Qasr Al Hosn festival takes visitors down memory lane

Under a palm tree, on a frond-woven mat, Emirati actor Abdulla Al Huraibi is waiting for Qasr Al Hosn festival’s visitors to gather around for a storytelling session. The gentle breeze and the shade from the tree make the afternoon ideal for a journey down memory lane.

Reliving the age-old traditions highlighting Emirati skills and traditions.— KT photos by Nezar Balout

“They are real stories about our culture and history, but sometimes they are improved by fables as they’ve been passed on from generation to generation,” says Abdullah.

He has collected Emirati tales from the elderly and he feels events like the Qasr Al Hosn festival, which is all about Emirati heritage, is the right place to share them with both children and adults alike. “This one, for example, is a very old story from Liwa,” Abdullah begins narrating.

“There was once a man called Salem. He bought a young camel from the market and fed her until it grew big and strong and beautiful. One day, though, the camel was stolen. Salem kept searching for it for many years, but could not find it. At some point he got the news that the camel was found abroad, but he could not trace her. Several years later while Salem was sleeping, he was woken by some noise. He went outside and to his surprise found two camels. It was his dear old camel, who had returned with a baby. You see, camels always return to their homes if they are well cared for, and this is the moral of the story,” concluded Abdullah.

Throughout the festival, at Abu Dhabi’s Qasr Al Hosn grounds until March 1, Abdullah will be narrating such stories every 30 minutes daily. The sessions are in Arabic.

This year, the outdoor exhibitions and activities have been reduced due to the large area taken by the Cavalia show, also part of the festival, which needs a lot of space for its nearly 50 horses, as well as the massive performance tent.

To compensate, the festival’s organisers, Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (ADTCA), have opened the ground floor and the courtyard of the Cultural Foundation. Here, indoor daily workshops are taking place, run by the education department of ADTCA, mostly Zayed University students.

In one corner, Ghalia and her olleagues are demonstrating how to mix perfumes. “If it’s Arabic perfumes, the oils are very strong, and you mix them without alcohol, but if you want French perfumes, you need to add about 20 per cent alcohol because the oils are weaker,” she explains. Several large bottles of scented oils are laid on the table, next to a basket of different tulla sizes (small perfume bottles) and every visitor is welcomed to try his own mix.

“When you make a new mix, it is better to keep it in the fridge for the first couple of days, to get a better, stronger scent,” Ghalia points out.

Burqa (traditional Emirati ladies’ face masque) necklaces and bracelets, car toys and Emirati dolls and ceramic pots are the other workshops visitors are invited to try their hand at. Outside, in the sea zone, an old dhow (traditional wooden boat) sits in a pool of water, but a closer look is possible by crossing a small bridge.

Nearby, Juma Al Rumaithi, a 76-year-old Emirati pearl diver is weaving small baskets like the ones he used in his youth to collect oysters. “I used to dive 35 meters without oxygen, holding my breath for two, three minutes, sometimes even four minutes,” he says.

“We used to collect oysters in this basket and when we were ready to come out we would pull the rope tied to our leg and the people in the boat that hold the other end, brought us up to the surface.”

A traditional souk completes the festival, where the most unexpected items can be purchased, from half a metre long cinnamon sticks to very old vinyl records of Arabic music. A food stall of Emirati dishes and Ghahwa, a rather luxurious Arabic coffee cafe, are the main attractions for the hungry and the thirsty.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com