back to the future and the past

This whole full-time employment thing is having a negative effect on my blogging, not to mention

wreaking havoc on my pool time! But here goes: a midweek catch up post from last weekend. I joined

mad max beyond the dubai metro

a Chinese ZU faculty member living here at the apartment hotel on an outing to Heritage Village, a showcase for traditional Emirati crafts and arts. The outing was put on by a local Islamic Cultural Information Center that she's been frequenting so that was our first destination. We took a shuttle to the metro station near our local mall. Metro stations have a distinctly space age feel. The end of the line metro stop is actually within walking distance of the apartment/hotel but there's no service out here yet- it's like something out of the movie Dune- so we shuttled to the closest stop with service. The metro was super clean and sleek and even beautiful and runs above ground, providing cool views. For double the usual fare you can ride in the gold class car (we didn't) or, if you're female, there's also a car only for women and children (we also didn't ride in that one.)

At the Islamic Center, an earnest young man made an unsuccessful attempt to convert me and then we went on the the Heritage Village.

my Chinese colleague

It's a pretty area right on the creek with people demonstrating different aspects of traditional life. There was an older guy who'd been a pearl diver back in the day (50 or 60 years ago) when they used nose clips made from goat hooves and held their breath for almost 2 minutes at a go while plucking oysters from the beds.There were women weaving bands used to decorate cuff and necklines of Bedouin
style clothes. Some of them wore the full face covering, some wore the mask-like thing they call a burqa here in the UAE. They indicated that it was fine to take photos and some of the women pulled the niqab (covering) over their face for the photo, others were fine with the burqa showing. I drank Arabic coffee (with cardamom) and ate fried dough balls flavored with rosewater. I got a little henna on my hand much to the delight of many of my staff come Sunday at work. There were youngish girls and boys doing traditional dances. One of the moves common in the girl dances was a dramatic hair fling, first to one side, then to the other. When I was in the grocery store last week, I noticed quite a few shampoos were designed to combat "hair fall". I wondered if dramatic flinging might lead to "hair fall" but apparently, it's a thing here. Caused by water that's been de-salinated. Hmm will have to watch for "hair fall."