Toh Cruhs! Toh Cruhs!

Toh Cruhs! Toh Cruhs!  This seemingly innocent string of syllables, I have come to learn, is the precise phonetic nonsense required to puncture a hole in my wrongfully inflated ego.  To send a once-confident me whirling, like a birthday balloon recently stabbed, to the ground Phtttttttttttt - until the air is out. Toh Cruhs! Toh Cruhs!

Charlotte hails from just outside of London, and when she told me her name, it sounded more like Shalla.  It was wonderful the way the consonant sounds in her name softened when she said it. The abrasive T's that punctuate her moniker fluffed from her lips like she had a mouth full of cotton.

I couldn’t help but tell her, as we squeezed up to the noisy bar for a drink, that I adored the Brittish accent, the Bri-ish accent I called it, weakly attempting an imitation. She confessed to me that the American dialect ignites a bit of a glow in her ear canal as well. 

I had always been under the impression that we Americans watered English down so much that you couldn't taste anything in it, and I told her so. 

She smiled when I talked, a subtle cue that confirmed that she did, indeed, like way I spoke.  “It makes me feel like I’m in a movie when I speak with Americans,” she cooed.  “We watch so many American films in the UK that it just feels like I’m in one when I talk with an American.”

This was the second time in about as many minutes that I’d been reminded of the significant impact Hollywood has on foreign countries.  The world over, people are devouring American movies with their tasty actors and sugary plots.  And here’s the kicker; I, as an American, am the fortunate embodiment of Tinsel Town to these people.  Somehow I get associated with all of that glitz and glamour. Charlotte talks to me, and our conversation becomes the soundtrack to a film.   An assembly of bubbly Japanese girls sees me, and they see a movie star…but wait – we’re not there yet.  Since we’re talking movies, let’s rewind. 

Just minutes before Charlotte told me that my dialect alone gave her a taste of Hollywood stardom, I was comfortably sandwiched between the beaming faces of enthused Japanese gals who wanted nothing more in life than to have a picture with me. 

Brah Pihh!  Brah Pihh, they had shrilled at me from a table across the room. I had shot a glance back over my shoulder at them to reveal my confused smile.  I don’t know Japanese.  Does Brah Pihh mean my zipper is down?  Do I have parsley in my teeth? 

Brahh Pihh! Brah Pihh!  My fears of embarrassment were quickly assuaged when, in unison, they all jumped from their seats and surrounded me, nuzzling their way up under my arms and crying Piksha!  Piksha!  They held up pink digital cameras for envious patrons to snap their photos…with me?! It's true. All of this enthusiasm, this photo op, centered on me.

Piksha me wihh Brah Pihh!  Piksha me wihh Brah Pihh! 

My smile in those photos must have been radiant, because just before the snaps and flashes, I realized what was going on.  I was Brad Pitt (Brah Pihh), and this cute little Japanese buffet wanted to have a picture with me.

Back home, it is always “You look like Owen Wilson” or “You look like James Vanderbeek” – always some washed up actor with prematurely thinning blonde hair and a knobby elongated nose. These are not flattering associations, albeit they are more accurate.  

I entertained an equally brief and ludicrous cerebral scene where Brad Pitt returns to his native Missouri only to be surrounded by love drunk girls, anxious to get a photo taken with him.  They’ve mistaken him, of course, for Adam Showalter.

Obviously this flattering mistaken identity and photo op fiasco had initiated the ballooning of my ego.  It was the first of two puffs of wonderful hot air blown into my ego balloon that night.  My balloon popped, as it tends to, at the end of the night, but not until it was properly inflated - swollen with a false sense of American stardom.

Following my photo shoot, I floated over to the bar to order a drink, leaving my misguided fan base to scroll back through their Brad Pitt pictures.  A fantasy red carpet padded my course, and it was on that very plush fantasy rug that I bumped into Charlotte, Shalla. 

As if my ego needed a second puff of air, within the first minute of our conversation, Charlotte was confessing that the mere utterances from my mouth transcended her from her every day life into the glamorous world of film – that my watery American dialect was revered the world over.

My ego, I’ve learned, is a balloon. It has a sometimes wonderful and sometimes deflating quality of elasticity.  It can expand, and it can shrink.  But as we all learned at childhood birthday parties, the more air that gets pumped in – the tighter that latex is pulled - the more likely it is to pop.

Satisfied with myself after my photo shoot with the groupies and my brief conversation with Charlotte, I noted that my bladder that was plumping up alongside my ego.  My whimsical red carpet rolled out before me and I followed it to the men’s room, imagining the stares of adoring patrons as I made my famous way to the toilet. 

Toh Cruhs!  Toh Cruhs! It was on my way out of the men’s room that I heard those pointed words - those phonetic needles that were to effectively end the short-lived floaty feeling my ego had been experiencing. 

Nestled in that flock of adoring Japanese girls who had, moments ago, puffed their warm air into my ego was another white man.  Slightly husky.  Bad haircut.  Largish ears.  His mouth was agape, revealing crooked yellow teeth.  He lacked all of the movie-star qualities that I’d recently grown to believe I had.  Nevertheless, his arms were up and wrapped around the shoulders of the effervescent Japanese groupies.  “Toh Cruhs!” They shouted. “Toh Cruhs!”

All nationalities and races tend to have difficulty distinguishing one person from another in races other than their own. Hence that taboo phrase, “They all look alike to me.” But here there could be no mistaking.  This man looked nothing like Tom Cruise.  Maybe Gary Busey, but not Tom Cruise.  And yet, here were the beaming girls again, excited for another photo op with a “famous actor.”

