This blog post is a bit late... but last month we organised a trip to the wonderful, amazing, totally great heritage festival held for the second time in Abu Dhabi - the Qasr Al Hosn Festival. Here is the link if you would like to take a look at the website: Festival website
We had agreed at the beginning of the semester that we could have an evening trip - as we cannot miss any other classes... so the first group organised the event for us to learn about the past, learn about organizing big events and also learn about the implementing the strategic vision of the country.
The organizers of the trip arrived early and were very wonderfully surprised to see the VVIP visitors arrive!
After we met at exactly the appointed time, our first place to visit was the Lest We Forget exhibit - which is part of the the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates for la Biennale di Venezia. You can visit their facebook page here: Lest We Forget
After the informative and inspirational visit to the exhibit we entered the festival itself and learned about traditional ways of the past from experts and practitioners...
In total I went to the festival three times... it was so wonderful seeing Emirati families with the children wearing their traditional dresses and expatriate children learning about the traditions of the country they live in. I bought some great gifts for myself and my Aunt (who was visiting from Canada) bought material for a traditional dress she had made up before heading home.
Honestly I can't wait for next year!!!!
We had agreed at the beginning of the semester that we could have an evening trip - as we cannot miss any other classes... so the first group organised the event for us to learn about the past, learn about organizing big events and also learn about the implementing the strategic vision of the country.
The organizers of the trip arrived early and were very wonderfully surprised to see the VVIP visitors arrive!
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| His Highnesses :) |
After we met at exactly the appointed time, our first place to visit was the Lest We Forget exhibit - which is part of the the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates for la Biennale di Venezia. You can visit their facebook page here: Lest We Forget
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| Waiting for a few more people.... |
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| Listening about the exhibit (me tweeting about it) |
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| Discussing the photographs... |
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| A typical Emirati livingroom with heritage furniture from the 1970s (awesome design concept Marco!) |
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| Posing for photographs for the map of the UAE |
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| Relaxing and looking at the photos... |
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| The Lest We Forget book |
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| Family photos - which brought back memories of their own photos from home |
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| Learning about traditional dyes from the past - for kandoras and abayas... |
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| The hubara - an endangered bird that if you see in the wild and phone it in you receive a reward! |
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| Learning about dates and gawa... |
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| Dr. Connie learning how to weave.... |
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| The master palm tree rope maker - I tried and failed miserably! |
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| Learning from our elders... |
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| Old trucks and uniforms - the mission of the Abu Dhabi Polic is the same, their tools and tactics are different now... |
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| Dancing and singing for a wedding (I never get to see the men's side of weddings, so I loved this) |
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| The Hosn Fort - built in the 18th century... |
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| The tour was in Arabic - but I had several translators... |
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| Abstract photo of the Fort |
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| Being interviewed about their experiences.... |
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| Group photo! |
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| Our rope making guru in action! |
Honestly I can't wait for next year!!!!
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