Three things that cost 50 dirhams, when it shouldn't!

When I saw them I was simply speechless, and I decided to create the three-most-inflated products today. These three things cost around 50 dirhams, a seemingly worthless bill these days, but still they shouldn't. They didn't just a short while ago, and they still don't outside of Dubai. Presenting in reverse order:

3- Glycerin soap: A herbal glycerin soap bar was a basic home item for decades everywhere around the World. Village women could make a ton from some rendered fat and a decent garden pick. Costs about a couple of dirhams for unscented basic ones on the market streets of just about anywhere, but can go into MAYBE 5 or 6 dirhams for a decent herbal one in a nice market. Why would this Jordanian soap bar salesperson standing beside his stall in a mall, selling the exact same 5 dirham bar that we were picking from grocery shops for the occasional dry-skin-moisturizing moods of a sister, in a smaller size and a badly made wool purse (supposedly organic natural feeling inducing), for the clean-cut asking price of a flat 50 dirham bill? US$15 for a bar of soap, with ingredients list as flat, known and commonly devoid of any special herbs (Two basic olive and palm oils, with glycerin and basil, that's it!) things are getting a bit silly.

2- Miso soup in Festival City: Please don't comment by saying there is a 100,000 dirham dessert dish in a Malaysian business hotel, or a US$1000 burger in a New York hot spot. Those are signature dishes by world-reknowned artists making a gimmicky dish using jewellery and gold. The Miso soup in question is a basic item made of soy and a dash of spring onions and... well water. It costs an embarrassingly low 2.50 dirhams in any outlet in Asia, equivelent of 7 dirhams in Singapore higher end deli (with a wierd pudding that i didn't like), 6 dirhams in a New York Sushi bar, and around 10 dirhams in a hardened high-rent high-scale Tokyo restaurant. I need to add that it's considered a value added item in most places anyway, like french fries at Burger King. It was a separate item however on a normally inflated menu of a food court outlet here, weighing in at 35 dirhams for an eight ounce (single cup, half-pint or around 235ml) bowl. 5 quids for soybean and water is a bit rich, don't you think?

1- The winner of the list is..... Wait for it....... apricots at Carrefour!: Apricots are a basic nutritious fruit that many people like fresh and many like dried. Egyptians in specific have a taste to drinking a Ramadan mocktail of apricot concentrate with almonds in it. Even though apricots are seasonal and are hard to find outside of its limited summer release, it usually sells for the equivalent of 3 to 5 dirhams per kilo anywhere. A fair price for a regionally produced fruit, right? Carrefour however is proudly selling it at a 5 star hotel cake price of 52 dirhams per happy kilo. In case you're thinking that Salmon fillet and tiger shrimps are as much, you're close, those are around 59 per kilo, up or down slightly depending on the outlet.

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. I remember the days when my son would enjoy 50 dirhams throughout the whole fortnight as allowance and it would more than suffice. This is 10% of a labourer's monthly salary here, do they expect that those guys will continue working at a salary that they can't use to walk into a common cheap hypermarket like carrefour and buy 10 kgs of fruit for the whole month?

Dubai, the Rise and...

30 years ago I landed in this place and I literally grew with it. Everyone who spent as much time here as I have would tell you that Dubai was growing a bit better off in certain areas and getting slightly worse off in others year by year.

Nothing strikes as more astounding though as the change of the last 4 years. With the hyper buildings, rapid change of leadership and policies, Dubai marched on with areas a lot better off and in some people's opinions got a lot worse off in others.

The last 6 months cannot be called anything but "confusion".

Rules and regulations in this unregulated supposedly free haven sprang weekly if not daily, all disconnected and unorganized that chaos was certainly the name of the game. Standards of living took a nose-dive in restaurants, government service agencies, banks, hotels, taxis, the works. Everything was worse delivered and much more expensive, and crowded. Very few could focus on the better off now, as most are shell shocked by the sheer velocity of changes, most of which are widely perceived as negative. The dubai lifestyle for one thing was beaten to a pulp. Crowd rules are in play.

Those of you who lived here a mere 10 years ago will actually have so much to talk about regarding "the good old days". My favourite was cruising down the beach road and wondering why would they charge 5000 dirhams a year for a beach club membership when the best beaches are all over and free? When a dubai police car stopped you, you were either messing about and possibly drunk, or they just wanted to chat about your car's performance figures and maybe give you a couple of tips about a good garage.

Remember when the watchman, otherwise called "Natoor", was actually a residential building's version of an office lad? Guard the place, wash the car, clean up the whole building daily, mind the swimming pool and gym facilities, and maybe pick up some light shopping from the grocery next door that has a tab open with your name and apartment number, one that you'ld settle without hassle nor delay at the beginning of each month.

Such things always made it possible to have plenty of time for the beach (as long as we were away from the 5 months of hell). Sometimes it would be a month and the beach gear wouldn't even leave the car for a cleanup. You never fought for a place, as a matter of fact you sought company, and in Dubai company was good, sharing drinks, barbe, and stories.

Most of all, everybody was working around 5 comfortable days a week, and were making good money.

So what exactly got into the dishdasha's thick heads in power, that things needed to change?!

*shrug*