Piksha me wihh Toh Cruhs!  Piksha me wihh Toh Cruhs! 

Wait, if they think that guy looks like Tom Cruise, then that means…POP!  I don’t look like Brad Pitt?!

As if to punctuate my fall from stardom, three pink digital cameras were thrust into my chest.  I languidly snapped a few photos for the girls and, feeling deflated, sagged my way back to look for Charlotte hoping that she could help me repair my ego, which was now a soggy wrinkled mess on the floor – a deflated birthday balloon tossed in the trash.  But Charlotte was gone.  She had exited the place, escorted I suppose, by my fantasy of being a star – which was now also decidedly gone.  

  

Number 1

Hurry up and go – I tell my vague reflection on the shiny marble wall in front of me.  I’m giving myself a pep talk.  But this is no locker room, and I’m no coach.  This is a pee-game speech (and that's not a typo).  I’m in the men’s restroom, and my only opponent is my uncooperative bladder.  I’m trying to pee.  The man to my direct right is doing the same thing.  So is the man to my immediate left.  The significant word here being “try.”  Trying to initiate a healthy pee stream when you’re foot-to-foot with a couple of strangers is often problematic. But for some reason it’s particularly tricky right now.

Of course, once one of us loosens up enough to achieve urethral release, two more yellow waterfalls will hastily follow, but for now we are just standing with our legs shoulder-width apart, trying to relax, or focus, or anything that will get this business underway.    Why is this so hard? When is someone going to go!

For a moment I entertain the idea of scurrying out of the restroom, bladder still satiated, and finding an isolated handicapped stall. It’s strange - all of the mental and physical fortitude you can muster to achieve other things in life only work against you when you’re trying to pee.  Trying to pee is counterproductive.  It’s a very Zen achievement, peeing.  You have to try to not try, and then you will go.  In my head I hear Yoda, “Try not. Do or do not do” – but no amount of Star Wars ruminating is loosening my sphincter enough to liberate my bladder.

My ears are piqued, listening anxiously for that initial tinkle.  I know my neighbors to the right and left are listening for the same sound.  That first tinkle will be the checkered flag that commences the event. But so far – nothing. Say 15 more seconds passes and none of us goes, then someone will probably flush his toilet to drown out the silence with running water, and that will get us going, but no one here is ready to surrender just yet.

And that’s when I realize why this is taking so long.  Silence.  It’s too quiet in here.  There is no music in this restroom.  The silence is tangible.  It’s a disturbing-looking, homeless fellow who is standing too closely and looking too closely, and you just can’t go with all that attention. 

In America, the men’s rooms have music.  Mall bathrooms.  Restaurant bathrooms. Bar bathrooms.  They all have music.  Usually it’s just some trite Muzak garbage, but the kind of music it is doesn’t matter.  What matters is that there is sound.  Something to pull an audible blanket over your own sewer sounds so that you and your fellow commode comrades can relax and just go.  I can’t pee in silence.

WHY IS IT SO QUIET IN HERE – I ask the likeness of my face in the linoleum wall above the urinal.  And then, just as the guy to my left throws in the towel and flushes his toilet to get the waters flowing, it hits me. It’s the holy month of Ramadan here in Islamic Abu Dhabi, and one of the rules of Ramadan states that there is to be no music during the daylight hours.  My eureka moment coupled with the running water from my neighbor’s toilet is just what the urologist ordered, and I finally relax and feel the warm stream.  Rahhhhhhmadahhhhhn.

It was possibly the most awkward minute in Pisstory, and Ramadan is the culprit.  Of course, this is not the first time I’ve searched for the source of my misery and found organized religion at its heart. But that’s a digression I will save for another blog.

Much to the dismay of my otherwise freewheeling bladder, Ramadan presses the mute button on all of Abu Dhabi’s restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and of course, men’s rooms. It also signals a time for Muslims to abstain from eating, drinking (even water!), chewing gum, or smoking during the day.

While these regulations sound constrictive to most westerners, the Emirate people approach Ramadan and all of its regulations with the same passionate gusto that the average gift-wrapping stocking-stuffing sugar-cookie-baking American approaches Christmas.  They revel in the opportunity to practice discipline, abstinence, and to empathize with those less fortunate. 

The Holy Month of Ramadan, with all of its abstinence and regulation, stands in stark contrast to American Holidays.  Americans celebrate with brazen indulgence: Thanksgiving?   Gluttony.  Christmas?  Mass consumerism.  St. Patrick’s Day?  Binge drinking. Valentine’s Day? Sexual indulgence. 

Can you imagine Americans celebrating a holiday by NOT having something?  That was a huge fast we had for Thanksgiving.  Isn’t it fun not having presents for Christmas, kids?!  Oh man, you must feel wonderful  - you drank like zero car bombs last night for St. Patty’s.   Thanks for wearing those ugly pajamas and sleeping on the other side of the bed last night, Sarah – you know how I love to abstain on Valentine’s Day. 

There is, of course, a scarcely audible grumbling amongst the newly arrived westerners here.  We are not used to being told we can’t have something.  And that’s to be expected.  After all, we are all from the land where T.I. confidently raps, “You can have whatever you like,” and we all reach for our stacks on deck, sip Patron on ice and nod affirmatively. Right now, there are thousands of American citizens ambling around Abu Dhabi mumbling quietly…

Don’t these restaurants even care about making money?  Why is that place not open? It’s noon, and I’m hungry!

I can smell my coffee breath.  Why can’t I chew gum? Seriously!

