Monday, July 12, 2010
Muddling Along
This one won't have any pictures so move onto another posting if that's what you're after. I thought I'd delve into the informal archives (a.k.a. my memory) to share the odd observation or adaptive (survival) behavior in the category of "the hilarity of the absurd" ...
It's hot right now. Upwards of 130 degrees by noon when the horrid humidity is taken into account. That's 53 celsius. No one should have to endure these temperatures, much less dress for work and climb into cars midday to drive to off-site meetings in that kind of heat. There's nothing hilarious about those conditions. It is so hot and this place is still a developing country so the city water piped into households is hot because it's not processed through chillers (at least not my building) and the pipes are (a) probably not buried deep enough to escape the ambient heat and (b) they're buried in sand so they may as well be a glass factory; all of which has laundry implications.
In my graceful albeit particular ways, I have a specific clothes-washing regimen: I only wash laundry in cold water irrespective of color but I don't mix the colors and avoid the dryer as much as possible - a normal and expected approach in Europe, and a near impossibility in the Arabian Gulf. I now stop by the local shop on the way home and buy a bag of ice on laundry day...yep, I dump half a bog of ice into the front-load dual machine and ensure that not only the first cycle will be cold but that there will be added agitation for those really tough stains. I have already admitted to mild affliction with OCD in this regard and one of my work colleagues is now doing the same as her blacks have been fading to gray at an unacceptable rate.
Water, as you might guess or already know, is a huge issue in this part of the world. The potable water is made possible from desalination plants and that processed water has zero minerals. It's not healthy to drink long term and it's awful for hair. For months I've been rinsing my conditioner with a liter of Volvic to try to spare my hair. This regimen was non-negotiable when I recently braved the local hair salon at a luxury hotel and ordered a liter of water from one of the restaurants on the premises to rinse my hair in the salon. Nothing happens particularly fast in this part of the world so I had to sit in the chair with conditioner in my hair for 20+ minutes before the water was delivered by a waiter with no change (of course), seemingly bewildered by the request.
I was at another Bedouin wedding recently. This one was at the Ritz-Carlton and was another over-the-top affair. This time I had one of our European consultants in tow who happens to be engaged and getting married at the end of the summer so she was keen to bear witness to the spectacle. She was really dismayed that the bride didn't show up until after 11:30pm and that the meal wasn't served until midnight. This wedding had a longer "runway" for the dancing and the stage was a little less decorated than the previous wedding I attended. The bride's family took it upon themselves to shoot a video of their young maiden in a beautiful white dress with flowers in her hair by the beach all smiley and romantic-looking, as if she were in a 10-minute perfume commercial. This video was shown on two huge screens positioned at either end of the stage right before the bride made her entrance. I asked myself all kinds of questions about that video such as - when was it shot? It must have been four o'clock in the morning because of light quality in the sky and the lack of people. Was the film crew a member of the family or was the crew all female for the young bride to be shot out of her abaya in public? Exactly where in town was that shot? Or did they leave the country to shoot it so as to not dishonor anyone with the exposure factor? Logistics and technicalities confront culture...that about sums up life in these parts. Needless to say, I would be mortified to have a similar video of myself produced and/or shown to anyone, much less 500 women on my wedding night!
The week prior, the same consultant and I were invited to the party the women have when the bride has returned from her honeymoon, like a bridal shower but in reverse order. I was driving my Jeep and was instructed to meet the family driver in a roundabout in the north of town....that's what people do when their addresses are too complicated due to the maps not yet printing the latest development and Google Earth also running behind. The roundabouts are pretty busy and it was a Friday night so I pulled over the curb into the sand to wait, expecting that our hostess had provided said driver with my mobile number. I've never pulled over the curb into sand and as I did it, I thought about getting stuck. And then my back wheels started spinning and the car was going nowhere. I didn't have much time to even go into panic/pissed mode before an SUV pulled up and a young local man asked me if I needed help in broken English. I nodded, got out of the Jeep and gave him the keys. I've never seen him before and knew nothing of this being standard operating procedure. He put the Jeep into 4WD (which I don't know how to do) and got it out of the sand and jumped back into his car. Business as usual for him. Meltdown avoided for me.
We finally connected with the stranger in the SUV we were supposed to meet in the roundabout and followed him into a seemingly affluent neighborhood in the northernmost outskirts of town with lots of infrastructure still being installed (water mains, electrical grids). We weren't sure how long this event would last and didn't want to park where we would then get boxed in and wreak havoc with other guests if we wanted to leave prematurely, not knowing what time was considered polite to bid farewell (midnight? one in the morning? later?). So I parked near the front gate along the road and didn't see that there was water run-off next to the Jeep as sand doesn't look that different when it's wet at night. We were both happy to have anticipated a hassle-free exit and walked into the party.
