A little culture shock

Jun 10, 2008

I have a great many things in my life that I am grateful for, but today I have learned that there is so much more in life that I have never even thought of. Sitting at lunch with some of my colleagues we were discussing life in various aspects. Everything from students, to shopping, to beauty secrets, then the conversation turned to more serious topics. After mentioning my wedding anniversary, (Happy 12th Billy Bear) we were talking about our varied weddings, our children, and on to raising our kids.
Man, have I had it easy.
I have a great man who loves me and takes the time to care about me. I have three healthy beautiful children who are polite and well behaved. I have never had it really hard, not at school, not in any situation. Even those things that are less than happy have been normal and time has healed the wounds. Dad's departure still stings of course, but I can talk about him without choking up now most of the time.
Why would this even come up?
Because the people that I work with now, unlike the people I have worked with in the past, are NOT American. In China there were people from all over the world, but most of the foreigners were American. In Japan half my colleagues were from America, the other half from Canada. We had a lot in common and it was easy to relate.
In this setting I am working with very few Americans. I work with people from Australia, Britain, Canada (ok, they really are everywhere), Iran, Iraq, New Zealand, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Slovakia, India and more. I am learning more about life in other countries every day.
Today I learned to be happy with my experiences. You see, today my friend from Iraq told me about her experience raising her son. The story of when she gave birth and the hospital was too busy assisting the soldiers to assist her, kicking her out of the hospital a few hours after the birth because they needed the bed. The story of struggling with ration coupons and bartering to get enough formula for the baby, and how nappys (diapers) were simply not available, her experiences very similar to those of her grandmother following World War II. This was followed by the story of her son being about 6 years old, playing with other children in the street as they often did, and having the lights go out because of the missiles flying over. How he was terrified watching the fires from the missile flying closer and how the door wouldn't open and by the time she was able to get to him how he had developed a tick that would last another 10 years, showing every time a loud siren or noise sounded. More stories of how, by the time she left Iraq for Germany as a refuge, her son would hide behind her every time he saw a police car for fear that they were coming for them. How people would disappear in the middle of the night, including her brother who was gone for 4 months. How the neighbors were arrested on the street and unable to return to their son who was locked in the house. The boy was lucky enough that another neighbor heard his cries the following day and was able to take him to his grandparents. How his mother wasn't able to return for 4 years, his father for 8.
Sitting across from her listening to her stories I had a complete realization that I have absolutely no frame of reference with which to digest these stories. It is beyond my conception, and thank goodness beyond my ability to even register. So far beyond everything in my experience that I don't have any way of "wrapping my brain around it". Sure, I have an imagination. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of movie watching, but that is nothing more than a two dimensional representation of the shadow of reality. Sitting talking to someone who has really lived through these experiences is unbelievable. Here it is several hours later and I am still in shock. And feeling so happy to have lived through the experiences that I have.

My latest writing piece

May 5, 2008

First thing,
I wrote this story for my writer's group.
The sun sinks slowly into the sands, pulling up a mist of dust around it like a red brown shayla. The sands rise up, welcoming that glowing orb, pulling it down into the very earth.

On the hill there stands a monstrosity of cinder block and white wash. As the light slowly dissipates the monolith of despair stretches its mighty squat shadow like the slow car-wreck-shrug of a muscle bound thug.

The caterwaul of competing electronically enhanced voices rise up from the surrounding slopes, each on a differing note, on a differing word, in a cacophonous cry.

"It's haunted you know."

The voice I hear holds the firm knowing timber of experience, of years spent in the desert sun. It takes time to piece it together. A bit here, a bit there, each source knowing just the smallest bit but more than willing to share. The family that owned it could never live there. Even as it was being built things started to go wrong. The doors would fall from their perch, the windows would slam shut, shattering the very glass in the panes, the electricity has never… will never work properly.

