I’ve been writing a landscape story titled, The 23 Club. Above, I have summarized it in a five minute clip.
In this story an American expatriate landscape architect confronts the strange multi-cultural realities of Arabian Peninsula work. Those social peculiarities layer with the powerful presence of the Empty Quarter landscape…the Empty Quarter, an enigmatic sand desert which, alone by its very presence, negates life.
The multi-media clip opens a window on the physical geography and cultural issues that swirl about the story–the construction of an iconic five star destination resort in that oil-rich, sand desert which, until recently, had been populated only by the transient Bedu.
If you are attracted to ethnobotany or plants, gardens and landscapes and have the wonder; but you do not have the time or money to travel to the Arabian Peninsula for these, then, just be glad to be here.
Erik Chalmers, American born and bred professional landscape architect, used all his skills to manage these very large, complex iconic projects in the Arabian Peninsula. He knew that the multi-cultural and technical complexities required not simply a left side of the brain number crunching iron will; but they also required what he called…performance art.
What is the magic–what are the skills required to succeed on these huge complex projects being designed and built in such challenging and downright dangerous environments? Erik Chalmers’ post project notes give insight into his successes.
But Erik Chalmers, for the first time in decades on an assignment without his wife Madge, was about to learn if he had done one project too many and lost his one true emotional certainty, his one true root.
Chalmers felt what he had missed over the past eight months–the fullness of the water, the plants, the soil, the wholeness–it was holistic, it was an existential comfort.
Following is a short narrative from Chapter 13: Pilgrimage, that imparts some of the landscape connections in The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Finding Majlis
Library Majlis
Villa Majlis
Long and Short
Pilgrimage
The Last Kilometer
Chalmers was returning after eight months on his own. Nobody in the UAE called him Erik. It had been eight months of Chalmers. Eight months of taking care of his own meals, his own shopping, his own laundry. It was the little stuff that informed his daily life culture. It was the little stuff that built up…big time.
As the train took Chalmers closer to his stop, his thoughts turned to Madge. He was returning to his shared spaces, his shared life. Chalmers was becoming Erik again. He missed Madge; but he was uncertain how this return would be. Long distance communications always filtered, always blurred emotions.
Chalmers recalled the worst of his time away…he had not been able to hide his week in the hospital from Madge. He was supposed to have gone to Singapore for silk; but her worst fear came true. He had been injured in an automobile accident and hospitalized. She suffered to hear about it from distance. Sorry just did not cover it…from either side.
He arrived at Lauterbrunnen and thought, it won’t be long now.
He transferred from the train to the funicular. It was late in the afternoon and the sky was overcast. This time of year there was little difference between the valley village and the small plateau up where he and Madge lived. Fall plants were already naked of leaves. The first big snow could come any day. The temperature 5ºC or below; frost threatened.
As the funicular rose, Chalmers recalled his excitement nearly nine months ago when he was asked to help fix the first five star resort destination deep in the Empty Quarter. It had been about the challenge. It had been about his joy in providing beautiful gardens for people.
Now the job was complete. The gardens were a success. The owner was satisfied, happy. That world was finished. Now he was home.
And he was worried. Had he traded off something of emotion and trust, something he had held closely with Madge, just to build a couple gardens?
Rarely does dew manifest itself in the Empty Quarter. Trying to get water from dew in the Empty Quarter is like trying to get truth, or even certifiable facts from the ‘Press’–anywhere in the world.
The English ‘Press’ in the Gulf Region is suffused with people from so many different countries and cultures, each trying to make a difference, each trying to earn a living, all overlaid with the moral fabric and traditions of the Region–it is filled with strange combinations of ambiguity and things that should not be said–and things that must be said.
Newspapers are newspapers, right? Hard copy or digital, right? Buried in each country’s news media are cultural clues waiting to be discovered, waiting to be puzzled out. How else can you understand these words from Saheeh Al Bukhaaree: ‘Whoever has seven Ajwat Al Madinah dates every morning, he will not be harmed that day by poison or magic.’
