World news: White girl in the 'hood

This island is small, very small. I’ve established that, this is nothing new to my dedicated readers (ha ha! She laughs manically in her yellow attic, disrupting the crows in the rafters).

Anyway. It’s small and there’s nothing to do and it’s too hot to neglect the intimate relationship one forms with one’s air-conditioner. So, obviously, conversation topics are on the sparse side. Previously it was the soccer and then the Lebanon crisis stepped in to fill the deafening hum of air-conditioner motors.

Over and above that, to spice the dialogue with some local content, people talk about other people. Understandably. I’ve seen it before, and I’m not even referring to the misnomer of a town Vrede. Everyone, everywhere, talks about other people. Still, I haven’t figured out how to take it, especially when it’s done so openly in front of you. Somehow if it’s behind your back, you can just ignore it.

The first time was around my birthday. I invited some people from the office to come have a meal with me. But then it turned into this whole big THING about who was going to pay and then me saying that we’ll split it and then this wasn’t appropriate so I said I’d pay and then that wasn’t appropriate because of this and then that and it turned into a whole week long pallava, and eventually I just called it off.

Now the pallava is about where I live. I don’t live anywhere fancy but it’s less than a five minute walk to work. Sure, I get raped by a thousand eyes daily but it’s completely safe and the second cheapest thing I found on my search. It’s central, I can catch a taxi to anywhere and I have ground-level access to all cultures.

Seems the problem is that if a white person lives in this neighbourhood, it is assumed that they are a Russian prostitute. This is the concern some of my colleagues have expressed. They have also expressed that it is inappropriate for me to live there as I should embody the values of my luxury lifestyle magazine. And that the boss might get whiff of it.

I sigh. Deeply. In fact, when I expressed some of this concern to my boss a month or so ago, he was indignant that anyone could suggest that there was anything wrong with the area. Assumptions of what other people’s opinions are, are more important than what that person’s opinions really are. Possibly this is the objectifying, racist gaze that seems so obvious here. Possibly, I have already been caught in this dialogue and am assuming this gaze.

Assumption is the mother of all prejudice. Here, it seems, everything is pre-judged to actually make it true. Like in some way, because other people may perceive me to be a Russian prostitute, I become one.

It does happen anywhere, after all, this dialogue between who someone is and who people think they are. Still, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. I mean, possibly I am insulting someone by being a white person in a non-white neighbourhood. But crikey, this isn’t a white country – I mean, is there a white neighbourhood here? Maybe I’m expected to stay in the ex-pat community. But then, the majority of my current neighbourhood is Indian.

Agh… whatever.

Fudged opinions

Every Muslim you speak to here has a different version of the Lebanon crisis. They all think it’s wrong, but they all have different justifications.

The one I spoke to today said that it’s decreed in Islam that once things reach a certain limit, you have to fight and die for your faith. But she couldn’t tell me how they determine when that limit is reached.

What was interesting about this, was her explanation that that was why Hezbollah soldiers were so much more hardcore than Israeli soldiers. The former are fearless, because they believe in their spiritual rewards and will get in there and do the job. The latter don’t want to die.

Yesterday I spoke to a Lebanese guy who spent the last week evacuating his family. He says the war is awful, and pointless and stupid and all that. But that it’s not AS bad as the news might make you believe – he’s positive that his house will still be standing when he returns, the bombing is very localized.

Also, he claims that neither sides have the money for the war to escalate and he doubts that the US will again get involved after burning their fingers in Iraq and Vietnam. It’s just a matter of time according to him.

I don’t know if he’s just telling himself this. I don’t know if the people I ask here, who deny any chance of us being at risk, are also just telling themselves this.

Still, put two people in the same room for more than ten minutes and the conversation will get stuck there. It’s evidently on people’s minds. People are following the news closely, from multiple sources. Different people escalate the extremity to different degrees, as is fitting to their personalities.

But hey, I had lobster and chocolate fudge mud for lunch.

Media and health

Ooh. I went to my first media launch yesterday. What a hose!

It was just some shopping centre they’re building, with all the top dogs of the company sitting there with big fluffy microphones as though it was earth shattering news. All the photographers were flashing away as though they were strutting down some red ramp – and today, in the newspaper, after all those pictures, they still had a terrible photo with one guy’s hand covering his face.

The Arabic press seem far more tenacious than the English press, who sat politely highlighting their press releases. The Arabic press, from what I could pick up from their occasional emphatic English exclamations, grilled and cross-examined each figure. Also interesting how similar Arabic looks to short hand when on a reporter’s notepad.

Also went for a health checkup to get my work permit. This required an eye test, a blood pressure test, a chest X-Ray and showing my breasts to a female doctor who was allegedly checking my heart rate. No Aids test, even though the form said it required one.

