The beginning of this month sees our first swim gala for the 7 year old at the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Sports Complex out in the desert. The complex is quite awesome – at night it is lit up with blue lighting like some giant alien spacecraft, the car park landscaped with shrubs, trees and flowers. Where the complex perimeter ends, there is sand – it really is in the desert. The gala is short, fun and an astonishing place for a first gala! It is held a couple of hours before the Fina Swimming World Cup. It seems silly not to take the children along, particularly as we didn’t get the excitement of the Olympics back in the summer.
Although there are no British swimmers, there are plenty of big names from the rest of the world, including, perhaps most importantly, the 20 year old, Chad le Clos, the South African Olympic gold medalist who beat Michael Phelps in the 200m Butterfly event. We watch with friends and find that there are few spectators in the arena – perfect when you have 7 children ranging in age from 1 to 11. The swimming is tremendous and we hope it inspires all the children. As we are leaving we notice a gaggle of swooning girls waiting for someone and realise that Chad is coming out to meet his fans. Deciding to wait is the right idea and 15 minutes later we leave with signed posters and photos of the Tribe with the great man (or should that be boy?!). A very different evening and one that we will all remember, especially as our daughter competed in the same pool just ahead of these amazing swimmers.
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness must be just beginning back in Abbotts Ann. Not so here. Although we have a few slightly ‘cooler’ days, the temperature is still in the mid to high 30s and the humidity is still high. But the beach is definitely back on the agenda especially at the weekends – in the morning on a Friday it is almost deserted and the sea no longer feels like a hot bath. One morning after school drop off I take a couple of friends with me to walk on the beach with the littlest. As we walk we come across a great deal of unusual sea life washed up on the beach. I firstly find a fabulous large shell called Murex Scolopax or its common name, False Venus Comb.
Unfortunately, this particular one has had its ‘tail’ broken off and there is still an animal inside, so I throw it back into the sea. It is a predatory sea snail and its shell is white and is covered in needle like spines – not one that you’d want to stand on in the sea! It almost looks like the skeleton of a fish with its spiny outer layer. Scientists have not yet worked out what the spines are used for – is it protection against predators or to stop it sinking into soft sand? Whatever it is I am delighted when I find an intact shell about 4 inches long on a later visit to the same beach. After the large shell we also find some fairly big fish washed up including a couple of cuttlefish and most amazingly a ray.
It is, I believe, a Spotted Eagle Ray with a distinct diamond shaped head and body with a long thin tail, almost like a whip. This has venomous barbs along it that can inflict serious wounds should you get too close. This particular one is quite small, about 3 feet long but they can be in excess of 10 feet in width. In the water they look as though they are flying with their graceful wings moving gently up and down. This one is sadly, dead. As the dead marine life is in a very small area it is obvious that they must have got caught up in a fisherman’s net and been dumped when his haul of fish was brought in. A number of large, glossy black crows are making the most of their surprise breakfast catch. Further along it is hot enough for us to decide to have a quick dip before taking a very tired baby girl home for a sleep.
Towards the end of the month we have half term and with the usual busyness of school, it is much needed for everyone. The last day of school the children are allowed to dress up in Halloween fancy dress. I drop off a cat, zombie and witch – just like any other morning I suppose.
Later the Halloween party is held outside in the school grounds in the dark – it feels just as crazy as last year except that our baby pumpkin has grown up just that little bit more and wants as many sweet treats as her brother and sisters!
We are at home for half term still ‘discovering’ Dubai and the rest of the UAE. Al Quoz is an industrial area of Dubai that, in recent years has become an area for artists and galleries. A rather unassuming, pale pink building called the Courtyard is where a weekly farmers market is held with local goods coming from farmers in the region.
As soon as we step through the archway into ‘the courtyard’ I feel as if we have stepped into a Mediterranean market place. The tall buildings surrounding the small outside space are different pastel colours with balconies and windows looking down. Sellers of food and various homemade articles, from beautiful belts and
necklaces of ribbons and beads made by local women in Sharjah and sold by a couple of Western expat women who ensure that the money goes directly back to the makers, to delicious apple slices dipped in chocolate (extremely yummy!), pack the space. A narrow water feature runs down the middle of the cobbled courtyard. Just outside this tranquility, we are in a dusty area of Dubai of cement factories and labour camps. I am amazed! A musician plays and sings hoping that people will buy his CDs. The Tribe happily run around finding all manner of food to try and things to look at. Father of the Tribe and I get a coffee and are quite content watching them.
Later in the week we decide to explore the third biggest of the emirates, Sharjah – the only emirate with land on both the Arabian Gulf coast and the Gulf of Oman (where we camped on the beach at Khor Kalba). Knowing that it takes its decency laws very seriously (Dubai is extremely liberal in comparison), we dress accordingly, making sure that knees and shoulders are covered. Sharjah is also the only emirate that is dry – alcohol is banned completely. Sharjah means ‘rising sun’ in Arabic. c. 85,000 BC,
the earliest dated evidence for human subsistence in the UAE was found in Jebel Faya in Sharjah. A map drawn in the 2nd century AD by the Greek geographer, Ptolemy, shows the settlement of Sarcoa where Sharjah is now found. There are also references dating to around 1490 when Ahmad Ibn Majid, the famous Arab navigator, wrote about navigation in the area. In the 19th
Century the seafaring Al Qasimi tribal confederation made Sharjah their capital and it became the most important port in the lower Arabian Gulf. HH Sheikh Dr Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, has worked to preserve his country’s cultural heritage, drawing on its historic tradition as an intellectual centre for the region. After visiting the immense Blue Souk (where the girls of the Tribe are dressed up!), we visit the Sharjah Aquarium which is a great surprise – it is almost empty (allowing the Tribe to run around quite freely between all the live exhibits!) and compares favourably with the rather more glamorous Dubai Aquarium. It is not as new but we still see some fabulous and different fish and learn more about the regional aquatic life.
Having paid for our family ticket to the Aquarium we are also able to visit the Maritime Museum just opposite. It is a stunning, bright, light space showing how the sea has played such a key role in Sharjah’s development. We see beautiful, traditional wooden, seafaring dhows that have been used for fishing, trading and pearling. We learn that no drawings or plans are used in the dhows construction – the knowledge (dating back thousands of years) is handed down from generation to generation. The principles of geometry are at the core of traditional techniques – perhaps this will encourage the Tribe more in their maths lessons! To this day hand drills are preferred to electric ones as they do less damage to the wood. Traditional plumb lines are used to ensure correct alignment. These building tools have remained unchanged for centuries. To condition and preserve the boat’s timber they are coated in sall, a mixture of sardine and shark liver oil, twice a year. It
also gives the hull the red brown colour. There is a small area of the museum dedicated to the stars used for centuries by sailors as navigation instruments. It is fascinating and we see some beautiful examples of astrolabes. Invented by the ancient Greeks, they map the position of the stars. The Arabs have made some of the finest examples – they could show the direction to certain places, identify stars, measure angles, tell the time and show the time and direction of prayer. Pretty impressive. Seeing them behind glass, reminds Father of the Tribe and I, of Philip Pullman’s descriptions of the ‘alethiometer’ in his children’s novel, The Golden Compass. They are quite beautiful. Probably the most delightful thing in the museum is a 7,000 year old pearl that was found in a coastal grave in Sharjah – in all that time it hasn’t changed at all.
Mother of the Tribe
