We went to visit the Camel Festival in Al Dhafra and it was quite a site. With thousands of camels being brought to the festival for a beauty contest (he!he!), trading and selling. There were brown, white, tan and black camels; of which the black are the most stunning. There is so much empasis put on the camels here in the middle east, they are like prized horses in the US. Some of these camels sell for millions; so lots of very wealthy traders at the festival. There were very few women at this event so I definitely felt a little intimidated. But everyone was kind and welcoming and mostly wanting the westerners to see their traditional event. The Sheik of the UAE had a fabulous black camel that won the beauty contest; we heard the camel was worth millions. Isn't that funny; camels worth millions...who would have thought! They also had a souk (shopping, entertainment area) where we spent a little time looking at the stuff (mostly junky stuff I thought) and listened to the entertainment. Bob was taking pictures and movies of the entertainment and a little Emirate girl came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder and was looking at his pictures. It was so cute, I have included a pic of her and a friend. I am totally feeling comfortable now around the emirate culture and find most everyone kind and maybe a bit shy. The fathers are very involved with their children and it's cute to watch them with their little ones. The Emirates seem to have lots of kids; maybe an average of 5 per family if not more. So there are LOTS of little ones everywhere and they are all so beautiful. One added note about children; they don't require car seats or any kind of restraints for them. It's crazy! I read in the paper that they are looking into some requirements, good thing with how crazy they drive here.
Anywho... that's the news from the Camel Festival in the UAE!
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