Newsletter 9 - July 7, 2005

Aug 20, 2005 12:42 PM

Newsletter 9

This newsletters describes a mini-adventure I had, some cultural things and some things about work.  I

hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoyed living them!

Thursday, July 7, 2005

This being the first day of the weekend, after lunch I stretched out on my very comfortable, very green (my favorite color) “Wealthy Family” couch to read. The couch was made in China and has one of the picturesque names they give things. I was so comfortable I fell asleep for about two hours. When I woke up I spent some time looking at fabric samples for curtains and trying to decide if I liked the ones I was considering or not. Finally I decided I needed a second opinion and called Rebecca to see if she would like to come over and go for a walk around my neighborhood with me to see if we could find a street that led to Sanaiya, the area of town where the drapery shop and many other custom furniture and household design places are located. After my trip in the taxi to Sanyia when I found the curtain shop I’m using, I realized it is very close to my flat. She agreed but said she couldn’t come until 8:30. Although it would be kind of late and it would be dark outside, I agreed to meet her in front of Mega Mart at 8:30 and we’d go for a walk.

After we met, we started walking back toward my flat and when we got to the complex, beside its far wall where there is just a vacant lot, we kept walking in the dark in the sand, seeing straight ahead of us the lights on the major street and bridge straight ahead. Rebecca said, “There must be a wadi [wide dry river bed that fills with rushing water after an infrequent heavy rainfall] because the bridges here go over wadis.” When we got closer to the bridge, we saw that it did, indeed, go over a wadi, which ran along almost parallel to my apartment complex. I felt kind of frightened there, in the dark, with the wadi being so wide and mostly in shadows. It was lower than ground level by about 8 feet, with uniform straight sides and about half a city block wide.

We continued walking alongside the wadi heading toward the main road and the bridge, walking on or beside vehicle tire tracks in the sand all along the way. When we came close to the street near the bridge, we saw a rough stairway made of broken pieces of concrete, loosened no doubt by much foot traffic. It lead upwards 6-8 feet to the roadway. Once at street level, we stepped onto the brick-paved sidewalk, turned right and continued walking until we were crossing the bridge. Looking down at the wadi below, we saw lots of tire tracks going from one side to the other, running parallel to the bridge. We walked completely across the bridge and continued on the walkway, heading toward Sanaiya. After a distance equivalent to several blocks, we came to the Oasis Hospital, a private enterprise run by a group of Christians from Canada. Rebecca said that when she sprained her ankle earlier this year, she had been taken there for treatment. In the waiting room she had seen several Bibles on tables and she was told by the Filipina nurses that although Oasis was the first hospital in the area and for a long time the only one in Al Ain, lately some people were starting to complain about the Christian influence there and threaten to try to have it shut down. Apparently the employees think the only reason the hospital is being tolerated now is that Sheikh Khalifa, the new president of the UAE and son of the much-revered late president, Sheikh Zayed, was born there.

We turned at the corner where the hospital sat back off the road behind a whitewashed wall beside a very busy road and walked past a wide grassy area where a young couple (a very unusual sight here) was settling down to have a picnic and kept walking until we came to a lighted road going to the right. I was sure that we were now parallel to my flat, although at quite a distance, and that the side road would lead directly to the wadi. I hoped it would continue over the wadi with a bridge and lead directly into my neighbourhood. It went through a residential area that reminded me very strongly of Uzbekistan neighborhoods with houses set behind high walls with gates opening into them. Finally the street ended – at the wadi. It was very dark there with no houses nearby and no street lights extending that far. We walked in the sand to the edge of the wadi where there was a kind of brick sidewalk along the bank. A large truck trailer was parked nearby and we heard children’s voices then saw a national woman with three small children who were playing near the edge of the wadi and who seemed to be having lots of fun. When they saw us, they came close to look at us and we smiled at them and said, “Assalam alaykum,” and they got shy and hurried back to their mother.As we gazed at the wide expanse of the wadi before us and perused the buildings on the other side, I saw my own building, as I had thought I would. We were considering whether to try crossing the wadi on foot or go all the way back around when we saw a man on the opposite side make his way down the bank and walk across the wadi until he reached a point just to our left and then appeared to be walking up some steps until he got to the top. When he had walked away, we went over to look for the steps. There weren’t actually steps, just places where the concrete bank had come apart, making uneven steps down. Rebecca, being athletic, readily went down. In the dark and with the shadows making it difficult to see the uneven places, I took off my tri-focal glasses and was able to see the details better, and made my way down to the last “step.” There was quite a distance between it and the floor of the wadi. Rebecca kindly took my hand to steady me and I just jumped down, which startled and amused her. The floor of the wadi was basically flat sand the entire way. It took several minutes to traverse it and we had to keep our gaze down because the sand was loose and we didn’t want to loose our footing. Once on the other side, there was a similar “stairway” leading up to the residential road there. On this one, the gap between the last step and the top was quite steep and I barely made it unassisted.

