I don't like the day before a big trip, especially if I'm not at work. I have way too much time to pack, repack, change my mind about what books I'm bringing on the plane, worry about what snacks I'm going to eat, worry about my blackberry and MP3 player battery dying, and wonder if it's okay to wear clothes that haven't been washed in 3 weeks for a 28 hour trip.
Disaster was imminent when I realized yesterday that I had accidentally forgotten to remove my crackers from the filing cabinet I've been using at work before I locked it and turned in the keys. I realized right before I was leaving work that my crackers which I had been planning to eat on the plane ride home were in the cabinet and not in R's cabinet (I moved them because he was eating them).
I was stuck in a conundrum. If I asked for the key back they would wonder what I had locked in the cabinet that was so important, and they would send the tea boy to spy on me to make sure I wasn't stealing something. When he saw I was removing my crackers he would automatically assume it was so I could eat them even though we were forbidden to eat anything (some companies cut westerners a break on ramadan - this company is not one of them). As soon as I went back into the conference room where I was working he would tell the whole office I was eating and then people would be rude to me even if I could prove I didn't eat the crackers. So I had to leave them, knowing, since I had dinner at R's, I wouldn't have time to get more (Spinney's sells crackers, sure, but not the right crackers).
Then, today, I had opened a bottle of wine at 5:30 (strictly forbidden to have any alcohol during ramadan, though the shops sell it, you just aren't supposed to let anyone know you have it) to breathe while I finished up my packing. I also had a tea light candle (also forbidden in the hotel) on the desk next to the bottle of wine to make my room not smell like smoke, which seems to be leaking into my room through the air con.
I was opening an apparently highly pressurized box of tea to put into a bag so I could bring it home (best tea, it's arabic, no idea what's in it) when the box exploded and the tea went everywhere. The box also slipped out of my hand knocking over the bottle of wine which also knocked the candle off of my desk. So the wall and the carpet were coated with half a bottle of red wine (wah) and candle wax. I also ruined the ramadam kareem iftare and sohour menu that was nicely printed and sitting like a little tent on my desk.
I've spent the past half hour cleaning the wine off of the wall. I couldn't get it out of the carpet so I trimmed it with my scissors, cutting off the top of the stained parts. It's under the desk so hopefully they won't notice the carpet is a little shorter under there. Not sure what to do about the wax, but maybe they won't notice until I'm gone.
It's definitely time to go.
Friday, August 13, 2010
spaghetti western
R has been asking me for the past two weeks to have dinner at his house and meet his family. I don't know why my customers always want to have me over for dinner. My list of foods I can't eat, or won't eat, would be daunting to anyone. Throw into the mix my lack of social skills in family settings, and my dread of meeting "the wife" who normally suspects I'm having an affair with her (always) unattractive husband.
I figured that was why R's wife wanted to meet me. When we worked together on the weekends she would call every half hour curious as to what we were up to. While I can understand someone doubting that I would want to work on the weekend and must have some other plot in mind, this is Abu Dhabi, and what else is there to do...
And lately, R has been acting a bit strangely towards me. When I came into work sick, and was sweating even though I never sweat and was sitting directly under the air conditioning unit, R suggested I had a fever (I did) and that he could tell me accurately how bad the fever was if I would just let him put his lips on my forehead. I was like, um, thanks, I'll just take a double dose of panadol instead.
Then he told me that he'd finally figured out that enterprise architecture is not sexy, but I make it sexy. I was a bit puzzled by this comment as it was 7 oclock in the morning, I had arrived in the office with unwashed hair (5 days) and wearing the same outfit I had worn the past two days because I didn't have time due to the hours I was working to go to the laundry and collect the rest of my clothes (this is the problem with packing light and bringing only 5 work outfits).
In any case, we finished work yesterday at 1:30, and then went to Spinney's to get some salad and bread for the upcoming dinner at R's house that I had finally agreed to attend. The maid was currently cleaning his place and wouldn't be done until 3, so after 15 minutes of shopping we still had time to kill. As it's ramadan, that time goes by very, very slowly. We drove around to a few hotels looking for a place where we could get an alcoholic drink. Nothing. So R proposed that we get a bottle of wine and drink it somewhere, that somewhere of course being my hotel room although he was too polite to ask.
