3.03 pm – 3.09 pm, Monday, 26th March 2018
(Room 809, 8th floor, Ibis Al Rigga, Dubai)
Double or triple glazed windows don’t open but still hearing constant motorised sound of tens of air conditioning units in operation. Construction bangs, metal on metal, occasional vehicle horns.
Plane taking off, Emirates. Dusty and hazy air merging into blue sky, sun out and no mistaking it’s hot outside.
A few clothing dryers on apartment balconies and roof tops.
Digger transferring sand from an almost levelled building site into a truck. Another orange truck covered in tarpaulin leaving the site loaded with sand. Look around, the pavements and roads are dusty from construction and sand.
Construction workers wearing blue, some with yellow hard hats.
Few people walking on the pavements, in fact mid afternoon seems quite quiet.
White half-length buses for construction and manual labourers, plenty of taxis, pale yellow with dark blue or red.
More planes been taking off.
All white, cream and shades of brown. Where is the colour? Except for the orange trucks and the clothes drying.
Big car park, most of the vehicles are white. A row of palm trees amidst the fairly low rise buildings.
Another Emirates flight taking off. I wonder whether the people on board are happy or sad about leaving Dubai today.