a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
The Daily Post Photo Challenge Seasons
Share an image evocative of the weather or represent the current “season of your life” in metaphor.
Seasons of life
Are as sure as time
From days, to weeks
To months, to years
Ever rotating
From birth,
To growth,
To death.
An
Unstoppable
cycle.
This is the season of white-out/fog and sandy storms in this part of the World *Dubai*.
Sometimes you wake up and you can’t even see anything in front of you when you look out.
On Thursday’s, I share a picture about ‘Echos of my Neighbourhood.’
I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple.
Every Thursday, share a photo of bits and pieces of wherever you are at any point in time. It could be houses, backgrounds of your neighbourhood, activities and so forth and you can tag it Echos of my Neighbourhood, add my link to your post so that I will get the ping from your post.
Every other Thursday, I will publish a post with the links of all those who participated the previous week.
This is just a fun way of getting to see more of the World around us through your eyes, since we cannot all be at those places, we can at least see them through you.
I look forward to seeing your pictures.
Best regards,
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
The Burj Khalifa is the title holder for the tallest building in the World
It stands proud at 830m to the top with 163 floors.
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Some Christmas cheer met us at nooks and crannies of the Mall of The Emirates.
Beautiful, twinkling Christmas decors, lots of hustle and easy going bustle of shoppers and light entertainment as well.
They even handed out some free stuffed socks, with candy canes and game cards to the children.
By far, Dubai is the most religious tolerant Arab destination that I have been to. We are smiling.
Enjoy the videos below. I hope they come out okay. I am still a novice videographer.
My regards,
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
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The past few days have been filled with lovely fun to-do’s.
It’s UAE’s (United Arab Emirates ) 44th National Day which is celebrated on the 2nd December of each year and several days following.
This is to mark their formal nationalization from a British Protectorate to the unification of their Seven Emirates which consists of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain.
Very grand celebrations are held across the country to mark the event. They don’t do things in half measures!
There are several activities going on all over the Emirates to mark this auspicious event. Fireworks, Car Rallies and Dance Shows etc.
People are dressed up in apparels sporting the UAE national flag colours, homes, work places, cars and streets are all flying the flag to celebrate this big day with joy and happiness.![1449243683713[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/14492436837131.jpg)
Heritage Villages are set up all over the emirates in order to celebrate this event traditionally. Holidays are given from the National Day until two days later. Air Shows are conducted on Abu Dhabi and Ajman Corniche while Military Processions are held at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition for the Rulers of the Emirates, Members of the Federal National Exhibition and the Emir Citizens.
For a Nation which started out as an utter dessert, they have not done badly, as a matter of fact, they have done a fantastic job of things and yet their push and progress is relentless.
Having meandered from Abu Dhabi; the sedate big brother in the house, to living in Dubai; the bold, glitzy and glamorous brother, to Sharjah, Ajman and Ras al-Khaimah; the rest of the crew, it’s a World of so many differences and textures.
It has been a beautiful day filled with camaraderie. People from all walks of life and 100 Nationalities are milling about in the city of glitz and glam.
I have seen more smiles in the past 2 days than in the 4 months that I have been here.
I even met a gorgeous looking lady from Mongolia and a couple from Tajikistan..Didn’t expect that and it took my brain a while to zero into Tajikistan on the globe.
Here are a few snippets of what I caught.
I hope they work. They were a bit finicky earlier.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
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 🙂
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Image Credit: The National News
The loud bang of the gun shot startled and sent Habiba racing in the direction of the sound, her Ferragamo slippers clattered as she rushed along.
In disbelief, her bulging eyes stared at Hamid’s body scattered at an odd angle. His gold plated hand gun on the floor beside his slackened hand.
Dead! Hamid died from a single well aimed shot to the temple; blowing parts of his crown to pieces.
In horror she screamed endlessly. The catastrophe before her eyes horrified her senses.
The ruckus alerted the maid’s and the children; who all came rushing to the scene.
Why? Why? Habiba sobbed and mumbled incoherently in Arabic.
She had noticed his withdrawn and restless attitude for days on end but his heated discussions over the telephone had not appeared any different from other days when he was brokering a deal.
She had paid no mind to it at all. Her days were consumed with the usual shopping sprees, yacht meet ups with friends, an occasional private party trip to the casinos in Monaco and the high-life of a pampered wife of a stupendously wealthy industrial giant.
“No! Y’Allah!” she yelled at the Philippina nanny’s. ”Take them away from here.”
