Cultural Center

Rooftop of the Cultural Center

Yesterday I went with five other women to an Emirati breakfast hosted by the Sheik Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding. It's a lovely program, intended for tourists and expats to get a glimpse of Emirati and Arabic life, and a chance to ask questions of a local woman. We were seated on high cushions around a large beautiful carpet, and served the bitter Arabic coffee in small handle-less cups, our hostess explaining as she went. The coffee is strong but light in colour, brewed from unroasted green coffee beans, and flavoured with cardamom, cumin, cinnamon or other spices, according to each house's personal tastes. A silver coffee pot would brew from 6 am to midnight, always ready for guests. No milk or sugar is served with coffee, rather it's drunk while eating dates for sweetness. Our hostess, a woman from California who converted to the Muslim faith and moved to the UAE to be near friends from Al Ain, is now married to an Emirati man. She explained that a coffee server would always carry several small coffee cups in her hand, filling each for a guest, and returning to fetch more cups once she is down to holding one, so that a guest would always feel welcomed, and not ever feel the hostess was rushed or unprepared for them. The coffee cups are tiny, not because of a lack of generosity, but so that the cups can be constantly refilled by a dedicated coffee server, just a few sips at a time, so the coffee is always hot.

Emirati breakfast

We sipped our coffee and nibbled the sweet, fat dates, fresh and smooth, unlike the dried ones I'm used to, while our hostess explained the Emirati food displayed in dishes on the floor. It has similarities to other middle easter foods, but unlike the more familiar Lebanese foods, there are not many breads and dips. Only one bread is made, a puffy, flat round sprinkled with sesame seeds and flavoured with spices. I could taste cumin and cardamom in the whole-grain bread. She said it's not often served at breakfast, as it takes several hours to prepare and the cook would have to get up at 4 in the morning....this particular bread is not sold in stores. There were also little fried pastries, like large misshapen Timbits, sweetened with date syrup and served with honey. They were pretty darn good! Then there was a sweet pasta, vermicelli with date syrup and raisins, topped with a plain omelet. She said some people mixed in scrambled eggs, but this variation allowed you to avoid the egg if you didn't like it. The last dish was a very plain chick pea soup, with large plump chick peas and a thin broth at the bottom of the pan. She told us it is a favorite snack of emiratis, not just at breakfast time, but also for evening, and was served in movie theatres until recently. It was all delicious, a little plain, and pots of honey were available to add sweetness to everything. With our food, we were served hot black tea in small glass cups, and offered sugar cubes as sweetener, but no milk. I'm finding it's quite a British custom to have milk in your tea, and not that common elsewhere! Except for Canada, of course...and probably the other British colonies as well.

As we ate, we were able to ask questions about whatever...she encouraged us not to feel any question was invalid. The obvious things came up, the things that seem most to interest foreigners, the things we get a very slanted view on in the media, such as the way the women dress here, and idea behind it all. I'll try to explain a little of it here, it was so interesting to hear it from the perspective of someone who lives their life that way, especially someone who was not born to it, but chose it as a way of life.

Typical Abaya

The women in the Gulf region in general, and the UAE in particular, wear a full-length black cover-up dress called an ABAYA. It's loose through the body and sleeves, though fits through the shoulders. They are generally tailor-made to fit properly. The sleeves are wide, probably 24 inches around at the opening, and go to the wrists. The dress goes to the floor. It goes over normal street clothes, jeans, skirts, etc, and you often see fancy high-heeled shoes peeking out at the bottom, and the flash of the hem of what's being worn underneath as women walk. The abaya is topped by a head scarf called a SHAYLA. This is draped over the top of the head, and wrapped to cover the neck all around as well. In UAE, a BURQA (tranlates from Arabic as sheild) is only the face covering, not the whole garment as it is in other regions. Here, a burqa can be cloth or brass. The brass ones look quite sinister, with a horizontal covering the eyebrows, a wide mustache-shaped flat part covering the lips and tip of the nose, and a little bar coming down the bridge of the nose to connect them. Sometimes, inidigo powder is worn on the face underneath as a kind of talcum powder to soften the fit of the burqa, and it turns the skin dark purple. The purpose of all this clothing is for modesty; the Muslim women believe that they are supposed to cover themselves from head to foot for their faith. This custom is much-discussed by westerners, and is often perceived as oppressive or forced, but the message I get here is that it really is a woman's perogative and choice. At puberty, women begin to dress in the abaya and shayla, and at marriage can begin to cover their faces as well. The metal burqas I described are really only worn by older, traditional women. Much more common is a fabric veil worn over the lower half of the face, or even the shayla scarf draped to cover the whole face (the material is a little bit sheer, so I'm pretty sure they can see!). The abayas worn every day are traditionally plain black, but you definitely see lots of women wearing abayas and shaylas decorated with embroidery and crystals. That is, according to our cultural hostess, traditionally meant for special occasions, but is now worn by young women trying to look trendy. She said many young girls, rather than spurning the abayas like we might think, are anxious to begin wearing them, much like our teenagers chomping at the bit to start wearing lipstick to seem more grown up. You do see young teenage girls at the mall wearing abayas gaping open so you can see their cute outfits underneatch, their shaylas dropping off their heads. Apprently, if they saw their parents, they would tidy it up quickly.