I am sooo dehydrated, I don’t see why it’s so offensive to these people if I take a horn off my Nalgene bottle! 

I’ve spent 28 years in T.I.’s Patron-soaked utopia, so I won’t bother trying to convince you that I haven’t quietly harmonized with this chorus of complaints. I have.  But I have also become, albeit involuntarily, more empathetic to our world’s less privileged population because of Ramadan.  And that’s the whole point of the holiday. 

Every time I reach for a bottle of water only to realize I can’t legally drink it in this Islamic City, I’m reminded of the fact that some people are always thirsty – my thirst is not unique or even important.  (Although the desert heat coupled with my lack of access to water has made the color of my urine unique).  Every time my stomach rumbles at me and I have to put my chin to my chest and whisper to my stomach that I know it’s 3pm, but there’s nowhere to get food for another 4 hours - I’m reminded of all of the people who feel like this all of the time.  My hunger is not singular.  It is not special. 

FlluuushshshGURGLE...

The peeing has concluded, and I hastily wash my hands in the men’s room, careful to avoid eye contact with the other two players in my pee trio.  I am reminded of how much I appreciate music.  I can see my own reflection more clearly now, because I’m looking in a mirror, not a shiny marble wall, and I think about all of the ways music makes life better - we dance to it, we sing along to it.  It helps us tune in or zone out. We count on it to diminish the anxiety in the men’s room. 

Would I be thinking this now if it weren’t for Ramadan?  No.  I would have done my business and been on my way.  Being a forced participant in Ramadan has been good for me.  It's made me empathetic,  and it reminds me of what Joni Mitchell said in her 1970’s hit Big Yellow Taxi.  “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” I agree with Joni Mitchell and would add that sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until YOU’VE gone.  

Ramadan Kareem.

 

Room Service, Routines, and Deep Ravines

Pristian is standing at the door of my hotel room with his cleaning cart.  There are two wadded bath towels on my floor, the bedspread is tousled, and the surface of my desk is swallowed up with papers, coffee mugs, crumpled receipts.  There is a banana peel browning on my nightstand next to an empty coke can.

In spite of the mess I’ve made, Pristian smiles at me from over the collar of his starched gray shirt and golden nametag.  I assume he’s smiling at me because I’m sitting, indian style, on the carpet with my laptop.  Most hotel guests probably make use of the desk and chair, but the unsightly heap on my desk has banished me to the floor.

I’m trying to journal about something that happened yesterday, but so far I’ve managed only to type a;dslfjkad;jfdk or some variant of home-row nonsense that I routinely use to springboard a writing project.

Pristian is a good-natured young man from the Philippines.  He has an endearing gap between his two front teeth, and he always smiles as he goes about his work cleaning up my messes.  He is efficient in his routine.

“It’s okay for me to clean your room.”  This is not meant to be declarative.  It’s a question, but Pristian forms his questions with declarative syntax and can’t quite get the hang of bringing up the inflection at the end of the sentence to indicate a question mark.

“Yes, please come in,” I say from my cross-legged station on the carpet.

He pulls his cleaning station behind him and bows in the doorway to begin his customary cleaning routine.  He rips off my sheets and puts down starchy clean ones. He replaces my full trash bags with empty ones.  He swaps my empty shampoo bottle with a new one, and exchanges my wadded towels for saintly white ones.  I note that he does this in the same order every day.

“I can vacuum where you are sitting,” Pristian asks - again without the proper syntax or inflexion.  The spot on the carpet that I’ve chosen as my workstation is where Pristian vacuums after he replaces the dirty towels.  I’m familiar with his routine.

I nod yes and pick up my laptop to sit it atop a pile of papers on my desk.   

Pristian looks at my laptop.  “You are doing work.”  He’s interested in what I am typing.

“Oh, just writing my journal.”  Pristian snakes his head around to look at my computer screen.  He flashes his gap-toothed grin when he sees my home-row drivel.  He’s not a native English speaker, but he knows enough to know that ad;lkasdkj can hardly be heralded as journaling. 

I’ve learned a few things about Pristian during my stay here.  For one, he speaks descent English save his inability to properly construct a question.  He likes working here, because this hotel does business in English, and he wants to go to America to manage a five star hotel someday.  This job is good English practice and good hotel management training.  He attends university in Abu Dhabi.

Still amused by my journal entry, Pristian starts up his vacuum, WWwwwHHhhhhrrrrrrr…..and for a moment I just marvel at how similar his vacuuming path is to the vacuuming path he took yesterday and the day before.  I quickly tire of watching him vacuum, so I step carefully over the chord on my way to the nightstand to pick up my banana peel and coke can. Surely I can spare a moment from my a;dkljasdflkjfj literary masterpiece to help out.

The vacuuming stops and Pristian seems happy that I’ve done my part to help clean and saved him from having to pick up another one of my banana peels.

“I remember that you said you wanted to move to America to work in the hotels.  Where would you like to go work in America, Pristian?” I guess I'm trying to make up for my mess by offering conversation.

“I want to see Grand Canyon!”  He speaks loudly - the way people often do after a noisy vacuum has been turned off.  He clearly misunderstood the intent of my question. Either that or he’s been severely misled about the abundance of five star hotels in the Grand Canyon. “You have been to the Grand Canyon!” he yells at me.

Of course, he is asking me if I’ve been, not telling me. After all, there is no way he could have known that I was just there a few months ago.

