Mar 17, 2006 11:24 AM
Newsletter 21
In this edition of the Newsletter, the curtain/cooker table sagacontinues, I go shopping in a hypermart and I learn something
profound. Note that the events took place in mid-August.
Just for the record, it rained again today, hard, for 5-10 minutes.
Everything got soaked and then it was over. The weather forecase for
tomorrow is partly cloudy but I hope the clouds will be gone now that
rain has fallen.
I hope you have a great day (or night, as the case may be).
15 August 2005, Monday - Part Two
Well, it’s now 7:30 PM and nothing has happened about the cooker table. I’m going to sign off and eat dinner. I was putting it off until after they came but I don’t want to wait any longer. Either they will come while I’m eating (messy!) or won’t come at all.
At 8:08 I was seated in the majlis at my very cool Danish modern oval table eating Middle Eastern food left over from my purchase last night when the doorbell rang. I whipped off my apron, turned off the light in the majlis and opened the front door. Two men stood there, one carrying the “table” and the other a slab of white, black-veined marble. Both items were obviously heavy but especially the slab. They headed right for the kitchen and one man, the table maker, I think, supervised while they scooted the table into its space between the end of the counter and the frosted glass patio wall/door. It fit in there just right and was higher than the previous one, but not as well built, I think. A 3-sided piece of wood frame went around the top and into it they jointly and very carefully lowered the marble slab. It was obviously very, very heavy. They stood back and looked at the table and invited me to inspect it. I thought it looked pretty awful. The paint color on the main piece was not the same as either the cabinets or the wall tile and the paint on the slab frame was a different color than the rest of the cabinet – for it is actually a cabinet rather than a table since they put a door and enclosed the bottom of it. They seemed crushed that I wasn’t exuberant in my reaction. I stood with arms folded, a pensive look on my face as I gazed at it.
Finally I said, “Two colors,” and pointed them out. Neither man spoke English and my Arabic was up to saying “two” (ithnain) but not “colors.” Using gestures I put over the point and the table maker indicated he would come again with paint and make the frame the same color as the rest. I apologized for the inconvenience and they both denied that it was a problem; they seemed to take it in stride, actually. “When?” I asked. He didn’t know what “when” meant. “Bukra, Inshallah?” (Tomorrow, God willing?) I asked. Both men grinned at that. “Bukra,” agreed the table maker, then added, “5:00.” I said, “Okay, bukra 5:00, inshallah.” Then things got confusing and he ended up putting over the point that I should call the curtain man. I said, “Okay,” thanked them and led them to the door. Then I called the curtain man.
He sounded very tired. “Did they come?” He asked. Yes, they came and they just left. “You like the table?” It is two colors. He didn’t understand and although I tried a couple of different ways to say it, it wasn’t working. “I come to you,” he said. When? “Now. I come to you now. I in Al Ain now.” I had the impression that he had just arrived, was dead tired and just wanted to go home and rest. “I bring your metal,” he added. “My what?” “Your metal, for the centimeters.” “Oh, my measuring tape. Good, thank you.” Not knowing how long it would take him to arrive, I sat back down to my meal. Soon, however, the doorbell rang again. I sprang up, removed the apron again and went to turn off the majlis light over the table then decided to turn on the table lamp located near the two-seater in the corner between two of the curtained windows so he could see how nice the curtains looked. Then I opened the door and there stood the curtain man, smiling broadly but looking very tired.
“No shoes,” he said, and slipped them off. Usually delivery people, service people, etc., remove their shoes outside the door and walk barefoot inside. He did this. “Sand,” he said. “Sand everywhere. I just walk through lots of sand.” Then he came inside. I left the door wide open and we walked into the kitchen where I pointed out the cooker table problem to him. He agreed that it was a problem and said he would come tomorrow with someone from the shop who would paint it. I pointed out that neither color was right. “They bring colors; you choose.” “Okay, when will you come?” “5:00.” “You said 5:00 tonight and they came at 8:00.” We were saying this in a light hearted way and he smiled and agreed that there was no way to tell when they would come, but they would come.
