LIFE ON JUMEIRAH BEACH
BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF OIL
Dubai, Trucial States, was our home beginning on August 15, 1965. There were only 12 western style homes in the whole country, and all 12 were located on Jumeirah Beach, 1.5 miles south of center of Dubai, and right on the beach of the Arabian Gulf. The First National City Bank of New York, now Citibank, had rented 3 of the homes and we lived in this one, just steps from the water of the Gulf. For birthday parties, like the one above, the kids had camel rides up and down the beach.
Jumeirah Beach is now a different world after the discovery of oil in the Gulf in 1966. Jumeirah Beach is now the location of many grand buildings, residential developments, luxury hotels, and one of the largest, most beautiful mosques in the world, Jumeirah Mosque, which appears below.
But life was good before the discovery of oil. With only 85 non-Arabs living in the country, we socialized in each others homes on a daily basis like the gathering of friends below in our home.
And from time to time we had dinners at the house for employees of the First National City Bank as in the photo below.
We were assisted in the house in the British Foreign Service tradition by an Indian “Houseboy”, Abu, from Kerala State on the Malabar Coast of south-west India. Abu’s photo appears below.
Living in Dubai, Trucial States, in 1965- 1967 was to experience a period of the past in the recent present. Little had changed in Dubai during the previous 100’s of years. All that began to change in 1966 when Continental Oil made the Dubai Pool Oil Discovery off the coast of Dubai in the Arabian Gulf. The Photo below is a testament to our life before the discovery of oil in Dubai.
Glen Novinger, Austin, Texas
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