JEDDAH, 17 October 2007 — During the last week of Ramadan till the announcement of Eid Al-Fitr, Jeddah residents and visitors to the city around this time of year traditionally see municipality workers hauling out ladders and buildings scaffolds to prepare themselves for the annual hanging of the city’s colorful and uniquely designed Eid street ornamentation.
The decorations are festively hanged on the many light posts that dot the meridians between the city’s busy intersections with the largest and most beautiful decorations being reserved exclusively for the seaside or the Corniche area.
The Corniche, with its newly constructed boardwalks and fountains, has become an attraction and meeting place for millions of Eid visitors from cities across the Kingdom but, many of the tourists this Eid have vented their disappointment by saying that there was something different in the atmosphere this year: no spotlights in an array of color reflecting from the fountains, no decorations hung across the city and certainly no usual bouquet of ornaments around the Corniche.
Yesterday marked the final day of the Eid holiday and the decorations along the seaside look like they are simply just not very happy to be there, Eid or otherwise. Some are half-lit while others are hanging sideways with wires dangling beneath.
Naif Al-Dawoud from Jouf, who has a brother living in Jeddah, told Arab News: “This is the fifth year that I have brought my wife and children to spend the Eid Al-Fitr holiday in the city and I was very surprised to see that Jeddah looked as if Eid were weeks away.”
Commenting on the reason why the Bride of the Red Sea, as Jeddah is known, wasn’t glitz and glamour for the occasion this year, Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, PR director for the Jeddah Municipality, told Arab News in a telephone interview that a major part of the annual budget received by the municipality had already been spent on developing North Jeddah, for projects such as constructing recreation areas for families in the Al-Hamra district and King’s Road area and the completion of a number of other badly needed projects. It is because of this, he said, that the municipality was unable to hire their usual contractor to decorate the city this Eid.
“When we accessed the budget and got an initial quote from the contractors we have been using every year to decorate the city we found that they had increased their rates which were beyond our budget leaving us no other choice but to use alternative decorations,” Al-Ghamdi said.
Arab News also spoke to Al-Ghamdi regarding other elements that has gotten visitors complaining, namely the overflowing garbage bins and the mammoth amount of trash that has been washing up on Jeddah shores. This was a particular nuisance to those who paid premium seasonal prices to rent cabanas and villas next to the sea. “I convinced my husband to rent a unit in order to give my children a chance to play along the beach and enjoy swimming, but all that has been ruined due to the massive amount of garbage that is in the water and littering the coast,” said Haifa Al-Khayat, a Jeddah resident and mother of two young boys.
She added that her family has decided to forfeit the rental fees paid to the resort to take the kids to a water park in the hope of salvaging their vacation.
