What really makes a home? It isn’t only the world you build within four walls. It’s the little world just outside them. It’s the people you walk with, the ones you start clubs with, for swimming or for gardening. And sometimes it’s the ones you spend your first Halloween with, in a new city and a new country.
In Al Raha Gardens, you can feel that world the moment you step onto its paths. They wind between the villas and open onto pocket after pocket of green. Follow one and it might lead you to a new friendship. Follow another and you’ll find a shortcut to the cafés and grocery stores, all within walking distance. Nothing here feels too far away, and the homesickness that comes with any move starts, slowly, to ebb.
Jackie Wilson has lived in Dubai and Abu Dhabi for more than two decades, and for her 'there has never been anywhere quite like Al Raha Gardens'. So what gives this neighbourhood its old-fashioned sense of community?
With Wilson as our guide, we set off to meet the residents who know it best.
‘You feel as if you’re looked after’
Our first stop is with Heba Attia, who moved here in 2020, just before COVID arrived. “We really wanted the vibe of a community. I’ve always wanted to know my neighbours, and at first I couldn’t see too much happening,” she says.
So she set about changing that. One of her first ideas, naturally, was Halloween. She started a WhatsApp group, went on to become Vice President of the residents’ association, and today Wilson calls her “a pillar of the community”. “I’ve created so many events and done so many activities, including planning a mini-library,” Attia says.
Listen to her describe the neighbourhood and you start to see the invisible web strung between the villas: groups and sub-groups, with something for everyone. Keen gardener? There’s a group for you. Want to stay fit? There’s another. Planning playdates? There’s one for that too. Even the street cats have their champions, with a dedicated group setting up feeding stations and running trap-neuter-return programmes.
When the weather turns pleasant, the paths come alive. The women hold their gatherings, the children play outside, and you might even pass a young entrepreneur or two selling their wares.
The gardening society is thriving. “People exchange seeds, recommend places to buy what’s missing, or give away their extras. Last year the giveaways were lights to grow seeds indoors, and pots for outdoors,” Attia recalls. “We share simple suggestions and always guide each other to make it successful.”
But the real measure of a neighbourhood is what happens when it matters, and here, someone is always looking out for you. “You feel as if you’re looked after,” Attia says.
She tells the story of the ice-cream truck. Her child missed it and was in tears, so the community rallied, security guards included, to make sure there was an ice cream after all. “We even got ice creams for the guards,” she remembers.
The same willingness extends for different situations. When a dog goes missing, the groups light up with messages and everyone turns out to search. And when this year’s conflict brought rising anxiety, the community answered. A new WhatsApp group was set up to keep residents informed and calm.
“We explained when to go out, or when we had to stay home,” Attia says. Residents also created 'safe spaces' where anyone in need of reassurance could find support and a kind word.
'Help is always given so lovingly’
A few paths along, we meet Suzana Oliver, fondly known as the “Google of the Gardens”. For her, it all comes down to trust. “What really makes it special is that there is such love and trust in the community. If I post that I have a problem with my irrigation system, someone else will say, ‘I have the same,’ and then we find the solution together,” she says.
That willingness to help extends to the neighbourhood’s street cats, too. Some residents set up feeding stations, while others work with vets in the community to arrange trap-neuter-return (TNR) programmes.
The same spirit of looking out for one another shapes how newcomers are welcomed. Neighbours drop by to say hello, Oliver says, making it easier for new residents to find their feet and feel at home.
There’s always a get-together or celebration on the calendar, especially at Eid, when a dedicated Eid group plans community meals. And every so often, everyone gathers for a potluck, each family bringing a dish from home.
The swimmers’ club
Fitness, like friendship, comes in many forms here, and one of them is in the pool.
Jan Naylor arrived in Al Raha Gardens 20 years ago. Her children were already swimmers, which meant regular trips to Dubai to train. “So I thought I would form a swimming club,” she says. And she did. The club has held together through COVID and through this year’s conflict.
Naylor teaches swimming to women of all ages, and introduced an aquafit programme to give older women another way to stay active. Swimming, she says, also offers welcome relief from everyday stress. Over time, the sessions have become about more than fitness. The women have grown close, and their time in the water has become a chance to catch up and deepen friendships. Exercise is something to look forward to, not another item on the to-do list. “These ladies are a special group,” Naylor says.
Oliver agrees, noting that the energy spills over into yoga and other workouts. “They just work at bettering themselves and becoming healthier,” she says.
The children have their own reasons to look forward to the pool. Along with water safety and fitness, they get to know the other kids in the neighbourhood.
A bewitching welcome
Our walk ends with Kirsty Montaut, who moved here from New Zealand last year with her husband and son. Moving countries is never easy. Where do you begin again, and how? But when they saw the open green spaces of Al Raha Gardens, they felt a little more at ease. “There are so many paths that we keep discovering new ones every day,” she says. Each one seems to lead to another patch of green.
Everything is close by, too, from the shops to the school. Her son can even ride his bike to school.
The moment she truly felt welcomed came at Halloween, which this community takes very seriously indeed. “The residents put so much effort into planning events here. They even planned which villas to visit for trick-or-treating,” she says. In the photos she and other residents shared, the children are earnestly decked out in all the witchery and wizardry you’d expect, broomsticks in hand.
And, she too, echoes the familial feeling that echoes around the community. "There are the mum helping mum groups in fitness clubs; it's also so much, women supporting women. We all know that we're all juggling so much here, and to have that kind of support is a relief," she says.
It's a snowball effect, she adds. You know one person; they'll bring friends, and you will get involved, and soon you will be in different groups, and if you're a mum, a part of different playdates. So, if you're new in Al Raha Gardens, Kirsty says, come out of the house, and test the waters. Literally, get in the pool.
As she says, "This entire umbrella of community fitness clubs, really improved my mental health."
And so, this month, the broomsticks will come out again, the trick-or-treat routes will be mapped, and a new families will knock on unfamiliar doors for the first time. If Al Raha Gardens is anything to go by, those doors will open wide, and someone will be waiting with a welcome.