We grabbed a bottle of wine from the A&E and headed to my hotel. 1 hour until dinner. I was actually looking forward to it because I had requested spaghetti with real tomato sauce since no one here puts tomato sauce on anything (they use ketchup even on pizza) and tomato sauce is a major staple of my non-UAE diet. R's wife had commented that I have a 5 year old's preferences for food. Like I care what anyone thinks as long as I get spaghetti.
We sat in my room sharing a bottle of Trapiche. It turns out R's family owns a bunch of night clubs in Canada and that's where he gets his money (it turns out, just like everyone else here, he's super rich). He wanted to start a consulting company with me. Then he told me that he's an alcoholic (after he chugged two glasses of wine in the time I was pouring us both a bottle of water). Luckily, he said as I was encouraging him to drink an entire bottle of water, alcohol has little effect on him (he's a large man, 6'2" and 250 lbs). Around that time his wife called and said the maid was done and so was dinner. R told her we were at Spinney's still and would head home shortly. As he talked to her he waved for me to chug my glass of wine. When I said I couldn't (hadn't eaten or had anything to drink all day because of ramadan) he called me a pussy so I chugged it and immediately felt dizzy and giggly.
We got in the car and R said "don't tell my wife I was drinking because she'll kill you". Then he started talking about how nice it would be if he was married to me and how we would be like the couples in the 1960s movies. Luckily I was buzzed so I just stared out the window and pretended I was in the car alone.
After an initial half hour of total awkwardness where I tried to act sober and at the same time control my nicotine withdrawal symptoms in the face of a screaming infant and two year old, I got into the swing of things and R's wife started to like me and realize that I wasn't sleeping with her husband. I was so happy when she brought the spaghetti out that she started to like me even more.
By the time my buzz wore off and a few hours had past we were both making fun of R, who decided it was time to play with the kids and ignore us. I did my imitation of him talking to the indians at work (he has a tendency to mimic people's accent without realizing he's doing it) and she told me how he almost drown the second day of their honeymoon because he ate too much and got a cramp while swimming. The story was even funnier as she played out her confronting R's mom to say "sorry your son died while we were on our honeymoon". She was even interested in black holes, or pretended to be interested.
At the end of the evening I told her I was really sorry we hadn't met earlier. They are going to move to Canada in a year or two and I hope she stays in touch with me so we can visit each other someplace where we can have a glass of wine and be normal human beings.
After the almost year I've spent here I think the best people are the Lebanese (at least the ones I've met). They aren't radical or crazy religious. They like to have fun and laugh. They don't take themselves too seriously and even though they can be materialistic they are generous. And even if R said some inappropriate things on occasion, we were a great team and he's probably my most successful mentoring project. And he introduced me to The Big Bang Theory, and gave me a pirated copy of the first three seasons (as well as Buckaroo Banzai and Up In The Air).
Nice kid. I admit I'm going to miss him.
I figured that was why R's wife wanted to meet me. When we worked together on the weekends she would call every half hour curious as to what we were up to. While I can understand someone doubting that I would want to work on the weekend and must have some other plot in mind, this is Abu Dhabi, and what else is there to do...
And lately, R has been acting a bit strangely towards me. When I came into work sick, and was sweating even though I never sweat and was sitting directly under the air conditioning unit, R suggested I had a fever (I did) and that he could tell me accurately how bad the fever was if I would just let him put his lips on my forehead. I was like, um, thanks, I'll just take a double dose of panadol instead.
Then he told me that he'd finally figured out that enterprise architecture is not sexy, but I make it sexy. I was a bit puzzled by this comment as it was 7 oclock in the morning, I had arrived in the office with unwashed hair (5 days) and wearing the same outfit I had worn the past two days because I didn't have time due to the hours I was working to go to the laundry and collect the rest of my clothes (this is the problem with packing light and bringing only 5 work outfits).