Following is a short narrative piece from Chapter 12: Long and Short, to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf Region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Finding Majlis
Library Majlis
Villa Majlis
Long and Short
The Press
Mid-December 2010, and Chalmers had just settled down into his business class seat on his flight back home. With a certain trepidation, he was looking forward to Christmas in the mountains with Madge. As he sat down, he couldn’t tell which troubled him more, the stiffness in his back from the automobile accident, or the mental and physical weariness of eight months, everyday in the Empty Quarter, under the relentless sun, cajoling, arm twisting everyone on the team, or…the uncertainty of seeing Madge for the first time in eight months.
Liwa Qsar was completed, even without Theuns. The project had made headlines in the press numerous times–good and bad. Nevertheless, the Liwa Qsar project opened on schedule. The soft opening was 2 October, and the official grand opening was 1 December. It was grueling. It was accomplished, another project under his belt. But, by Chalmers’ point of view, the Empty Quarter, being what it was, could never be considered conquered by this project, or by any project. Even after eight months living and working every day in the Empty Quarter, Chalmers found it too large, too old, too unapproachable, and too unknown.
Chalmers lived on site for the first three months before relocating to Abu Dhabi for the rest of the project. He couldn’t live 24/7 in the heart of the Empty Quarter. He needed to get to the water’s edge–to the city. He needed a certain kind of human space–space the Empty Quarter denied to him. So, he commuted to and from the site every day.
Despite the successful project, his Empty Quarter experience had been one of strange, impending suffocation. The Rub al Khali was always trying to take something from him, trying to constrain something that should not be constrained. He couldn’t really put his finger on it.
The open forum of majlis functions from small groups of close friends, up to and including the largest groups of people speaking directly to the rulers of each Emirate where anyone can speak with the ruler at majlis. It is relaxed as is traditional at majlis–relaxed as the four Emiratis in the above image–note that three of them are wearing aqal headresses and one is wearing a hamdaneya headress.
Erik Chalmers, Jean-Claude Thibaut and Theuns van der Walt share a social night of conversation over dinner and televised football with a small group of Emiratis who have a special interest in the Liwa Qsar Project under construction in the Empty Quarter.
Following is a short part from Chapter 11: Villa Majlis to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Finding Majlis
Library Majlis
Villa Majlis
Sustainable Rimal
What happens when popular jargon meets a larger than life, a larger than time landscape? What is sustainable about something that is ‘always shifting’ Or, rather, is ‘always shifting’ the most fundamental component of sustainability? Is sustainable larger than time, is it larger than eternity? Ha!! The more attention paid to popular jargon, the more folly suffered!
Fairuz, an Emirati from Liwa Oasis taking personal interest in the Liwa Qsar project, Jean-Claude, the Belgian Ethnobotanist, and Erik Chalmers had much in common. They shared interest, yet with varied perspectives, on the sands (rimal) and on the Bedu life style.
They sat down together. Fairuz asked for dates and kaouwa, Arabic coffee, which was then roasted, ground and prepared on a side table next to him. Chalmers and Jean-Claude joined him. Traditionally taken in restrained amount, kaouwa and dates were a sweet, soft, tender, buttery, room temperature date washed down with a thimble full of the hottest, bitterest, freshly brewed, cardamom and clove flavored coffee.
Following the kaouwa, Chalmers took the opportunity to explore a topic which had been on his mind since hearing Kelvin Isley the other day describe his experience of an almost unearthly, powerful rhythm of the heat emanating from the sands. He drew on Thesiger’s recognition of the exceptionally strong power of the sands. Thesiger had observed in the Bedu, people intensely occupied with the sands, they never commented on the beauty of the sands, the sky, the night, or the sunset.
Chalmers asked, “In books from both before, and, since the coming of Islam, I have read that djinni, spirits, have resided as unusual forces in the sands. Fairuz, I’m curious, is there anything about the djinni in the sands that could be a good reference for landscape architects these days, sustainability, or otherwise?”
Jean-Claude listened carefully to the question and internally put it into a larger context. He could see the desire among certain social groups for sustainability as a desire for secular eternality, a contemporary replacement for the stability traditionally supplied by religions. As far as he was concerned it was short sighted, a passing fad, ignorant of powers greater than the human mind and intelligence, ignorant of the powers that moved the sands, that put the sands in place. But, at the same time Jean-Claude valued these social efforts, seeing them as an opportunity to get more people in touch with their ethnobotanical roots.
