Week 8, 2026: Mother-daughter trip
My mother has been asking for a mother-daughter trip for a while now. It was supposed to be Lisbon in the summer but it never happened. Then, it was Tbilisi in the fall and I said no, not because it was Tbilisi but because it was the fall. I thought maybe she’d forgotten about it but when I got back from Cairo, she said let’s spend a night in Dubai before Ramadan starts. A two-hour bus ride and a night in a hotel doesn't sound relationship-ending, so I said yes.
It’s Monday. The day of the trip.
Chances of us having a fight: 30%.
At the bus station, we're both in backpacks. She tried to bring a small suitcase but I intervened. Tickets, bathroom, queue, all while making ridiculous jokes that have us both giggling. She’s my biggest fan when she’s in a good mood. We find two adjacent seats on the bus because we’re the luckiest people in the world. Playlist on and eyes out the window, ignoring the pungent smell of sweat perfuming the bus. Every so often, she taps my shoulder to share gossip she's just remembered.
A coffee and a pastry later, we’re unpacking in our hotel room. There are buttons that set the room to DND and a large arrow on the ceiling pointing in the direction of Mecca. There’s no time to take it in when there’s a metro to catch. One end has the Gold Class cabin and the other has the Women and Children cabin. We sit in the middle. The old city is littered with TikTok-style merch, the Dubai Chocolate Labubu Matcha of your dreams. Or nightmares. Starbucks and Chipotle are dressed up in old-city decor. Everyone is taking pictures.
We have a late lunch at a Palestinian cafe before heading to the bane of my existence. We used to come to Dubai Mall on school trips, trailing after teachers from shop to shop, repeating you look so pretty in that dress miss, yes you should get it, no you don’t look fat. There are a million floors and you can end up in the queue for the tallest building in the world if you lose your way.
We are in Dubai because my mother wants to see the water dance. Between the hours of 6pm and 11pm, Dubai Mall has a waterworks show with music that alternates between the Western and the Eastern. It takes place every half hour and lasts three minutes. It is exactly like you imagine it. After the 8pm show, she stands there in a trance, grinning, and asks where we should sit for the next one. Pizza Hut? Or are you still boycotting them? I say it’s fine but there are no seats facing the fountain. Not at Pizza Hut, not at the Turkish place or the Lebanese one. Nowhere. My Health app says we've walked eighteen thousand steps. She's spiraling because we’ll miss the 9pm show. I’m spiraling because anything other than a cold shower and a hotel bed sounds unbearable.
Chances of us having a fight: 80%.
There's so much walking and muttering under the breath. We kill an hour looking for seats when we stumble on a fancy hookah bar. The further you go in, the longer the hallway and the darker the room. We find ourselves surrounded by beautiful Eastern European women in LBDs. The closest one asks if we want a fountain view. Yes please. My mother orders dinner and I order orange mint shisha.
When her smile returns, I say here are three facts I’d like to share with you. One: everyone who lives here, even those who don’t speak Arabic, know what fuck your mother means. Two: we are 5’2 lookalikes with poor arm strength. Three: I would really like to make it to thirty. We would've deserved it, getting our asses kicked. She was unkind to several people in pursuit of a front seat to the fountain and I was her accomplice. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. And it seems that God has willed us to live another day.
My mother has a will of her own, though. Outside the mall, a man in a suit asks if we want a taxi. My mother, to my surprise, says yes. We follow him past a long line of parked taxis to an unmarked car. I say I don’t like this and she says don’t worry, I’ll make a note of the license plate. If I wasn’t so light-headed from several hours of smoking shisha, that would have made me laugh. I don’t even care much. I’m just happy to leave that boisterous place. We pay 40% on top of what we would’ve paid through Uber. Support small businesses, I guess. It's not a terrible price for still being able to have a cold shower and tuck myself into a hotel bed after getting into a random man’s car. We've walked twenty-one thousand steps.
Morning. Bikini under my top and my mother’s pyjama bottoms at the hotel breakfast. We sit outside by the pool as we scarf down our food. An angel in grey pigtails braves the pool. I soon follow and we swim a few laps before I lie back in the sun and read until it's check-out time. Life is good.
Chances of us having a fight: 10%.
After check-out, another mall. Small and quaint, this time. I try on some dresses and we exchange more gossip. The bus ride home is smooth, if equally pungent. Earbuds in, stare out the window, playlist on. Smooth operator.
I’m not an easy travel companion. I have to pee constantly. The time between my saying oh I’m peckish and being on the brink of passing out should be studied. I can’t go a day without a long walk and alone time with my earbuds in. On the train, in the taxi, while you’re making your own trip to the bathroom.
The taxi back to the flat is stranger still. We’re third in line. The driver asks the first two a question and they slowly shake their heads. He beckons us closer and asks if we’re Arabs. On the drive, he explains that he saw non-Arab drivers refuse service to Arabs that morning and he’s still angry about it. He’s made a formal complaint and is now correcting the balance by refusing service to non-Arabs. We have to stand together, he says, and then says stuff that I won’t repeat here.
Back in AD. Ramadan shifts our routines, mealtimes are now at 5am and 6pm. I follow the 5am meal up with two coffees and a book under the duvet while the caffeine jolts me awake. I've decided to give up added sugar for Lent. It doesn't feel like a stretch from a twelve-hour fast.