We were greeted at the door by the mothers (bride and groom) and shown to a larger room where the bride sat. She seemed exhausted and lacking animation to me. She was overdone in an unfortunate bright blue satin strapless dress, entirely too much makeup, an ill-conceived beehive-of-a-mess-of-hair and her cleavage seemed to be spilling out of the dress when she was sitting still. I hoped for her sake that she would not be forced to dress all night because she seemed so tired and because that was a fashion casualty I preferred not to witness. Despite all that, she was very gracious when we were introduced to her by her mother and she told us the places she had been in Europe on her honeymoon (I only remember Athens and Rome). I wondered if she was tired because she had partied herself silly throughout her honeymoon or was not a happy, blushing bride, undoubtedly having had little to do with her choice of spouse.
My colleague and I then found a small ottoman to share at the other end of the room, which was lined along the perimeter with other seated guests (all women, of course). My colleague had to use the ladies room and when she got up we were both horrified to discover that we had tracked in mud into the house! We must have dragged in the wet sand next to my strategically-parked Jeep and now there was a roomful of Arab women noticing the mess the westerners made. A maid was summoned with a dustpan and hand brush who cleaned up near our feet. Moments later, the sister of the country's First Lady entered the room and the mother of the bride introduced her to everyone in the room, including the muddy westerners. I wanted to die. Arabs are meticulous housekeepers - they don't do any cleaning themselves, of course, but the standard of cleanliness is spotless for everyday, not to mention for a party where an extended member of the ruling family is a guest.
The power suddenly went out, probably because the detached kitchen in the backyard was on overload heating up the buffet, every light in the house was illuminated (including numerous chandeliers) and the sound system was cranked up to what seemed the maximum setting for a festive ambience. I was happy to have our muddy shoes obscured by the temporary candlelight. We later enjoyed a nice dinner outdoors in 90-something degree nighttime heat and returned to the party for a more casual version of the dancing that takes place on the runway at the wedding. There was no chance we were going to screw anything else up so we agreed to dance when summoned on the floor and didn't dare leave before the member of the ruling family bid farewell at midnight. We left 30 minutes later and realized I should have handed the keys to the driver or any of the service men seated on the outside of the property, whose job it must have been to attend to any guest need. I am so accustomed to doing things on my own that I still can't make that adjustment and have no idea what I will do next without realizing it's really bad form.
As mentioned in the prior posting, traveled for my bday and I am happy to report that this message has been brought to you by the wireless Internet service at Talalla Retreat, Sri Lanka, where I am at yoga camp for a week. http://www.talallaretreat.com/82/home/resortactivities.php. Stay tuned for the tales in Ceylon.
It's hot right now. Upwards of 130 degrees by noon when the horrid humidity is taken into account. That's 53 celsius. No one should have to endure these temperatures, much less dress for work and climb into cars midday to drive to off-site meetings in that kind of heat. There's nothing hilarious about those conditions. It is so hot and this place is still a developing country so the city water piped into households is hot because it's not processed through chillers (at least not my building) and the pipes are (a) probably not buried deep enough to escape the ambient heat and (b) they're buried in sand so they may as well be a glass factory; all of which has laundry implications.
In my graceful albeit particular ways, I have a specific clothes-washing regimen: I only wash laundry in cold water irrespective of color but I don't mix the colors and avoid the dryer as much as possible - a normal and expected approach in Europe, and a near impossibility in the Arabian Gulf. I now stop by the local shop on the way home and buy a bag of ice on laundry day...yep, I dump half a bog of ice into the front-load dual machine and ensure that not only the first cycle will be cold but that there will be added agitation for those really tough stains. I have already admitted to mild affliction with OCD in this regard and one of my work colleagues is now doing the same as her blacks have been fading to gray at an unacceptable rate.
Water, as you might guess or already know, is a huge issue in this part of the world. The potable water is made possible from desalination plants and that processed water has zero minerals. It's not healthy to drink long term and it's awful for hair. For months I've been rinsing my conditioner with a liter of Volvic to try to spare my hair. This regimen was non-negotiable when I recently braved the local hair salon at a luxury hotel and ordered a liter of water from one of the restaurants on the premises to rinse my hair in the salon. Nothing happens particularly fast in this part of the world so I had to sit in the chair with conditioner in my hair for 20+ minutes before the water was delivered by a waiter with no change (of course), seemingly bewildered by the request.
