Tell Me More

Our latest episode looks at sabkhas – seemingly uninhabitable salt flats that might help us fight climate change. These salty ecosystems can sequester four times more carbon (per square meter) than rainforests can. This episode is really timely given that the UAE is gearing up to host COP28—the 28th UN Climate Conference, also known as the Conference of Parties, where negotiators from countries around the world will meet and have to find a way to agree on how we’re going to limit global warming to 1.5C by 2050.

Spatika and Liz had a lot of questions about sabkhas so they talked to some experts to find out the answers. Listen as architect and curator Wael Al Awar and sustainability expert Mai Shalaby TELL US MORE.

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Kids in Dubai, have ever seen a sabkha in the UAE? If so, we want to hear about it! Tell us where you saw it and what it looked like. You or a grown up can write to us at [email protected].

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The National Pavilion UAE was awarded the Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation at La Biennale Architettura 2021 for the exhibit Wetlands. Curated by Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto of waiwai design, Wetlands was inspired by research into sabkhas. 

The Anatomy of Sabkhas: Salt and Architecture by Ahmed and Rashid Bin Shabib is available for purchase online and in Dubai bookshops.

Episode Credits

This episode of TELL ME MORE was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced by Liz McEnaney with help from Sundar Raman and Chirag Desai and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer.

Summer in Dubai is intense with relentless humidity and temperatures soaring close to 50°C (122°F). How did people stay cool before air conditioning? We had heard about barjeels – traditional wind towers – but we didn’t quite know how they worked, or if they were still used today. So, we went to Al Bastakiya, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, to find out more. There we discovered the barjeels were just one architectural element – there are more! – that kept the houses and streets cool. 

Listen as architects Rashad Bukhash, Chairman of the Architectural Heritage Society for the UAE; and Dalia Hamati, professor of architecture at American University of Sharjah TELL US MORE.  

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To find out more about Dubai’s windtowers and to see drawings of the Bukhash family home, check out Peter Jackson’s book Windtower: Houses of Bastakiya (co-authored by Anne Coles).

 Episode Credits

This episode of TELL ME MORE was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced and edited by Liz McEnaney and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer. 

A big thank you to Rashad Bukhash and Dalia Hamati, and to XVA founder Mona Hauser and architect Clemens Russ who helped us with our research. They’re very important people and we’re grateful to them.

What’s a forest of ghaf trees called?

Are ghaf leaves and pods edible?

What do ghaf trees have to do with tree huggers?

What might you find if you dig around ghaf trees?

This episode is dedicated to the ghaf tree, the national tree of the UAE and a symbol of tolerance. This amazingly resilient, drought-tolerant plant survives in the harshest of desert environments. Bedouins depended on all parts of the tree for their survival -- for shade, food, and medicinals. Many animals would not survive in the desert without the ghaf, and the tree is the home to the world's largest beetle outside the Brazilian rainforest. The ghaf is so important to life in the UAE that it is the subject of many poems and stories, some a bit scary. Today the tree is endangered, but luckily there are some amazing people who share a love of the ghaf and who are each in their own way working to protect it for the future. 

Listen as landscape architect Will Bennett; Give-A-Ghaf Tree Planting Initiative founder Tatiana Antonelli Abella; and journalist and artist Rym Ghazal TELL US MORE.  

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Information on how to get more involved in the Give-A-Ghaf Tree Planting initiative can be found here.  

Episode Credits

This episode of TELL ME MORE was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced and edited by Liz McEnaney and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer.  

A big thank you to Will Bennett, Tatiana Antonelli Abella, Rym Ghazal, and Olivier Carbone (beekeeper and honey maker extraordinaire). They’re very important people and we’re grateful to them.

For hundreds, maybe thousands of years, pearls and the sea were a very big part of people’s lives in the Gulf region. The pearl shaped the economy and the identity of the people. Language, songs, clothing and travel were all part of the culture of diving for pearls. 