I give Pristian a brief synopsis of my family’s recent trip to the Grand Canyon as he wraps up his vacuum hose.  He marks something on his clipboard, and backs out of my room smiling and bowing with his cleaning cart in tow.  His whole cleaning routine takes less than 10 minutes, and I wonder if his efficiency is a result of his routine, his doing the same thing in the same order every day. Change sheets. Take trash out. Replace Shampoo…

On my recent trip to the Grand Canyon, I stood at the precipice of the chasm and marveled at the Colorado River miles below.  Eons ago, there was no canyon there.  The land was flat - uncut.  But that was before the water had a routine.  Before it began flowing systematically.  Before its route was regimented.  

At some point the water began to adhere to one path instead of meandering about.  And it flowed over that path every day.  First the routine flow washed away the topsoil.  Then it swept away the thin layer of rock below the topsoil.  Then the sandstone below that.  Then into the bedrock and so on until the water grooved out a ravine, and had no choice but to flow in the channel that the routine had cut away. The water was no longer free to meander.  The routine had chiseled out a path that the water was now confined to. 

And I wonder how much we humans are that way.  We create little harmless routines for ourselves, and before long, we’ve cut away a path, and it becomes the easiest means of travel, so we continue to take the same path over and over again.   Eventually, we cut away layers and layers until we are actually trapped in routines, rivers cutting away at the bedrock and trapping ourselves into a channel.  Change Sheets.  Take trash.  Replace shampoo.  Repeat…

And yet, even if the routine traps us, it simultaneously allows us to be productive, or at least make an impact.  The Grand Canyon is among the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and it is the direct result of the water’s thoughtless adherence to a routine.  Pristian can make a hotel room sparkle in minutes because of his loyalty to routine. 

Everything I’ve ever accomplished was the result of a regimented routine – a study routine, a workout routine, a practice routine. All of my accomplishments were preceded by routines. 

And still I hate the idea of grooving my routine so deeply into the bedrock that I end up like the Colorado River - trapped deeply in an abyss from which I cannot escape.

I think of a specific friend back home who told me she could never move to another country even though she hates her life where she is.  Here is the problem with regiments, with routines.  She is too attached to her not-so-grand canyon to meander outside of the banks that she's been cutting away at for so many years.  Her routine has thoroughly nestled her at the bottom of her canyon, so that she will forever miss out on all of the freshness that life can bring about when one meanders outside of the banks.  When the routine is broken.

All of this contemplation has me inspired to write again, so I seize my computer from atop my desk and sit back down on the freshly vacuumed carpet to get these ideas in writing. But not before I impulsively execute my prewriting routine again…aadlkjfjkda;dfjk;.

The Average American Male

We American men are clumsy creatures, right?  We are awkward and ineloquent.  We hastily fumble around with our chests thrust out, our unkempt beards somersaulting off of our jaws, and our tee shirts stained with mustard splatters. We try desperately to divert attention away from our physical shortcomings by being rowdy, jovial, and boisterous, but all to no avail. 

We try to be graceful - to move about with eloquence and have meaningful conversations.  We try to connect with our friends, both men and women, on an emotional level.  We try to be tidy.  Hell, we’ve even tried being more physically affectionate. 

Case in point – the “man hug.” This is a patently American practice where two fellows converge hands forcefully at chest level, and then pull each other towards the united hands to collide chests. This is followed by a brief, one-armed embrace with the free limb, and then a hasty parting of ways as the men rumble clumsily in opposite directions lest anyone think their affection too generous. 

Do not misunderstand me.  I do not think myself better than American men now that I’ve been out of the country for a week.  I am still very much a runner in the American Manathon.  I walk clumsily.  I am often unkempt. I have the emotional capacity of sand, and I wince at male-male physical interaction.  And that is why Emirate men fascinate me.

The Emirate male is a peculiar creature.  For starters, he is dressed, from the neck down, in a silky white robe, the hem of which falls just above his sandals.  The kandora, as this garment is called, is somehow both silky and velvety simultaneously.  It hangs loosely, but very attractively, down to the tops of his sandals and is in no way frumpy or baggy.  Imagine if Ralph Lauren got to redesign the wardrobe for the KKK, and you’re getting close. 

The Emirate man’s beard is the most pristinely trimmed facial hair you will see on the earth.  With its sharp curves and thick black appearance, it’s something akin to a facial-hair version of Busch Gardens.  To be quite honest, the beard envy I’ve experienced in the last week is enough to bring me to tears every time I see my scraggly growth gawking back at me from my bathroom mirror. 

All of these physical features, when put together, create a striking effect.  The Emirate man walks slowly and evenly.  He almost glides above the floor, and because of his brilliantly white kandora, he often looks ethereal, ghostly.  His chin stays high and he wears his pride outwardly but subtly, stopping just shy of arrogance.  

The men in Abu Dhabi approach physical interaction in a strikingly different way, too.  While male-male physical interaction makes western men squeamish, it is openly displayed here.  The man hug, it should go without saying, is not a common practice here.  Emirate men will touch noses while shaking hands.  They will walk arm in arm as they stroll about.  In fact, it is not entirely uncommon to see men, if they are old friends, holding hands.  And while it’s difficult for us as westerners, with our tendency to sexualize everything, not to assume there is a homoerotic quality to these acts, there is not.  These men are just comfortable with physical affection. 

To state it simply, the Venn diagram used to compare Emirate men and American men only needs enough room in the overlapping portion to write “penis.”  Apart from that, we share little in common.  Theirs is a stoic, quiet confidence.  Ours is loud and attention grabbing.  They are laconic and don’t engage in small talk.  We hate silence and prefer to discuss sports we know nothing about or weather to avoid it.  They are solemn, and in all of my time here, I have not seen a single Emirate man laugh out loud.  We laugh out loud so often that we have dedicated an acronym to the beloved practice.