In any case, we finished work yesterday at 1:30, and then went to Spinney's to get some salad and bread for the upcoming dinner at R's house that I had finally agreed to attend. The maid was currently cleaning his place and wouldn't be done until 3, so after 15 minutes of shopping we still had time to kill. As it's ramadan, that time goes by very, very slowly. We drove around to a few hotels looking for a place where we could get an alcoholic drink. Nothing. So R proposed that we get a bottle of wine and drink it somewhere, that somewhere of course being my hotel room although he was too polite to ask.
We grabbed a bottle of wine from the A&E and headed to my hotel. 1 hour until dinner. I was actually looking forward to it because I had requested spaghetti with real tomato sauce since no one here puts tomato sauce on anything (they use ketchup even on pizza) and tomato sauce is a major staple of my non-UAE diet. R's wife had commented that I have a 5 year old's preferences for food. Like I care what anyone thinks as long as I get spaghetti.
We sat in my room sharing a bottle of Trapiche. It turns out R's family owns a bunch of night clubs in Canada and that's where he gets his money (it turns out, just like everyone else here, he's super rich). He wanted to start a consulting company with me. Then he told me that he's an alcoholic (after he chugged two glasses of wine in the time I was pouring us both a bottle of water). Luckily, he said as I was encouraging him to drink an entire bottle of water, alcohol has little effect on him (he's a large man, 6'2" and 250 lbs). Around that time his wife called and said the maid was done and so was dinner. R told her we were at Spinney's still and would head home shortly. As he talked to her he waved for me to chug my glass of wine. When I said I couldn't (hadn't eaten or had anything to drink all day because of ramadan) he called me a pussy so I chugged it and immediately felt dizzy and giggly.
We got in the car and R said "don't tell my wife I was drinking because she'll kill you". Then he started talking about how nice it would be if he was married to me and how we would be like the couples in the 1960s movies. Luckily I was buzzed so I just stared out the window and pretended I was in the car alone.
After an initial half hour of total awkwardness where I tried to act sober and at the same time control my nicotine withdrawal symptoms in the face of a screaming infant and two year old, I got into the swing of things and R's wife started to like me and realize that I wasn't sleeping with her husband. I was so happy when she brought the spaghetti out that she started to like me even more.
By the time my buzz wore off and a few hours had past we were both making fun of R, who decided it was time to play with the kids and ignore us. I did my imitation of him talking to the indians at work (he has a tendency to mimic people's accent without realizing he's doing it) and she told me how he almost drown the second day of their honeymoon because he ate too much and got a cramp while swimming. The story was even funnier as she played out her confronting R's mom to say "sorry your son died while we were on our honeymoon". She was even interested in black holes, or pretended to be interested.
At the end of the evening I told her I was really sorry we hadn't met earlier. They are going to move to Canada in a year or two and I hope she stays in touch with me so we can visit each other someplace where we can have a glass of wine and be normal human beings.
After the almost year I've spent here I think the best people are the Lebanese (at least the ones I've met). They aren't radical or crazy religious. They like to have fun and laugh. They don't take themselves too seriously and even though they can be materialistic they are generous. And even if R said some inappropriate things on occasion, we were a great team and he's probably my most successful mentoring project. And he introduced me to The Big Bang Theory, and gave me a pirated copy of the first three seasons (as well as Buckaroo Banzai and Up In The Air).
Nice kid. I admit I'm going to miss him.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
rats it's ramadan
I woke up this morning, scoured the paper, and discovered that those 4 dozen cookies I bought for my team are going to go to waste because it's ramadan. Typical of this place, I searched on line until midnight last night to find out if it was going to be ramadan or not (although they can predict the date scientifically and make it easier for everyone to plan around, they prefer to do it the old fashioned way so you can't plan anything) but apparently the decision wasn't made and broadcast until after I went to bed (and they would have known at 8 pm if it was going to start or not).
No eating, drinking (of anything), gum chewing, smoking, or even taking medications during the daylight hours. Today was a miserable day at the office as I'm fighting a cold still and I was coughing every 5 minutes because my throat is sore and I'm not allowed to drink water. Combine that with the 122 degree heat...it pretty much sucks.
