Mardi Gras in Dubai

Every year I regret not being in Louisiana for Mardi Gras. The kids, however, always manage to celebrate at their school. This year, the boys had to come up with their own costumes.
Antoine's was easy, he wore his Karate Kimono (pictures to come later). Maxime's was easy, too - he wore his beloved Cowboy attire given to him by his rancher grandparents.
The trapeze artist in the picture with him is Lucille. 

Desert Morning

What Maxime loves about his new school are the number of outings and cool things they get to do. They go to a city park every Saturday and this morning they organized a trip to the desert. I was lucky enough to be able to accompany them.
We drove 30 minutes outside of Dubai in school buses. Once we were off the highway and a little ways into the desert, we were transferred to 4x4s that took us to the desert camp. The camp was inside a dune circle. It had tents and different areas set up for the kid's activities: camel riding, henna tatoos, dress up, sand surfing and of course lunch. One of the children's father gave a short presentation on dates and had samples to taste. He works for Bateel, a Saudi date producer. Saudi dates are supposedly the best, and those that grow on Mecca soil (sand?) are the most prized by Muslims all over the world. After tasting them - I can see why!
First you learn to ride a camel...
...then you get a scorpion tatoo and bedouin headdress and voila, you're Cheik Maxime.

Maxime's Birthday

Today is Maxime's birthday, but we celebrated on Wednesday. We went to the neighborhood Park, Garhoud Park and lucked out because it wasn't raining. The day before it rained all day and the 2 days after it rained ALL DAY! Amazing - but true.

Anyway, we celebrated with a few friends from school and the next door neighbors. Nationalities included, Lebano-Canadian, French, Iranian, Philippino - and American, of course.

The Women Driving Thing

Just a quick one - on Sunday the big news was that the Saudi Minister of Culture and Information said that there was no federal law in Saudi Arabia prohibiting women from driving. It's a local thing. He kicked off the economic forum with that statement and it was big news. If you're really interested in the legal intricacies check out the article on the Gulf News web site.


In searching for the link I found other articles where King Abdullah said that men were just not ready to give women driver's licenses.

Say Hello to Ming

Maxime's birthday is coming up and I've been promising him a cat since we now live in a house with a yard (the condition upon which owning a cat depended for the last 2 years). Yesterday was the open house for Feline Friends - a non-profit affair that rescues cats and puts them up for adoption.
We went and picked out Ming, a 4 month old, calico tabby that had been hit by a car.

After about 3 descriptions in front of the cat's cages, I stopped reading them out loud because they were too depressing and Antoine wanted to take home ALL the cats.

Anyway - we made an excellent choice because Ming is a lap cat - that's all she wants to do is sit on someone's lap and be cuddled.

The kids are thrilled and can't wait to get home to play. I never thought I'd be taking pictures of cats and posting them on the web - but here I am!! I promise there won't be too many.

Something Cool

So, everyone says, "Dubai is all about the money and the shopping and there is no cultural life there." Well, maybe not everyone - but let's say it's the ones who don't ask if women can drive here. BTW - women can drive here and they do it alot better than the men do - but I'm digressing.

Well, as I usually like to bring out the exception to the well accepted preconceived notion - here is a link to a really cool cultural thing in Dubai (OK there IS some money involved - but it's for a good cause).

The thing is called the Camel Caravan - check it out: http://www.camelcaravan.ae/dubai/page6a.asp

These camels are all over the city. There is one on the side of the highway on our route to school. The kids and I call him Camel Dan, and he helps us know when we have to turn off the highway. The big sign that says "GO THIS WAY, ANNE" doesn't seem to do the trick.

The above picture was taken at Festival City when I looked at a house there last October.

I like how the camel is providing shade for the street cleaner on a break. It's kind of like in the real desert - or at least like in Lawrence of Arabia. Ok, well not exactly.

Antoine and Maxime at Safa Park on the Web

Thursday was a holiday - Muslim New Year- so we went to the park. It's a cool park - kind of reminds me of Piedmont Park in Atlanta, nice green expanses with views of the city skyline. The spider web was a nice reminder of the boy's Parisian neighborhood park for the boys.
The waterfall just to remind us that we're in the desert.