DUBAI // Hairol Castillo is accustomed to checking tourists in to the hotel where he works as a receptionist – but not his own mother and sister.
It had been more than two years since Mr Castillo, 25, from the Dominican Republic, saw his family. On Wednesday, he was treated to a surprise reunion.
Mr Castillo was one of 11 winners of a photo competition run by Dubai Tourism. Hotel staff were asked to submit their favourite image or video of the emirate, for a top prize of a trip for two relatives to visit them in Dubai.
The receptionist was almost speechless when he was ushered into a room on Wednesday to be reunited with his mother and sister, who had made a 24-hour journey from the Caribbean for their first visit to the UAE.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” was all he could say to those around him who had kept the surprise secret for almost three weeks.
Crying tears of joy, the family enjoyed a long overdue embrace.
“I never expected this. You have no idea what you have done,” said Mr Castillo, who works at the front desk of the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates.
He will now spend three days with his mother, Margarita, and his sister, Ana, as the family are shown around Dubai, experiencing everything from a desert safari to a visit to the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding.
He had no idea his photo, a selfie with a camel, had won the competition.
“I didn’t take it with the intention of it being for a competition,” he said.
“It was my colleagues who convinced me to enter. Everyone said the camel had a smile like mine. With my photo, I put that Dubai ‘makes me smile’, which is true. It’s a city where every day there’s something to do. Simple moments can give me so much happiness here.”
Mr Castillo, who has lived away from home for the past five years, regularly speaks to his mother on Skype, although she never gave her son any hint she was due to visit. “She was mean, talking to me all this time and she didn’t say anything,” he said, with a smile.
“I’ve always been so proud of him but this makes me even prouder,” said Mrs Castillo, a teacher, who kept the trip secret since April 27.
“I’m so happy to come to Dubai and really didn’t expect it to be so nice.”
She said she was excited to see at first-hand what life in the desert was like, as it was so different from the green and tropical Dominican Republic.
“Now, I will be able to not only speak about the desert to my students but share the whole experience with them,” she said.
Mr Castillo’s sister Ana was thrilled to see him after so long. “I don’t have words,” she said.
She and her brother listened to Arabic music as children, and she learnt to belly dance when she was 8.
“I have always loved the culture,” she said. “It’s an adventure and I’m excited to do things with my brother that I know he enjoys, like dancing.” Their mother said: “When she was dancing, Hairol would dance with her. He was born to be here in Dubai, so in the end, the three of us are here together.”
Slim Zaiane, hotel manager, said people like Mr Castillo were the ones who helped to make the emirate’s vibrant tourist industry the success it was.
“These people are the key players driving the industry and the image of Dubai. It’s nice for them to get this recognition,” he said.
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Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation.
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The UN General Assembly President in quotes:
YEMEN: “The developments we have seen are promising. We really hope that the parties are going to respect the agreed ceasefire. I think that the sense of really having the political will to have a peace process is vital. There is a little bit of hope and the role that the UN has played is very important.”
PALESTINE: “There is no easy fix. We need to find the political will and comply with the resolutions that we have agreed upon.”
OMAN: “It is a very important country in our system. They have a very important role to play in terms of the balance and peace process of that particular part of the world, in that their position is neutral. That is why it is very important to have a dialogue with the Omani authorities.”
REFORM OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL: “This is complicated and it requires time. It is dependent on the effort that members want to put into the process. It is a process that has been going on for 25 years. That process is slow but the issue is huge. I really hope we will see some progress during my tenure.”
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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