseas. I know, I know . . . there is a lot of content from my time in Europe that needs to still be updated; BUT, I figured the best way to get back into the swing of things would be to briefly address my current status. After my time in Galway, Ireland drinking, working, exploring, and a lot more drinking, I’ve shaken things up by relocating to a completely new environment filled with a fresh cast of characters and numerous untapped experiences and stories to share. 

Without further delay, here is some insight to the most frequently asked questions I’ve received as of late: 

Where are you know? 

So, roughly four months back I relocated to Dubai, one of seven emirates located within the UAE. At 83,600 square-kilometers, the country itself is tiny ranking 116th in total surface area; it sits nestled on the Persian Gulf between the region’s two largest powers, Saudi Arabia to its left and Iran, across the gulf, to its right. With residential occupancy at 3.2 million people, Dubai is amongst the leading multicultural cities in the world, possessing an expatriate population of 95% from over 200 different nationalities. 

What is Dubai like? 

Two things immediately stood out when I first arrived in Dubai in late August: the infrastructure and the climate.

The first time I heard of Dubai was in the late 2000s when Business Insiders ran an article about a city with thousands of luxury cars abandoned and collecting dust on the sides of roads in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Ever since, my curiosity has been peaked about this Middle Eastern desert oasis with seemingly endless wealth. 

By and large the emirate has lived up to the lavish image painted by this article: skyscrapers towering over Sheikh Zayed Road, vending machines that dispense gold, and lamborghini police cars. But, until only recently, Dubai had a much different look to it. Like most other nations along the Persian Gulf, the local economy was largely dependent on a seasonal pearling industry; that is, until its collapse in the 1930s due to Japanese monopolization and tough global economic conditions stemming from the Great Depression. Economic prosperity remained modest through the late 1950s, until two factors: the dredging of Dubai Creek in 1961 and the discovery of oil in the UAE in 1966 ― laid the foundation for the exponential expansion of modern Dubai. Though hidden historical neighborhoods like Deira and Bur Dubai still exist within the emirate, Dubai pioneered luxury real estate development in the region, constructing internationally acclaimed landmarks like the world’s tallest building (Burj Khalifa), the world’s largest shopping mall (Dubai Mall), and a man-made archipelago island (Palm Jumeirah) off its coastline. In a mere fifty year period, Dubai has transformed from an empty desert landscape into one of the fastest growing cities worldwide (seriously, check out this timelapse video of 1961 Dubai through present day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPd5AmTEkdk). At the height of its property boom, the emirate’s skyline housed roughly 25% of all the world’s cranes . . . 25%!

Relocating here in late August, I caught the tail end of the emirate’s summer heat wave. 115 degrees fahrenheit. You may be reading this saying ‘sure, but it’s desert heat. it’s dry― no problem’ like I anticipated it to be, but you’d be very, very, veeeery wrong. Because it's a coastal city, humidity in Dubai reaches 90%+ in the summer months. Essentially, free-time activities include waiting for the sun to set so you can somewhat bearably walk from your air-conditioned apartment to your air-conditioned car. Fortunately, things have since ‘cooled off’ for the winter months, by which I mean it's 80 degrees and sunny out. Though still a far cry from the 100+ inches of snow I’m used to back in New England this time of year, it’s a significant improvement compared to when I first arrived. 

What are you doing there? 

Amongst my friends, there is the common misperception that all I do is travel. And fair enough, it is true to an extent. Yes, I am beyond fortunate to work in positions that allow me the flexibility to explore the regions of the world I am living in during that time; however, I still do indeed work. In Ireland, I spent my days playing professional basketball and working with at-risk youth in troubled communities, all while earning my Master’s degree in an accelerated program. Here in Dubai, my life is a bit more concentrated on building my career beyond the sport of basketball, and has proven far more time consuming (hence, my prolonged absence from writing these posts). 

For ten months, I have the privilege of taking part in the sixth class of the Dubai Business Associates (DBA), an immersive post-graduate management program run under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. During this tenure, my cohorts and I will receive intensive academic training supplemented by both a secondment and strategy consulting assignment with leading regional enterprises. Academic training involves primarily managerial and strategy consulting, financial modeling and accounting, business economics, organizational behavior, and CSR at the PwC Middle East Academy. Secondment placements span across the public and private sectors of the emirate. I happened to be assigned to the strategic foresight office of the government’s department of economic development, where I have been working in alignment with His Highness’s Vision 2021 agenda for Dubai’s interim development.. 

At its inception, the DBA program was created to develop foreign business leaders with Dubai ‘in their DNA’. As Dubai and the UAE continue to diversify their economy away from oil and establish the emirate as an international hub for finance, business, and tourism, His Highness saw value in strengthening ties with target international communities through cultural and commercial ambassadorships to better position the local economy for future growth opportunities. Within the program, I am dignified as one of three US representatives amongst 15 nationalities in a class of 23 cohorts selected from 5,000+ applications worldwide. In addition to the valuable business experience this opportunity provides, it also places emphasis on our cultural immersion within the history and traditions of the Emarati people, of which I intend to reflect and expand on here over the coming months. 

Thank you all for tuning in and sticking with me during my absence― one component of my 2020 New Years resolution is a commitment to myself to be more proactive in my content posting. So please, keep an eye out for new posts on a bi-weekly basis, as I reflect on some past experiences from my time in the Emerald Isle and backpacking Europe, as well as embracing new adventures here in the Middle East.