Been There. Done That. Bought the T-ShirtIn laid back Fujairah it is hardly likely that the marketers will produce a cyclonic range of T-shirts with words like ‘I Survived Cyclone Gonu’ in Arabic and English.
An enterprising member of the Indian community (that makes up 60% of the UAE population) might produce a T-shirt with the words, ‘Cyclone Gonu: Pani, Pani, Everywhere.’
These locally inspired T-shirts could be added to the proposed Sheesha range of Fujairah T-Shirts that I have written about elsewhere on this site.
Cyclone Gonu on the World Wide Web
There’s an ancient Middle Eastern saying that goes like this: “Before you call, I will answer!” A new variation on this saying could be, “Before it comes, I will write the story.”
Even before Cyclone Gonu had reached Oman and the UAE the story was being written and posted by the free, online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
The ‘Cyclone Gonu’ story is one of their many articles that changes as the event progresses e.g. at the time of reading (8 June 2007), the CG story reported that “at least 35 people are known to have died from Cyclone Gonu.”
The Wiki article covers the history of the storm, sketches the preparations made by different countries, records the impact of the cyclone, describes the aftermath and lists a helpful number of references for further research.
This moving story by Wikipedia is a good example of the usefulness of an updated encyclopedia entry.
Geoff Pound
Image: Wikipedia logo.
Geoff Pound
Image: Wikipedia logo.