Not for shoddy workmanship…no never that, though how this beastly creation, ripped from the darkest nightmares of Lothlorien and struck fast into the sands like a ghastly cork holding back the very gates of hell, has stood for so long I will never know.

Rather, as the story goes, it is infested with djinn. White buttressed arches rising smack against the side of the building, strapped to the very earth they were meant to fly up from, turrets aligning every side as though prepared for an attack, but what form that attack would take is in itself at question. It is almost as though the architect feared a direct attack from the goats and camels that populate this sparse dune buried expanse. As though someone handed laundry markers to a child and said "here, draw me a castle." The absence of elegance and style is so boldly declared in every striation of the facade.

"It's haunted" and so no one would ever be able to live there.

Except even as I heard those words I knew, I knew that it would be a foreigner who would move in.

If it were an American, they might turn it into a bed and breakfast and charge a fee for tours into the Djinn haunted areas… extra if your windows shatter in the night or double if the electricity inexplicably blows the curling iron across the room.

It is most interesting to me that the bearers of these tales of djinn and hauntings are not the locals who must live with the reality. Instead it is the Grundyish joy of expats who spread this tale of woe like a salve to a wounded pride for being forced to view this spectacle of architectural folly.

I rather dislike the house on the hill.

It's much bigger than mine.


After I wrote the story and presented it to my writing group this news story appeared in a paper. One of my writing group sent it to me by email.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080501/PAGETHREE/138747329

Inside the haunted palace

Rym Tina Ghazal

* Last Updated: May 01. 2008 11:59PM UAE / May 1. 2008 7:59PM GMT

The al Qassimi Palace is said to be haunted by Jinn. Ryan Carter / The National

RAS AL KHAIMAH // Every request for directions to the haunted palace came back with the same response: "You don't need directions, it finds you."

As it turned out, the vast, sprawling mansion was easy to spot. Perched on a hilltop along the main road in A Diat, a suburb of Ras al Khaimah, it stood abandoned, with broken windows that kept watch over a driveway that began at a rusty gate.

The palace, said to be worth Dh500 million (US$70m), was abandoned more than 20 years ago by Sheikh Abdulaziz al Qassimi, because, as a family member put it, "there was no luck in the house".

Although abandoned, the house is not empty, said people who live near its looming walls.

"You hear a woman screaming as if she is being strangled and you see what looks like little children watching you from the roof as you walk by," said Khaled Abdullah, who lives nearby.

The "woman" is said to be a jinn, a supernatural creature that can take human form. The al Qassimi Palace is home to not just one, but an entire tribe, people here believed.

Mr Abdullah said he had seen the spectres, but only from afar. He has never dared to enter the palace grounds.

"These children always come out at night and just watch you and sometimes even call out your name," he said, gesturing with his hands.

"Khaled, Khaled, they would call," Mr Abdullah said, imitating the childlike voice he claimed to have heard. "Never. I will never go in."

The National was made of sterner stuff. A reporter and photographer set out to explore the building, accompanied by Sheikh Tarik Abdel Moneim Ibrahim, an Egyptian exorcist and Islamic scholar.

Entering the three-storey building, visitors are greeted by an engraved marble verse blessing from the Quran.

After the reporter read the verse out loud, one of the three large crystal chandeliers in the main hall suddenly lit up. The other two remained dark.

The light showed intricate colourful murals, and mosaics of animals, women, and green fields covering the walls of the hexagonal shaped palace. Many of the figures had their eyes covered with white sheets of paper.

"To block the jinn from seeing us," explained Mr Ibrahim.

There was evidence of other intruders. Statues of falcons with their heads broken off, tiles peeled from the walls and scorch marks on the floors of the main bathrooms, along with broken egg shells and twigs.

"All kinds of witch doctors from Africa and sheikhs from Saudi Arabia have come through here to try to cleanse this house," said Mr Ibrahim, pointing to ripped pieces of the Quran, and the remains of animal sacrifices.


I just thought it was a cute coincidence.
Hope you liked the story, and the story.