Then we were on a red brick sidewalk beside a well-paved road.

We turned back and looked at the wadi. It still looked dark and scary and we felt very brave for having crossed it ourselves in the dark. We joked that we had just done our first “wadi bashing” [when folks here take their 4-wheel drives into the desert to travel around and/or camp out, they call it wadi bashing]. We started walking along the road which took us past very nice and mostly newish houses until we came to the unpaved street that led to the side of my building where we had started our adventure. It was quite late but I invited Rebecca to my flat to show it to her and to ask her opinion about the curtain situation. She agreed to come and got the grand tour and then considered my fabric choices and gave some good suggestions. It was late by then, going on 10 PM, and she took her leave, saying she would walk to Mega Mart and shop for some groceries as she had never been there before. I was ready to turn in. The long walk had been great exercise and I was sure I’d have a good night’s sleep.

July 12, 2005; 7:19 PM

I’m sitting in my home office and can hear the Muezzin’s (Islamic prayer caller) Azan (call to prayer) by loudspeaker from one or more of the several nearby mosques. Sometimes there is quite an echo effect when four or more calls can be heard at once, each in a slightly different place in the chant and each coming from a different direction. A co-worker explained the prayer times and their names to me during our lunch break the other day. I knew that there were five Muslim prayers times daily and thought they must be equally spaced throughout the day. Not so, as I will explain, and please remember that the times given here are approximate because they change slightly each day according to the sun. The words to each call are the same except that the first one of the day includes a phrase like, “It is better to pray than to sleep,” and since the call comes about 4:25 AM, those words of encouragement (or admonition) are understandable. The first prayer is called “al Fajr,” (“al” means “the” – I didn’t think to ask what the actual names mean). For al Fajr and the next one, “al Zuhr,” at about 12:30 PM, one must get to or begin prayer as quickly as possible. This can be at a mosque or an official prayer room [only men seem to go to these places], or it can be done at home, a quiet place at work or elsewhere where you can concentrate and hopefully not be disturbed.

The discussion with my colleague took place after she prayed in the staff break room while I was in there for lunch (before she began, I asked if she would like me to leave and she was quite definite that it was not necessary). “Al Asur” is at about 3:35 PM. About 7:30 PM is “al Magrib,” which one must catch within five minutes of the Azan. The last one of the day, “al Isha,” is at about 8:35 PM and “later is better” to begin that prayer. She told me about the website, wwwislamicfinder.org, which includes daily prayer times for over 6 million cities and other information about Islam. There might even be English translations of the Azan. From there one can also download a program for having the Azans sound from your computer (if it is on) and you can even select the voice of a preferred famous Muezzin calling the Azan. Among the choices are those from Macca (Mecca), Medina, and a few other Islamic holy sites.

Knowing about things like that helps one to understand the people better and why, when you are in a shop, suddenly the proprietor disappears for 20 minutes or when very few taxis are available around 7:30, or when your co-workers suddenly hurry off in the middle of a discussion or when the women’s tile bathroom floor is wet from staff members’ washing themselves with the sprayer on the wall before going to prayer. Sharon reported to me once being in a shop where some other women were being waited on when the Azan was called and the women asked the male shopkeeper to leave so they could pray. I said, “What happened?” She replied, “He left the room and they prayed.” I think all this is very interesting but it hasn’t changed my mind about my religious beliefs or my religion.