I was at another Bedouin wedding recently. This one was at the Ritz-Carlton and was another over-the-top affair. This time I had one of our European consultants in tow who happens to be engaged and getting married at the end of the summer so she was keen to bear witness to the spectacle. She was really dismayed that the bride didn't show up until after 11:30pm and that the meal wasn't served until midnight. This wedding had a longer "runway" for the dancing and the stage was a little less decorated than the previous wedding I attended. The bride's family took it upon themselves to shoot a video of their young maiden in a beautiful white dress with flowers in her hair by the beach all smiley and romantic-looking, as if she were in a 10-minute perfume commercial. This video was shown on two huge screens positioned at either end of the stage right before the bride made her entrance. I asked myself all kinds of questions about that video such as - when was it shot? It must have been four o'clock in the morning because of light quality in the sky and the lack of people. Was the film crew a member of the family or was the crew all female for the young bride to be shot out of her abaya in public? Exactly where in town was that shot? Or did they leave the country to shoot it so as to not dishonor anyone with the exposure factor? Logistics and technicalities confront culture...that about sums up life in these parts. Needless to say, I would be mortified to have a similar video of myself produced and/or shown to anyone, much less 500 women on my wedding night!
The week prior, the same consultant and I were invited to the party the women have when the bride has returned from her honeymoon, like a bridal shower but in reverse order. I was driving my Jeep and was instructed to meet the family driver in a roundabout in the north of town....that's what people do when their addresses are too complicated due to the maps not yet printing the latest development and Google Earth also running behind. The roundabouts are pretty busy and it was a Friday night so I pulled over the curb into the sand to wait, expecting that our hostess had provided said driver with my mobile number. I've never pulled over the curb into sand and as I did it, I thought about getting stuck. And then my back wheels started spinning and the car was going nowhere. I didn't have much time to even go into panic/pissed mode before an SUV pulled up and a young local man asked me if I needed help in broken English. I nodded, got out of the Jeep and gave him the keys. I've never seen him before and knew nothing of this being standard operating procedure. He put the Jeep into 4WD (which I don't know how to do) and got it out of the sand and jumped back into his car. Business as usual for him. Meltdown avoided for me.
We finally connected with the stranger in the SUV we were supposed to meet in the roundabout and followed him into a seemingly affluent neighborhood in the northernmost outskirts of town with lots of infrastructure still being installed (water mains, electrical grids). We weren't sure how long this event would last and didn't want to park where we would then get boxed in and wreak havoc with other guests if we wanted to leave prematurely, not knowing what time was considered polite to bid farewell (midnight? one in the morning? later?). So I parked near the front gate along the road and didn't see that there was water run-off next to the Jeep as sand doesn't look that different when it's wet at night. We were both happy to have anticipated a hassle-free exit and walked into the party.
We were greeted at the door by the mothers (bride and groom) and shown to a larger room where the bride sat. She seemed exhausted and lacking animation to me. She was overdone in an unfortunate bright blue satin strapless dress, entirely too much makeup, an ill-conceived beehive-of-a-mess-of-hair and her cleavage seemed to be spilling out of the dress when she was sitting still. I hoped for her sake that she would not be forced to dress all night because she seemed so tired and because that was a fashion casualty I preferred not to witness. Despite all that, she was very gracious when we were introduced to her by her mother and she told us the places she had been in Europe on her honeymoon (I only remember Athens and Rome). I wondered if she was tired because she had partied herself silly throughout her honeymoon or was not a happy, blushing bride, undoubtedly having had little to do with her choice of spouse.
My colleague and I then found a small ottoman to share at the other end of the room, which was lined along the perimeter with other seated guests (all women, of course). My colleague had to use the ladies room and when she got up we were both horrified to discover that we had tracked in mud into the house! We must have dragged in the wet sand next to my strategically-parked Jeep and now there was a roomful of Arab women noticing the mess the westerners made. A maid was summoned with a dustpan and hand brush who cleaned up near our feet. Moments later, the sister of the country's First Lady entered the room and the mother of the bride introduced her to everyone in the room, including the muddy westerners. I wanted to die. Arabs are meticulous housekeepers - they don't do any cleaning themselves, of course, but the standard of cleanliness is spotless for everyday, not to mention for a party where an extended member of the ruling family is a guest.
The power suddenly went out, probably because the detached kitchen in the backyard was on overload heating up the buffet, every light in the house was illuminated (including numerous chandeliers) and the sound system was cranked up to what seemed the maximum setting for a festive ambience. I was happy to have our muddy shoes obscured by the temporary candlelight. We later enjoyed a nice dinner outdoors in 90-something degree nighttime heat and returned to the party for a more casual version of the dancing that takes place on the runway at the wedding. There was no chance we were going to screw anything else up so we agreed to dance when summoned on the floor and didn't dare leave before the member of the ruling family bid farewell at midnight. We left 30 minutes later and realized I should have handed the keys to the driver or any of the service men seated on the outside of the property, whose job it must have been to attend to any guest need. I am so accustomed to doing things on my own that I still can't make that adjustment and have no idea what I will do next without realizing it's really bad form.
As mentioned in the prior posting, traveled for my bday and I am happy to report that this message has been brought to you by the wireless Internet service at Talalla Retreat, Sri Lanka, where I am at yoga camp for a week. http://www.talallaretreat.com/82/home/resortactivities.php. Stay tuned for the tales in Ceylon.
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