Page 262 - UAE Truncal States

Social Aspects of Traditional Economy
wore often kept high by tales about a lucky boat which had fished an
immensely valuable pearl and had left everyone rich at the end of the
season.
Meanwhile the people who stayed back home in the wadis and
oases of the hinterland or in the coastal towns were not leading very
much more comfortable lives either. The heat of the summer sun was
unbearable during the day in the hinterland, while it was extremely
difficult to live in the high humidity on the coast. Whatever nature
and human ingenuity offered to bring a little respite from the heat
was relished; to be able to bathe in the falaj or to pour water from the
well over the hot body, to reach the shade of the palm groves after a
journey through the desert or to sit on an elevated gallery to enjoy the
cooling effect of a little breeze.
Although the prosperity of the various communities in the Trucial
States varied greatly over the decades, the way of life in the
individual households at any one lime was comparatively uniform.
Exceptions to this did not amount to very much: some families in a
town like Abu Dhabi, where the wells produced only brackish water,
could afford to buy drinking water which came by boat from further
up the coast; in the interior the owners of date gardens often lived in
two-storey mud-brick buildings while their gardeners lived in palm-
frond huts; some merchants could afford to feed large numbers of
people while in other households even the staple food was in short
supply. But nevertheless the same type of food was consumed in all
homes, and the same style of clothing was common to all.

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