I pointed out the narrow gap all around the edge of the marble, between the slab and the frame. He said, “I have something to put in. I bring tomorrow.” After a bit of discussion I understood that the “something” was the same kind of clear rubber-type sealant that was used on my kitchen counter and sink. “The same,” he confirmed. Then he said, and he’s said this before, that the price I paid for the table is very low. This time he said, “Marble very heavy, very expensive, 200 dh just for marble. But for you, no problem.” I tried reconciling in my mind the 200 dh total cost of the table with what he said was the value of the marble. What about the cost of materials and labor? He went on to say (I think) that somehow this piece of marble escaped being broken or chipped and the size didn’t fit anything else. Anyway, now it is mine. I think I’d prefer tile but maybe, come Christmas, I can make some fudge and divinity on it. I’ll ask Bonnie; she loves to cook and probably knows how. I think the table lists to the right but it might be the floor, which does slant slightly toward the drain. Anyway, I’ll live with it. Hopefully the paint job will go well and be a color I can live with and then this buying episode will be over.
Then he started telling me about how tired he was, that he had been on the road almost continually attending to jobs in Dubai, Sharjah, everywhere. He hadn’t had time to eat and when he got home at night he immediately fell asleep. Then he reached into his pants pocket and brought out my tape measure. “I look for it in the truck,” he said. “There were ten. It was the clean one.” I laughed at that and he did, too. “I saw it was blue and orange. I knew it was yours.” He held it out to me, intertwined with a couple of other things from his pocket. With my right thumb and forefinger I carefully took hold of its black plastic strap, which was sticking out at an angle from his hands, and without touching him, placed it on the counter and thanked him, “Shukren.”
Having finished the table business, he turned to walk out of the room and I said, “May I tell you about a problem?” “Sure.” “It’s the curtains…” I was going to add “in the master bedroom,” but he was already headed down the hallway. It was dark outside and I wanted him to see that light comes in over the top and at the bottom of the curtains. The bedroom was dark and the curtains were drawn. He walked into the room and I poked my head inside, saw that no light was coming in under the curtains, and I turned on the bedroom lights. He moved aside and I walked into the room and turned on the balcony light then went into the hallway again, reached my hand into the room and turned off the overhead lights. (This way, we were not both in the bedroom in the dark at the same time.) The light from the balcony came shining in. He realized it was a problem. “You want them down?” He asked, pantomiming lowering the rail. I said they had done it once and if there was still enough room, yes. I asked about light coming in from above and he said they could put a board, covered in the same fabric, over the top. “Kam,” (how much) I asked. “No. Nothing. For you, nothing. I tell you, I do this because I like you. Because many follow after you.” (He’s sure others from the university will see my curtains and it will bring him business.) He said he would bring the board tomorrow, too.
I could tell he was dead on his feet and I didn’t want to delay him more in any case, so we headed for the front door. He stopped just short of the open door at the doorway to the majlis and turned to look at the curtains. I could tell he was pleased as he looked at the lovely sight of the nice yellowish curtains against the olive green couch. The curtains were closed at the top and draped back, caught by the rope and handles. He walked into the majlis and I followed. “They re beautiful,” I said. He agreed and then said that he had wanted to do “design” curtains for me to have beautiful curtains but these were beautiful anyway. He had made them that way, with extra fabric, to drape nicely. He pointed out the curtains at the small window. He said he had planned to do a one-way curtain there but had decided to have two instead and it was beautiful. He was right, they were all beautiful.