She didn’t want them to see the mind numbing horrifying sight. It would scar their psyche for the rest of their lives.
The note simply said: “I am sorry. It’s all gone. I lost it all.”
She frantically called her brother Majid on her gem-studded Vertu phone; he would know what to do.
Nothing made any sense to her befuddled mind.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
This story is total fiction conjured from an article in The National: online United Arab Emirates news about a major jewellery line owner who has been jailed for fraud.
The Daily Post prompt Ripped from the headlines.
Head to your favorite online news source. Pick an article with a headline that grabs you. Now, write a short story based on the article.
This prompt is a bit difficult to sink my teeth into, but I am going to try to teleport back to the States for the trick a treating.
Halloween is still novelty and at infantile stage here in the United Arab Emirates, even though I saw some costumes and scary masks displayed in the shops, I observed that it is mainly people of Western culture that ventured to those aisles.
With the insularity of inhabitants in this place, my presumption is that the parents will be filling their children’s candy bags themselves. I am doubtful that there will be much knocking on doors going on.
On the other hand, let me let you in on a secret, if the truth be told, we African Nations are not particularly fond of celebrating Halloween.
Ha! It almost seems as if we are inviting the trouble of the dead and buried by doing so 😉
Hei! Biko kwa! (I speak in my vernacular to help you understand the seriousness of the affair), why would we want to go invoking the spirit of the dead who should be resting very well in peace?
Mbanu!
May All the Saints please remain nicely hallowed in their allotted portions at the cemetery.
Nonetheless, since I like the kids in the neighbourhood, if I were in the States, I shall spare them some candies the following day when all the saints have gone back quietly to their various abodes 😉
Enjoy the short skit below.
Quick Glossary:
Ha! An exclamation in this case meaning ‘What!’
Hei! Another exclamation like ‘Oh dear’
Biko kwa: Please/I beg your pardon.
Mbanu. NO, indeed!
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
In response to The Daily Post prompt Trick or Trick
Let’s imagine it’s Halloween, and you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?
We had driven past the mosque along the express sometime in the past and its magnificent structure beckoned to my eyes….
We had no idea that we could visit as non-Muslims, but following inquiries we were duly informed of the visiting hours and the required observations.
We earmarked a day to visit Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
A lot of people may not know this, but the Grand Mosque was started as a vision of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was known for adopting a tolerant version of Islamic faith and for staying far away from fanaticism or extremism.
A leisurely 2 hour drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi; with pit stops made at gas stations for a run to the loo (when you have children with you, prepare your mind for such incidentals) and to grab a cup of Tim Horton’s or Starbucks coffee and donuts.
We had eaten before leaving, yet an expedition has a way of rousing the nibbling juices.
It was blazing hot! Around 41 degrees Celsius if my guess was correct, but thankfully, there are shaded areas as you walk to the location where you have to obtain a compulsory ”Abaya” for the ladies before venturing into the mosque.
There were bus loads of tourists queued to acquire one, but the process is swift and efficient. They had loads and loads of Abaya! Soon we were on our way.
The shiny starkness of the white marbled building that literally glinted in the sun left me bereft of words to describe my thoughts.
We had to leave our footwear in a sea of footwear a mile long at least and walked into the mosque which was refreshingly cool.
I observed that the marble flooring outside the mosque, which I had expected would be baking hot was cool. It must have had some sort of cooling system because our feet did not roast!
The splendour! The magnificence and the entire experience was sublime.
It stole one’s breath away and pulled at the inner chords of warmth and peace deep within you.
It left the heart feeling full and at rest.
I realized that, we all, are on the same quest for the same thing which is centered on Love, Peace and Acceptance, even though peoples means of arriving at that destination differs.
I think that the confusion lies in our minds as faulty humans and not in the hands of God. Our genetic make up does not have any religion stamped on it. We are first created humans before anything else!
Allah Akbar means God is greater than anything else on Earth and that is not debatable! A Muslim enters the ritual of prayer and divine presence after uttering Allah Akbar. It is akin to the sign of the Cross made by Catholics and I am Catholic!
Indeed, God is the Greatest! God does not promote violence or lies!
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
P.S. Unfortunately some of the videos that I took are not uploading and my pictures don’t do justice to the Mosque!
In fulfillment of Writing 101 – Day 13 Assignment: compose a series of vignettes. I am doubtful about my take on the assignment, but if the Truth be told, I am leaving it as it is.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 