An Arabian Night….

January 21, 2019January 21, 2019 jacquelineobyikocha15 Comments

The weather at this time of the year is at its best in the UAE. A great dose of chilly air with a bit of sun thrown in and I am totally lovin’ it 🙂

I’m going to stay in the present and enjoy every bit of the season without letting my mind run off to the fact that the blissful weather will not stay long with us.

Last evening, I had a lovely open-air evening out with some Emirati friends. We sat around the fire drinking Arabian coffee – a wonderful blend of coffee and spices – eating dates, cakes, grill etc. It was just a lovely evening well spent; watching the logs crackle and burn, eating, listening to music, chatting about everything and nothing.

Though my inner throat was growling to snaffle all the goodies in sight, I held my self-respect like a cloak around me in the chilly night and indulged daintily. I am a foodie and believe me when I tell you that the struggle to behave myself around food is real, especially when it comes to sweet nibbles.

I keep having to tell the cookie monster in me that it’s all about balance and not either of the extremes – starving the craving or gobbling up everything – and I think that approach keeps her tamed, calm and contented.

Last night also reminded me that the deeply satisfying and pleasurable things in life are the simple things and most times these simple things are free: laughter, friendship, music, nature…and of course food 😉

It’s the start of a new work week, though mine started yesterday and wherever you may be at this point in time, remember that grace abounds. May your week be fulfilling and your hunger satisfied.

Dubai · Success · Travel

We Have A Record…

December 1, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha24 Comments

We may not be Emiratis, but we do live here and we feel proud to share in breaking the Guinness World Records along with our host country, especially as my daughter was among the almost 7,000 United Arab Emirates pupils who formed the World’s Largest Human Sentence.

We beat China, the previous record holder by several hundreds.

In the sea of whites, my daughter is a shiny white dot among the letter D.

Now, this has made my traipsing from shop to shop like a mall rat, while looking for a no-frills white shirt and the daunting feat of engaging a selfish selfie taker in the restroom/washroom – that’s what we mainly call it here, worth all the trouble.

Remember, no selfies in the washrooms please. Thank you very much.

I am still smiling and feeling very magnanimous, I may just be a bit more forgiving to indiscreet toilet photographers if and when I catch them 🙂

Image Credit: The National News

Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Life · Little rants · The Daily Post

If Only They Knew…

November 27, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha23 Comments

It’s a given that the most beautiful humans that I see once I wake up each morning are my family.

My dear Himself – if he is not out of town and our lovely blessings – The children. They are never far from me. Hmm, come to think of it, it seems a selfie holiday is loooong overdue; though I doubt if that vacation will be as much fun without them.

Without doubts, I love them very much and I refer to them as ”ndi nkem, nji eme onu” in my native language which means, ”my very own that I am proud of. My jewels of inestimable value.

However, they are not the ones that I want to talk briefly about right away.

The ones that I want to discuss lightly are those strangers that cross my path of life on this strip.

Most mornings, after my folks, the next batch of people I always run into are the friendly porters who I think are from Pakistan and Philippines and because these ones have been friendly, I have not yet cast them as villains in any of my short stories, just Mr. PT who I turned into a nice portly porter in a short series that I am writing.

They are followed by other folks from wherever, whom I meet sometimes in the lift, on the walkway, if I am taking a brisk morning stroll or at the children’s school and so on.

They consist of proud Emiratis and Saudi Arabians, the fair Russians, the Ugandans, the Ethiopians, lots of Indians, more Filipinos and Pakistanis and others that I am yet to discover where they are from.

Sometimes they reward you with a mere upturn of their lips in a forced smile (usually from the more western ones) and a lot of times with a glare of a look.

There are two particular fellows I love to cast as villains in my mind.

I meet them mostly at the neighbourhood gym where they hog the machines like cyborgs and get so annoying with their showing off exercising skill – my green jealous eye is wiggling here.

Hear me out, one of them sweats over the machines and does not bother to wipe it down after use. Urrgh!

The other one runs on the thread mill at an unbelievable speed and his heavy footing makes so much noise, that I can virtually see the tongue of the poor machine hanging out as it pants in exhaustion while holding on to dear life.

Thankfully, I tune them out with my headphones and just enjoy turning them into imps and ogres in my mind.

I am still searching for the character to cast as a shiny hero that will slay their monstrous behaviour and turn them into pumpkins.

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