In some ways, I admire these men, and yet I have no intentions of assuming their practices myself.   That being said - I fully expect to be pelted with an onslaught of gay jokes from my buddies after they read this blog.  Now you can finally hold hands with other dudes, Showalter.  I simply find it awe inspiring how different our two male cultures are, and while it’s hard not to try and tag one culture or the other with words like “better” or “worse,” I think for now I’ll just stick with “different.”

I can't believe it, but my blog has been read over 2000 times in the last week.  Thank you all for enjoying my adventure with me.  

Finding a Cloud in the Silver Lining

I have not yet received word on where I will be teaching.  Although the vast majority of the teachers will be placed in the bustling cultural Mecca of Abu Dhabi, some of the teaching jobs are way out in the rural desert, hundreds of kilometers away from the high-rise apartments, pools, and jetsetters here in the city.  

A vast expanse of barren wasteland sits between here and those jobs on the “western edge” where the undeveloped land is still sheathed in hot sand and the water trickles out of faucets with all the force of a racing snail.  It is the stickless version of the sticks.  And until I get placed, I am confined to this 5-star purgatory, hoping that I do not get placed out there. 

But all of this idling has given me ample opportunity to pursue one of my favorite pastimes.  Worrying.  Worrying about the whatifs and whatwills.  What if I’m placed on the western edge instead of in the city?  What will my apartment be like?  What if it’s squalid? What if I have to ride a camel to school instead of a new car?

It’s always been a practice of mine to worry – to run every possible worst-case scenario through that theater screen in my mind.  Through this method, I am allowed the uniquely exasperating privilege of turning an otherwise fond experience into a damnable catastrophe. 

My grandmother, a renowned worrier herself, taught my father to worry, and he graciously passed it along to me.  When I was a boy playing at Grandma’s house, even the small, shallow fishing pond in the pasture behind her house hosted a multitude of perils. 

That benign little fishing puddle evoked all kinds of worrisome dread because what if you fell in and miraculously happened to cramp up on account of the small snack you ate less than 15 minutes ago?  I could see Grandma’s gears working as the murky pond floor in her mind managed to grip and suck at, not just my feet but my arms, thereby immersing my young face into 3 feet of deceitfully amiable waters.  Drowning was inescapable.  Every scenario Grandma played out in her head led to my certain death. 

My father, who inherited her worrying gene, was able to suppress it slightly better than my Grandmother, although he refused to let me cut anything with a knife until I was well out of college. Upon seeing me prepare food on the cutting board, he would run up behind me to snatch away the knife because he worried that a detached bloody finger mixed in with the eggplant was inevitable. 

Even now, when I help Mom with the cooking, Dad will sit in his kitchen chair peering out over his Reader’s Digest to watch me cut vegetables, and I can see him wince every time the knife slides into the cutting board. 

While I should be floating around at this hotel’s multi-level pool with the assurance that I’ll have a great experience teaching and learning wherever I am placed, I find myself milling in a worrisome circle around my computer opening my email every 18 seconds or so to see if I’ve received a placement.  Will I be in beautiful Abu Dhabi City or in the arid version of Iowa without all that picturesque corn? 

I suppose worrying has to carry with it some sort of evolutionary benefit, but I don’t see how. Imagine Ughbot, the thick-browed caveman…

He worry about being eaten by big mean saber tooth so he sit on rock in cave all day make sure no get eaten Tummy rumbling Ughbot hungry but no get food because maybe saber tooth hungry too. 

But then doesn’t Ughbot die of starvation and leave this world without any progeny to carry on his worry gene, because he’s too worried about tigers to risk going out for food?

Or maybe a daring little cavegirl strolls confidently into Ughbot’s cavern in her scandalous fur lingerie, unafraid of the outside world, and once inside – she gives Ughbot the hot steamy chance to pass on his gene, although it will be slightly diluted by her primitive bravado?

However it happened, that irksome gene managed to survive from Ughbot, to Grandma, to Dad, and now to me.  It has fully expressed itself in the Showalter family, but perhaps the gene will die with me.  After all, every time I entertain the idea of having my own family, the idea is accompanied by anxiety, worry, and panic.  Now, to check my email - to see if all my worry about being placed in the western edge is merited.  

Taxi Cab Confessions

It’s 1:45 a.m., and the bar at the Abu Dhabi Hilton has just closed.  I’m facing backwards, sitting in the front seat of a taxi driven by a sullen man named Mahook. I’m fighting a battle with the shoulder stap of my seatbelt as I converse in a high-pitched fervor with my new Irish friends (or mates as they’d say) Asling and Finn. 

Both are in Abu Dhabi to teach English as well.  Our drink-induced roar surely sounds abrasive to Mahook, the demure young Indian fellow at the wheel, but we have, in the spirit of the Irish, “ad uh few phoints uh beer,” and we just can’t help it.

“Seriously, you know cowboys!?” Asling beams.  It’s like I’ve told her I just landed backstage passes to a U2 concert the way she handles this information.  “I. LOVE. Cowboys!” Finn nods his head up and down vigorously to affirm that he too has an affinity for them. After sitting at the bar for a bit, these two learned that I wasn't just from America.  I was from "the country."

“Did they have boots and buckles?  Do you know Garth Brooks?  Can you play Thank God I’m a Country Boy on Guitar?”  She and Finn are as enamored with cowboy culture in America as we Americans are with erecting “Irish Pubs” and celebrating St. Patty’s day back in The States. 