I went back to the curtain shop a few days ago because I had questions about the quotations I’d been given for furnishing my apartment with window treatments and I was not entirely happy with the fabric samples I’d taken home to consider. Once there, I went through at least two dozen new “catalogs” of fabric samples and took so much time the proprietor offered to carry to my flat the 8 or 10 books I was hesitating over. So I am now at home with those books and trying desperately to make a decision. Rebecca came over for dinner tonight and I, feeling that her being Chinese and having grown up in Hong Kong would give her a different perspective on color, asked her opinion. She gave me some good advice and I will consider it seriously before making my final decision. Thank goodness for friends!

On the way home tonight I stopped at nearby Mega Mart, which might well end up being my primary grocery store, to get some things to eat tonight and do a general shopping. Each time I buy food I try to get something I’ve never had before. Sometimes it turns out well and sometimes not. Last time, for example, I bought Youngberry juice from South Africa. I’d never even heard of the youngberry before but now I know it makes a quite tart yet sweet tasting reddish juice. Tonight I couldn’t resist two cans of soup from Scotland even though I’m not much of a soup consumer. Cock-a-Leekie Soup (chicken with leeks) and vegetarian Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Soup. Interesting. I bought some tiny zucchini that were each about the size of a finger but passed on packages of four tiny red cabbages and of tiny corn on the cob. I also bought a small packet of a local dessert bar I thought might taste like baklava to have for dessert tonight but it didn’t taste anything like I thought it would.

When I called home (i.e., my children and grandchildren) on Sunday evening, I used by mobile (pronounced with a long I) phone which had been fortified by a calling card but during my call Gina it ran out of time before we’d finished our conversation. So I used my new land line to call Rob and it worked well. I’ll pay the bill for the call when the statement comes at the end of the month. The point is, I learned my lesson and will call home from my land line from now on.

At work I’ve been visiting the girl’s campus libraries most days for part of each day, interviewing each of the women who works at the libraries and becoming familiar with their work situations and what they perceive to be their needs as individual employees and as service providers at the library as well as for the library itself. I had a chance to begin advocating for them informally at lunch today at the main library, where I spent the day organizing my notes from the interviews and preparing for a general meeting with the women tomorrow at noon.

In advocating, I was talking to the man who is the head of Public Services, my senior supervisor, and was going on full steam when he agreed that certain “small” things could happen right away. If that happens, I think it will be a positive sign to the library staffs that change is on the way. I also suggested inviting the dean to tour the women’s libraries to see for himself the kinds of things that need to be done there. He thought it was a great idea, that the dean would be very glad to go and that it would make a great difference. Unfortunately, the dean is on vacation until August so it won’t happen right away but that gives us plenty of time to plan.

When I was “calling” the meeting with the library staffers, I said, “I’ve been asking you many questions, now you will have a chance to ask me questions.” I’m sure they will ask exactly what my role will be there and probably personal questions as well, which is considered standard. Everyone asks a woman if she has children and wants to know all the details if she does. It is not proper to ask a man about his wife but I’ve had plenty of people – including males - ask me if I am here “alone” or if my husband is either here or will be coming! Sometimes I sidestep the question, depending on who is asking. If it’s an expat male asking, I usually say, “Just me,” which is true but which they rarely understand but rather than admit ignorance they will usually either ask me to repeat it or just let it drop. After I repeat it and they still don’t understand, they let it drop. If I decide to answer, and often I will for a female, I just say I am divorced and have been for 23 years. They usually say nothing else about it. But they do ask about the children and grandchildren.

It’s late and I still have one workday left in this week. To me, Wednesday is still the middle of the calendar/work week but instead of being “hump day” it’s the last day! Rebecca and I are tentatively planning to go to Dubai on Thursday. We’ll discuss it more tomorrow.