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| abu dhabi diary
"A miss is as good as a mile"
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| "87%" | That saying never applied as aptly as during the Total Solar Eclipse of 1999. Here in Abu Dhabi, 87% of the sun was obscured by the moon, but if you hadn't known there was an eclipse (by some miracle of abstinence from all media) you wouldn't have noticed it. Sure, I did. I called Iqbal at work and said, "it's getting dark! Look outside!" The quality of the slightly dimmer blast of sunshine reminded me of Los Angeles during a stage 3 smog alert: kind of silvery and spooky. Did the temperature drop? Oh yea, or perhaps I only thought so because I was cooled off by the drenching sweat of being outdoors in the Abu Dhabi afternoon (3:30) with its high humidity. See? too subtle. |
| "such temptation" |
Speaking of media deluge, I watched and read it all. I saw an excellent documentary about total solar eclipses on BBC and read all the articles in the Gulf News. I saw pictures of the pagan hoards at prior eclipses looking up at the sky, all wearing mod-looking protective glasses and I read warnings about watching out for bogus, non-authorized glasses being sold by unscrupulous vendors. I'm well educated: I know you mustn't look at the sun during an eclipse. Yet, though I hadn't procured a pair of those indispensible protective specs, I found it irrestistible to try to glimpse it, and I did. |
| "fiery horns" |
You've heard about Shakespeare's "horned moon," well, I glimpsed the sun's fiery horns (due to the crescent formed by the eclipse), by a lucky accident. After feeling thwarted, wanting to climax in my excitment over this event and not quite getting there by looking at the tiny crescent of light projected by my pinhole card onto a sheet of white paper, I dashed up to the roof. There I saw a lot of hanging laundry, discarded sandals outside the doors of the workers who live up there, and a local tom cat with facial scars who gave me a pointed look at my intrusion. But I didn't let that deter me. I looked up at the sky and while turning around caught a glimpse of the sun just peeking out above an overhanging roof. I looked again, carefully, and saw two brilliant points, the tips of the crescent of the eclipse. I didn't dare look for long, but I definitely saw it, and that was the high point of the whole event! |
| "deserted
streets and a congregation of pagans" |
Several countries in the Middle East declared eclipse day a public holiday, so that people would stay safely indoors, and the UAE was one of them. Pregnant women were particularly advised to stay indoors so as to avoid ill affects from the alignment of the celestial bodies. Mosques held special prayers. I decided to try to squeeze the most out of the event by joining the pagans at the volcano fountain on the corniche, where a telescope was set up and astronomy enthusiasts were gathered to revel in the eclipse. The streets were deserted, but as I approached the fountain roundabout, I saw that there were about 100 or so people milling around, some wearing protective glasses and looking up at the sky. I was disappointed that there was no dancing or noise-making to scare away to sun-eating dragon. No bonfires, nothing. There were joggers. So I drove back home and that was it. |
august 11, 1999
Šjanice
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