And then it occurs to me that we always admire most what is furthest away.  I have a tendency to drift off into my own head when I’ve had a few pints, so I try to push this thick idea to the back of my mind and just stay in the moment…but it’s too late.  The concept has already linked itself to a matter I was considering on my connecting flight to Chicago just last week, and I'm lost in my thoughts...

We always admire most what is furthest away.  As you climb elevation on an airplane, the topography of the earth begins to smoothen out.  The higher you ascend, the more the land flattens and softens. The landscape’s assortment of crags, divots, chasms, bumps, and crooked lines begin to blend into something smoother.  What is probably a scummy green pond when seen from up close becomes a shimmering golden puddle returning the sun’s glow when seen from above. 

The further you ascend - the more distance you put between yourself and the land - the more it begins to resemble a soft colorful quilt.  All of those imperfections, the crags, divots, chasms, bumps, and crooked lines begin to fade away. 

Similarly, humans (myself included) look best when seen from a distance.  Because of my tendency to entertain a bit of narcissism, I like to keep people at arm’s length because I inherently understand that the closer an observer is, the more likely he/she is to see my imperfections -my vanity, my insecurities, my lack of faith.  The true lay of my land.  I recognize that, when only viewed from afar, those imperfections smooth out into a soft quilt.  I am the scummy ponds that looks like a golden pool if you’re far enough away. So I keep people at a distance.  People admire most what is furthest away.

“…And I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him diiieee…!”  Asling and Finn are screaming Johnny Cash songs in the back of the taxi; I suppose to show me just how ready they are to submerge themselves into the beautiful world of cowboys. Tall hats, horses, fences, the smell of leather and open fields. 

I was never really that much into the cowboy culture, but then it was so close to me, so available.  I was close enough to see the real cowboy culture.  Cowboys were no better or worse than any people.  Some cowboys are stoic, blade-of-wheat-chewing poets who ride horses, love the land, and love their families.  Some are mindlessly dull, closed minded, and addicted to chewing tobacco.  I suppose it was too close for me to properly admire it. “… When I hear that whistle blowing - I hang my head and cry!” The volume of their rendition of the song coupled with the Irish accents has Mahook tightening up his face.

By this point in my introspection, I’ve given up my fight against my seatbelt strap and I’m facing forward, watching the road ahead with Mahook, who looks over at me and wrinkles his brow. He’s probably seen me staring off into space and thinks I’m showing all of the symptoms of the-drunk-guy-who-is-going-to-vom-in-the-cab.  Blank stare, squinted eyes, slouched body.  My pondering countenance is being mistaken for pre-puke pontificating.  In the back Asling and Finn are sufficiently entertained without me, and I’m wondering if I’ll ever get better at “letting people in.”

The problem with this keep-people-at-arm’s-distance approach to life is that, like the landscapes on playground earth, people only LOOK best from afar; they are not EXPERIENCED best from afar.  Sure, I might look like a golden pool instead of a scummy pond when viewed from a remote observer…but eventually just looking at a golden pool becomes dull, and you’re ready to jump in and swim, or look for tadpoles, or fish, or DO SOMETHING in pond.  We always admire most what is furthest away, but how long can you just sit around and admire that pond before it gets boring?  I’ve heard of people admiring a painting for days on end, but I think that’s rare.  I can thoroughly examine an entire art museum in a few hours. 

So maybe I should be more inclusive.  I should let people in close to experience what is real about me, and not just what I’d like them to see.  But for now, the last verse of Folsom Prison blues is being delivered with gusto and an Irish accent in the back of the taxi, and I think Johnny Cash must have been dealing with the same thoughts as I am.  “…If that railroad train was mine, I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line.”  It sure would look better if you did that, Mr. Cash, we always admire most what is furthest away, even if it's railroad trains.  But is the point of a railroad train to be looked at?

Arabic with Adam

I have only been in Abu Dhabi for 3 days, and I am - there is no room for debate here, the best Arabic speaker in this town.  Locals included.  I’ve added at least 3 words to my lexicon today, bringing the grand total of words I can say to 3. 

Since I’ve so easily adopted these words, I can only assume that my propensity for language will allow me to just absorb the language without having to open a single Arabic/English Dictionary. 

I keep viewing, in my mind, this dreamy music montage that documents my triumphant climb from illiteracy to fluency. 

Shot one. You see me talking at a group of Arab men in head wraps and flowing white robes.  They all squint at me and turn their heads to listen. But what's this?  They furrow their brows and shake their heads no.  I throw up my hands in disgust because they cannot understand me, but I quickly recover from my failure, and a close up on my face shows my grit and determination. 

Shot two.  As the music begins to swell, you see me watching Arabs speak to one another and to me, and their lips begin to move in slow motion.  This is where I, (the viewer) understand that director (me) is making it clear to the audience that the star of this montage (also me) is beginning to identify individual words in the indigenous tongue.  Another close up on my face, and we can see that I’m bound and determined, as they say.

Shot three.  The camera cuts to a close up of my mouth moving very slowly, mimicking the intricate movements of the Arab mouths – cut to a dark skinned Arab smiling and nodding to indicate that, yes, he understands... but what’s this?  Now he is shrugging his shoulders with his palms up in the air to indicate that he didn’t get that last part.  Another close up on my face reassures us that the star of our montage is not ready to give up.

