Foggy

The fact that it gets foggy here is something that never would have occured to me before arriving.  This morning, the fog was so thick that I couldn't tell the colour of the cars accross the intersections.  Amazingly, everyone was driving calmly and there were no accidents.  Apparently, there is a patch on the highway up to Dubai that gets particularly foggy and there are multiple fatal accidents there every winter. 

Camel Racing

 

The next three weeks are exam and PD weeks so I don’t have to be at college at the crack of dawn.  This finally gave me the motivation to get up before dawn for the camel races just outside of town.  They race very early so that the men can go to early morning Mosque services…also to keep the camels out of the direct heat of the day.

The race got canceled….apparently this happens rather frequently for all sorts of reasons.  We did get to see all the camels and their robot riders as they trained.

Bringing the camels out to the track.

It was actually cold.

These tiny robots have replaced the 4 and 5 year olds that were brought in from India and Pakistan in the past. 

The trainers riding the bigger camels and the smaller racers are usually tied to their mothers.

Later that day, I drove up to Dubai and went to the Global Village with my friend Patreshia.  This is a giant event held every winter with pavilions from various countries, rides, cultural shows, restaurants and shopping.  Unfortunately, many of the pavilions were filled to the rafters with plastic, made-in-china crap.  The South Korean pavilion didn’t have one Korean product in it.   The Indian one was filled with textiles which was interesting but they were all made in Pakistan..very odd.  My favorite was the Iraqi pavilion because they had gone a totally different way from other places and filled theirs with Iraqi artists’ paintings.  Most seemed between $100 to $200…very reasonable and something for every style. 

I’ve posted this picture of an African dancer because it really pointed out to me how different this place is.  I was watching the show and then noticed that amongst the hundreds of viewers, I was the only woman.  These male dancers had their shirts off so the local women couldn’t be anywhere near.

We’re taking our students to this place next week which is going to be an experience…many of them will have never been somewhere without family supervision.  I think I’ll make sure that they see this African show

 

Korean Christmas

 

The college gave us a couple weeks for the winter break and after my jam-packed Jordan/Egypt trip last winter, I decided to spend Christmas doing something relaxing and more ‘family’ oriented.  So, I joined my Korean ‘family’ for a week.  I’ve spent the last decade of Christmases on and off with my friends Kimberley and Chai and missed the last two years while off traveling so I was excited to see them.  Also, they have a cute little addition to their family who I was anxious to meet up with again.

The first night they decided to torture the poor desert dweller by going on a family outing to a Christmas village, at night, in –13 degree weather.

The lights were pretty and there were statues of Santa and his crew all over the place…whipping the kids up into a frenzy.  This is Kimberley and Kai with one of the many Santas.  We ended our night with hot chocolate and a sleepy drive back into the city.

Then it was Christmas fun for the rest of the week.  Christmas Eve dinner with friends

Kim’s spicy chilli with cheese and sour cream..yummm

Helping out Santa with a few construction jobs at 3am.

Then came Christmas morning and all the toys.

Kai with his best friend Inez….who knew mechanic fish were so interesting?

It was a great visit but I wish I had planned for a longer visit. 

The Grand Mosque

I had to go up to Abu Dhabi yesterday for an education conference so I took a little side trip to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in the city.  It's been on my mind since I arrived because it's such an impressive sight as you drive into Abu Dhabi.  It's the largest mosque in the country and the eighth largest in the world.  It's so big that 40,000 worshippers can squeeze in on the big holidays.

It has four tall minarets and 82 domes.  The minarets are really tall at 85 meters and they are in each of the four corners of the complex.

Apparently, the design is a mixture of Arab and Moorish design as the minarets are Arab and the doors and arches are Moorish.

The materials used for this were all imported and are finely crafted.  Each of the 96 columns surrounding the main courtyard is covered with white marble and inlaid with mother of pearl flower designs.

 

The entire complex is surrounded by pools.

 

 



The floor of the courtyard is also inlaid with marble.












Inside is even more amazing. You have to take off your shoes and women must cover their hair, arms and legs. I was prepared for this so I had my head scarf in my bag but you can borrow an abaya and Shayla there too. The first entry hall has huge marble flowers placed all along the walls and around the ornate windows.

As you walk into the main prayer hall (for men to pray) you're walking on the largest handmade carpet in the world and hovering above you are seven huge chandeliers from Germany that incorporate millions of Swarovski crystals.

 
Every inch of the inside is scrolled, carved or painted upon.

On one wall there are flowers with the 99 names or attributes of Allah  and on several walls there were the prayer times and names.

There are five different prayers in each day and they're all at different times (there are differences between different sects of Islam on the prayers).  The first is Fajr and it's supposed to be said at 10 or 15 minutes before sunrise.  The last is Isha and it's after sunset.  In the UAE you can hear the called to prayer from every mosque and it's actually sung by the the Imam at that mosque.  Luckily, the one by my house is a good singer but I have heard some that are a little off-tune or have a bad sound system.

