Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
The silence of light
Looking into the heart of light, the silence, on a Gulf midsummer midday: few birds sing, the crickets are still. The intense heat beats everything into a limp, dank stupor. The hum of air-conditioning, the whir of a fan, the endless drone of traffic down Sheikh Zayed road: even these are blurred and muted under the glare of the sun.
White-collar workers walk swiftly from their cars into cool buildings, never lingering, never chatting. Blue-boilersuits on the roadside keep still in the shadow of a small tree, or in the thin strip of shade against a dusty wall. At this latitude at this time of year, the sun is directly overhead for many hours, and there is little cover to be found.
And now, thanks to the compassion of labour minister Dr Al Ka'abi, even the clank of scaffolding and churning cement trucks will be silent. After a long battle with construction companies, outdoor labourers will be allowed to rest between 12.30pm and 4.30pm during July and August.
"Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan disliked the sight of workers labouring under the hot sun. It's not in our religion to allow this, nor in our culture," Al Ka'abi said.
The minister said the decision has been formulated after discussions with foreign and local specialists and interest groups. He said companies he consulted were not in favour of having a four-hour break.
Dr Al Ka'abi says the labour ministry unfortunately has no statistics on the numbers of labourers injured or dead through heat stroke and exhaustion:
"But we know there are many."
White-collar workers walk swiftly from their cars into cool buildings, never lingering, never chatting. Blue-boilersuits on the roadside keep still in the shadow of a small tree, or in the thin strip of shade against a dusty wall. At this latitude at this time of year, the sun is directly overhead for many hours, and there is little cover to be found.
And now, thanks to the compassion of labour minister Dr Al Ka'abi, even the clank of scaffolding and churning cement trucks will be silent. After a long battle with construction companies, outdoor labourers will be allowed to rest between 12.30pm and 4.30pm during July and August.
"Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan disliked the sight of workers labouring under the hot sun. It's not in our religion to allow this, nor in our culture," Al Ka'abi said.
The minister said the decision has been formulated after discussions with foreign and local specialists and interest groups. He said companies he consulted were not in favour of having a four-hour break.
Dr Al Ka'abi says the labour ministry unfortunately has no statistics on the numbers of labourers injured or dead through heat stroke and exhaustion:
"But we know there are many."