It rained--sprinkled, more like--just a little bit on Tuesday. I thought I was imagining the little wet spots on the windshield, but there were too many of them to ignore, and then several other people had corroborating experiences. Yep, it was rain...write it on the calendar. While running errands to pick up some groceries and souvenirs, I stopped by my saloon (that's a men's barber shop; a "salon" is for women) for a haircut.
Since my electric shaver's battery is now dead and I left the charging cord in Texas, I figured I'd get a shave too. The barber shop is run by two Indian fellows, both of whom are Hindu, and neither of whom speaks any English. They know a few words like "short," "medium," and "long," and enough to communicate their religion and nationality, but that's about it. We still try, though. On my first visit, we managed to have a pretty good conversation, with some sort of Hindu worship music playing on the boom box. This visit, the other guy was there (I guess they tag-team the business when it's not busy) and he had an Indian movie playing on the TV, a musical I think, so the only conversation we had was when I first sat down, smiled, and said, "Short." Until, that is, the time came for my shave. He loaded his straight razor with a fresh blade, turned toward me, and asked, "Are you a Christian?"
Normally, I'm not surprised when someone asks that question over here, but when it's asked by a Hindu holding a straight razor to your throat, you'd be amazed at the things that run through your mind. "Yes," I said, and watched his face. He was still smiling, so I figured either he had no intention of slicing my throat, or he was really going to enjoy it.
I really want to spend more time with the locals. As a work group, the TAMUQ folks spend a lot of time together, and under the circumstances there's a much tighter bond between us than there would be in the U.S., primarily because we understand each other. It's much easier to be around folks who understand you. Nothing wrong with that, and I love my coworkers, but I want to befriend some Arabs. To have an impact, I must understand the culture; to understand the culture, I must learn about the people; to learn about the people, I must develop relationships with them. And these people are easy to like, which is a bonus.
Over the past few days, we've had supper a couple of times at Pizza Hat (not to be confused with Pizza Hut). They serve personal-sized pizzas, and shawarmas. Shawarmas are pressed chicken or meat (lamb and/or beef, I think) with some diced tomato, onion, and maybe some other things, with a little sauce, wrapped in pita. The meat is roasted on a vertical spit. Shawarmas are very much like gyros, the Greek sandwich. The shawarma guy at Pizza Hat is purportedly the best in town, and I can believe it. They're awesome, and for 3QR apiece, you can stuff yourself for a couple of dollars. A paper-plate-sized pizza is only 6QR (less than two dollars). We like Pizza Hat. :)
Posted by jon at November 19, 2003 11:50 PM