FASHION and FABRIC IN DUBAI

Dubai is a mecca for Arab fashion and for exquisite fabric of all kinds. Women come from all over the Middle East and Africa to purchase fabric, have wedding and special occassion dresses made and to get the latest in jewelry, bags, shoes and other accessories.

The traditional regional dress for women is a black outer garment with flowing sleeves and a black headscarf. This is worn whenever the woman is out of her household or away from her family. But the black garment can have fabulous embroidery or jewel embellishments, especially on the sleeves, shoulders and the headscarf. But, underneath the black outer garment, the women wear very colorful clothing made from gorgeous fabric.

In the malls there are many, many fabric stores, each filled with fabric of all kinds. A lot of it, I am told, comes from China and the Far East. The colors, textures and patterns are just lovely. I've never seen anything like it. What seems strange, is to see women, dressed in their black outer garments, in the fabric stores purchasing lovely, colorful fabric to be made into the clothing they will wear only for their families.

Men, on the other hand, wear the traditional white tunic, with a white skull cap, covered by a red and white geometrically patterned piece of material held on their head with a black circular piece. Some men wear off-white or tan tunics. Most of the men sport some sort of facial hair, neatly trimmed. They all wear sandals.

OLD DUBAI - Dhows and The Spice Souk

John and I took a taxi to the older part of Dubai and right alongside the main road there were loading docks filled to capacity with all sorts of cargo - refrigerators, mattresses, cloth, foodstuffs. These were destined to be loaded onto the Dhows (traditional trading ships) headed for Iran. The ocean crossing was only a 3 hour trip we were told. The traditional Dhow uses only a sail for movement. Pictured here are the loading docks and the Dhows waiting to be loaded with their sterns topped by the covered cabin painted in the traditional blue and white. The water taxis are shown in front of the Dhows. They carry passengers up and down the Creek, which is the main waterway of the harbor.

Across from the loading docks there are a number of old marketplaces, called Souks. John and I visited the Spice Souk. It is a covered market with little shop after little shop filled with spices and herbs from all over the world. The aroma was intoxicating. Almost every shopkeeper that barkered us to come into his small domain assumed we were Germans and always began by speaking German to us. That alone made us smile. The Souk continued on and we were suddenly in another souk where there were lots of little shops filled with dry goods, bedding, dishware, toys, anything you could imagine.

Like all of Dubai, the Souks are immaculately clean. You never see anyone cleaning or picking up anything. But, all of Dubai is clean.

THE NEW DUBAI

Dubai is one of the seven emirates and the most populous state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It was only a 3 hour plane flight on Fly Dubai from Djibouti. We flew across the Gulf of Aden,over the vast expanse of mountains and sand which is Yemen and the southern tip of Saudie Arabia. I met John there for a 3-day weekend, when he was returning from a short business trip to the US to set up some salt test protocols at a lab in New Iberia, LA.

It is an amazing place. Dubai has been ruled by the Al Maktoum dynasty since 1833. Dubai's current ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is also the Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE.

It was the current ruler's father who truly had the vision that is now Dubai. Even though the city of Dubai is over 150 years old, the modern city itself has been built since 1968 when oil was discovered there. The vision of the late ruler was to take this original oil money and invest in education, health and infrastructure. Today the emirate's main revenues are from tourism, real estate and financial services. Less than 7% of their revenue is derived from natural gas or petroleum products.

The city is very modern, clean, civil and organized. Although there is an immense number of vehicles on the road, they all look new. The taxis are owned by 5 different companies. The cab drivers all wear uniforms, are polite, punctual and the cars they drive smell like new. They do not own their own cabs. They are paid commission for their work. We took the BIG BUS (hop-on hop-off)double decker bus in order to get a tour of the more modern parts of the city and to get a chance to visit all of the many shopping malls there. We took taxis everywhere else.

The malls are incredible. The largest mall is The Dubai Mall with over 1200 stores. One of the malls even has a ski resort right in the middle. We peered through large glass windows, watching ski lifts carry skiers, bundled up in their ski jackets up the snow-covered hill. We watched them ski down and watched little kids with innertubes on a little bunny hill. There was even a small tobogan run inside the resort. Amazing! All of this happening, when the outside temperature is 90 degrees.

Because of the remaining uncertain economic environment, there are many skyscrapers with cranes atop whose construction has been temporarily halted. Other building projects are going ahead as planned. There are still many guest workers in Dubai from all over, especially the Phillipines, Malasia, India and Egypt. All of the taxi drivers, waiters, maids and construction workers are guest workers. The human trafficing, sex trade and money laundering we hear takes place in Dubai is well hidden. I am told that this activity is due to recent Mafia influences, not the ruling family.

Dubai has absolutely beautiful beach resorts, tall, unusually shaped hotel buildings, even airconditioned bus stops. In the last picture above, I am standing in front of one of them. They are planning to build a theme park Xtimes larger and more elaborate than Disney World in the near future.

Dubai is a very international city. There is every imaginable restaurant type available. John and I stayed at the JW Marriott and enjoyed both their American Style Steak House and their lovely Italian restaurant. Both were delicious with excellent service.

I will do two more blogs about Dubai. 1. THE OLD DUBAI with its Spice Souk and Dhows.
2. Fashion

DONATIONS FROM AMERICA

Several weeks ago, I was asked to help distribute clothing, toys, school supplies and non-perishable food items to the families living in Laita, a small village near our compound. Because of the generosity of Superior Industries of Morris, MN, our conveyor belt manufacturers, we were able to distribute 28 huge boxes filled with donations to the area.

This was only 1/3 of the generous goods that Superior had packed into each container they delivered to Salt Investment. In all we were able to make three separate donations. The first were bikes and school supplies to our nearest school in Karta, a small village about 20 minutes from our compound.

The second set of donations, clothing, more bikes, and toys went to the little village directly across from our compound. THANK YOU SUPERIOR FOR YOUR GENEROUS SPIRIT.

The pictures show one of the three vehicles we used to transport the donations, the beautiful small children of Karta, and our Salt Investment employees with the chief elder from the area. As a special thank you, the chief elder gave me a very special gift, a baby goat, which I sadly petted knowing that our cook would roast him for us all to share. He was a tasty little thing and I was very suprised that there was quite a bit of very tender meat provided by that tiny goat.