الحياه في دبي قبل 1984 و ما بعدها من السنوات

الجمعة,حزيران 23, 2006

الحياه في دبي قبل 1984 و ما بعدها من السنوات


Life before 1971 and after

I would like to talk about the changes that have happened in family lifestyle in the UAE before the Independence Day on December 2, 1971. There have been major changes in housing, transportation, and education.

First of all, I would like to talk about family transportation in the UAE before and after 1971. Before 1971, 75% of the people used to use camels, donkeys, and their feet to travel from place to place. My father told me that he used to make the journey from Al Ain to Abu Dhabi in three days by camel. When they reached Al Maktaa Bridge, they had to wait for the low tide and then they could cross the sea to Abu Dhabi. Nowadays, we travel from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain in 80 eighty minutes on a toll-free widely paved and well lit highway. Thank God our leader used the money from the oil for the comfort and prosperity of his people.


Boat racing

Traveling by camel

Stuck in the sand




Second of all, I would like to describe the changes in accommodation for the family in the UAE in the past and present. Houses were different. Some families lived in tents, or huts made of palm leaves. Also these houses were very small compared to modern villas. Moreover, they didn’t contain any convenience or luxury items, like warm bathrooms, satellites, Italian bedrooms, mobiles or washing machines for housewives and so housework was time consuming.

These days, families have modern concrete and clean big houses, which have been built in the place of the old neighborhood family houses. Families have running water, sewage facilities, sofas, refrigerators, air conditioning units, and Internet.


Celebrating Independence day in Cornish


The next area I would like to discuss is education. Although education is very modern nowadays, in the past it used to be stronger at teaching the values and the pure Islamic principles. Now the students are studying only for the certificate because they want to get a job. They don’t want to benefit their children or their country. In the old days, students used to sit in the sand but today they sit at desks and on chairs. Before, they used to sit under a huge tree, but now they sit in a cool comfortable classroom. Before, they used to memorize or write on a camel leg bone, but now they write their homework on a laptop computer.

In conclusion, I think family life is better in some ways like transport, electricity, medicine, and education, but in other ways social interaction between families is bad. Although we have airports, ports, paved highways, refrigerators, air conditioning units, big clean modern hospitals, several colleges, and plenty of primary and high schools, I think that families aren’t as united as they used to be before. The houses were much smaller. The children used to be happier, healthier and lived a more peaceful life than now. In addition, the community spirit gap is bigger nowadays between the neighborhood children. You don’t see them eating together, playing jointly, talking to each other, drinking tea or coffee every evening any more. Our families in the UAE have faced many new changes and mostly they are positive. Finally, in my opinion, only the social changes for families and their relationships are negative.