Saturday, January 15, 2011
Visit to Eid's farms, out in the desert somewhere (I was lost!) where I fell in love with camels
Yesterday afternoon, all of us Western Expats at SCAD, piled into cars and drove out into the desert in convoy to visit Eid's farms. Eid is the boss's secretary, a total sweetie, and very proud of his farms. He has a good reason to be. One of his camels won the races last weekend, and he's been offered 300,000 Dhs for another of his camels - I wasn't sure if this was one of his breeding bulls or a mare? cow? what do you call female breeding stock?
So I persuaded Nancy and Rob and Matthew to travel with me in my new Jeep because I wanted to test it out. (I'm very pleased with it so far. And I was delighted when Eid admired it, because that means it must be a cool car over here!) And off we went into the desert. Eid took his uncle and baby brother and a servant with him, to help with the BBQ and a couple of his friends, Jakob and another man, who's name I didn't catch, also joined us for dinner.
The government has a policy here of encouraging Emiratis to farm camels and livestock and offers cheap feed to help them out from a Government-owned feed company. Obviously farming conditions are quite difficult, what with the land being pure sand, and the lack of water. Eid grows a special pasture that can tolerate salt water to harvest as feed. He has two farms. One for goats and poultry and one for his racing camels.
At the camel farm, we visited the camels, and met his favourite girl. They are all very friendly, perhaps reflecting Eid's personality! Some camels spit and bite, but his all wandered over to check out Greg and Robyn's little girls and hung about for a pat. We also met his best racing stud - a Sudanese x Emirati cross, who we were warned not to pat. The males are sometimes dangerous apparently.
The most gorgeous of them all was the one-day-old baby, who was born on Thursday evening, after a long and difficult birth. Eid said he was in a panic because there were no doctors available to help anywhere in the region. He ended up delivering the baby himself, and she/he was looking very healthy and beautiful yesterday. Her mother was not so friendly and gave me a nudge to tell me to back off from her precious calf!
I have now fallen completely in love with camels and can totally understand why Emiratis see them as beautiful and have annual beauty contests for their stock. I am thinking of starting an Australasian racing camel syndicate, and working on Matthew (who is a sucker for farm animals) to go into partnership with me to buy a camel and start breeding racers. ooo what fun!
After sunset, and tea and coffee and a (massive) snack in the tent, we all set about cooking dinner on the BBQ and gas burners. His place is set up really well. He has a big tent with majalis seating, and a water tank on wheels for washing, and a really flash toilet and shower block - far plusher than anything Kiwis would have at their bachs. And of course a generator, so we could watch the football on the telly!
We lit the fire and did some chopping. Nancy and Miriam were in charge of making the kebabs, and I chopped capsicum for the stirfry, while Eid chopped chickens up for the traditional chicken and rice dish. Then Eid showed us how to cook the traditional way on gas burners, while the kids ran around laughing and squealing and admiring some new born ducklings. A few of us tried to diagnose the stars and the rest of us sat around drinking coffee and tea and chatting. It was a delightful evening, and dinner was DELICIOUS!
I learned from Jakob, Eid's friend, that divorce is increasing rapidly in the Emirates. He himself had been divorced and remarried, and his fifth child was born three weeks ago. He was also a farmer (as well as doing his day job in the city) but he only started farming a year ago. Eid's father is a camel farmer and Eid started his first farm in the 1990s. His father apparently keeps telling him to stop buying camels, but Eid is determined to increase his stock to 150 in a couple of years! He loves his camels!
Here's some piccies....
Greg about to tuck into a traditional chicken and rice dish, that Eid cooked up earlier in the evening on a gas burner.
A baby camel (calf?) that Eid is planning to give to his brother to train up for racing once he reaches 1 year old.
Eid and a new-born calf. She was born the previous night, and delivered by Eid, finally after a very long and difficult birth. Eid tried to find a doctor to help, but none were available.
A Saudi ram.
Eid's pasture. He grows a particular variety of grass that can tolerate salt water because that's all that's available on the farm.
Emirati heritage chickens. Note the short stumpy legs.
Eid's favourite racing stud. He's an Emirati-Sudanese cross. The sudanese camels are very fast.
Dinner in the tent, majalis style
Sunset at the farm
Eid's younger brother taking a photo of the calf
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