The Vegan Lifestyle

In 1984, two years after my graduation from college, I was hired as a site engineer in one of Abu Dhabi’s oil fields. It was my first work stint outside our country.

When the plane arrived in Abu Dhabi, I saw the beautiful, colorful lights that lined their highways and streets. The houses, and buildings too were richly lighted with various colors. Most especially the palaces of the king and his princes were lighted all around — glowing like precious stones!

It was November 6 when I arrived in Abu Dhabi. The dry warm air met my face as I disembarked from the plane. In the airport, I noticed the big contrast of culture with ours. I saw young and old men dressed in long white robes with long mustache, beards, and sideburns. The strict deportment of the men in uniform was scarily obvious.

My first week there was the loneliest. I was the only Filipino in the company, and most of the workers can only speak Arabic or Urdu. One or two spoke English, but in hard-to-understand broken, halting English. We tried to understand each other by signs.

I was very homesick; I wanted to go back to my country as soon as possible. What with very hot climate, language barrier, culture shock, and overly spicy food, the life in the desert was too much to bear. Oven-hot sand dunes that stretched hundred of miles away — so wide, so barren and so lonely!

Eventually I was able to adapt to their culture. I studied their language and learned it in a few months. Gradually, I learned to eat their spicy food and unleavened bread, and I started to like the taste of mutton.

I worked for five years in Abu Dhabi, mostly in the desert. From seven in the morning up to five in the afternoon, we work under the scorching sun, with lunch as our only break. We fabricated and installed the piping on oil gathering stations, pumping station, water injectors, and dual oil wellhead installations. We also worked on pipelines.

I missed Abu Dhabi so much: the shawarma, the spicy food, the dates, the grapes, the chocolates, the mutton, the hot dry summer nights, the festival before and after Ramadan, the romantic, starry Arabian nights, the sand dunes, the sand storms, the thick morning fogs, the lighted buildings, palaces, streets and highways, the “kubash” or unleavened bread, the people and their culture — all these I learned to love. And I will always cherish their memories.