Our College's National Day celebrations

This week has been the absolute craziest week that I've had here so far.  The national Day (translate that into month) wackiness started with a bird show on the campus. 

From the Al Ain Zoo

Falconry is a big deal here and a lot of people have them, in fact, one of my student's brothers have them.  These zoo keepers brought the birds and had them flying for prey in front of the girls who screamed and took photos on cue. 

This one didn't want to go back to his handler and held the show up for a while.

The next day got even wilder when we became a parade.  Four floats and 48 buses filled with screaming, flag waving students.  We paraded through town for 90 minutes and then went to some sort of heritage village.  My students were pretty excited and cheered and sang the whole time on the bus.  This is a big deal for them to go out into public and be allowed to stick their heads out of windows like that because they usually act demure in public places.

All of the school kids lined the street to see the parade...this was a National Day slash recruitment event.

This is a women's traditonal Dance.  They swing their hair from side to side
while swaying to the beat of the drums.  There is very little movement and,
as dance and music are not allowed in Islamic culture, it seems to be done
only at home. 

Yesterday was my student's big day as they had a 'festival' in the college where each class in our level one had a booth/table to sell something,  create something or celebrate National Day in some way.  My class took photos of students with the traditional berka that their grandmother's used to wear on their faces and then they printed off the photos to give each girl.  

These girls cooked and brought in food to sell.

I bought the traditional clothes to wear for the day and had fun.  The outer black cloak is called an Abayah, the head scarf is called a sheyla and the inner dress is called a Kandora.  Here I am getting the tradional Henna done on my hand by one of our students.

I'm glad that I wore the traditional clothes for the day because I feel like I understand my student a bit better now.  They walk very slowly which is quite irritating but I discovered that it's impossible to walk quickly in these clothes so now I think I'll be more understanding with them.

With the traditional berka on my face

I also made a cake for the day in the shape of a UAE traditional fort.  Red velvet, French vanila and dark chocolate layers to simulate the colors of the flag.