Shot four.  In this final scene, just as the tympanis in the orchestra begin to roll loudly and the strings of the violins inflate to climatic proportions, we see me, two years later, sitting leisurely at a table with 3 other Arab men, who smile and throw their heads back to laugh at my high-browed jokes in pristine, flowery Arabic.  A final close up on my face shows the heroic qualities of my face and it is clear that I am self assured in my fluency. CUT!

I think this all springs from too many viewings of Dances with Wolves, as a child.  In the film, starring Kevin Costner, Costner is a Union Soldier who finds himself stranded with a tribe of Native Americans just after the Civil War.  He learns one word “Tatonka,” which means buffalo, and within two minutes of movie time, he is making heady sexual puns with the natives in their indigenous tongue as they all sit around a crackling campfire smoking a peace pipe. Is that so hard to believe?!

The method I’ve devised to learn Arabic, so far, is twofold...not to mention brilliant.  First, I am only going to watch Arabic TV.  I started this foolproof language learning technique, or so I thought, on my first day here. It was a day or so later that I realized, with a slightly deflated sense of determination, that I was tuned in to Telemundo. 

After my channel botch, I got my tube locked into a genuinely Arabic channel, and I’m on my way.  Even when I’m not watching TV, I’m leaving it tuned in to Arab channels.  Right now, in my hotel room, there is a fellow on TV either speaking perfect Arabic or clearing his throat of phlegm (the two are indistinguishable).  I’m soaking up Arabic subliminally, without trying.  Osmosis.  This technique is analogous to my indisputable study habit of sleeping with my face nestled in the spine of an open textbook and soaking up the information therein. 

My biggest success so far is learning to say the name of our hotel, Bab Al Bahr.  I’ve impresse my less fluent colleagues here at the hotel by pronouncing, with native accuracy if I don’t say so myself, Bab Al Bahr.  I got in a taxi last night, and said to my driver, “Bab Al Bahr!”  He smiled widely at me.  What a beautiful dialect!  What enunciation! He must have thought.  The others riding in the taxi began to whisper and nod approval in the back.  Footnote:  I didn’t witness any of this happening, but I know it did. 

While the word looks simple enough to pronounce, it is difficult even with my legendary inclination for all things language.  The trick is to give your tongue a break.  As English speakers, our tongues have anatomical ADD.  Say the word “Testimony.”  Do it. Say it out loud.  I bet your tongue bounced around in your mouth like a shiny pinball leaping from its spring-loaded launching pad to rocket back and forth between two rubber-banded cones. 

TES - (your tongue hits the roof of your mouth a few centimeters behind your teeth, before scooping down to your mouth’s trenches only to fire back up and smack the back of your two front teeth).  DING DING DING.  And we still have TIMONY to go.  Already your tongue has done more work than an Arab speaker’s does in a year.

To speak Arabic, and you’re hearing from an expert here (let’s not forget about my legendary success directing the cab driver to our hotel), one must let the tongue drape over the back molars.  And leave it there.  Arabs do not use their tongue to speak.  If your tongue moves, you’re cooked.

The first time an Arab French kisses, I assume it is like the first time a morbidly obese man decides to finally expunge himself from his couch, put those sweat pants to good use, and go for a run after 10 years of sedentary gluttony spent watching reruns and reality shows. By the time his tongue escapes his mouth and makes contact with hers, eager for that ground breaking mouth dance, it is thoroughly spent, dripping with sweat, and ready to lug itself back to its cave to watch the world from the safety of its couch on the molars.

Try saying Bab Al Bahr. Seriously try it!  Did your tongue move?  Bad tongue.  Try it again and this time, order that overzealous tongue of yours to sit quietly in time out in the back of your mouth.  That’s better.  This first session of Arabic with Adam is free.  To order your complete series of online Arabic lessons…wait a few years. 

  

Talkin' bout a heat wave

This morning I stepped outside to take some photos, and as soon as I ventured out of the controlled climate of the Bab Al Bahr Hotel I was ambushed by an invisible cosmic blow dryer that, in tandem with the angry massive sun, fogged over my sunglasses, turned my skin soggy with sweat, and sent me in to a temporary panic about suffering a painful-desert death in mere seconds.  

To say that it is hot here is a gross understatement comparable to saying the ocean is moist.  And to say it's a dry heat implies that the heat is more comfortable than the heat American midwesterners are used to, which is a stretch.  But I will take this over a biting January morning in Missouri any day.  

Below is a picture of my hotel.  There are outside lagoons, pools, and fountains at every turn.  I think these manufactured bodies of water are a subliminal DON'T PAINC messages to people who are unaccustomed to this heat and are considering the possibility that they might be dying.  These crystal-water pools, in their babbling and splashing intonations seem to be whispering, "In case of emergency - we are here to help."

Below is a picture of my hotel room.  Note the rich mahogany. Rich, rich mahogany.

Below is a picture of my bathroom facilities.  My bathroom includes a tub that is over 10 feet deep with a great view of my TV, surround sound, and remote controlling capabilities for all the room's electronic devices.  I typically don't watch much TV, but now that I can watch it from my swimming tub, I've become a bit of a tub potato.

Below is a picture of the second largest Mosque in the world, which is right across that anonymous body of water from my hotel.  There is an impressive yacht floating around out there.  It is a tradition to name a yacht, and while I couldn't read the Arabic on the back of the boat, I have to assume it was named Allah this water Israel nice.

As-Salamu-Alaykum- and thanks to all who have been following me.  Over 500 views of my blog in the last 2 days.  Thanks for your support!

Listen...do you smell something?