The other interesting part of the discussions was about marriage here. The marriages are arranged, even if the couple might have a hand in the choosing. You might, for instance, see someone you are interested in at university. You might speak to them cordially, but you would not flirt or date. You would ask your family and friends about them, find out who they are, and perhaps work towards a match. Dating and flirting are for fun, and do not lead to marriage here. The perception is, if someone will flirt with you, who else have they already flirted with? This goes for men and women. They also have multiple spouses here, up to four wives are allowed. According to our guide, who is herself a second wife, around 80% of men have one wife, and some have two, but more than that is uncommon. She also said, in answer to our western objections over this, that there are pros to it...yes, you might be sharing your spouse with another woman, but by law he must provide equally for you. You may or may not have any interaction with the other spouse, according to the women's preferences. Time is divided fairly, and children decide with whom they spend their time. They might stay with their mother, travel back and forth with their father, or visit the other wife. For the most part, it sounds like it's run like separate households. It avoids the complications of mistresses, and keeps everyone at the same status level. The situation is not forced on any of the parties; if you are the first wife, and do not wish your husband to have a second wife, you can say no, or divorce him. Women here are able to divorce their husbands if they wish, and have clear guidlelines in the Koran. Women are allowed to work and be educated, and any money they earn is theirs to keep, while their husband is expected to support them and their children. They don't have the same concept of alimony in a divorce, but the men are obliged to provide for their children's well being and educations. (They are not allowed to take a second wife if they cannot prove they can afford to support them.) Men are also obliged to support their wived to whatever standard they are accustomed. If the standard is raised, they must keep to the new standard. Interesting to hear all of this from someone who lives this way; we all had lots of questions, but it seems, in the UAE at least, that women are fairly treated and in control of their own lives. It's awfully hard to judge them harshly for their customs, when our own customs of marriage and spousal support are so flawed and chaotic.

Man in Kandoora

We also heard about the "royal family" as we think of the sheik's family. The current sheik has only been ruling for a few years, since the death of his father, and I got the impression that he might be having some issues. The ruler here is not appointed for life, like I thought, but more or less elected by consensus, and can be ousted if the people want a new leader. There is a son here who seems to be the next in line, but I learned that even that is not necessarily so. The people can choose anyone they like from the sheik's family to rule. It would be interesting to know more about how that would come about; I wonder if anything like that will happen while I'm here. She also told us that the sheiks here have no bodyguards...the people just wouldn' t want to harm them. George W Bush presidential visit a few years ago raised eyebrows when he traveled with bodyguards...the locals couldn't understand the necessity. The reasoning was, if he was traveling with the Sheik, no one would harm him. This seems a little naive to me, as surely to god a would-be assassin could get through customs somehow, but hey. He survived.

All in all, an interesting morning that gave me some more insights into the culture here. It's easy to forget, as you wander through the endless malls here and shop for all the same brands you see everywhere else in the world, that only two generations ago this was mostly an area of Bedouins in the desert and some settled families of pearl and spice merchants. It must be an interesting experience for the Emiratis to share their small homeland with so many foreigners. It certainly is interesting from my end.