Killjoy at Christmas

First of all, if there are any innocent kiddies reading this please look away now...

It's lovely when children still believe in Santa in these cynical times. However, it only takes on bishop in British TV to talk about "adults buying children presents" to spoil it all.

How do you explain round that one? Suggestions please!

Al Ain Community Library (updated 7/2/07)

My first tip off comes from Towayya. Did you know there was a library in Al Ain? Well you do now:


"We are open sunday and wednesday 10-12, after the school holidays in January we will add an afternoon session. we are located above the bees kingdom daycare in Towayya, behind Towayya park. we will be shut on the 24th and 31st. We have about 2,000 books of various categories, nearly 90% of the books have been donated by the al ain public, which was pretty amazing, we are still getting donations. We also have a toy library. We are charging 150dhs membership for a year, and that goes towards buying new books and dvds and toys"

UPDATE

at the moment the library is only open on sunday and wednesday mornings, due to new regulations from the ministry to do with the daycare.
but hopefully we can return to the evening sessions soon. sorry!
directions again are right at the towayya park r/a, left at the next r/a, then the first right and upstairs in the bees kingdom daycare.
yes, we do have new releases. we recently got a very generous donation of new books still wrapped in plastic from jerboa books/magrudys!
please come along as we need the communities support. i find that people try to do things here but don't get a lot of support from the community and so it gets abandoned. let's not let that happen to the library, as it's the only one there is.
thanks
the library volunteers

Zoo

It's been a few years since I've visited Al Ain Zoo. I guess it was the moment I was told why there was "maafi elephant". However, I've heard that it's improved in recent times so yesterday I decided to pay it a visit: It's fantastic!

Hats off to whoever has implemented this change for the better. The entrance fee is reasonable 10 dirhams for adults and 5 for children, more than it used to be but you can see the results of this extra money. The animals look happy, the visitors look happy and the African Exhibit is the star attraction, in my opinion. For a moment I thought I was on the African Savannah:
















Come and support your local zoo. It's a testimony to what can be done with money and a passion for wildlife.

Scammed!

There's an SMS message doing the rounds that says if you forward it to 10 other people you will get 25 dirhams credit added to your balance:

"Congratulation! 2 day is anniversary of Etisalat. So forward this sms to 10 other people u will get free balance of AED 25/"

In a moment of stupidity I forwarded it on and realised, after an hour of no extra credit, that I'd been scammed. Sorry to the 10 people I forwarded it to, I hope you're not as stupid as me...

Where's Al AinTimes?

I haven't seen it around town this week, so I went online to take a peek at the latest issue and the website's down.

Anyone have any info on this?

RIP Jennaat Khan

We've all got tales to tell about carnage on the roads when it starts to rain here. The combination of bad driving and lack of drainage means its best to stay indoors during wet weather unless you really need to travel.

On the road to Tawam on Saturday a taxi driver called Jenaat Khan was hit by an aquaplaning car. He was rushed to Tawam but died two days later from head injuries.

The skill of handling a car in wet weather isn't taught here and when it does rain many people don't know what to do. Until then, sadly, when the water levels rise so will the death toll on the roads.

A Swingers Song..

(To the tune of 'The Monkey Song' in The Jungle Book)

Now I'm the king of the swingers
The oasis VIP
I was bored with life and bored with my wife
So we joined the swingers scene
I wanna be a man, baby
And swap most every night
I've put my keys in the pot and tried the lot
And that's what's botherin me

The Swingers Scene
The Al Ain Swingers Scee-eene
You can play around
Meet new friends, ooooh
You'll see it's true
A ESL teacher like me
Can have a workmate's wifey every night

( Gee, Mr Expat
You're doin' real good
Now here's your part of the deal, cuz
As your wife I need some lovin too
But I'm not too happy with the selection out there )

Now don't try to kid me, husband
I made a deal with you
What I desire is a decent guy
To make my dream come true
But this, my darling, is Al Ain
And all the men are bland
So let's leave this scene, be just you and me
Before our marriage goes down the pan

The Swingers Scene
The Al Ain Swingers Scee-eene
You can wreck your marriage
Screw it up, ooooh
You'll see it's true
Now the di-vorce rate in Al Ain's through the roof