15 April 2004

The Expat Experience

Fiver took part in a writing workshop at Dubai Country Club today and had her first immersion into the local expat community.

Dubai Country Club (est. 1971) is a little slice of home for the British community in Dubai. Tea and biscuits, ladies in smart casuals with light jumpers draped around shoulders while outside the heat flickers. It's like sitting in a pub in Hassocks, Kent on a particularly warm summer day. Trophies sparkle in glass cases, the bar with roll-down shutters is lined with roll calls for 'Men's Golfer of the Year' and 'Mixed Foursomes'. The Ladies' changing rooms stock a stack of golf rule-books (this is famously the one golf course in Dubai without lawns. The player carried a small piece of astroturf to tee off from, the whole course being made of desert sand). The pin-board holds locker allocation and fixtures lists, procedural guidelines are propped next to the vase of fabric roses. The restaurant serves the best liver and onions with mash in the whole of Dubai, apparently.

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