As he walked to the front door, his mobile rang. He looked at the display, shook his head and didn’t answer it. He looked at me and said, “This man is reason tonight I come late. He make me leave my work, walk across sand. Lots of sand.” He stepped outside the doorway and started sliding on his shoes, pointing out that they were caked with sand. “Now he wants me walk in sand again.” As he continued his tale, I think he was saying that he was putting curtains in this man’s new house, then the man wanted the curtain man to look at curtains in the old house and they walked through the sand to get there. Tired and dragging but still with a smile, the curtain man took his leave. So tomorrow night I’ll be at home again, waiting who knows how long, if they come at all, for the curtain man or his workers to come and solve the cooker table and master bedroom curtain problems. I don’t know if this curtain story will have an end but it is certainly a cultural experience of the first magnitude.
17 August 2005, Wednesday
Another work week is over and I still feel like I should have two work days left in the week. I haven’t heard from the curtain man and think I’ll just let it ride for now. It’s barely possible that he will contact me tomorrow, which is a half-day of work for most people although it is the first day of the weekend. My cooker is still standing on the kitchen counter and I rarely use it. Of course, I probably won’t use it a whole lot more once it’s on the “table” but at least if I want to use it, it will be more convenient to do so.
After work today, being almost sure no one would come to paint the cooker table, I decided to go shopping. I wanted to try to find a telescoping umbrella to replace the one I accidentally left in a taxi this week. I’d seen some at Lulu Center in June so I decided to go there and see if they still had some. Lulu Center is a hypermart, a kind of department/ grocery store combination. The checkout counters for the food area, which occupies the basement and ground levels, are right by the doors that lead both in and out. I entered the store and walked through a checkout lane the wrong way to get into the store. There is actually a more normal door on the side of the building but I would have had to walk halfway around the building to get there.
I first went up to the first floor (second floor to Americans) to look for the umbrella and a few other things. I did find some umbrellas, Happy Umbrellas to be specific, in a box on the floor near a down escalator. They all were of patterned fabric and I opened one that had a significant amount of green in it and it seemed okay except for the price, 13 dh. I was hoping to find something for about 4 dh. I did some other shopping and then came back and got it. So I now own a Happy Umbrella. I paid for the items and went down to the street level to do some grocery shopping. I wanted to compare prices with Mega Mart.
I got kind of carried away, though, as I slowly made my way through the maze of cramped aisles, threading among mostly male shoppers, most wearing Pakistani clothing and a few in western clothing, probably Egyptians or Indians. Later a few National families were among the shoppers. I think I was the only Westerner, now that I think of it. At the egg cooler I eyed a clear plastic carton holding a dozen quail eggs. There were cartons of duck eggs close by. I opted for chicken eggs, though. I am quite adventurous in my eating but chicken eggs are something I stick with. It was then I noticed the sign for the Butchery and the Fruit and Vegetables, indicated by a down arrow by an escalator. Nearby was a store employee. I asked, “How can I shop in the basement?” as I gestured to my half-filled shopping cart. “We will watch it for you, madame. Leave it here,” he said. Amazed, I repeated, “You will watch it for me?” He said yes, so I thanked him, left my cart and headed down the escalator, which was one of those that activate when you step on the threshold.
There was a nice area down there with a deli that had open bushel baskets of things like pistachios, cashews, pine nuts, various spaces, etc. In the deli were two piles of roasted chickens for 8.40 dh ($2.28) each. Amazed at the price, I told the clerk I’d take one. “Spicy or normal?” She asked. “Normal, please,” I answered. Sometimes I get spicy things, sometimes not. This was a “not” time. Next I perused packages of walnuts. I want to make brownies for my co-workers and the library’s driver and his darling children and the only things I lacked were the walnuts. I guess now I will have to break down and bake the things. I wish the table was ready for my cooker; that would make it a lot easier. I wandered over to the Butchery and saw that the weekly special was ground beef – although they used a different word than ground, I just can’t remember what it was – for 10.5 dh ($2.85) per kilo (35 oz.). The butcher assured me it was very good meat and indeed it looked great and very freshly ground. I ordered one kilo and watched as he bagged it for me. There was a lot more of it than I expected.
