Good morning from the desert!  The weather is slowly warming up here in the desert.  The temperatures have approached 100F on occasion already.  The hot summer days are just around the corner.  People seek the shade of trees as they walk along the roads.  Sand storms have approached from the deserts of Saudi Arabia, tinting the blue sky brown.  One of my favorite walking places, along with my wadi wanderings, is to stroll through the date farms nearby.  I knew dates have been a staple here in the Gulf region and other parts of the world.  My knowledge and experience was limited to buying the sticky sweet fruit and enjoying my Mom’s special date meringue cookies at Christmas time. A man told me there are over 80 different types of dates growing here in the UAE.  Really?  I like to learn new things and ideas, so I decided to search for some information.  I talked with some locals about dates and date farming.  I then went off looking at sites on the internet.  Wow!!  So much information; the more I read, the less I knew.  Isn’t that always the case?  Some arrogant experts with little knowledge and experience often are the ones to loudly blow and puff about just how things need to be done.  I remember entering missions as an orthopedic surgeon.  I moved to Kenya, feeling I should be able to carry out the work without too much difficulty.  I did have many years of experience, after all.  Wrong!  The challenges in the developing world are vastly different than community orthopedics in the USA.  Anyway, I digress.  Dates. Read the rest of this entry »