He re-focussed and interjected some facts, “If I may, on the sustainability part, for centuries, it can be concluded that without oil and electricity, this Abu Dhabi Emirate region sustains at most about 25,000 humans, but with very significant, serious hardships.”
“Interesting this concept of sustainability,” Fairuz started, “I agree with your numbers; but, the quality of their life, the tenuous nature of the supply of food and water made life here almost like a, a penal colony.”
Fairuz suggested, “Current environmentalists, mostly from the temperate Western world seem to romanticize a simpler life style–pre-oil–pre-industrial. Life here was hell, even fifty years ago, a day in-day out major struggle for existence.”
Jean-Claude added, “Along the same line, I recently read a novel written by an Emirati lady, born in the 1940s. SandFish was the title and the lady’s name was Maha Gargash. She described her life as a youth and their small herd of goats in the foot hills of the Hajar mountains. She went on, writing that after marriage, her move to the Dubai region, with its dependence on pearling–was nothing but impossible hardships, her whole life–absolutely impossible hardships!”
Dates and coffee together tell social history of the southern Arabian Peninsula–rarely is there majlis without dates and coffee.
Majlis is a simple Arabic word that has always been a part of the sands–a part of the human matrix over the landscape of the Empty Quarter. Majlis describes people getting together to talk.
Majlis–so, my friends, which language should we use–Esperanto? French? Classical Arabic? Gulf Arabic? Levantine Arabic? Urdu? Malay? Hindi? Or, Farsi? Forget political correctness. The practical language of choice is English, of course–the international language of business. It is the practical reality…but…under the surface…?
Erik Chalmers preparing for majlis with his South African boss, Theuns van der Walt, arrives early and first meets with his close friend, Belgian Ethnobotanist Jean-Claude Thibaut. They sit in a private club, known as the Library, a place of cultural, of artistic stimulation and climatic relief, to compare natural and social notes–landscape, plants, people, desert culture–as it has been, and is, in the Liwa Oasis region of the Empty Quarter.
Abdul Qader Al Rais, his works adorning the Library, is one of the most acclaimed artists from the UAE. Of many talents, he paints, photo realistically, traditional Emirati architecture and landscape. Underneath his images, he existentially addresses the unusually strange changes between inside and outside.
Following is a short part from Chapter 10: Library Majlis to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Finding Majlis
Library Majlis
Jean-Claude Thibaut, Ethnobotanist
Chalmers had lingered, a dalliance to say the very least, as he had walked through those gardens. He was now a bit late when he reached The Library. Entering, he was immediately calmed by the mingling fragrances of agar wood, sandalwood and amber, blended in a bukhoor, an incense…an incense that lightly infused the cool, dry and comfortable library air. He inhaled deeply two, three times, then felt simultaneously relaxed and focussed. Jean-Claude sitting, reading the local newspapers, saw him enter. He arose. They shook hands.
After exchanging greetings and sitting down, both agreed the best drink would be Moroccan fresh mint tea, especially since the fresh mint was grown locally in The Library gardens. Along with massive amounts of fresh mint leaves, the mint tea mix included a pinch of black tea, and refined white sugar chipped from large blocks, all to be prepared in front of them. The final presentation according to the menu, should include a seasonably available layer of fresh orange blossoms, floating on the top.
Proper Moroccan tea in a restaurant was always theater. The drama arrived as the waiter poured the tea from the pot to the small tea glasses, elongating the threadlike stream of tea to almost a meter, before closing it down so that not a drop was spilled during the pouring.
As it was poured, the smell of the steaming, fresh mint tea captivated. After the pouring ceremony, a cloth was removed from a small, colorfully hand painted, Moorish style earthen bowl. Inside the bowl were pure white and fresh orange blossoms, along with freshly picked, young green mint sprigs. The waiter gently tonged them into the tea. The orange blossom fragrance overlapped the mint, and by scent alone refreshed nearly to sweet intoxication.