Thankfully the driver accompanied me, otherwise I’d have been completely lost. We’re still struggling to communicate with his broken English and my non-existent Arabic. But it was simple: He walked me through told me “sit” or “stand” or “go” and did all the negotiation for me. I wondered if this is what a Muslim woman feels like!

Watched Lars von Trier’s newest, Epidemic, last night. It’s poetic and actually reminded my of Peter Greenway.

Crashed but rearing

I had a somewhat melancholic weekend, vowing never to drink again, and mourning the end of an intense e-mail interaction I’ve been having with a philosopher back in South Africa.

Got ripped out of my self-reflection by some colleagues who took me out on a belated birthday dinner. But I was too absorbed and struggled to keep up with conversation, as much as I tried to show my gratitude and appreciation.

It was good though. It sparked a couple of tears, a long sleep and the mountainous dreams that have characterized my sober stay in this desert island. Woke up feeling ready. After living in a nonsense, halfway-across-the-pond digital world, I earthed myself back to my immediate situation at hand.

Set myself a mission: To find a grocery shop that sells fresh salad ingredients. I did. It came with a DVD shop that has a huge section of foreign and art movies. It’s somewhat different to DVD Gurus – less Western with a focus on Iran and Indian movies. I actually need to find a guide in there, because I don’t recognize what is good.

Continued reading Celine’s Death of the Installment plan and garnered my new motto: No one’s going to thank you for working yourself to death.

Supremely suspicious

So I got utterly trashed, half-well laid and woke up this morning when the secretary at work phoned at 9.30 to find out where I was. This morning was spent miserably hungover and still a bit drunk.

Macdonalds to the rescue, complimented by a grueling interrogation which got my brain functioning again: A Muslim guy at work let me grill him on Lebanon, Islam and terrorism. Quite gracious of him considering everything he said just confirmed my atheism to me more and more.

He was sympathetic with the suicide bombers, but not anti-Jews, although he felt the reaction to Lebanon was uncalled for. He’s quite smart and level-headed, and mostly on these aspects I found myself agreeing with him. And he did agree that Christianity, Islam and Judaism all worship the same god and that the three religions should be able to live peacefully together, there is nothing in principle that is different – just the “execution” of their faith.

But man! What he told me about Islam, it was like he was listing all the reasons why any religion was bollocks as exactly why he believed in it. Apparently the Koran acknowledges and credits the Bible and the Torah, says they were true but misrepresented by the people and that the Koran is the final word of god. Yet, he can’t see that then there will be fourth beta version from god. Nor that on this argument, if god is all knowing and seeing, how could he fuck up – then he’s not a supreme being.

The clincher though, was: “How do you explain untimely death – people dying young – without religion?”

Birthday bugs

It’s my birthday!

I’m stuffed full of chicken and leak risotto, followed by brownie and ice-cream. And I got a cactus from someone at work.

There was somewhat stiffened awkwardness when I brought cake to the office this morning. Half the office, the muslim half, were overly polite and I even got some mixed holiday greetings like “Merry new year”. Muslims don’t do birthdays.

But I figured I can push my one pagan day a year on them – who’s going to say no to cake?

Other than that, the usual helium and butterflies in my stomach and random tears abound. I’m not going to care if I cry on my birthday anymore: maybe then it will go away like the opposite of Heidinger. But it might still be like Shrodinger half-unshed tears.

Not that it’s a bad birthday. I’m just always too highly strung.

Anyway, can’t wait until tomorrow when this will all blow over!

Gotta get a groove

Sigh. I’m deep in the murky heart of political crap at work.

I’m trying to float above it and wrestle it out with my pillow at night: It’s just a job and every job has its ego trips. I don’t mind being their pawn towards gaining power, I don’t want power, but some days, like yesterday, it just gets to me that I have to keep taking the fall for other people’s fuck ups.

Still, work is only in its second month and always the first at least four to six months are awful as everyone readjusts to people’s rhythms.

But I’m going into Phase II Bulldoze to Make Friends: I have to find people that are not connected to work, that I can drink beer with and vent – Friend number two turned out to be a bit of a hermit.

I’m going in Stella, so hand me your groove…

Pink paper's not for pansies

This weekend I read half of Celine’s Death of the Installment Plan, had hours and hours of the weirdest dreams – like Walker Texas Ranger trying to date rape me (but failing: sighs a deep wail of relief) – and was again chilled to the innermost centre of my spastic colon by reading the Financial Times.

