Waiting with Farook
Yesterday, Sunday, Farook called, and asked if we could get together. 'Sure,' I said. 'Tuesday OK?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied, 'Tuesday.'
Today, Monday, my phone rang at 11:00 a.m. 'I'm downstairs. Please come now. Very important.' It was, of course, Farook. That Arabs have no sense of time is not a Western mis-perception; that Arabs are always late is.
A UAE Citizen was with Farook. Farook speaks about 100 words of English, which is 100 more words of English than I speak of Arabic. The UAE Citizen must have had a semester of English, since it is a UAE law; on the other hand, I had to have a semester of German. My German, the day after the final, immediately dropped to the same level as my Arabic, and the Citizen's English had managed a similar disappearing act. So Farook and the Citizen conversed in Arabic while the Koran played on the radio.
A few weeks previously, Farook had abandoned his small, fuel-efficient car for a Mercedes SUV that looked new, but was really just detailed. The SUV kept beeping, and the red light saying, 'Please Check' kept flashing. 'Is this Mercedes new?' I asked. 'Friend,' answered Farook, which I mentally translated into English as 'Used.'
We proceeded to a building that had the usual ground floor of retail shops, but had, rising from the ground floor, two residential/commercial towers. Farook led us to the wrong tower, and up to suite 606. We could hear children inside, but the woman refused to answer the door. We went to the other tower, and there in another suite 606 found the company where Farook hoped to broker a deal between the owner, a lady from Morocco, and the Citizen. The three conversed for about an hour in Arabic, then we suddenly left.
From there, Farook took us to lunch, but did not join us in eating. 'I'm not hungry,' he said. He ordered for me and the Citizen without asking us.
After lunch, we proceeded to the Meridian Hotel.
Farook usually calls on me when he thinks I might bring him luck in one of his deals. Farook's customers are those discovered by the sociologist Professor Barnum to be so rare that a mere 60 of them are born in the course of an entire hour. Today's customer, the one with whom Farook thought I might bring luck, was a German family Farook had met about ten years ago. Farook had found the Germans a flat, and they had found the Dubai winter weather far superior to Germany's, so they have come back to the UAE several times, and each time they returned, they have had Farook broker accommodations or other tourist necessities for them, in a transaction that was mutually beneficial. They really appreciated Farook's help, which they found to be very reasonably priced and extremely useful. What is very reasonably priced to a German is very lucrative to a local agent, so Farook appreciated their business as much as they appreciated Farooks's pampering them.
Consequently, shortly after they arrived in the UAE, they called Farook and said they were staying at the Meridian Hotel.
The problem was that Farook was not sure of their room number, and his Arabisation of their name had little semblance to the German. His plan, such as it was, was to ask that the Meridian page the Arabised name while we waited in the lobby. Farook seemed convinced that they would, upon hearing their name, immediately come to the lobby, but, in any case, they eventually had to cross the lobby, at which point we were bound to see them.
At 4 p.m., I said I had to be going, and Farook was quite disappointed, since his plan involved remaining in the lobby until midnight if necessary. 'You said you were free today,' he complained. 'I said I was free at 11, but I have another appointment at 5.'
Since he didn't expect to see the Germans until they returned from wherever they'd gone, he took me home and dropped me off, but he seemed quite annoyed at my desertion.
At this point, I imagine Farook and the Citizen are still sitting in the Meridian lobby, waiting for the German family, who, after all, have to cross the lobby at some point.
Today, Monday, my phone rang at 11:00 a.m. 'I'm downstairs. Please come now. Very important.' It was, of course, Farook. That Arabs have no sense of time is not a Western mis-perception; that Arabs are always late is.
A UAE Citizen was with Farook. Farook speaks about 100 words of English, which is 100 more words of English than I speak of Arabic. The UAE Citizen must have had a semester of English, since it is a UAE law; on the other hand, I had to have a semester of German. My German, the day after the final, immediately dropped to the same level as my Arabic, and the Citizen's English had managed a similar disappearing act. So Farook and the Citizen conversed in Arabic while the Koran played on the radio.
A few weeks previously, Farook had abandoned his small, fuel-efficient car for a Mercedes SUV that looked new, but was really just detailed. The SUV kept beeping, and the red light saying, 'Please Check' kept flashing. 'Is this Mercedes new?' I asked. 'Friend,' answered Farook, which I mentally translated into English as 'Used.'
We proceeded to a building that had the usual ground floor of retail shops, but had, rising from the ground floor, two residential/commercial towers. Farook led us to the wrong tower, and up to suite 606. We could hear children inside, but the woman refused to answer the door. We went to the other tower, and there in another suite 606 found the company where Farook hoped to broker a deal between the owner, a lady from Morocco, and the Citizen. The three conversed for about an hour in Arabic, then we suddenly left.
From there, Farook took us to lunch, but did not join us in eating. 'I'm not hungry,' he said. He ordered for me and the Citizen without asking us.
After lunch, we proceeded to the Meridian Hotel.
Farook usually calls on me when he thinks I might bring him luck in one of his deals. Farook's customers are those discovered by the sociologist Professor Barnum to be so rare that a mere 60 of them are born in the course of an entire hour. Today's customer, the one with whom Farook thought I might bring luck, was a German family Farook had met about ten years ago. Farook had found the Germans a flat, and they had found the Dubai winter weather far superior to Germany's, so they have come back to the UAE several times, and each time they returned, they have had Farook broker accommodations or other tourist necessities for them, in a transaction that was mutually beneficial. They really appreciated Farook's help, which they found to be very reasonably priced and extremely useful. What is very reasonably priced to a German is very lucrative to a local agent, so Farook appreciated their business as much as they appreciated Farooks's pampering them.
Consequently, shortly after they arrived in the UAE, they called Farook and said they were staying at the Meridian Hotel.
The problem was that Farook was not sure of their room number, and his Arabisation of their name had little semblance to the German. His plan, such as it was, was to ask that the Meridian page the Arabised name while we waited in the lobby. Farook seemed convinced that they would, upon hearing their name, immediately come to the lobby, but, in any case, they eventually had to cross the lobby, at which point we were bound to see them.
At 4 p.m., I said I had to be going, and Farook was quite disappointed, since his plan involved remaining in the lobby until midnight if necessary. 'You said you were free today,' he complained. 'I said I was free at 11, but I have another appointment at 5.'
Since he didn't expect to see the Germans until they returned from wherever they'd gone, he took me home and dropped me off, but he seemed quite annoyed at my desertion.
At this point, I imagine Farook and the Citizen are still sitting in the Meridian lobby, waiting for the German family, who, after all, have to cross the lobby at some point.
posted by Dubai@Random at 4:20 pm
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