"internationalist...yeah, that's not the best name, but..."

6751...er, was it 5761...West San Miguel. It was a chant I learned as a little person to remember my address. It was painted on a rock that we took with us when we moved from my first home. That stone, the last remnant of that fleeting and frivolous confidence that belongs only to innocent children who know, just know, that they are completely secure and completely loved. Ironic, isn’t it, that a rock, symbolically and tangibly, should be my anchor to such an thing, something so dream-like and intangible as a memory. But, it’s a memory that is the foundation of who I am. Isn’t that crazy? We build ourselves on the foundations of a dream of what once was. Yeah. Who needs anything more solid than that. If that isn’t good enough, I don’t think anything can ever be.

As I sit here in this UK-based cafe drinking my Italian espresso served by my new friend, a Philipino barrista, having just left my Egyptian friend, listening to classical European guitar overlapping with the sounds of the morning Islamic prayers piped into the whole shopping center, eating my croissant, I think about that old neighborhood and how it came to be that today, I can feel so utterly content and at home, across the marble, a mere three months new to this place, in a desert less comfortable than my own desert.

I think of the Korean family across the street who inspired the name of one of the first family dogs I can remember: Toki (meaning “rabbit,” apparently), whose counterpart was a cocker spaniel named Yolanda.

I think of my surrogate grandparents, a German couple. They were the ones who, unlike my blood relatives, were there for my first steps. Mr. and Mrs. Jay, who were and still are, in my cloudlike memory, a whimsical but manicured garden with whirly-gig bird mobiles, butterfly collections, the smell of mothballs and the sound of a cuckoo clock.

My mom was friendly with the Puerto Rican lady down the street, until, after calculating my revenge at age 4 or 5, I gave her son a bloody nose for all the times he had bullied me.

I went to school with Greeks, southerners, and countless other cultures. It was one culture to me. Or rather, each family had it’s own culture and that seemed normal. We were the “Mexicans,” although none of us had been born or had ever lived in Mexico, except for my mom for a few weeks at a time in her youth.

My mom’s community college friends in my youth were African-American, Chilean, south and central American of many lands, Saudi, Persian, and I don’t know who else. I think I was too young to really know who was who. They just were. So many cultures. I remember the music and art, incense, languages, and foods stimulating my senses. Wonderful.

I never knew how lucky I was. It was just life. It was a stew. Not a melting pot. Guess the heat wasn’t on that high.

Over the years, I noticed more and more that this is not typical in the world. Either there are neighborhoods, pockets of people preserving their cultures out of pride, or protecting out of fear. Or, there is the dreaded assimilation, where culture is lost. For years, I had these two ideas to gage myself by, and sadly, came to the conclusion that I must be one of the assimilated. Awful. Language lost. I can’t even make a decent pot of beans or a tortilla that doesn’t resemble the shapes of the places I’ve visited. College taught me that, that I must be one of the lost, assimilated ones. Mexican-American studies. Minnesota. Yeah.

But, ya know, I realize that there is another cultural experience that isn’t talked about. (Or maybe it is, and I’ve just been out of school too long.) It’s a fleeting experience, hard to capture. It doesn’t last. Can’t last. This short-lived culture is what I’ll call Internationalism. Yeah, it’s a weak name, maybe too pretentious, most likely means something else entirely to someone, I know. Help me out. Come up with something better. Or just let me know that it already has a name. Anyway, it’s the culture that I most belong to.

I crave the experience of learning about others’ ways. I love eating different foods, smelling different smells, hearing about different sayings, herbal remedies, observing different customs. My heart aches to think that these things will disappear some day. Or worse: that we will experience them through the PF Chang's, Disney movies, and kitschy tourist knick-knacks. Please, no.

I do, unfortunately, believe it’s fleeting, this International culture where everyone shares their own, peacefully, respectful and respected. It’s one that exists in the memories of Glendale, Arizona in the 1970’s, when farmland began to give way to the suburbs, and the many migrants came to find a new and better life. It exists here, in the Emirates, a country some six months older than myself. Both she and I are still working on getting this whole thing sorted out. After many years, homogeny will set in, perhaps, either by segregation or assimilation, but in those precious moments before that happens, is this magical time when people from across the globe gather, light of newness and hope glowing in their eyes, light of openess, or curiousity at least, towards each other. This is the culture I crave and love. That brief moment of sharing without losing sense of self. What a beautiful thing it is.

So, as crazy, and sometimes reason-free this place can seem, I love it here. Maybe the placement of stoplights behind the spot where you’re supposed to stop seems pretty wacky. Maybe having five or more different means of getting your ID card, but no one to tell you the best and easiest way leaves you feeling like, “ooh, shouldn’t that be a job?” Maybe having so many qualified doctors around who can’t practice medicine because they don’t have the right high school class on their transcripts seems kinda silly. Maybe the lack of nutritious food and toothbrushes in the richest part of the community seems a little odd. Maybe, maybe a lot. Still, it feels right, all these different people from different ideals, wearing different dress, silently or directly trying to figure each other out, is just so...real.

Brief. Fleeting. Movement. Change. Just the way I like my life.

Here’s an ad I just saw at the cashier of the local store: “Order now: Fresh UK Halal Turkey for Christmas.” Hmm. Now that I’m eating meat again, think I should order one? I even have a rotisserie in my oven. I’m sorry, my “cooker.”

"on traditions, gatherings, mournings, and celebrations"

(This is a month old, but I'm sticking it in here anyway!)

The food. It’s so good, I can’t handle it. Seriously, hummus used to be a dietary staple. Not a hint of mold in my plastic tubs. I was devout. But, wow, it’s so rich and creamy here, I can only eat it on special occasions. Same with the eggplant hummus that I can’t quite catch the name of. Fresh juices with mint, pastries with thyme and olive oil (my new favorite), or with onion and spinach, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh (like a meat version of falafel), samosas, saffron rice, cofffee with cardamom. I’m not positive what is Bedouin and what is another culture’s contribution. Even the the “traditional” desserts have a grain of some sort, sugar, rose, cinnamon. None of which grows here. Maybe it’s all traditional, in that it’s all nomadic. The spice routes have been around for a heck of a long time. The tradition of sharing.

Like today, a local colleague has gotten her master’s degree, a very rare thing in the community I’m teaching in. I think it might be a first for my school’s Arabic teachers. When we greeted her with our congratulations and mabrooks, she told us in that joking/not really joking way, that no one would be excited for her, so she had a caterer come in to feed us all so we could all be excited for her. We chuckled with her, but there’s a deeper truth in that, I suppose. Education doesn’t mean the same thing for a woman here as it does in the states. It means putting off marriage and children. It means possibly educating yourself out of a husband, since fewer men than women go for advance degrees. But, she’s lucky. After turning down marriage proposals during school, she has one now. She doesn’t know him yet. Some newlyweds won’t meet their new husbands until after they sign the papers and the ceremony has already occured. Then, everyone gets fed. (Hope I get invited to that wedding! I hear the women’s dresses under the abaya are outrageous in their opulence.)

It is a tradition, however old, I don’t know, to share food to celebrate a milestone in your life. We see that in our western weddings. Here, it is more pervasive. Gifts are not given by guests. Except perhaps dates and chocolate. Three dates, I was told by a colleague from Oman as she held a plate out to me, when I ventured into the Arabic teacher’s lounge to say hello. Three dates for health or luck or welcome. (Hey, there’s a local food - dates! I’ll let you know about seasons of the date when I move into my apartment. My kitchen and living room windows overlook a date palm plantation. And a future mall. And an amusement park. And the Omani border with Buraimi.)

I’ve been watching the farming progress from my kitchen window. I don’t know, beside the dates, what they are growing. Here’s what I can gather: first they scrape the dust, then they lay down some gauze, and *POOF!* plants appear! A lot of irrigation, of course. I have no idea what they do for nutrients. Maybe it’s in the water. Nothing starts from seed, by the looks of it. It’s less fertile than Tucson, but they manage to grow things here.

Eventually, I’ll start my window boxes. The usual staples: tomatoes, mint, raddish, greens. I need to order some heirloom seeds, but, in my mom’s fashion, all sorts of napkin scraps with cast-off seeds are laying about, waiting to be stuck in a little planter. A little tradition of our own easily carried across the globe.