After sampling the hot tea and quietly appreciating the fulsome, blended aromas, Chalmers began to review with Jean-Claude all the key project and business players he had met over the past couple days. Jean-Claude explained how those players were related to the top members of the Abu Dhabi ruling family.
He pointed out, “While these relationships are never really obvious to many of the business people and workers here in the Emirates, behind the scenes, these are the relationships that keep everything ticking over–the relationships with roots deep into Bedu history, that guide the morals and ethics of this Emirate and the UAE.”
Jean-Claude explained, “The unification of the Emirates started with Sheik Zayed bin Khalifa bin Nahyan the First, in the nineteenth century and was consolidated by his great grandson, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan bin Nahyan, who, in the twentieth century, the late 1960s to be exact, successfully coordinated the unification of the seven Emirates. Leadership by the Nahyan family still continues today. These are the rulers of Abu Dhabi. And these are the rulers of the UAE. The leaders of the other six Emirates and the Nahyans interact through majlis as has always been the tradition. Even though national government institutions and administrative procedures have been overlaid, underneath you will find the strong, fundamental bond is the evolving Bedu majlis tradition born from shared longterm hardships.”
Jean-Claude’s eyes fell upon some botanical drawings of Phoenix dactylifera displayed on the wall across from him. He paused, thinking about their simple beauty. He looked over at Chalmers, a dedicated landscape specialist who, in his own way, also loved the beauty of plants. In Chalmers, Jean-Claude saw an international fortune hunter–or a storm chaser if you will–justified because he was here to bring more plants to the lives of Emiratis and he was above all else, good hearted–always been that way through all the years of their association.
Jean-Claude took another drink of mint tea, then looking again at the date palm botanical drawings, he thought of the date palm’s many uses in a transient oasis based culture–uses both simple and also complex. He thought about their position in an austere Emirati culture before he explained further to Chalmers, “The success of the Emirati tribes, enduring and working through the climatic hardships, and the shortage of water has built a strength of character extremely unique.
“Based upon these strengths, the Emiratis, have an internal pride that is rarely examined by the world’s mainstream media. You can find references to it in books, written by authors like Wilfred Thesiger and Frauke Heard-Bey; but most mainstream writers, expat workers and businessmen alike choose the easy way–accepting the centuries-old, negative stereotypes of the Bedu character and overlaying them onto all contemporary business and workplace relationships. That stuff is good to know, but it will not get you to the core of people’s motivations here, mon ami.”
Jean-Claude always spoke in a soft voice in public. Chalmers had to strain to hear Jean-Claude’s next point.
“In public, the Emiratis do not talk about it; but they do have a self consciousness about this modern world, its communications, and, its values.” Jean-Claude, sitting up in his chair and drawing closer to Chalmers, continued, “Emiratis think that modern, Western world values are not based on the strength of austerity, but rather, based on the relativity of excesses.”
Chalmers thought about cultural understandings and the ambiguities of cultural differences, then added, “This kind of cultural gap is a fundamental challenge in all work out here, at least that’s how I’ve found it. For me, a three stage process has always worked: inform myself, then trust, but verify.” They both sat back, took a drink of mint tea, and relaxed, as the conversation paused.
Who would not want to walk here? But, you can not feel the temperature, you can not sweat the heat in this photo. Can you imagine, while you are sitting comfortably in your temperate climate–can you imagine 18 hours a day outside with the ambient air temperature higher than your body temperature?
Yet, here in the United Arab Emirates, on the blazing edges of that aggressive sand dune desert, the Empty Quarter, with the addition of top soil, irrigation water and proper maintenance for carefully selected and protected plants, beautiful gardens have been built; and for short walks they are wonderfully inspirational, as Erik Chalmers discovers and shares.
Following is a short part from Chapter 9: Finding Majlis to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Finding Majlis
The Heat and the Relief
Early in his expatriate career, Chalmers had a mentor–a mentor who had for decades already been working in Iran, Turkey and the Arab Middle East. He told Chalmers not to overestimate his professional position, that their white collar management, their consultancy positions in the pecking order here were exactly the same as the sweaty laborers on site. White collar, blue collar–no difference–hired, manipulable and replaceable. They were all ‘no counters’.
