Perturbation, ma soeur, perturbation
I cannot convey to you the perturbations one is subject to here in "these places" as a former colleague here used to refer to living in Al Ain. Unless I permit myself to be anecdotal. Of course, one cannot always be in the pink of healthy adjustment, beyond the trough following the inevitable high point of cultural adaptation following the initial culture shock we've all heard about. What one tends to forget is that there is a stage after this provisional adaptation. One never really quite accepts the way things are, and one resigns oneself rather than adapt, which has the connotation that one has survived, which one really indeed has, though it is not a survival after a struggle to live. One merely ekes out an existence. This is not really living a fulfilling life, but who does? There are no high points unless little triumphs are considered such. One lives in a hiatus, I suppose, a word that is an apt description of this place.

For instance, here is a little perturbation that has an explosive potential. Most of the drivers at a petrol station do not shut off their motors while the tank is being pumped. (There is no self-serving.) One day I turned the motor off, and after the inevitable click of the nozzle, the attendant who was manning the pumb asked me to turn on the engine because he wanted to see if my tank was full from the gauge on the dashboard. (Duh?!) They are forever topping off the tank, which would drive many a driver in the States or the UK absolutely bonkers.

One wonders constantly if things are done from utter stupidity. I am more forgiving, I say to myself, they really don't know. You are wondering, dear reader, if the petrol station blew up, would I be so forgiving? Maybe their attitude of Enshallah, God willing, has rubbed off on me. How can one have a sense of humor about it either? One mustn't get angry though.

A colleague has had two fender benders within the last two months, both of which were not his fault. In the last one a Sudanese woman on her way to school to drop off her kids rear-ended him at a roundabout where he was fully stopped, or "parked" as he said, that being the proper British way of describing it. He was in the outer lane, the slow lane, ostensibly, the one on the outside, the third one from the inside. I did not want to hasten to comment to my colleague that often times that lane is used as the fast one because a driver at high speed has less of a problem controlling the car since one comes at the roundabout tangentially rather than having to swerve while coming at the rounabout from the inner lane. (You see, I have begun to see the light of this twisted common sense that defies the laws of physics and the regime of bourgeois educated driving.) But my colleague was quite upset, and he remonstrated with the woman, and asked her if she were blind. The woman's passenger, another woman, replied that her friend, the driver, was not blind. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the woman's car was caved in like an accordian. My colleague's was not dented much, (he has a Cherokee, which is higher off the ground) but, after the police had left, he heard a scraping noise once he drove off, something to do with the rear axle perhaps. I didn't ask him if the woman had insurance. My colleague was recounting this in the morning at work in the office. He was becoming indignant. Two other colleagues, both Arabs, were listening. One humored him by saying, "take it easy". The other said that the UAE's roads were nothing compared to the roads in Syria.

But then a car accident can happen anywhere, so it doesn't count as a perturbation exactly. Wherein lies the perturbation? It is knowing that one may perhaps have to conform to their "stupid", if not dangerous, driving habits, if one wants to survive.

The other day I went to J.'s flat to pick up the furniture he had sold to my brother-in-law and me. J. is leaving after his second stint in the UAE. He has paid off his debts and saved a little. I hired two movers, an Afghani driver and a Pakistani laborer (commonly referred to as Pathans), from the used furniture souk near Al Falah Plaza. I got them both and the truck for 70 dhs., not a bad price, I thought, considering that hiring a truck costs at least 40 dhs to go from point A to point B in Al Ain.

Their truck was one of those ubiquitous, small Nissan pickups. We had to make two trips to get all the furniture to my flat. They did the work efficiently and quickly in time for the afternoon prayer at around 4 o'clock. The Afghani, according to the Pakistani, was a mutawah, which means in common parlance that he is a strict Muslim. He gave a cold glare from his long bearded face that looked mutely fierce without the grimace when a security guard stopped him and his fellow mover from taking the second load down the elevator. We needed permission, a piece of paper signed and stamped from the office downstairs. (We had already taken the first load and come back, mind you.) Permission to remove the furniture from the building. Of course this makes sense because the furniture might be in the process of being stolen, despite J.'s presence, the owner, or former owner of said furniture. J. took it in stride however, and readily complied after a little show of consternation and questioning of the motives of the security guard who did not back off and remained adamant in his righteousness. The security guard expected this from J., his making some sort of a fuss. This is to be expected, of Arabs and anyone in this country that is not a total Casper Milktoast. They went to the office. We waited while the mutawah flashed cold stares at me, since, I suppose, prayer time was fast approaching, and the Pakistani tried to express his impatience by blowing it off as typical behavior of a misri, an Egyptian acting in typical form. I shrugged my shoulders a few times to express my non-complicity. The mutawah agreed, misri, and flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. J. returned with the paper, stamped and signed in a matter of minutes. They continued with the move and we arrived at my flat with the second load. (This attitude towards Egyptians I may try to explain in another post on another occasion.)

I presented a 100 dirham note to the mutawah, who with an air of surprise, looked at the note held limply in his hand. Two fingers of his other hand went up in the air and he was to have me believe that we agreed that it was 70 dhs. per trip. I owed them 140 dirhams! I did not argue and gave him exactly 140 dirhams. He counted it very slowly, the six notes including three tens, two fives and the hundred, as if he had to decide that he could count that high.

My wife, who never passes up an opportunity to drive a hard bargain, told me after the Pathans had left, that I hadn't been clear when I originally negotiated with them. I hadn't really, I must admit, a sucker is born every minute I am proud to say. It was clear to them at least that I was, and a white boy sucker too.