Interesting things I learned about the prayer while visiting the Grand Mosque; every person must be clean and in a clean place to pray.  This means that they all wash their hands, feet, mouth, nose and hair (just wetting the ends of the hair is okay) before praying.  This is called wadhu in Arabic and if there isn't any water, you can use sand/dirt. The women's washing area was gorgeous.

Children under 7 don't pray and women can't pray when they're menstruating or just after giving birth.  Women also pray in a different area than men in this mosque but in some mosques, the women pray at the back with the children between them and the men.  Also, if you miss a prayer, you can make it up later.

A beautiful tribute to art and culture and, in a country where everyone has food, education and homes, I didn't mind the money spent on such a magnificent extravagance.

Spring break

I'm very excited because I've just booked tickets for Prague for the spring break in April.  I know it's early but doing it so early saved me a ton of money.  On the advice of friends who had been before, I'm staying in the historic 'old town' which seems to walking distance from everything....I'm going to do my happy vacation dance now.

National Day 2012

Well it's UAE's 41st national day this coming week and the festivities have begun.  It's not as extravagant as last year but we do have a four day weekend to celebrate which is pretty nice. 

Al Ain has been getting itself all prettied up.  This is Al Ain Fort which is now a museum.  These forts were actually used as recently as the 1950s when Saudi Arabia was making big land grabs in the region and Sheikh Sayed (the father of the UAE) held him off with a combination of troops, who were station at these types of forts, and negotiations.  At one point, the Saudis offered Sheikh Sayed $42 million dollars for one small area but were turned down. 

As an interesting sidenote to the conflict with the Saudis, there are still undefined borders here and things seem to shift in the sand.  Some friends of mine were camping the dunes last long weekend and were told to move by the UAE border patrol as the Saudis had spotted them and wanted them further back from the border.  My friends have no idea how they were spotted so there may be some technology in use.

As well as copious amounts of lights and banners, there have also been fireworks and will be more around town before the week is out.  These ones went on for at least five minutes and had lots of the national colours of red and green.

Our college had it's own celebrations yesterday.  They started out with music and dancing done by an all male group. 

 

 

My students were involved in representing two of the seven Emirates in a booth.  They prepared food, tea, gifts, face painting and this great edible map of the UAE.

Which was enjoyed by everyone...especially the kids.

 



I dressed up again for the occasion which my students thought was hilarious and they spent a lot of time taking photos of me and with me.  I can't show any of the photos with my students here because that's not allowed (as I've mention in previous blog posts).

My friend Gerry also had a birthday this week so we all went out for a really good Indian dinner.

I hope she got her wish.

The Blue Souq

This past weekend I went on a couple of road trips because it was a long weekend celebrating the Hijri or Muslim New Year.  It's actually the time when Mohammed emmigrated from Mecca to Medina and marks the beginning of the new year.  It's 1424 now!

I took my aging jeep up to Dubai and went for Tim Horton's and a bit of a shopping trip.  What I really wanted to know was whether the jeep could handle the 120 to 140 speed limit.  It was no problem with the six cyllinders.

I also went to Sharjiah which is another Emirate in these United Arab Emirates....for a quick geography lesson; there are seven Emriates.  The biggest is Abu Dhabi (the yellow one), which is where I live.  They also have most of the money these days as Dubai has over extended itself with wild building projects.

Sharjiah is next to Dubai but it's a bit of an odd place.  It's become a commuting suburb for Dubai's workers but it's getting alot of it's funding from Saudi Arabia so it's very conservative.  No alcohol, no women's images in shops and other weird things like that. 

Anyways, I went to the Blue Souq (market) which is famous as an importer for Persian merchandise.

I bought some beautiful Turkish bowls, a scarf, a traditional housedress and a stuffed camel for a Christmas gift.  There were tons of antique shops and rug stores but I have no idea what's real and what's fake so I avoided those places.

After shopping, we went over to the extravagant Wafi shopping mall for lunch.  The whole thing is designed around an Egyptian theme.

A very nice day driving through three of the seven emirates.

More Birthday fun

I got a lovely surprise when I showed up for my friend Sharon's birthday (We celebrated our birthdays together in Nepal last year) and the birthday party was for both of us.  It was a great time organized by her lovely husband Serge.

Lots of people came and they have a great party house with huge rooms.

 

 

I got a ton of great gifts from everyone and now I have flowers and candles all over my apartment. 

My birthday

I had a nice birthday with friends.  Yummy Indian

My friend Mary gave me a fantastic bouquet of flowers which are not easy to find in this part of the world. 

 



There was a delicious selection of cheese cakes from friends but I also made a black forest cake to bring into work.  Needless to say, I've had a lot of cake this week.  Now I'm going to a birthday party this weekend and there will be more cake...I guess I'll have to force myself to have some.