In time, experience in this part of the world had taught Chalmers that strict plans and aggressive adherence to them would guarantee the cross cultural undoing of any Western professional. But, he also knew that without a plan, these large projects could never succeed in the time frame required. He always kept an overall plan foremost in his mind. That gave him big picture guidelines such that he could always revise the details in real time, according to the unpredictable vagaries of time, circumstance, people. Including cunning and masquerade, nothing was left out of his box of tools to build inspirational and beautiful gardens and landscapes. This was performance art in action. That is how Chalmers thought of his work–performance art.
It was Thursday. Theuns van der Walt wanted his update and briefing at 9PM at The Library, a place, part of a spa in a large hotel where he sometimes met a couple key Emiratis who had interest in his Empty Quarter Project, Liwa Qsar. To prepare himself for that briefing, Chalmers planned to arrive earlier than usual to sit with his old friend, the Belgian Ethnobotanist, Jean-Claude Thibaut. Chalmers wanted to review his own findings, to cross check them against Jean-Claude’s knowledge of political and social contexts in this region.
The Library, where Chalmers was to meet Jean-Claude, and later Theuns, was a refuge, carefully hidden, deep, within a mysterious sequence of intimate, private gardens. Chalmers looked forward to walking through these gardens. He fancied a dalliance.
Sometimes the white collar mercenaries wear blue collars.
Can it ever be so simple as good guys versus bad guys? Naw, they are all in the same game, workers or managers…they are all mercenaries–working for their families, working for themselves–all on contracts. All temporaries. All in the heart of the Empty Quarter. All with uncertainty, dead ahead.
If you, the reader have been born in a temperate climate, you can not understand how beautiful this green is to the humans who live around the edges of the Empty Quarter. To slake that green thirst, millions upon millions of plants are being grown in the nurseries of the United Arab Emirates.
MIA made a break though with her music behind SlumDog Millionaire. She strips away all pretense and calls it like it is ‘…bonafide hustler…making my name…all I wanna do is…take your money.’ Erik Chalmers comes face to face with this when he visits the huge plant nursery supplying his project. And the nursery–it, too, is in the Empty Quarter.
Following is a short part from Chapter 8: The Nursery to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Nursery
Pirates
Twenty five years ago in Southern California, nurseries like Monrovia, Keeline Wilcox and ValleyCrest had rows upon rows of trees, shrubs and ground covers, each properly pruned and grown to near perfection–seemingly unlimited quantities in any size you wanted. Selecting plants there was the same as going down the breakfast cereal aisle in a large American grocery store–huge selections, multiple sizes of each, in massive quantities. Just like cereal boxes, the plants in these nurseries were labelled, well displayed, properly set out and all uniformly healthy. That sophistication and mastery of horticultural and logistics processes integral to plant growth was a spectacular achievement that Chalmers had never fully appreciated–until he worked with the pirate landscape contractors of the Middle East.
In the Western Region of Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, a large new town was under construction and street trees were part of the infrastructure work. That was the first time Chalmers had seen on a competitively bid, huge project scale, plants being grown in the used empty tin cans, normally thrown out from labor camp kitchens. Always rusting, the cans were lucky to have drainage holes and they were always stacked cheek-by-jowl to save on land rental costs. Plants were hand watered seemingly by chance. And pruning equipment? Just never around.
The captain of these pirate landscape operations was invariably a French, Belgian or Afrikaner character, meanness carved all over his face–a Kepi blanc, a French Foreign Legion escapee at best or, at least suitable for a starring role in a Werner Herzog movie. Everyone who worked for the captain was a day laborer at the cheapest rate. If the day laborers would have come from farm backgrounds in Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka–eh, never such luck.
The Liwa Oasis is a 100 kilometer long series of loosely linked sabkha valleys, each valley individually subtended by the sand dunes. The beauty of these Empty Quarter dunes to the eyes of every Western visitor is an undeniable journey into private dreams, hopes…mysteries…breath taking…on infinite levels!
Sustainability aside, the spectacular essence of Erik Chalmers’ new project, a five star destination resort in the heart of the Empty Quarter, is that guests and visitors would be able to safely and securely absorb the sand desert beauty, without fear of death.
