Eid Vacation

Eid Mubarak!

The Eid holiday is upon us in the UAE which has meant lots of celebrating and a few days off of work. We had Eid celebrations on Thursday at school where there were various games, traditional food and lots of relaxation. We sat on the big floor couches and pillows with the Arab staff eating goat, lamb and chatting. A funny moment happened when I saw one of the older Arab school counsellors looking down at my tattoo on my ankle. I quickly covered it and apologized for showing it, saying it was Haraam, meaning it is against Allah. She laughed and wagged her finger saying "La! (No) Look, I have it too...!" as she stuck out her feet that were covered in beautiful Henna designs. It is nice to have these moments of connection at work because there is often a big divide between the western and Arab teachers.

I had one night of sleep and preparation and then it was off on holidays for Eid vacation. My friend Cheryl and I decided to go camping in the desert for the first half of the holiday. There aren't really any regulations around here for where you can and cannot camp, so we packed up our gear and drove around until we found somewhere suitable. We ended up camping in a nature reserve area on a lagoon where we saw pink flamingos, wild donkeys and a number of other birds and fish. It was wonderfully peaceful, except for the occasional SUV that would speed by on it's way to go dune bash and the call to prayer that scared the H E double hockey sticks out of me at 4am both nights. We spent a lot of our time touring around, as we wanted to make sure we had visited all 7 of the emirates in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is a country which is made up of these 7 emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. We did, in fact, make it to all of them. What we discovered was that much of the UAE is actually very poor, even some Emiratis. We also discovered that there are wild animals running around all over the UAE. We saw camels, donkeys, cats, dogs, goats, sheep, cows, flamingos and ostrich. All of them were running around free except for the ostrich. The camels totally take precedence in many places, where they just wander down the road and people go around them. I could not get over how they just hang out in the neighbourhoods.

We also went to IceLand waterpark which is basically a rip off of several disney movies made into an arctic themed waterpark in the middle of the desert. It was actually really fun and there is something just amazing about being in a waterpark in early November.

We came upon many ruins during our trip. They appeared to be an old pearling village at the port in one town and the abandoned former town in Oman (the country next to the UAE). Although I am usually really afraid of abandoned, old, places, they looked cool enough to go in. It was pretty neat to check out some history of the UAE considering most of it has been taken over by flashy, new buildings.

After two nights of camping, we decided we would get a cheap hotel to stay in so we could shower and get a better night's sleep. We drove around for almost 2 hours looking for a hotel, but they were all booked solid because of the Eid holiday. We finally found ONE hotel with a room open and booked it. The lady said "It might be a bit noisy..." BOY was that an underestimation. All night until 6am there were night clubs blaring arabic music and people screaming in the hallways and slamming doors. It turns out that all it takes to turn me into a complaining old bitty is two days sleeping on an air mattress in the desert. It did make me feel a lot better when we saw this car the next day, decorated for National Day. Best. Car. Ever. If you look closely you can see his thumbs up.

To finish off our holiday we visited a hotel near the Omani mountains which had a natural hot spring and an amazing spa. I got a full body massage and I have decided that I will have to quit teaching and find a job where all you do all day is get massages *Drools* We went across the border to Oman today and went to some of the souks and met some awesome locals. One man insisted we try on his fancy hat and necklace and take a picture with him. I leave you with me and the tiny Omani man: