Moments of Idiocy

Whenever I've been in a foreign country, I've had a couple of absolute idiot moments, times in which I've tried to be useful and sensitive and realize I wind up making everyone's day just a little bit harder. These moments bite not only because I realize I am an inconvenience, but also because they demonstrate to me just how much there is a social and situational literacy required in being a thoughtful person. They are rarely major things-- their scope is more like, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to rewind about now," but back home I work hard to be a thoughtful person, so I think they grate on me. I don't mind getting lost or being unable to work the ticket machine or speaking with huge gestures, but social competency is important to me.

I had too many of these moments to count in Tanzania. When I was in Selchuk, Turkey, with my father, this shoe-shiner asked to shine our shoes. The town was pretty muddy, and my shoes were filthy, so we agreed. He told us he had a new baby in the house (and these stories, the same stories everyone asking for work tells, always weigh heavily on me. I don't really care about their veracity, I just figure if you need to tell a story like that, you are experiencing some type of desperation.) As he knelt to shine my shoes-already a slightly uncomfortable transaction-we realized we didn't have change anywhere near small enough.

There are three non-Muslims who work in our office, Rachel, Laura (British) and myself. The two other ex-pats both converted. I felt sort of bad to be eating lunch at all when so many people were intent on fasting, and had high hopes of running downstairs and discretely microwaving my food at a non-optimal time and sneaking back upstairs. Unfortunately, said lunch was (surprise!) instant Indian food, so as soon as I opened the package, I realized everyone in the office could smell it. I decided I'd have to be very fast and cover it up with a bowl in order to carry it back upstairs.

Noor, a Pakistani worker who has lived in the UAE for seven years and works in our kitchen, had other plans. Every day, when I go down to get my lunch from the fridge, Noor insists on carrying it upstairs behind me and placing it on the table, covering his hands with napkins. After I microwave it, I know it's too hot to touch but he picks it up right away anyway even when I try to warn him. This is unavoidable and makes me want to cry. He faces the challenge of desperately wanting to hold onto a job, which, in actuality, requires very little, and thus he over performs any task he can.

Today was no different. Noor ceremoniously set my Indian food and Diet Coke on a silver tray, and slowly we proceeded upstairs with them. I could feel everyone downstairs in the office turning towards the smell of the food. I felt ridiculously, and upset both that I had intended to be more thoughtful about eating during Ramadan and that Noor's job was to carry my lunch upstairs for me, and there was no way for me to escape that without making it seem that he was not fulfilling his duties.

I have a lot more to say about the migrant workforce in the UAE, and hope to post some thoughts sometime this week.