This journey, this path…this road into the heart of the beauty, or as some knowledgeable people put it, into the beast of a sand desert known as the Empty Quarter…winds on and on–weaves and weaves deeper and deeper into the awkward, the enigmatic, the mazey sand emptiness. Only the thin, white gatch road remains as the string to take you back, the tenuous cultural connection back to civilization…as you once knew it.
Rudyard Kipling is temporarily unfashionable these days–but a century ago, in these strange, even unfathomable landscapes, he called the West Asian cultures he encountered, as they were–difficult and dangerous for Westerners. On his journey into the Empty Quarter, Erik Chalmers will finally arrive at his project site and meet the white collared mercenaries and privateers who have contracted to work in this difficult and dangerous region of the world.
Following is a short part from Chapter 7: Liwa Qsar to impart some of the landscape feeling of The 23 Club.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Rub Al Khali Inland
Liwa Qsar
The Dream
The dream is the mirage. In the West, the Empty Quarter has always been an elusive froth, an ambiguous froth, a strangely arid yet attractive froth–whispering mystery and romance, providing an oddly enticing whiff from an evanescent bouquet full of ethereal promise. That is the mirage; and, for the sake of his success on his new project, Chalmers hoped it would be different. He did not need mirages on the Liwa Qsar project site.
Spectacular red sunsets rewarded the end of every day. The project site had been chosen to give the guests a luxury room looking west at a view framed by some of the largest and steepest red sand dunes in the Empty Quarter. The project was about providing shelter, a comfortable, an elegant shelter, protecting from the uncertainties, from the threats in this beautiful landscape.
Now Chalmers would meet the key players, living and working and constructing an iconic resort in this sweaty 50˚C world, in the arid, inland, heart of the Empty Quarter.
The founder of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed, understood the hardships of the sand desert landscape. His intent for trees along all major routes of travel was eminently practical–his selection of drought tolerant, evergreen and fruit bearing trees more so.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
The Walk
Rub Al Khali Coastal
Desert Street Trees
The weather in combination with the landscape, overwhelmed. Winds and sand swept continuously. Urban development anomalies in this desert were embarrassingly exposed in this kind of weather. Driving along Sheik Zayed Road in the Emirate of Dubai, Chalmers observed a noteworthy absence of any trees, any street trees, anything green. Nothing impeded the winds and sand flowing across the road.
After he and Jean-Claude passed the signs marking the end of the huge empty Waterfront site, they entered the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Immediately street trees began–actually a planting thicker than street trees, more like a shelterbelt planting began–two rows of trees up the median and four rows on either verge.
The big infrastructure of irrigation water provision–hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers of pipes, valves and tubes with emitters, with controllers, with electrical supply, with pumps, pump stations, reservoirs, desalination and sewage treatment plants–always broke down at the lowest common denominator, the last meter before arriving at the plants. Chalmers looked carefully. He could see irrigation lines–the thin tubes of generic poly pipe running between the trees.
Poly pipe tubing may be UV resistant. It may be buried at the time of installation–but the incessant blowing sands always uncovered it–and the value engineering often saved money by suggesting a supplier that did not provide the best rated tubing. The flexible tubing looked like a snake rising up out of the sand and going down into it again and again. Sun exposed brittle and splitting pipe–then partially clogged outlets–both and more contributed to an irrigation of impossible efficiencies and irregular applications–wastage everywhere.
Recalling having seen these problems for more than twenty five years, Chalmers sighed with disappointment–as if he had just been kicked in the gut. At the same time, Madge’s comments about the quality of local contractors’ work and materials came searing back into his memory. Before he could sigh again, he looked hard at the trees, trees obviously straining under the wind and drought conditions.
Chalmers roughly estimated 90% of the trees were alive–that could only mean two things: that drought tolerant tree species were used, and that laborers were regularly walking these lines to assure delivery of water to the trees. Spaghettis of pipe ran for kilometers to drip out that life giving fluid–so fragile was life for plants in this region.
