Counterpoint: Lessons you will never learn from the city

Every issue, every event - global, national and local - has a point and a counterpoint. You are given the point all the time in news and analyses. Now get the counterpoint.


Thirty minutes away from Dubai, in the shelter of wavy sand dunes, lies a little farm. Just a few animals harboured in simple shelters. The farm, its people and its animals teach us valuable lessons. Lessons that we cannot, and do not, learn from city life.

We found our way there quite accidentally last Friday. We were on the flat smooth road that winds past dry, dusty desert on its way to Hatta. We took a few turns and suddenly we saw them. Camels. Then cows. And, in the distance, a glimpse of sheep and goats.

We walked up to the camels. A mother and baby camel. Both the colour of sand. The baby a little more fuzzy, the mother a little more aloof. They were eating dry grass from a trough. They stopped to look at us, turning curious heads on long necks.

That's when we saw him, wearing a faded shirt and lungi (undercloth). The man who looks after the farm. Come in, come in, he invited us.

We unlatched the door of the rustic enclosure - date palm stumps, latticed wire and a covering of torn tarpaulin - and went in. He took our daughters - two and four - closer to the camels. Within minutes they were stroking the baby camel's hairy back, gurgling with laughter.

We watched the camels eat grass, taking in large mouthfuls, ruminating, looking fixedly ahead. Some of the grass spilled from their mouth. They bent their head down and picked up the grass again. See mama, said our elder daughter, they're good camels, they're not wasting food. Lesson number one.

We left the camels to look at three robust cows. One brown, one chocolate and cream, one white. They nuzzled each other. Look mama, they have horns on their heads but they're not fighting, said our daughter. Lesson number two.

We walked to the enclosure that housed goats and sheep. Plump, furry, with pointy curled horns, they ate peacefully from large bins. My daughter spoke again. Mama, see how they're all sharing their food - they're very good animals, aren't they? Lesson number three.

Our daughters were playing in the sand, digging for pebbles and looking for insects. We began talking with the man who looked after the animals. Najeeb (not his real name) comes from Bangladesh. The eldest of three brothers, he has to send money home for a large family. I'm very happy here, he said, I have a grand life.

Then, one by one, he listed the good things. I live in a pucca (permanent) house, he said, pointing to a two-room, flat-roofed, run-down stone structure. We have electricity and running water coming from the generator. I get to eat two meals a day, I have three sets of clothes and I earn a lot of money. Full seven hundred dirhams. That means I can look after so many people.

I'm very glad I came here. At home I used to farm and a lot depended on the weather. Sometimes there was flood, sometimes famine. Now my family is secure. Lessons number four, five and six.

Najeeb said he went to the city once every month to pick up groceries and see cars and people and lights. I don't need friends he said, I have all my animals. He looks after them from 5am till evening prayers, cleaning the enclosures, giving them food and water, making sure they're not ill. His only recreation is the radio. Lesson number seven.

Come back and see all of us soon, he said, smiling when we were leaving. Yes we will, we said.

We meant it. Because in that one afternoon we learnt what it meant to be truly content.