Then I went back up an escalator but it was on the far side of the store from where I’d left my cart. As I walked back to where the cart was, I passed another down escalator in the middle of the store and there were about eight shopping carts clustered near the top of it and someone was just pushing another into place while turning to go down the escalator, so now I know it is a normal thing to do. I continued walking down the crowded aisles with grocery store items tightly packed on shelves reaching high above my head until I got to the last down escalator and there my cart stood, all by itself. I continued shopping and noticed as I went that I was the only shopper who had a shopping list. I don’t know what that means, probably that their memories are much better than mine or that they were only shopping for a few specific things. I had a good old time and indulged in some impulse shopping, which I rarely do and then it is usually just one item. When I got to the checkout I was shocked at the bill, 102 dh. That is more than twice as much as I’ve ever spent on groceries since I’ve been here. But when I thought about it, I realized that it was the equivalent of $27.72, which is amazingly low for what I purchased.
Since as I’ve mentioned before, I consider grocery shopping part of the cultural experience of being here, I’ll list some of the things I bought and where they’re from. A small carton of Danish white cheese (from Denmark); butter and kiwifruit drink from New Zealand; pineapple juice from Oman; a crunchy snack, sona gingally balls (1-inch balls completely made of sesame seeds and maybe a little honey; delicious!) and “chick peas” (they look just like green sweet peas only they’re dried and crunchy, a great snack) from here in Al Ain; potato chips from the UAE; “Lotion Admire” air freshener spray from England (the available scents were London, Paris and Rome; I chose London); canned tuna from Thailand; and “Apple Scent handwashing liquid” from Dubai, UAE. Not to mention a feminine hygiene product that had an American brand name and looked just like the ones in the states, but is a product of Italy! Go figure.
Something that is different here is the pillowcase. When I first bought bedding, I was taken aback by the pillowcases. They are exactly as long and wide as the pillows, which barely fit inside and the effect is like a sausage in its skin. I was concerned about the pillow escaping the case while I slept although it didn’t happen. Then I washed them for the first time and when I was hanging the up to dry (no dryers needed here, everything dries in about an hour because the climate is so hot and dry), I noticed that the fabric at the opening was very bulky and wouldn’t lay flat. Upon closer inspection I realized that in fact the fabric on one side of the top is double, so you can insert the pillow and pull the inside flap over the top of the pillow like a tucked-in envelope flap. Very cool! And no, the pillows can’t escape.
Today was an emotional one for me in a very unexpected way. For the last few weeks I’ve been driven from Zayed Library to the Maqam libraries every day by the library driver. In his role as official driver for the library, he has been transporting me places ever since my first week here; he got me through mazes of paperwork and people during all the pre-employment medical things, setting up electric/water service, phone service, straightening out my first electric bill which was in error, transporting me here and there, etc. Yesterday he broke the news to me that starting Saturday, he won’t have room for me in the four-wheeler he drives. The vehicle will be filled with cartons of books he’ll be taking to the branch libraries and another worker will be riding with him. “No room for Batrisha,” he told me. [“Batrisha” is how speakers of Arabic say my name; there is no P in their language.] I’d been wondering why, after having mentioned it sporadically before, for the last couple of weeks he’d been pushing the idea of my getting a car. Every time he did, I’d say I thought it might be less expensive for me to just take taxis everywhere and he would say it would be more flexible and convenient for me to have a car.
Yesterday he tried in vain yet again to persuade me. When we drove up to the security gate at Maqam, he stopped to greet one of the guards, whom he called by name, Ibrahim, and then started talking to him very fast in Arabic. When I heard him say my name, I figured he was asking the guard what I’d need to do in the future to get into the campus since I wouldn’t be coming in an official university vehicle. He introduced Ibrahim and me, then said to me, glancing over his shoulder from where he sat behind the wheel to look at me sitting in the back seat on the passenger side, “Batrisha, give me you ID card.” I opened my purse, dug out the wallet and slid my university ID card out of its slot. I put it into his outstretched hand and he handed it over to the guard, who looked at it carefully and explained something and handed it back to the driver, who gave it to me. The driver started driving into the campus, then said, “When you come first time alone, show Ibrahim you card. He see it, then he know you when you come again. Not need show card again.” I thanked him sincerely. That is the kind of thing he has been doing for me since I’ve been here and I am really going to miss it.