Seriously, it was scarier than a Japanese horror movie and my reaction was completely physical – my legs went numb, my heart was racing, hot flushes and shivering sweats, and a constantly nagging bladder. All the stuff about Beirut, India and Russia… and then ultimately that interview with the journalist who has been jailed for interviewing Bin Laden. And the press freedom clampdown on what is broadly and problematically called “glorification of terrorism”.

Blegh. Maybe it’s just that I’m so secluded, and my one dosis of real news a week is crippling. Maybe it’s just the Financial Times.

So today I read the English newspaper of my company – a daily Bahrain paper. It was much more refreshing! For one thing, there’s the ongoing sagas of the maids: Adultery is illegal and there’s always the Delilah-like maids that seduce upstanding husbands. There’s always at least three pages dedicated to “Maid did @#$%” headlines.

These are then followed by two pages of photo-comics of the king’s activities for the last 24 hours – “King writes thank you telegram to other king”; “King receives important person”; “King sits next to prime minister”; “King receives thank you telegram for thank you telegram from other king”. Typical captions.

Then at least three “vanity” articles – some guy sells a record amount of socks or something that day and writes an article about himself and sends it into the paper. AND the paper prints it!

Yeah, fuck the Financial Times. Life’s good on white paper.

The balls of fear and suduko

Since the soccer, everything seems to have calmed down here. I’m not really sure what I’ve been doing to occupy myself, to be honest. Oh yes! Going through another Suduko phase: They have these Killer Samurais in the paper once a week.

Also finally found a “western” grocery shop in my area and managed to gather enough ingredients to make a bolognaise (yes, it’s taken me a month and a half). So, eating bolognaise, watching reruns of That Seventies Show and doing Suduko.

Kinda sounds like my life back in South Africa?

My new Houellebecq has arrived, but I’m keeping it for a “rainy” day – it is my birthday present after all, which is next Wednesday (note product placement).

Still thinking about this notion of “fear” since reading the Financial Times over the weekend. Everything, but everything was about Islam, extremists, terrorists or the petrol price. If this fear is the new “communism” of the American 1960s, it certainly seems to have us by the balls.

Yet, from beyond the frontier, I’m living peacefully in the midst of it, oblivious of the rest of the world’s angst unless I pick up an international paper.

Also, no paper seems to be reporting that if it weren’t for the fuel money, there would be no Middle East. Although they’re trying to diversify their income because reserves are starting to run out, apparently, there’s still nothing that can stand on it’s own two legs. A consumer boycott could only last so long. So then, who has who by the balls? It’s like they’re both holding each other’s balls but neither is squeezing cos they’ll both be fucked.

We’ve been talking about it in the office too. The conversation’s not new: September 11 was orchestrated, neo-conservatism is the real evil and America can’t function without fear, without an other.

But different to discussions I've had before, because we are all living behind the curtain of fear now, we are alienated from the hype. So we’ve really seen how very fragile and, well, er, fuelled it is. The distance gives us new clarity on the hyperreality of mass-media: The skeptic observer – the man who stirs the brain (beer) vat.

So the talk becomes the "fear" itself. How it is created, how it works, what it works for and the power of fear - and, of course, when the boss walks past, how we can use this to make adverts? But, at the same time, we can't deny that as expats we all still do have a grain of that fear within us. Despite us being very aware of it as a simulacrum, it is still a signifier to us. We are on the frontier, but what if that wall comes down and we can't go back?

Another friend said that fear is physical and the analysis can’t dispel it, only reinforces it.

But then what is this weird thing called “fear” that has all of us squeezing our own balls?

words for today

induhvidual n. A stupid person; a person who does or says something stupid.

bozo explosion n. The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers.

aireoke (air.ee.OH.kee) n. Playing air guitar and singing to prerecorded music; playing air guitar in a public performance. Also: air-eoke. [Blend of air guitar and karaoke.]

Manilow method n. The discouragement of loitering in public places by broadcasting music that is offensive to young people, particularly the songs of singer Barry Manilow.

source: www.wordspy.com

World Cup runneth over

Today France supporters hang their heads in shame.

Oh how I have veered from my sport-free life in South Africa! I will now even offer you my socio-political theory. See, both countries were looking to win for a symbol of unification to take back to their unsettled motherlands. Italy and its soccer scandal and other corruptions, France and it racism and social upheaval.

I’m sure you could draw this inference about many a country that played in the world cup. But the prosaicness of these two European greats meeting in the final at a time where the ideal of Europa seems to move further down the horizon of a flat Earth, was too hard to resist.

Ultimately Italy repeated their 1982 victory, uniting despite outside criticism, being fuelled by strife [you know you can’t believe that sentence just came out of my mouth]. Some have claimed this is the only way Italy can win a game.