On previous projects, Chalmers had seen tens upon tens of huge water tanker trucks rumbling 24/7 to supplant failed irrigation water infrastructure–causing untold stress on resources, on transportation networks and on the plants themselves. This issue would be a major point that he must control on his new project.
Offering historical background, Jean-Claude interrupted Chalmers’ thoughts, “When you mentioned Electra and New Dubai, you hinted there might be some kind of competition between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Well, that’s true. On every level there’s competition between the two emirates, even street trees.
“Listen, throughout his life, Sheik Zayed of Abu Dhabi, the very same Emirati who united the Emirates in 1970, was a major supporter of the practical benefits of shade trees and fruit-bearing trees, especially the date palms. So he chose the most useful and tough trees, Phoenix dactylifera, Ziziphus spina-christi, Prosopis cineraria…and with supporting irrigation, planted them for desert shelterbelt buffers, along all major highways. And that, that’s what we’re seeing out there right now.”
Chalmers said, “It’s pretty clear Sheik Zayed not only had common sense, but also the wealth, resources and will power to apply it.”
“Exactly, he was special. He and those around him have been quoted numerous times on the subject of trees, saying things like…farmers grow date palms in hareems…a date palm must have its feet in the water and its head in the fires of heaven…dried dates and camel milk on land–dried dates and black tea for the pearlers. C’est vrai, it’s clear Sheik Zayed had the intelligence to demonstrate the better of human qualities–humans caring for plants that in turn themselves serve humans.”
The Rupee was once the currency in this Gulf Region. So it is not surprising that the contemporary human matrix in the UAE is dominated by workers and businessmen from the Sub-continent. Do these guys look unhappy–no, they are doing what men do in almost any country, any culture–under going hardship, trying to make a better life for their families–in this case many, but not all, are away from their homes and families.
Dubai Monorail is just as much an iconic project as Burj Khalifa, as Palm Jumeirah–massive infrastructure, massive amounts of materials and massive numbers of human laborers–white collar and blue collar.
Erik Chalmers and Theuns van der Walt are white collar mercenaries. Theuns already knew of Chalmers’ reputation for getting the five star destination resort external finishes ready–at highest quality and on time. In this short piece, they meet face to face for the first time.
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The 23 Club
Immersed in the contemporary culture of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, against the backdrop of the Empty Quarter, The 23 Club tells the inside story of how an iconic project gets built in the oil rich, Gulf region of the Arabian Peninsula.
Table of Contents
Desertification
It’s 2AM
Spike Lounge
Breakfast with Theuns
Before Chalmers finished reading the second text, his cell started its silent ringing. Chalmers didn’t pick up. Instead, he looked around and found Theuns van der Walt, the Sponsor, not far away next to the buffet. They shook hands.
Theuns, in the midst of an aggressive and very firm handshake, said, “Chalmers, pleased to meet you. Glad you made it. Let us begin.”
The owner/developer company, Cultural Tourism Futures, was a well funded, and well connected Abu Dhabi government quango. Their representative, Theuns van der Walt, was a South African. He was thirty five, an impressive rugby union player in his youth, and an avid Springbok supporter now. Theuns was five foot ten, and a thick, fit, robust two hundred pounds. He was a focussed, professional, real estate development manager. He exhibited the tenacious qualities of white Dutch South Africans, who, over the centuries, had helped build a solid and admirable economic power of a country.
Theuns was always impeccably shaved, head and face, with overall, just the right amount of light sun tan. He dressed as if he just came off the catwalk in Milan–conservative and elegantly tasteful–appropriate sun glasses and no jewelry–Ermenegildo Zegna–all the way.
But, like many other white South Africans, he was happy to be working outside his home country and had no desire to return. Why? Because of the new black leadership in the country, which in his opinion, had led to a severe cultural and economic degradation. In Theuns’ case, it was disastrously exemplified two years ago. While Theuns was in Dubai, there was a racially motivated car jacking in Johannesburg, during which, his wife and his very young and only child, a son, were ripped from their car and ruthlessly murdered in cold blood on the public street.
Theuns was a man whose impatience and worldly lust, could only be the result of the shocking killing of his family, from which he had never fully recovered.
