etisalat epic

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that, with a few exceptions, I never answer or talk on the phone. But here everyone lives by their mobile, and it isn't uncommon in the middle of an important meeting for someone to answer their phone and carry on a conversation (this happens in movie theaters as well, from what I've read in the papers).

So, being without a phone here is considered the worst possible existence. My phone stopped working on Thursday, though. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and then AH told me I had run out of money. No problem, I thought, I'll just add money using my online account.

I did that Thursday afternoon and then was swept up in my hotel room epic so I never got a chance to test my phone until Friday. It wasn't working. I called etisalat, the phone company here, to find out what was wrong. They couldn't tell me over the phone but instead kept sending me text messages in arabic that I couldn't read. I tried to find someone in the hotel that could read them but no luck.

Finally, while waiting in line at the co-op with a bag full of nectarines on Saturday, I got a guy in line behind me to read the message. It turns out etisalat changed their policy a week ago so they no longer allow foreign credit cards to be used on line to add minutes to their phones. I was like how do I get my phone to work? He told me to buy a card to add minutes.

Seemed simple enough. I got a card and followed the instructions on adding minutes to my phone. All I had to do, according to the directions, was type in the number on the card and the minutes would be added. But every time I did that I got an error message that the number I entered was invalid. Meanwhile my colleagues here were getting aggravated with me because I never answer my phone and couldn't respond back to text messages. I tried to go back to the co-op to enquire what was wrong with my card, but it was closed for Eid.

Finally, I was sitting in my lebanese pizza place waiting for my food and the girl at the cash register told me that I had to scratch off this silver band on the card to get the number to add the minutes. How I would have known that if someone hadn't told me remains a mystery. Anyway, my phone is working again after 4 days.

Although no one is texting me anymore. I'm sad.

Not really :D