A little village that’s a big name in camel breeding
▶ The nomadic lifestyle is long past for these Bedouin, but camels still bring a measure of social mobility in this remote desert community, writes Anna Zacharias
“If the origin is good, the camel will be good,” says Ali Al Darei, 21, a camel breeder from the landlocked desert town of Qoa.
It is an accepted truth that the best camels from the Gulf are Omani. But in the UAE, the next best are from Qoa.
Set between imposing dunes and a border wall between the UAE and Oman, the town is perhaps as isolated as it gets in a country that has undergone such rapid urbanisation.
The city of Al Ain is 90 minutes’ drive north. Head south and there’s nothing until the palms of Liwa Oasis, a five-hour drive on a restricted-access motorway that cuts through the Empty Quarter. A direct road to Abu Dhabi city is being built.
Heavy rains once filled Qoa aquifers and this made it a destination for herdsmen and their flocks. Fast-forward to modern times and residents recall when the Government invited them to settle permanently after the formation of the UAE in 1971.
There are two parts to the modern town – upper Qoa, a grid network built on a hill of two-storey mansions, and lower Qoa, a collection of corrugated iron cabins placed higgledy-piggledy and painted slate blue.
Each home is a compound of cabins built around tidy, gravel courtyards.
These are the homes of Omani camel breeders, who are respected at national racetracks in a multimillion-dollar industry.
“We came because we’re all Bedu,” says Ali’s mother, Eida Al Darei. “The first time I came I was about 15 years old. I had just married and I was pregnant.
“It wasn’t like today. In those days, all the houses were like this,” she says, pointing to the corrugated iron houses outside the window. “We called them boxes.”
Like many others here Eida, 38, maintains close contacts with her native Oman and has moved her family’s camels to historical summer grazing areas south of Ibri in Oman’s interior.
Her daughter-in-law, Sheikha Al Darei, keeps her camels a few minutes from the town.
Land use is free in Qoa and its deserts are one of the few undeveloped landscape areas of the country.
Sheikha’s camels are well
Camels are kept for milk, which is shared but never sold, and breeding
tempered and gregarious beasts, so magnificent and numerous that she is initially reluctant to give her age. She does not want to attract the envy of others or appear boastful.
“I am 29 years old but you can say I’m 35,” she says. “Otherwise people might say, ‘How does she have all these camels?’”
Camels are kept for milk, which is shared but never sold, and breeding. The cost of a Qoa dromedary ranges from Dh50,000 to Dh500,000 but the most Ali has ever got for one is Dh70,000.
“The value is in the culture, not the profit,” Ali says. Prizes won at the racetrack make for a generous bounty and shed light on why Land Cruisers and Range Rovers are parked outside humble homes. These are camel race prizes.
But Ali stresses everyone has a day job. He is an accountant at an agricultural company, and Sheikha is an administrator in the local school.
The town is one of several in Al Ain region to undergo a facelift in recent years. According to Arabic newspaper Al Khaleej, the 2016 government regeneration plan included new street lights, roads, a Dh30 million park, a slaughterhouse, and improvements to 450 government houses.
With every passing month, there are fewer corrugated iron houses.
The government is relocating homeowners to comfortable, two-storey houses at the base of Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain.
But mass shifts do not diminish desert ties, says Mohammed Al Derei, 23, a university student with family in Qoa.
“We will always go back because our family is there and it is hard to leave your family,” says Mohammed, who was raised in Al Ain but spends weekends in Qoa.
“It’s a small village. It’s very quiet and you can feed your animals and your camels and the weather is clear. It’s lovely and it’s not like the city.”
As the last of the UAE’s desert nomads move from boxes into multi-storey mansions, some traditions remain unchanged.
For visitors who cannot stay for a meal, Eida packs a parcel of dates and a pot of biryani for their journey back to the big city.
In this town hospitality remains a mark of pride, and her generosity guarantees that her guests will return, no matter how long the trip.