In the meantime, I’m full of good food tonight, and a promise of a special digestive tea herb tomorrow to help digest. (Can’t wait to learn “traditional” herbal medicine here!) I heard the master’s recipient might be providing breakfast tomorrow as well! I wonder, is the amount of food shared directly linked to the importance that the provider wants attached to the event? Certainly seems so.

The other weekend in Dubai, as I was waiting patiently for my tango fix, I was lucky enough to watch the meeting portion of the wedding. Bride, in all white with what looked like a hand-crocheted kerchief on her head, I wondered what of the ceremony was truly Bedouin and what was adopted from other cultures. In my fantasy, the kerchief, at least, was an heirloom from someone’s great grandmother, from before the times of hotel steps and elevators, from before the time of the adopted black abaya and shayla, and from before the time of so many of us, western onlookers. The music definitely was traditional. That’s what caught my attention first. I heard drums blending into the sounds of recorded tango, a live reggae band and another live Irish band. Quite a combo. The drums didn’t seem to fit and seemed to get louder. Looking over the balcony, I saw two column of men with drums strapped to them, dressed not in the flowing kandoura, but in cloth pants the color of the desert and some sort of shirt that seemed to wrap all around them. They started to sing. Chant, really. It’s quite amazing to hear. Nothing like the Arabic music on the radio. There are canes that they beat. It’s feels ancient, at least to my modern brain. Like the grito, every once in awhile, one of the musicians who is good at it let’s out a high-pitched tongue-flappin’ yell. I’m sure it has a name. You’d know what I’m talking about if you heard it. Fantastic! One of those experiences that makes every cell of your body respond with “wow, this is real, this is new to me, I’m alive!” Fantastic, indeed. I joined in the rhythmic clapping. How could I not? Not much of a tango night for me, but worth the visit to the hotel.

One of my students is a drummer. I asked if her family were all musicians, and she shrugged it off with a nod. Of course they are, what else would they be? She’s a natural. She has no idea how hard it is to do what she does, since she’s done it for as long as she can remember. And, the morning assembly music for the national anthem is sounding and better and better everyday thanks to her.

The morning assembly. (They do that in Mexican schools, too. I’m sure other places, but I’m still working the parallel here.) My girls line up. They recite some things. They have their nails checked. (For cleanliness? I asked. Apparently, it’s to prevent injury from scratching at each other.) They sing their new anthem in alliegance their infant nation. They hear a morning prayer. They talk into microphones that are more static than amplification. They might watch a skit or compete to answer a question. They flap their hands all about while jumping up and down for a handful of seconds. Hysterical! What they heck is up with the hand-flapping, I have no clue. I’d love to think of it as an attempt at exercise, but, yeah, really, it has no resemblance. Resemblance to a bug in diress on its back as it struggles to upright itself, maybe, yeah. As musical a people as they are, so far, I haven’t witnessed a lick of dancer’s rhythm. (Come to think of it, drummers and dancers really do have very different experiences of rhythm. Do you not agree?)

Right now, we are still in the mourning period for Sheikh Saqr of Ras Al Kaimah, one of the other emirates. He was ninety. His youngest son, who has been acting on his behalf for years, has taken over. There was a mass exodus to that emirate, but there is no viewing of the body. No one will make pilgrimages to visit his grave. It isn’t done here. Not even the late, great Sheikh Zayed who made the country what it is today is visited, although his tomb lies at the Sheikh Zayed mosque. The family have access, but they have no need to go.

In some locales, a week or more of mourning means no work. Abu Dhabi is not taking part in that. Here, we are still showing respect by not playing music. No morning assembly, just straight to class. Not that I’m complaining. I can leave my balcony door open to the night, because the bands in the club downstairs are on hiatus. No Christmas musak in the hotel at breakfast. A blessing, as you might imagine, in more ways than one.

Soon, it will be Eid, and there will be more gatherings and more food. I’ll have to plan my own, on that eventful day when I actually receive my furniture allowance. Until then, I’ll keep chipping away at getting settled in the ways I can. Finding conversational Arabic classes, getting my UAE ID card, getting my driver’s license, going to yoga, and buying a bed for starters. That way maybe my apartment and I can have a celebratory overnight visit together soon.