Mohammad Ameen sits on a mat on the floor, surrounded by piles of cotton. On one side is stiff cotton, and on the other is the fluffy, soft stuff.
Sitting between the piles, Ameen uses a handmade portable shaped like an archer's bow to separate the fibre.
Passers-by cannot resist plunging their hands into the soft pile of cotton and asking Ameen questions about how it is made.
Behind him, mattresses line the wall and pillows are piled up by the entrance not for napping, but to show the fruits of his labour. Ameen has been working with cotton since he was 12. He is eager to show visitors how life once was in the UAE.
The Heritage Village in Shindagah during the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) is a long way from the workshops of Ajman, where Ameen grew up. As young boy, he remembers watching his father and his grandfather works with cotton. A proud smile passes over his faces as he speaks and remembers.
"As far as I know, I am the only person left in the UAE who knows how to work with cotton [in the old fashioned way]. I have been doing this for 40 years," he says.
"When the cotton comes from the plants, it is very stiff and matted to touch," he says and then he sits up. He picks up his khoz, or loom, and with a rounded wooden tool twangs the loom's string along the pile of cotton, sending thin filaments through the air, until another pile forms.
It takes about seven kilos of cotton to make one pillow, Ameen says. "It's hard to know exactly how much cotton it would take for clothing, but in the old days, we used to work about 20 kilos of cotton per day.
"We worked six to eight hours. My father and grandfather were cotton workers and they taught me all I know. This khoz belonged to my grandfather; it's the only one I've ever known. Now, of course, clothes are made with machines," he says.
In the 1960s, the cotton loom gave way to machines and factory-made clothes, says Ameen. The knowledge of cotton workers soon faded into the past.
The frame of the loom is wooden and the string stretched across the bow very strong.
"The string is made from goats' intestines and it never breaks. I have had this for at least 30 years. I am 52 now. I am happy to show people how we used to live, and the traditional methods we used to transform cotton into material for mattresses, pillows and clothing," he says.
Next door to Ameen's stall at the Heritage Village, a group of women is making textile hems to decorate dresses and other clothing. Reels of thread hang in a criss-cross fashion across a large melon-shaped pin cushion. The women braid the threads together to make the edging.
"It takes a long time to decorate one dress. It can take up to one month," says one woman. Using aluminium thread and ordinary cotton thread, dresses are given that extra sparkle around the necklines and sleeves.
"The art of making clothes is called 'talay.' I was taught this by my mother and grandmother from the age of seven. They were taught by their mothers and grandmothers. I make my own clothes and I have also tried to pass this on to my daughters," she said.
"Although they have learned the skill, they do not use it. It is very hard now for younger people to use the traditional methods. People buy ready-made clothes, or use machines. Before, what we wore was what we made with our hands. It is difficult to teach young people because the times have changed so much," she said.
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