Today (December 2), the United Arab Emirates celebrated National Day, which is the day that they became a country. This country is only 43 years old, which makes it quite impressive that cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi are some of the wealthiest and most modern cities in the world. Prior to 1971, this area was literally all desert sand dunes, camels, and tents. The people were basically nomads. Now, many of the people are wealthy and the country holds many world records for the biggest/tallest/fastest this or that.
I love the 4th of July, but let me tell you...Independence Day has nothing on National Day. Emiratis have so much national pride. Flag Day was actually in November and I have never seen flags so huge! Pretty much every house (mansion) had at least one flag on top and many had flags that covered from the roof to the ground of a two or three story home. These flags stayed up through the National Day festivities. There were lights on all the trees in the medians. Burger King and even Starbucks sold "43rd National Day" special edition glasses.
At my school, we started celebrating National Day two weeks ago! Each morning, different classes would do some sort of tribute to the UAE during the assembly. Students started dressing up in really awesome outfits. For girls, it might be a beautiful kandora, a fancy dress, or a custom made outfit in UAE colors. A lot of the boys wore military uniforms or their kandoras (usually they wear the required uniform of navy pants and light blue shirts). It was really great!
No comments:
Post a Comment