Today, the last day he’d be transporting me on a regular basis, he told me I needed to find a good English-speaking taxi driver and arrange for regular rides to and from Maqam. I needed to be at Maqam early, he said, so I could see who was on time for work and who was not. I think he knows things about the staff’s work habits that I don’t know! When we got to the Art Library, I got out and took my stuff inside but I planned to ride with him to Science because I wanted to check on an employee had been out sick yesterday and was hopefully back at work today. I was feeling very sad not only because I’d miss his help and his huge fund of information but also because he is such an exuberant and outgoing person. He is a young man who has children the same age as my grandchildren, so he has been like a cheerful, helpful son to me and I knew I would miss that. He did the drop off and pick up things he always does at Art and then headed toward the door. I was standing nearby and he started saying “goodbye.” I had my purse with me and I turned to go out the door. He said, in surprise, “You go with me?” I said “Yes, I’m going to Science to check on D.” A big smile broke out on his face, like I’d just given him a present. I think he’s feeling a little sad, too.
We got into the car to go to the other library. When he was pulling up in front of it, I said, “Who is going to help me now?” (Meaning, who am I going to rely on to do all the helpful kinds of things you’ve done for me.) He said, “Me. Call me. I give you my mobile number.” Stunned, I said, “Really?” He grinned his cheerful grin and said, “Yes,” and then proceeded to tell me the number. He had to wait a moment while I dug my mobile out of my purse and then punched the right keys to get to the place where I could enter it directly into the phone. People here are very good and very fast at doing it. I still fumble around and make a lot of mistakes. I got the number in finally and then said his name as I started to enter it. I was taking a long time and he had to get into Science to do his errands so he was halfway out of the car when he said, “Driver. Last name, Driver.” It was a joke he made up the other day when I asked him how I could distinguish between him and the head of Public Services, my immediate supervisor, who has the same first name. He had said, “Just say, [Name], the driver.” We said our official goodbyes as he left the Science Library and I remained inside to talk to the staff.
Afterwards, I walked back to the Art Library and sat down at a computer to work. I reflected for a moment about the driver offering me his mobile number. Not that giving out his number is unusual; I know that many library and university folks have it because he often got calls while driving me places. What impressed and touched me deeply was that he offered it to me when I asked who would help me. I thought about how nice it was that someone was concerned enough and willing to be of service to another person in need. I knew I would be missing something special by not having the opportunity to interact with him on a regular basis. I felt a few moments of deep longing for what I would be missing and then thought, in a sudden burst of comprehension, that perhaps that was the kind of thing that makes up one component of an ideal marriage relationship and that is why some single people seem so desperate to find someone to marry, or desperate just to be married. I don’t know if many couples actually achieve a mutual service-to-other relationship in marriage but it would certainly be worth having.
That is probably the first time in my life that I have ever felt, and it was only for a few moments, a deep longing to be in a marriage, if it included that kind of relationship. I don’t actually know if I want to get married again any time soon – it’s only been 23 years since the divorce and I’ve been very happy being single – but if, and it’s a big if, it could be a cheerful, exuberant service-oriented marriage, I just might consider it.
[Sorry for the personal introspection, but it was a life-changing or at least an attitude-changing experience, one of a few that I’ve already had since I’ve been here. I wonder how much I’ll be changed and how much more I’ll understand about other people and about life and about myself that I would never have comprehended otherwise by the things I’ll learn while living, working and having interactions with people here.]
