The storm that begins at the end of November continues into December but doesn’t deter any of the National Day celebrations that abound throughout the city. We enjoy the clear air by cycling
around the backstreets of Jumeirah and marvelling at the vast dwellings that are built in the area. One immense building sits on the beach and looks like some kind of space ship; it is still being built and is surrounded by hoardings and a large crane. We sit on the beach in its shadow to eat our picnic lunch.
The week following the storm is clear and the air feels clean. Walking along the beach I can see that the sea is glassy and quite beautiful and calm. Every time I go down to the beach and look out to sea I feel that it’s the equivalent of having a perfect night’s sleep! – it is so away from everything and feels so soothing and peaceful. I feel that I am completely at one with the world. Returning to the ‘real’ world, the feeling doesn’t necessarily last very long! But at least it’s just a short walk away. Strangely, despite the recent storm, there is very little washed up on the beach. Perhaps everything got washed straight back out to sea.
School seems to be gearing up as December progresses, rather than winding down for the Christmas holidays and I wonder if we’ll actually be able to squeeze Christmas in at all with the madness of everything.
However, we do all briefly stop to enjoy the Horizon Christmas Carol Concert. Once again it is held outside the school in the evening and the palm trees have been decorated with lights and fabulous paper decorations made by the children. It looks wonderfully festive. The school children, many dressed in red, stand at the front with the Dubai wind orchestra; the parents gather round and we’re off! All the classics are played and sung with gusto and my absolute favourite part is when we all sing ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!’. As we finish, the children all start getting terribly excited and jump up trying to catch ‘snow’! Looking up there are a couple of men standing on the rooftop above us throwing ‘snow’ over us all – it is magical! We all leave for home, feeling just a little bit more festive than we did before.
Having had such a crazy run up to the holidays, we decide to go camping to Oman just before Christmas (this in itself, is possibly a mad idea too), but we decide that we all need to escape the city and we’ve missed camping. So, having packed up the car, left food for the cats, we set off for the Oman border at Dibba where we have previously easily crossed into Oman. Well, not this time. We are stopped, show our passports and are then asked for our ‘Border passes’. Father of the Tribe and I both look at each other, both secretly thinking how long it has taken to pack the car up, and not having a clue what the armed guard is asking for. We say that we just want to camp on the beach, but the guard insists that we need a pass. We still haven’t any idea what he is talking about, but we are fortunate that he waves us through telling us that ‘next time’ we must have one. As we cross the border, we look for any signs that might explain what we now need. Nothing. We drive to the beach where we have previously camped and notice that there is no one else camping on the beach at all – just a couple of day campers. But there are no signs saying ‘no camping’ or giving any other information. So, having deflated the tires, we make our way across the soft sand to the far end of the beach, where the mountains meet the sand and sea.
I believe that we have just found the perfect camping spot. We are sheltered by the rocks at the back and are looking directly out to the glistening sea. The sky is clear as we set up camp (including our Christmas bunting made by our friend back home!) and there is barely a breath of wind. The Tribe are off exploring the shoreline and the littlest keeps returning with her collection of all manner of shells. Dusk arrives and we can see the lights of Fujairah across the Gulf of Oman.
Other than the excited chattering and giggling of the Tribe and the gentle lapping of the sea, it is blissfully quiet. We are the only visitors on this wide stretch of beach. The evening passes without incident. The Tribe are fed and go to sleep; we are left to watch the vast sky above us dotted with stars and the almost, full moon. The light that the moon gives out creates a quite mysterious aura around us. We all sleep soundly and wake to watch the sun rise above a still calm sea.
As we begin to break camp the Tribe (not best known for helping during this period) are busy rock pooling. There seems to be much hilarity at one point as they capture a number of small crabs and put them into a bucket for further examination. The hilarity however, suddenly gives way to a scream of utter fear and Father of the Tribe and I both stop our work to see what on earth has happened. We find our ‘Gerald Durrell’ daughter holding her hand up as she’s screaming. There is a crab firmly attached to one of her fingers. I decide that it would be inappropriate to laugh at this point, but having realised that no one has been stung or attacked by some horrible venomous creature, I am rather relieved. The only problem now is that the crab has no intention of letting go and our daughter is becoming increasingly upset. So, Father of the Tribe pulls the crab off leaving one of its pincers behind still attached to a finger. He manages to ease it out of her skin but the puncture marks are not deep. This seems a good time to take a walk along the beach and attacking crabs are soon forgotten amongst cartwheels, handstands and ball throwing. I doubt whether the crab recovered quite so quickly, if at all.
Back in Dubai, the Tribe still haven’t seen Father Christmas, but we decide that he’s probably rather busy, so this year, given the fact that we are living so close to where the whole Christmas Story happened, we plan an alternative and we give the Tribe a Christmas challenge to find the three gifts brought to Jesus in the stable – gold, frankincense and myrrh. So, on Christmas Eve, we head to the souks of Old Dubai. First stop the Gold Souk where they obviously find a great deal of gold, although this year, we say that finding it in a shop window is good enough for us!
We then head to the Spice Souk where the Tribe pick a store to go into and ask the shopkeeper if he has any frankincense and what they should do with it. Frankincense comes from the sap of the tree of the same name, the species Boswellia
sacra producing the finest and most aromatic. It was the ancient world’s most highly prized commodity and during the Roman Empire, it was exported by ship from the Dhofar region in Southern Oman to Yemen, then to the Red Sea and finally by camel train to Petra and the Mediterranean. The small, hard nuggets that the Tribe purchase are whitish in colour and highly pungent. The exotic smell suddenly takes me back to my childhood when I visited Greece with my parents and we occasionally stepped inside small, old churches to escape the heat of the sun. The nuggets must be heated over glowing charcoal. Bizarrely, Father of the Tribe has just been given a frankincense burner in his office ‘secret Santa’ ritual. Perfect timing. Unfortunately, when the Tribe ask for myrrh, the shopkeeper does not have any but suggests where the Tribe may find some. They do find myrrh, that also comes from the sap of a tree, but whereas the frankincense sap is white, the myrrh sap is reddish brown and these nuggets are glassy and bitter smelling. Both frankincense and myrrh were used for religious, medicinal and personal use. Today, frankincense is being studied as a possible cure for cancer.
So, with the Tribe clutching their small bags of fragrant ‘gifts’ we head back on an abra across the Creek to our home. I feel that we have travelled back in time and perhaps I have learnt as much as the Tribe have – the gifts that the Wise Men brought to the baby Jesus represented, Gold for a King, Frankincense for God, Myrrh to embalm Jesus’ body after death. Definitely a less commercial way to spend Christmas Eve in this very commercial city.
Christmas Day morning is spent on the beach with another family where we share coffee and croissants and the children all enjoy swimming and playing cricket. It is most definitely different and because of that all the more enjoyable – we are not trying to recreate Christmas this year, we are making our own new one. It is full of children, chaos and smiles – exactly as Christmas should be wherever you are.
Mother of the Tribe
