December 2, 2009

  • UAE National Day

    Today is the National Day here in the UAE. On 2 December 1971, the UAE became an independent nation as the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai formed a union and invited the other five emirates to join them. Today, Emiratis are celebrating their 38th year as a nation.

    quad As the UAE is such a young nation, National Day traditions are still emerging, but it seems that camping is becoming more popular. Slide show here. car makeover Another trend is giving your car a complete National Day makeover. Video here.  BTW, I have no such plans for my Daihatsu, though I'm sure it would be fun. Another National Day event today is when Abu Dhabi will try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by having the world's biggest fireworks display this evening. Story here.

    We celebrated National Day at the Fujairah Men's College on the last day before the holidays, and in keeping with college traditions we expat teachers dressed up in national dress.

    The white dishdasha is easy. You just put it on. But getting the ghutra, the headdress, just right is a bit more tricky. However, no worries. My students were happy to help.

    06 final touch

    Here's the end result. My students decided on the bedu look this year.

    07 ghutra finished

    At the college, we had a traditional majlis (literally meaning "a place of sitting") in the foyer, complete with Arabic coffee and all. Did you know that you show your host you don't want a refill of coffee by shaking your cup? If you don't shake it, they will refill it when it's empty.

    09 time for coffee

    National Day events at Fujairah Men's College started off by everybody walking in a procession around the campus.

    15 walking around college

    My students certainly enjoyed it. Can you spot the teacher in this picture?

    17 teacher and students

    Lots of work had gone into preparing for the day, including some really great displays.

    19 display

    Someone had brought his falcon along.

    22 the guy with the falcon

    There was traditional dancing.

    28 students gun dancing

    And music. The drummer the right is one of my students.

    29 music team

    Some great performances.

    25 whirling 1

    And the finals of the balsa wood bridge building competition. The winners (shared first spot) had bridges that could take 40 kilos (88 lbs) before they broke (maximum weight: 85 grams of balsa wood).

    32 finals in balsa bridge testing

    All in all, the National Day celebrations at Fujairah Men's College were great. More pictures here.

    The question now is, should I drive over to Abu Dhabi this afternoon for the world's biggest fireworks display ever? It's nearly a four-hour drive.

Comments (6)

  • such cool pictures! thank you for sharing them. Is that drive four hours both ways or four hours, round-trip?

  • Are you like Lawrence of Arabia yet?

  • Such interesting photos! A world away from Canada......
    Did you go to the fireworks display?

  • An awesome day!

    Thanks for the link. I'll definitely look thru it.

    I'd go for the fireworks show. Load up your car and take off!

  • It is interesting to see other cultures. The school celebration is different but really the same like any other celebration. It proves even though we are different in dress, foods, language and culture we are the same as people in wanting to celebrate and share. Great photos!

     Sending my happy thoughts through the looking-glass.
    ♡ ƙarolyn                          

  • Wow, great pictures. And I think it's really cool that the teachers dressed up in the dishdashas - I wish we'd done that in my school in Bahrain, that would have been a great laugh (but also very cool to respect local culture that way)!

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