Lack of infrastructure
October 14, 2008So, I may have mentioned the lack of infrastructure before, as in the heavy traffic on arterials is due to a lack of alternative routes on side streets and the randomness of buildings – both in size and placement. There’s also the lack of systematized addressing and residential postal delivery.
I have learned that there is another major piece of the infrastructure puzzle missing — sewer system. Actually, that’s unfair, they have a sewer system, a significant portion of it does not involve piping leading to the sewage plant. Sewage goes into storage tanks and is then pumped into trucks and trucked to the sewage treatment plant. Apparently, 3000 of these trucks are trying to keep up with the daily demand, so to speak. One would think that the inefficiency of this system in the long run would have occurred to someone before the population reached 1.5 million.
http://www.ameinfo.com/141407.html
Article about new treatment plant in Jebel Ali
So, the moral of this story is: If you are apartment/villa shopping in Dubai, add “how close is it to the sewage plant?” to your list of questions to ask. Just imagine — sewage plant + sewage trucks + 110F = reek!
Living the Travel Channel 
So the piece missing here is, “How close are you to the storage tank or treatment plant?” Kind of reminds me of living in Nampa, Idaho, without the heat, view, ocean, adventure, etc. Nampa has 3 stinky points, the sewage plant, the slaughter house and the sugar beet factory. Hard to stay up wind from all of them =)
I was also wondering, do Arabs wear deoderant? ~Linda
Luckily, we are far, far away from the sewage plant. Our apartment is in one of the oldest parts of town (which makes me wonder if our pipes go into the sewer system or into a storage tank.)
As for deodorant, most people are odor free. Even the students use perfume sparingly. I can be hyper sensitive to perfumes, so am glad of that. The only exception is that sometimes the people we pass on the street reek, but like Paul says they’ve probably put in a 12 hour shift to get that way. Many of the workers live in situations where there may be 16 guys sharing one bathroom and they each have one half hour allotment of bathroom time each day, if that much.