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Stevi Lowmass sold her home in Dubai's The Lakes community so she could live closer to her business.
The 67-year-old founder and owner of The Camel Soap Factory now rents a villa in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
Ms Lowmass, who is from South Africa and has lived in Dubai for 23 years, showed The National around.
Please tell us about your accommodation
I live in Cedre Villas, in a spacious three-bedroomed semi-detached villa in the heart of Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), with my husband, Brian, and our cat, Dobbie.
Cedre Villas has two distinct architectural styles, one very Arabic and traditional and ours is much more modern with huge windows. We love the light and despite the number of windows, find the house very cool and efficient from an AC perspective.
Besides three en suite bedrooms upstairs there is a small study which I have converted into my home office.
Downstairs, there is a guest toilet as well as one in the maid's room, and what was probably designed as a family room.
The house has a fully covered garage area for two cars, with electricity for charging my hybrid car.
We pay Dh205,000 rent per year. I consider DSO excellent value for money. We rent from DSO themselves, who offer properties at very fair values.
How long have you lived here?
I have been in DSO for 18 months, after selling a property we owned in The Lakes.
We’d lived there for 17 years so had built a solid community. But the noise of the road, First Al Khail, became unbearable, and without a child at home – my daughter is studying in London – living near schools was less important.
Many roads around The Lakes are impassable in rush hour, which meant we often felt stuck. Living in DSO has made parts of Dubai accessible to us again.
Why did you choose this place?
Our move was in part prompted by the high sale value of the home we owned in The Lakes, but also the prospect of living close to the factory.
My business is in the Light Industrial Units in DSO, in a great location with wonderful facilities.
I’d driven past Cedre Villas for years and a chance phone call to one of our board members made us look at DSO for renting.
When we found Cedre Villas, we knew immediately this was where we wanted to live. The villas have some of the old-style layouts common in older homes across Dubai. Cedre Villas is like a little oasis.
How have you made it your home?
Moving from an owned home to rented does mean some compromise is required.
Previously, we had been able to modify bathrooms and kitchens, whereas in a rented home we have had to make it our home with our furniture.
Brian and I have been collectors of South African art and Persian carpets for 20 years. The paintings have been collected during visits back to South Africa, and carpets in visits to the souqs, in Sharjah mainly.
The garden is huge but, as we are renting, we made a decision not to invest heavily so laid fake grass over most of it. We did invest in a lovely patio area off the kitchen and erected a small pavilion where we entertain and eat throughout the winter.
Brian has created a huge outside kitchen for his collection of smokers, cookers, barbecues and, most recently, a pizza oven.
He had a shed in The Lakes and was devastated to be losing his “man cave”. But we converted the family room into a pukka man cave with workbenches, cupboards for his biker gear and space for his collection of guitars and drum kit.
What amenities do you have nearby?
We are in walking distance of a small shopping centre with a Spinneys supermarket, a gym, coffee shops and restaurants.
The estate is divided into two, on each side of the roundabout which goes into Silicon Oasis proper. We’re in the smaller, original section.
We have a central pool area with a tennis court. DSO maintain the gardens very well and we generally are able to do a full 5km walk within the estate, which is secure.
Access to Downtown, both Dubai and Sharjah airports and all the new developments east of the E311 is quick and easy.
Are you planning to stay in the area?
We love living here. It feels like an oasis of calm in the “busyness” that has become Dubai. It’s quiet, served by marvellous small restaurants, and we feel like we’ve stepped back in time a little.
DSO is an excellent landlord and the houses are well maintained. We’ve considered our options and I think we’ll stay renting for another few years.
So you have thought about purchasing property again?
We might buy again in a few years' time. If we could buy the house we are renting, we would. But in the long run, we may consider buying an apartment which gives us the flexibility to lock up and go.
In the meantime, living three minutes from the office takes some beating.
Panipat
Director Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment
Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman
Rating 3 /5 stars
Huroob Ezterari
Director: Ahmed Moussa
Starring: Ahmed El Sakka, Amir Karara, Ghada Adel and Moustafa Mohammed
Three stars
Where to buy art books in the UAE
There are a number of speciality art bookshops in the UAE.
In Dubai, The Lighthouse at Dubai Design District has a wonderfully curated selection of art and design books. Alserkal Avenue runs a pop-up shop at their A4 space, and host the art-book fair Fully Booked during Art Week in March. The Third Line, also in Alserkal Avenue, has a strong book-publishing arm and sells copies at its gallery. Kinokuniya, at Dubai Mall, has some good offerings within its broad selection, and you never know what you will find at the House of Prose in Jumeirah. Finally, all of Gulf Photo Plus’s photo books are available for sale at their show.
In Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi has a beautiful selection of catalogues and art books, and Magrudy’s – across the Emirates, but particularly at their NYU Abu Dhabi site – has a great selection in art, fiction and cultural theory.
In Sharjah, the Sharjah Art Museum sells catalogues and art books at its museum shop, and the Sharjah Art Foundation has a bookshop that offers reads on art, theory and cultural history.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
AndhaDhun
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Producer: Matchbox Pictures, Viacom18
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan
Rating: 3.5/5
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
2289 - Dh10
2252 - Dh50
6025 - Dh20
6027 - Dh100
6026 - Dh200
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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Plan to boost public schools
A major shake-up of government-run schools was rolled out across the country in 2017. Known as the Emirati School Model, it placed more emphasis on maths and science while also adding practical skills to the curriculum.
It was accompanied by the promise of a Dh5 billion investment, over six years, to pay for state-of-the-art infrastructure improvements.
Aspects of the school model will be extended to international private schools, the education minister has previously suggested.
Recent developments have also included the introduction of moral education - which public and private schools both must teach - along with reform of the exams system and tougher teacher licensing requirements.
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