Though ramadan is a holy month, and fasting is supposed to be a sign of dedication to the faith, what it boils down to is:
-eating way too much at iftar and staying up all night
-being super cranky at work from lack of sleep, food, fluid and nicotine
-an increase in traffic accidents
-people buying excess food and presents when the stores are open in the evenings
-a decrease in the economy since people are working less hours
My old hotel at least had an area blocked off for us non believers to smoke or eat during the day away from the eyes of the cops. But the intercon does not have such an area so I've had to make a smoking area in my shower that blocks the smoke from getting into my room proper and out the door where it could be reported and myself arrested. Yeah, I could just not smoke for 14 hours, but, if I could do that, I wouldn't be smoking at all, would I?
Here's a quote that explains why I'll never convert:
"Certainly our message to Egyptians during Ramadan is no excessive food and no excessive partying or staying up way too late, because that's hated by Islam," says Ali Abdel Fattah, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that is officially banned in Egypt.
Anyway, I'm on a plane in two more days. So close, and yet such a far time away...
No eating, drinking (of anything), gum chewing, smoking, or even taking medications during the daylight hours. Today was a miserable day at the office as I'm fighting a cold still and I was coughing every 5 minutes because my throat is sore and I'm not allowed to drink water. Combine that with the 122 degree heat...it pretty much sucks.
Though ramadan is a holy month, and fasting is supposed to be a sign of dedication to the faith, what it boils down to is:
-eating way too much at iftar and staying up all night
-being super cranky at work from lack of sleep, food, fluid and nicotine
-an increase in traffic accidents
-people buying excess food and presents when the stores are open in the evenings
-a decrease in the economy since people are working less hours
My old hotel at least had an area blocked off for us non believers to smoke or eat during the day away from the eyes of the cops. But the intercon does not have such an area so I've had to make a smoking area in my shower that blocks the smoke from getting into my room proper and out the door where it could be reported and myself arrested. Yeah, I could just not smoke for 14 hours, but, if I could do that, I wouldn't be smoking at all, would I?
Here's a quote that explains why I'll never convert:
"Certainly our message to Egyptians during Ramadan is no excessive food and no excessive partying or staying up way too late, because that's hated by Islam," says Ali Abdel Fattah, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that is officially banned in Egypt.
Anyway, I'm on a plane in two more days. So close, and yet such a far time away...
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
ramadan kareem
Tomorrow we may all wish each other a happy ramadan. But, we won't find out until tonight if ramadan starts tomorrow. That's because a special guy has to see what phase the moon is in a whether the crescent moon has been seen:
You cannot guess the exact days of when Ramadan will start, many times a calendar or website will say it's on some day, but ends up being the day before or the day after. In the end, it all depends on the sighting of the crescent the evening before the supposed day, if it is not sighted, they must wait till the next day to look for the crescent again:
Ramadan will last for 29-30 days, depending on the moon (should be a crescent that looks like a curved strand of hair). Regardless of which day it starts, Ramadan will be considered to have started the night before the actual day, since in Islam, Maghrib (Sunset) marks the beginning of the next day.
You can't precisely calculate the next Ramadan because it all depends on when the crescent is sited. It's roughly 11 days before the previous Ramadan.
Which is interesting, because it's going to effect working hours, and I don't know if I now have 12 hours left to work on the project or 16 hours. I really hope ramadan doesn't start tomorrow. Two full days in an office full of people who are cranky without fasting being involved, and me not being able to smoke. It could get ugly. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
You cannot guess the exact days of when Ramadan will start, many times a calendar or website will say it's on some day, but ends up being the day before or the day after. In the end, it all depends on the sighting of the crescent the evening before the supposed day, if it is not sighted, they must wait till the next day to look for the crescent again:
Ramadan will last for 29-30 days, depending on the moon (should be a crescent that looks like a curved strand of hair). Regardless of which day it starts, Ramadan will be considered to have started the night before the actual day, since in Islam, Maghrib (Sunset) marks the beginning of the next day.
You can't precisely calculate the next Ramadan because it all depends on when the crescent is sited. It's roughly 11 days before the previous Ramadan.