Halfway into my fourteen-hour flight, I’m sitting next to a Pakistani who, with his mustachioed mouth agape, is radiating body odor the likes of which I have not smelled since my junior high locker room.  His head totters forward as he abruptly falls asleep and, just as abruptly, wakes himself with a loud dry snore.   And it all started out so well…

Seven hours earlier, I lurched into the Boeing 777, rolling my luggage behind me, and found my seat, next to the window in a 3-seat row.  I was almost the last passenger to board, and I was relieved to see that mine was a window seat with an open seat next to it and a smiling, young, Indian fella sitting in the next seat over.  He greeted me with a nod and a hello that sounded more “Khello!” than anything.

As the army of spruce looking flight attendants attended to their preflight business and my neighbor and I discussed his family back in India, I decided that if there was such thing as a good 14-hour flight, I was about to have one.  

“Excuse me sir,” one of the prim little flight attendants was speaking to my Indian friend, “Your seat is the next one forward.”

My new friend vacated his seat and a large man with a wrinkly off-white dress shirt, a khaki vest, and enough gold rings to upstart a small jewelry store in America plunged into the seat once occupied by such an amiable youngster.  The physical act of sitting sufficiently stirred up the odors in the man’s shirt and pushed them out from the cotton and into the airplane’s limited oxygen supply. 

There was an empty seat between us, which normally would have opened up a lucky 3 feet of extra room to move. However, this man’s aroma smashed me flat against the window.  I simply could not get far enough away.

I spent the first hour of the flight inventing a makeshift gas mask from a plastic airplane cup and the complimentary blanket, and the next hour devising a way to use it discreetly.   The last 12 hours drained away with me reading my nook with my body contorted in just such a way as to not reveal my breathing apparatus. The smelly man looked to have the sense of humor of a pile of rocks, and I doubted his appreciation of my ingenuity.

The plane descended onto the Abu Dhabi runway, and I pushed my way through the throngs to escape the odor.  I was greeted in the airport by two things.  First was the aroma of curry being cooked up in a restaurant nearby (a smell that, to my dismay, struck precisely the same chord in my olfactory senses as the Pakistani).  The second thing that greeted me was a pretty girl with a warm smile and a sign that read ABU DHABI TEACHERS.  I approached her. After a delayed flight, the rank man, and fourteen hours of leg cramps, things were finally going to go my way.

“And your name sir.”  She said it more than asked. 

“Adam Showalter.” 

She flipped through a stack of work visas, got to the last one, and started flipping through again the other way.  As she rifled through the papers for the 5^th time, I realized, alas, things were not finally going to go my way.  I informed her that my original flight had been rebooked, and asked if maybe that’s why my visa hadn’t shown itself during her thorough search.

“Oh definitely.  Follow me.”  She took me away from the rest of the herd, all with visas in hand and heading towards baggage claim, and walked me to a room with a no-nonsense sign that said VISAS. 

“We will find your visa in here.  Just take a seat over there,” she extended her arm and waved it in the opposite direction.  I picked up my carryon bag and turned to go find a seat where she had pointed me, and saw three black folding chairs sitting in the corner of the room.  One was occupied. 

In that occupied chair, in the center of the three, there sat a dark mustachioed man with a wrinkly off-white shirt, a khaki vest, and enough gold rings to upstart a small jewelry store in America.   I couldn’t even make something like this up.  There he was again, and his stink was wafting across the room to me.  Apparently 100% of the people experiencing paperwork problems sat in our row of two.

“I’ll just stand here if that’s okay?” I answered.  And it was okay. 

Ultimately, I got my visa.  I claimed my bags and guitar.  I found my shuttle.  I talked about American music in broken English with the shuttle driver who, while driving us to the hotel, noticed my guitar.  And now I’m here. 

My room is as swanky as any I’ve ever stayed in.  My window overlooks a port with lighted fountains, a wavy bridge that lights up and glows as vehicles go over it, and a castle that looks like the one Aladdin wasted his first wish on. 

So I’ll leave you with this couplet.

The journey here was rank

But this place is swank

I'll post pictures in the next couple days.

Graveyard

One of my favorite things about driving to work in Springfield was that every morning I passed a graveyard during my commute.  Rust-colored iron fencing corralled a landscape of well-manicured grass, draping evergreens, and granite grave markings.  Sometimes, when I left for work early enough, a white fog blanketed the space between the grass and the tops of the gravestones.

I found that I was not depressed by the sight.  I didn't find this reminder of my mortality morbid or worrisome.  In fact, I found that graveyard, and the thoughts of death that accompanied it every morning, inspiring.  It reminded me that my time here is short.  Just like the books I teach my students in class, my life will have a last page. The graveyard reminded me that I only get one shot, and that at some point that shot is over.  Expired.  Finished.  So what do I want to do with my shot?

One thing I decided I want to do is to sell out as a teacher - to go balls-to-the-wall making sure that I validate my students, give them a voice, and help them become thoughtful individuals.  To show them that taking good risks is not only okay, it's imperative. To remind them that no matter what mistakes you make, there is a pile of dirt and a granite stone that will one day cover them all up, so don't take your mistakes too seriously.

The other thing I decided I want to do before my shot is up?   Experience life outside of America.  I want to take my brain, that cerebral silly putty, and remove it from its plastic egg.  I want to stretch it as thin as it will go, press it against a map of the world, and see what parts of the ink stick to it. I want to take the risks that I encourage my students to take.

So, I applied for a job in Abu Dhabi.  Flew to New York for an interview.  Impressed someone.  Got the job.  Sold all of my stuff.  And now I'm off.