Wednesday Camel is Ticklish

I never knew that camels were tickish. Apparently they are.

East of Al Ain

If you head out of Al Ain to the east, past the Intercon, past the go cart track, there is this flat, rocky land just before the Omani border. The landscape is very different than the area to the north and west of Al Ain. Out here there is almost no sand, and the beginnings of the Hajar mountains on two sides.

Road Camels

Before I came here, I read a book, Culture Shock UAE, that was pretty helpful, if a little dated in some aspects. One thing that the author warned about was being careful of camels on the roads (including a pretty funny story about a run-in a friend of hers had). But you never see camels on the highways now. But today we had to get off the highway to make a U-Turn, and as we came over a hill, there, in the road ahead of us, were two camels in our lane. Fortunately we saw them in time to get out of their lane.

Camel Family

Camel Family, Al Ain

I actually don't know if camels form families, but this looks like one, so that is what I'm calling it.

Ramadan Visitors

Our new neighborhood is just a block or so from the Red Crescent Society. For Ramadan they have set up a huge tent where they have a nightly iftar to feed the poor. The other day we were walking past the tent when we noticed behind it the neighborhood had some new visitors:





(The tent says "قاعا بينونة". I know that qa'a is "hall" but I can't find benoona in my dictionary. Any help on what it means?)

Camels of UAE University

In response to the overwhelming demand, here are a couple of photos of the camel statues that the university has scattered around the town:






[Updated Friday night]

Thanks to keeie for the links to the sites that cover the camel, horse, and falcon artwork in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The kids loved the Spidey Camel, even changing the words to the Spiderman song to be more appropriate (mostly by including a line about how "he'll spit on you").