Some people got very rich off pearl diving, while others did hard and dangerous work for little or no pay. By the early 20th century, the Gulf region supplied up to 80% of the world’s pearls. But then a lot happened in the world, including the Japanese invention of cultured pearls, and the discovery of oil in the Middle East. This brought the pearl diving days to an end.

Luckily there are still people who hold the secrets and carry on the traditions of the Gulf pearl. Listen as Salem Al Roum, a poet and former pearl diver; Hasan Hujairi, a composer, historian and expert on pearl diving music; and Abdullah Al Suwaidi, a modern day pearl diver committed to continuing the pearling tradition TELL US MORE.

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The pearl diving songs that Hasan Hujairi shared with were recorded in the 1970s by a Dutch archaeologist living and working in Bahrain. You can find these songs and more on the album Bahrain: Fidjeri: Songs of the Pearl Divers. 

We highly recommend a trip to Suwaidi Pearls! Information on how to visit the farm can be found here. 

Episode Credits

This episode of TELL ME MORE was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced and edited by Liz McEnaney and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer.  

A big thank you to Salem Al Roum, Hasan Hujari, and Abdullah Al Suwaidi for giving us time. And to Salama Ahmed and Khalifa Al Roum for helping with translation. They’re very important people and we’re grateful to them.

As summer approaches in Dubai, all we can think about is staying indoors and having fun. So, during this episode we look at Sindbad’s Wonderland—an indoor arcade paradise at Al Ghurair Centre for Dubai kids in the 1980s and 1990s. Spatika and Liz never had the chance to visit Sindbad’s—it closed its doors in 1997—so they tracked down key people who were in Dubai in the 80s to share their memories of what it was like. Listen as Sindbad’s first and only manager Ishwar Chugani, and two former Sindbad gamer players Sonali Kolhatkar and Suraj Mulani TELL US MORE.

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Dubai kids—and parents—of the 80s and 90s, we’d love to hear your favourite memories of Sindbad’s. Did you have a birthday party there? Or were you a parent who dropped off your kid and went shopping with friends? You can write to us at [email protected].

Episode Credits

This episode of TELL ME MORE was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced by Liz McEnaney and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Chirag Desai is our amazing editor. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer. 

A huge thanks to Ishwar Chugani who sent us lots of amazing articles and photos of Sindbad’s Wonderland and transported us back to the Sindbad Era.

Dubai’s First Skyscraper Our first episode looks at Dubai’s first skyscraper -- Dubai World Trade Center. This 33-story building might seem tiny today compared to the more than 160-story Burj Khalifa and other super tall buildings. But, when DWTC opened in 1979, it was the tallest tower in the Middle East and it sent a signal to the rest of the world that Dubai was open for business. Spatika and Liz had a lot of questions about DWTC so they talked to some experts to find out the answers. Listen as architect and writer Todd Reisz, photographer Hind Mezaina, and DWTC’s first employee Guy Guillmard TELL US MORE.

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Kids in Dubai, the next time you drive past DWTC, take some time to look at this building which was once the tallest in the Middle East. Tell us what you think, and if you don’t live in Dubai, tell us about your favorite building in your city. You or a grown up can write to us at [email protected] or message us on Instagram.

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Todd Reisz’s book Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai is available for purchase online and in Dubai bookshops. Also, sign up to receive Todd’s monthly Showpiece Dispatches for more information about DWTC and other architectural wonders of Dubai.

Hind Mezaina’s brilliant photographs of DWTC and her other favorite Dubai landmarks can be seen on her website. You can also listen to Hind’s podcast Tea with Culture to hear discussions about art and culture in the UAE.

Episode Credits

This episode of Tell Me More was brought to you by Amaeya Media. It was produced by Liz McEnaney, and hosted by Spatika and Liz. Chirag Desai is our amazing editor. Our fantastic music is composed by Daniel Belquer.

Tell Me More is a podcast for kids and adults. Join us as we time travel through Dubai with an 8 year old, to uncover what the city looked like in the beginning, told by the people who made and experienced some of it.