Clean up day

In the US we have Earthday in April. Today was the Emirati equivalent. Companies forked out huge money to buy thousands of hats, t-shirts, water, juice and food for students to go out and clean the desert. Why does the desert need cleaning? It's the place of recreational activity. People like to go "duning" with their four wheel drives and rented 3-wheelers. Given the bottles of alcohol and condoms we found it's obvious other extra-curricular activities take place as well.

One of the boys' schools is lined up ready to go work.

The women wore t-shirts over their abayas.

This group of boys found barbed wire that they dutifully carried back to base camp. Look at the people in the background. Literally thousands of students came to clean this stretch of desert.

I took note of this plant and asked some of the students if they were watermelons. They looked like miniature watermelons. The boys laughed. I was told they were poisonous. Every time they saw me after that they yelled, "Watermelon! Watermelon!"

Yes, I was being taunted. I'll try to get over that.

Late in the morning I boarded the green Landcruiser in this picture. We took water to the groups spread out across the desert. This guy liked a good ride. I hit my head on the ceiling of the SUV more than once as we bounced along the desert. I won't lie, it was fun!

We came across another SUV that was stuck in soft sand. My guy gave his all to get the other vehicle out. The white puff you see is coming from his engine. It didn't phase him that he was possibly sacrificing his transmission/engine just to help another person. If I saw the smoke and smelled the burning oil I would have given up.

We got the white vehicle out only to watch him drive into another patch of soft sand. We pulled him out again. He then drove 20 meters into another patch of soft sand.

I thought I'd lose what little hair I have left on my head. The soft sand is easy to distinguish. It's like seeing a snowbank and choosing to drive into it.

On the third attempt we finally cleared the white vehicle from the soft sand but in so doing got the green Landcruiser stuck.

A more experienced driver got it out. Moral of the story: Getting stuck in sand is like getting stuck in snow; rocking back forth is the best way to get out.