From the buffet, they both took coffee and toast, then found a table with a view of the golf course. The weather made inside the only choice. It was not yet 10AM; but outside the temperature was 39°C and rising, and the humidity was 70%–hot and oppressively humid, even in the shade–normal Dubai weather.
Looking at Theuns’ business card, Chalmers asked him, “What is it exactly that Sponsors, or more specifically, Task Force Stream Sponsors, like you, do at CTF?”
Theuns, always impatient, summarized how the latest trends in business management, social justice, and environmental sustainability were all wrapped into a matrix system of job responsibility at CTF. He continued, “While there is no direct chain of command in this matrix system, I have the final project financial, and schedule responsibility in front of the CEO and the Executive Board.”
Chalmers said, “Ok, I like the clarity of one point of authority and communication, that should work well. But the matrix system? It sounds a bit awkward…but I’m sure you won’t let it hinder my work. Now, following our Skype, let’s get to specifics. Please tell me the particulars you expect from me, and the appropriate details.”
Theuns, always with a grudging tone, responded, “What I expect? The best site finishes ever, on time, and on budget! Any questions there?”
“None at all, that’s what I do; but give me some background, please.”
Theuns continued, “On the landscape, we have no one internally with the appropriate field experience; and our Project Management team, our Consultant and our General Contractor just can not seem to make the landscape happen. They are not responsive–not effective–not efficient, we are not getting a 100% result! We do not have time to change horses!!!
“Look, this is CTF’s first major built project. Our financial backers and our marketing, our branding people require it to be special. We expect Condé Nast to rank our Empty Quarter Project, Liwa Qsar, #1 in their world list of the best new resort destinations; and we are more than three months behind schedule, with only six months until the soft opening. We have a major A-lister opening event, with all the leaders from all the Emirates. Since I am the Sponsor, I want to say this clearly, in words that you understand, my ass is on the line, and your ass, too, will be on the line. My position is ‘no fail’!”
On the job, Theuns was a machine, a 24/7 machine. This kept him from thinking about the loss of his family. He drove for success. In that drive, there was no line he wouldn’t cross–no line. Theuns had found that at his high level of project management, as long as he provided what the owner needed, any legal setbacks or otherwise ‘impediments’ would be, with the owner’s deft hand, the shortest of temporary.
Theuns saw Chalmers as a white collar mercenary, like himself. He was right. They were both part of a Middle East stable of multi-cultural development and construction mercenaries, professionals of the hardest type, riding the huge cresting developmental wave in the Gulf Region.
Theuns stayed on the roll. He was pushing, he was hot, impatience on the boil, “The project is for only 200 keys, but we bring power and water from over 100 kilometers to the site. We have to be ethically responsible and environmentally responsible, no matter what the logic. We are building a fixed destination in a place where for centuries the few people ever passing through were…nomads! The challenges are many. We need that place first class in six months. Now I want to know are you on board or not?!”
Theuns hadn’t touched his toast. His coffee was gone. His Blackberry was buzzing every three minutes, and he just could not put it down.
Chalmers said, “Look, you’re paying me fairly. I’ll dig into it this week and meet you for an end of the day update this Thursday. I’ll brief you on what I’ve found, and I’ll outline an action plan to get CTF its finish and award quality, on schedule. But, Theuns, listen to me, please, you’ve got to know that I’ll need you to clear things for me–cut the red tape, give me line level vetoes on all invoices, and no downtown meetings, do you follow?”
“Chalmers, I will do what is needed; but it is you who must not fail.”
Chalmers knew the game, he got Theuns’ message. “That’s clear enough. Just give me the contact details of the responsibles, and Thursday, I’ll show you how it’ll be accomplished.”
Theuns concluded their meeting, “Excellent, let us get this rolling. We will meet at The Library, Thursday then, say, 9PM?”
They agreed.
Theuns texted Chalmers the contact details for the on site CTF Hospitality Director, the General Contractor, the Project Management team, the Landscape Consultant, the Landscape Contractor and all other applicable Sub-Contractors. Theuns then excused himself and left.
Chalmers remained, and began to set up his meetings. Tonight, he would begin with the Landscape Consultant.
