My BFF
“Dubai: A man masturbating on a public street; a woman waking up to an intruder in her bedroom; a peeping Tom spying through women’s bathroom windows… life in Mirdif isn’t what it used to be. The once-sleepy suburb of families has attracted residents of various moralities, due to the downward spiral in rents………”On weekends I’ve seen mid-teens sitting on the steps with bottles of vodka in their hands,” says a 21-year-old Sudanese. XPRESS has also witnessed teenagers making out on the steps of the back entrance, as well as groups of underage boys leering at women. A drive around the area reveals an increasing number of obscene graffiti on walls and teenagers sitting on street corners smoking. “Mirdif was never like this,” says 34 year-old Rainn Walker. “Now, everyone who’s of the wrong kind is in Mirdif. Two months ago, a boy who looked to be no older than 13 grabbed my behind as he walked past me on street 37. Last week I read about a woman who was kidnapped and held in Mirdif. Who knows what I’ll hear next. I’m having second thoughts about living here, ” she says……..”
It ain’t your father’s, or your mother’s, Dubai these days. It ain’t my father’s Dubai either (he made sorties there in the old pre-oil days, along with many others). These symptoms have always existed in the backstreets of Dubai, as they have in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and, dare I say it, Mecca. There was so much going on in Dubai for the media in the boom years that these things were overlooked: nobody wanted to cover the slums with open sewers and Kabul-quality electricity and water services. Just like nobody ever covers the truly seamy side of Las Vegas. Now with the bust and the departure of many European and Gulf investors, the owners of these formerly exclusive developments have had to lower their sights. And their rents. The slums of Dubai have begun to move into the formerly exclusive parts of Dubai. The slumdogs of Dubai are moving in.
Cheers
mhg