Want to move to Dubai? Go ahead, you won't regret it

Before I ever once set foot in Dubai, I was under the impression it was a home for the rich , not the average pensioner like myself. Boy, was I in for a surprise. On visiting my daughter, who came to work in the UAE, I fell in love with the place, my two main points of attraction being culture and safety. For every palm on Jumeirah, where billionaires like to dwell, is a site of cultural interest as free of charge as the air we breathe. Let me zoom in on the one that tops my list of favourites: the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Library in Al Jaddaf. It is unlike any other library I know – and I have visited a few – because it makes you feel so utterly at home and welcome. Apart from its elegant open-book shaped architecture reminding us of a Quran on a lectern, its seven floors are said to contain more than a million books. The first time I stepped inside, I felt overwhelmed and moved at the same time. Not knowing where to look first, I just stood there enjoying a perfect moment of bliss for as long as my daughter would let me. Last-generation technology on a giant screen interacted with surprised visitors like myself, while age-old knowledge in book format stared down from the shelves, fitted across the entire walls. It all combined in something that made such profound sense. A new future had arrived here at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Library; a future that offered to every child, every adult, every pensioner who wanted to take part in it, a better, more knowledgeable tomorrow. My daughter tried to coax me away from where I was standing, words failing to express my admiration. “Mum,” she urged, “don’t stand there so motionless, there are six more floors. Look. Over there someone is offering tea and figs to visitors.” When was the last time someone had offered me tea and figs at a public library? This was February 2023 and on the top floor, I was in for another surprise. An exhibition of antique works of art in book format, stretching over the entire aisle. The world’s oldest Qurans were on display, each of them with the approximate date and explanation of origin. By the time I had turned the last corner, I had collapsed my mobile phone’s storage capacity … only to come across a collection of first editions of Europe’s famous classics in literature and philosophy. Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Marcel Proust and many I must have forgotten about, they were all there. In that same section, the walls were covered with the maps of the first cartographers. One was Mercator’s. I begged Sophia to use her phone instead. “It’s getting dark, ” she said, “and we haven’t visited the Philosopher’s Garden yet.” We exited the library to the other side, our eyes screening the blue surface of the Dubai Creek , lined with flowers and trees and a collection of coloured poles, inscribed with Sheikh Mohammed’s philosophical reflections. I promised myself a next time, in which I would take each of them in more carefully. Whenever people now ask me whether Dubai is not very expensive and only for the wealthy, I reply: “It depends on you.” It is easy to spend a fortune in one day, as it is everywhere else. But it is as easy not to spend and get home in the evening with a personal treasure trove of new things learned; things you didn’t know about when you set off in the morning. For a person like myself, that is a godsend. Safety is my other point of attraction for living in Dubai. Safety comes first at all ages but especially at mine: this year I turn 70. Some weeks ago, on National Day in Old Dubai, I suddenly realised my phone had gone missing. I instantly panicked. My phone contains my bank card and quite a bit of cash for the “You never know” scenario. Even though I was aware I had probably left it on a bench we had been sitting on some minutes earlier, all I could think of is cancel my bank card. I insisted my daughter call my son to do just that. She tried to convince me to ring my Dubai number instead, but I would have none of it. I don’t think I even understood what she was saying, as lessons learnt in Europe had started kicking in. Panic is a bad mediator. After the card was cancelled, she rang my number. Someone picked it up instantly. The person on the other side said a passer-by had handed it in “here at the police station” and asked our whereabouts. Not one minute later, his open electric vehicle stopped in front of us and he handed us the phone. Everything still here obviously, Sophia muttered: “Bank card, cash. Nobody has touched anything.” “But who should have thought?” I sputtered. She raised her brows. “Told you so,” she said, “people just don’t steal in Dubai.” I cannot begin to describe the wave of gratitude I felt for the police officer when he appeared in his electric vehicle and handed me back my phone. But also for the culture and the governmental system that makes their citizens and employees turn out the way they do. It is worth emulating everywhere. Sadly enough, such unswerving honesty is not something we are still used to in Europe. Why would I want to live anywhere else? Brigitte Marie is a Belgian retired language teacher who is currently based in Spain but shortly relocating to Dubai