ABU DHABI: On the morning of her birthday, a wild fox walked up to Noura Ali-Ramahi and sniffed her feet. Her life has not been the same since.

What began as a chance encounter in Abu Dhabi has become a daily ritual — and a profound source of inspiration.

For months now, the Lebanese Emirati artist has walked the edges of a golf course near her home not for peace of mind, but in search of Blue, the fox she has named, and who has become her muse.

“There’s something that completely changed in me since I met her,” Ali-Ramahi said. “I would almost consider the walk incomplete if I didn’t see her.”

Since that December morning, the accomplished artist has embraced a new ritual: meeting foxes at dawn, then creating art inspired by those encounters.

The creative, who was trained at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, has had her work exhibited at New York’s Art Club and at galleries in the UAE, including Abu Dhabi’s Twofour54 and N2N Gallery. 

Born in Beirut in 1976, the artist moved to Scotland at the age of 11 before settling in the UAE in 1989. In 1993, Ramahi returned to Beirut, graduating with a business degree from the American University of Beirut in 1997.

But it is the last few months that have impacted her the most. 

As she recounts her experiences, Ali-Ramahi springs out of her seat as if reliving a small miracle. She gestures animatedly, replaying each encounter with the foxes in vivid detail — not as distant wildlife, but as if they were old friends she shares breakfast with each morning.

“She looked at me,” Ali-Ramahi said, suddenly alert, motioning toward the ground as if the fox were right there. “And it’s as if she was saying, ‘thank you.’”

Her artwork, much like herself, bursts with energy and emotional charge. But she is not simply documenting wildlife; Blue has become a recurring motif and a vessel for expressing longing, grief, and resistance.

In her vibrant studio — a riot of color and creative force — Blue often appears superimposed over scenes of Gaza or alongside another of Ali-Ramahi’s defining symbols: a chair.

“For me, it’s (the chair) my own confinement … it’s like nothing, it’s doing nothing. It’s like emptiness, it’s no response, it’s nothing,” she said.

“Blue is the opposite of the chair.”

The chair — in a time of political paralysis surrounding Gaza and Lebanon — reflects both Ali-Ramahi’s personal sense of confinement and a broader societal powerlessness.

The fox, by contrast, is everything the chair is not: cunning, wild, disobedient. It represents movement, instinct, and the refusal to be tamed.

Since leaving her full-time job, Ali-Ramahi has embraced this liberated, intuitive energy in her art, using it as a way to process emotion and resist despair.

“When I superimpose her onto a destroyed landscape, she becomes more than an animal,” she said. “She becomes survival.”

 At no point does Ali-Ramahi pretend to understand why the fox chose her, and she does not need to.

“She makes me feel special … I’m not shy to admit it,” she said.

What she does know is this: like a fox hunting its prey, Blue arrived quietly in her life and became essential not just to Ali-Ramahi’s creative ecosystem, but to her emotional survival during moments of hopelessness.

“Maybe she trusts me because she sees me walking every day, sipping my coffee, never trying to hurt her,” she said softly. “I’m just ... there.”

And now, so is Blue.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Rescue teams began a third day searching for missing people Thursday after floods devastated parts of South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape province and left at least 49 dead.

Authorities said they expected the death toll to rise.

The missing included four high school students who were swept away when their bus was caught up in the floods near a river on Tuesday. Six students on the bus were confirmed dead, while three were rescued after clinging onto trees and calling out for help, according to the provincial government.

The floods hit the province early Tuesday after an extreme cold front brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to parts of eastern and southern South Africa. Forecasters had warned about the damaging weather last week.

Eastern Cape provincial government officials said they believed people were still missing but did not give an exact number. They were working with families to find out who was still unaccounted for, they said.

On Wednesday, rescue teams brought bodies out of the water in blue body bags, while witnesses said many people had taken refuge on the top of buildings or in trees.

The floods centered on the town of Mthatha and its surrounding district, which is around 430 kilometers (267 miles) south of the east coast city of Durban.

Officials said at least 58 schools and 20 hospitals were damaged, while hundreds of families were left homeless after their houses were submerged under water or washed away by the floods. Critical infrastructure including roads and bridges has been badly damaged, Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane said.

He said it was one of the worst weather-related disasters his province had experienced.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he had activated the National Disaster Management Center to help local authorities in the Eastern Cape, while national officials were expected to visit the province on Thursday.