But possibly on a greater cosmological scale, Italy was ready for a symbol of unification, whereas France was not. Possibly it would still have been an empty symbol for France, possibly the thirst wasn’t strong enough, possibly there hasn’t been enough reform to validate a success.

Still, I wonder what could have provoked such a reaction from Zidane?

So, with a cloying sense of disappointment, you’ll be far more pleased that my subsequent behavior was far more in line with character: We went to a bar and drank tequila and draft.

Yet another scrubbed, air-conditioned and smoky sports bar with hordes of whores and a cover band. This cover band was actually pretty good besides their falsetto version of Bon Jovi. They’re billed as more alternative and rock than the others and did some pretty convincing renditions of Offspring and Limp Bizkit. The beer kicked in, the mood softened and eventually I was even persuaded to unleash my booty on the dance floor. Yes, the secret’s out: My ass-shaking has been seen in Bahrain.

What killed the social voyeur in me last night was all the GI’s passionately miming out, singing along as though their hearts were on fire, the slow songs to their whores. Especially after reading Palahniuk’s story about guys who got rich by dressing up in drag, singing Celine Dion and charging $50 a punch. They also got brain damage.

Besides, some perspective again on the silly pointlessness of sport: Two wall-sized screens mutely displaying the good ol’ Supersport commentators sitting in their polar fleece tops drinking coffee from a canteen and eating koeksisters, running through every high point in the French team’s lead up to the final (one would swear they misunderstood who the winner was, trust South Africa to glorify the underdog).

And on the way home I quipped, “So, what do people do in Bahrain when there’s no soccer?”. Cos that’s all I’ve done since I’ve been here – gone to watch the soccer with people. They laughed, then looked around at each other for assistance, but didn’t find an answer for me.

Accidents and fictions

Oooh aaah France… Swoon!

Anyway I survived another car accident yesterday (what is it with me!?), although I wasn’t driving. This shaikha, nattering away on her cellphone (there’s no rule about that here yet), just drove straight through the red light, into us, without even braking. She did up a leg injury or something.

It did result in me getting to see the ridiculous get up of traffic cops here: Navy blue paints that balloon around the thighs and then are tucked into knee-high black rubber boots. A white jacket, colonial style, with gold brocade and pins. And then finally wrapped in strips of reflecting checked orange squares, like a Christmas tree.

Yes, I have been quiet this week. I guess it’s all starting to become too familiar for me.

I did learn what Islamic banking is – as opposed to well, um, banking. There’s no interest in Islamic banking – apparently interest goes against the Koran somehow. So, an Islamic bank would buy something on your behalf and then sell it back to you at a profit. Going to have to do some more research as to how this is really different and not just a case of semiotics.

And the “truth” about the real estate industry here. Apparently, according to a real estate agent who used to run a jazz club, it’s a lot of hot air. It all looks good on paper, there are all these great figures, but, as I suspected, most of these buildings actually stand empty eventually. Do the maths: a Population of less than a million and ten 50-storey skyscrapers being raised a year. It’s more about strategic buying and selling than actual occupation. On such a small island, what else do you spend your money on? There has to be “asset generation” for the nouveau riche.

Oh and, apparently, in the olden days Bahrain was considered a holy place because it has a sweet water and salt water sea. So this island was used as a massive burial ground for royalty from all over the Middle East. In the centre of the island, used to be layers and layers of archaeological history in this form. Now, well um, where do you think they’re getting the sand to “reclaim” the sea?

I don’t know if any of this is true, I’m just surfing between opinions and snippets.

What I do know is: A tank of petrol costs BD6. That’s about R110 or three beers.

The KY column

Down the road, there are two cold stores (corner cafes) with doors right next to each other. The first one is half the price of the second. The second also has the largest shelf of KY jelly I’ve ever seen, right there next to the cigarettes at the teller, in case you forgot your KY on the way out. The shelf is half-empty since I saw it last on Thursday, before the weekend. Apparently Muslim women have to take it up the ass during their period, but I’m sure that’s not the half of it.

The other half may be The Church of the Latter Gay Saints, which we decided to start up over a 10-hour lobster and champagne session on Friday. Our deity is the chef who poured these substances into our now aching bellies. The rosaries only have two beads and we cross ourselves with middle fingers erect.

But embedded in the holy trinity of KY and saints must be the local internet cafes, one of which I braved yesterday. Each computer is housed in a sealed cubicle, like a change room, for the innocent minded. For the perverted like me who noticed the video cam and the stains of pink yogurt on the walls, like a dime-a-titty-stall.

For all this country’s modest conservatism, why does there seem to be porn around every corner? Even I have caught a bout of football fever. Go France!

Oh, and I made the social pages of some entertainment rag here.