Which is interesting, because it's going to effect working hours, and I don't know if I now have 12 hours left to work on the project or 16 hours. I really hope ramadan doesn't start tomorrow. Two full days in an office full of people who are cranky without fasting being involved, and me not being able to smoke. It could get ugly. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
happy endings
Today we did the final presentation for my project.
People who were involved on the periphery of the project found out we were taping customer testimonials of how the project helped them, and so everyone invited to the meeting insisted on having themselves taped talking about how great the project was. That made the meeting less boring because they were all making fun of each other's videos. It also was a bit comic because the two guys who did the taping were not holding the camera steady so the picture was shaking around (there was no time to clean up the vids). The best one was when the camera man inadvertently zoomed in on the speaker's face, realized what he did and zoomed back out. There's an old sesame street song (for those of you who remember) where these puppets are singing "near, far, neeeeear, faaaaar"). I watched that clip at least 20 times so I wouldn't laugh when it came up in the presentation.
There was also the little matter of this one guy's name which is mentioned in the presentation. His name is Binu Babu (pronounced as spelled). R, who has a lebanese accent, kept saying like that indian guy on the Simpsons because it made me laugh. Then accidentally he said it that way in the presentation. I was sitting right next to him and had to stab my finger with my pen not to laugh. R did a great job even though, an hour before the presentation, he found out his boss had been fired as well as another director in the company.
The bobble headed IT guy who gave me so many problems on the project was super nice to me today because I insisted R put his name in the presentation as the IT support. I guess it's a sign of a successful project that people want their names associated with it.
The "project manager", of course, didn't say anything to me, not even "good job", even after the customer said how pleased he was with the outcome of the project. The only thing she said to me is "I wouldn't have brought so many cakes if I had known only 14 people were coming". Uh. Hm. Whatever. We had more people than planned show up for the meeting, which is rare here. Then she picked up this big cake she had brought and said "I guess this is too small to fit in your hotel refrigerator (duh!) so I'll just take it home with me".
Nice. Get the company to pay for your cake habit.
As for me, I just worked out, room service brought me a pizza and a rose, and I'm going to eat that and then take twice the recommended dose of Nyquil so I will hopefully be feeling a bit more human tomorrow.
Though, I think R is glad I couldn't really talk today.
We climb on...
People who were involved on the periphery of the project found out we were taping customer testimonials of how the project helped them, and so everyone invited to the meeting insisted on having themselves taped talking about how great the project was. That made the meeting less boring because they were all making fun of each other's videos. It also was a bit comic because the two guys who did the taping were not holding the camera steady so the picture was shaking around (there was no time to clean up the vids). The best one was when the camera man inadvertently zoomed in on the speaker's face, realized what he did and zoomed back out. There's an old sesame street song (for those of you who remember) where these puppets are singing "near, far, neeeeear, faaaaar"). I watched that clip at least 20 times so I wouldn't laugh when it came up in the presentation.
There was also the little matter of this one guy's name which is mentioned in the presentation. His name is Binu Babu (pronounced as spelled). R, who has a lebanese accent, kept saying like that indian guy on the Simpsons because it made me laugh. Then accidentally he said it that way in the presentation. I was sitting right next to him and had to stab my finger with my pen not to laugh. R did a great job even though, an hour before the presentation, he found out his boss had been fired as well as another director in the company.
The bobble headed IT guy who gave me so many problems on the project was super nice to me today because I insisted R put his name in the presentation as the IT support. I guess it's a sign of a successful project that people want their names associated with it.
The "project manager", of course, didn't say anything to me, not even "good job", even after the customer said how pleased he was with the outcome of the project. The only thing she said to me is "I wouldn't have brought so many cakes if I had known only 14 people were coming". Uh. Hm. Whatever. We had more people than planned show up for the meeting, which is rare here. Then she picked up this big cake she had brought and said "I guess this is too small to fit in your hotel refrigerator (duh!) so I'll just take it home with me".
Nice. Get the company to pay for your cake habit.
As for me, I just worked out, room service brought me a pizza and a rose, and I'm going to eat that and then take twice the recommended dose of Nyquil so I will hopefully be feeling a bit more human tomorrow.
Though, I think R is glad I couldn't really talk today.
We climb on...
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