Dealing with the ‘firsts’

[B]By JOJO DASS[/B] [I]Special to the Saipan Tribune[/I] [I]Editor’s Note: JoJo Dass is a former writer for Beach Road Magazine and a long-time resident of Saipan. He recently moved to Dubai, where he now writes for an automotive magazine. The following is an excerpt from[/I] Being Here: Notes from Dubai.

Perhaps, the most challenging part of being in a different place for the first time is dealing with the “firsts”—the first people you meet at the airport’s arrivals section, first strange overseas phone card, first car ride, first look at the place, first meal—the list goes on.

The moment I got off the plane at the Dubai International Airport, I quickly followed a herd of fellow Filipinos scurrying somewhere. It being my first time at that airport, and thinking that my countrymen, who appeared to be all too familiar with the place, knew what they’re doing and where they’re headed, I closely tailed them, hoping they’d end up at some immigration line; well, yes, they knew what they’re doing and where they’re headed—they stopped at a boarding gate, dropped their bags and sat down. They were in transit and were headed elsewhere—Turkey, I gathered.

So I turned back and asked an airport staff where to go, and she politely directed me to the immigration section where, after a good 10 minutes’ walk, I saw hundreds of people in rows queuing to have their passports stamped at the counter manned by airport staff donned in traditional Arabic garbs.

“Okay,” I told myself, “I’m on the right track.”

Getting out of the airport was another thing. The guy who was supposed to pick me up was not there—my nine-hour, overnight, Oct. 13, 2008, Emirates flight from Manila that left 1:45am was supposed to have taken off at 12:40am that same day; the delay, the pilot told us, was caused by some discrepancies in passenger documentation, whatever that meant.

I needed a phone card so I could get a hold of my contact and let him know. It was, to me, a strange phone card; user-friendly, but still strange. The airport crowd looked strange, too.

At the phone booth, after I was done calling my contact to pick me up, two Indian nationals approached me, asking for assistance in their native tongue, apparently mistaking me to be one of them. I told them I’m Indian-Filipino and that, although I pretty much look like them, I could not understand what they were trying to say—in English, of course. But they didn’t understand me either, so they kept talking to me, their hand gestures and facial expressions telling me they needed to know how the strange phone card works. So I did what I could: I asked for their phone card—in gestures, too—swiped it in the machine then asked them for a number, again in English, but they still couldn’t get it! They stared at me for a good half a second and then started babbling again!

This is not working, I told myself. My first overseas encounter with members of my dad’s race is not working. I begged out, told them I’m sorry I could not help them, and walked away with my bags; I looked back and caught them still staring at me.

Funny, I thought, the Filipina salesclerk at the Duty Free Shop from where I bought my phone card also gave me that 10-yard stare as I was walking away from her—I had asked her for the card and conversed with her in Filipino during our transaction. She called me “kuya” (big brother), and that was good enough.

I finally hopped into my contact’s car—a big one, which is what most people in Dubai are driving—and was soon on my way to where I’d be staying. On the road, I marveled at how awesome Dubai is. The place is like Makati and Ortigas—business centers in Manila where most of the high rises are—lumped into one and expanded 10-fold!

Hovering up the sky were helicopters flying executives to their offices.

Of course, there’s the smog that seem to give you a mere peep of what would have otherwise been a magnificently spectacular widescreen view of skyscrapers, like towering dinosaur spines, jutting out to the heavens. There were also the eight lanes with bumper-to-bumper traffic; bright side to this is that you could go car-watching, especially when caught in heavy traffic, and catch Jags, Cadillacs, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Porches, Corvettes, Lexuses, BMWs, Benzes, Audis, souped-up Hummers, Rovers, Armadas, Jeeps, and Escalades; Toyota Camrys are for taxis.

However, my first day in Dubai soon turned numbingly boring. I was told to catch up on some rest and was left in my room the whole day, with nothing but the incessant humming of the airconditioner to remind me I was still kicking (The TV was off and I did not want to touch it so as not to be disrespectful to the owner). It was scorching hot outside. You could probably walk the street for about 15 minutes with an egg in your hand and come back home to see that it has become soft boiled. No kidding! Sunny-side up you want? Then just crack the egg open on your head and walk in the sun.

My first stop at the nearby mom-and-pop store, which was a good 10-minute walk away, was not without an incident, too—I lost my way home. I kept walking round and round the block not knowing I was in a wrong street, and it was 1pm—perhaps the lack of sleep (I was watching movies on the plane all night), the jetlag (Dubai is four hours behind Manila), and that nagging feeling to get back to the comfort of my room, though cramped as it was, away from the sun only aggravated the situation and blurred my thoughts. Come to think of it, I went out to have soda and something to eat; but by the time I was finally able to trace my way back to my room, I felt like having just gone through some extreme sport competition and was so thirsty I wanted to get back to the store! I dared not.

My first encounter with Dubai’s ubiquitous “Du” phone card was nightmarish! I couldn’t follow the instructions. I kept going through it again and again. I so badly needed to place a call to Saipan, which is six hours ahead of Dubai, and the rush to do so, plus the fact that I have gotten so used to the Saipan phone cards and was now using an entirely different system, must have complicated things. I gave up. It was only after my roommate—who happened to own the TV and whom I met for the first time that evening, arriving home from work visibly dead-tired and hungry and having the most unwelcome misfortune of having to listen to my litany of gripes about the phone card—checked out my cell phone was I able to make a call. But alas! It was already 2am on Saipan.

My first day of work, which was the day after I flew in, was, well, kind of rattling. It was an attempt to hook in smoothly, level off with the staff—three Filipinos including long-time friend Flor Pamintuan with whom I’d worked with back on Saipan; two Indians and an Arab who edits another magazine and does translations—and get things off the ground fast. Hired as editor of Car Xpress, a motoring magazine that was way behind schedule for its next issue, my bosses, during a meeting held first thing that morning, all so kindly requested that I wrap things up with whatever was on hand, send the mag to the press asap, and move on to the next issue. It sounded easy except that I was not familiar with how things work in the office. Exacerbating matters was the technical faux pas on my end. I was given a laptop and soon was pounding away; but I kept coming back to the technician asking questions he must have increasingly found stupid because he was soon replying in a raised voice—sounded that way to me. Fortunately, none of my straws broke his back. But what could I do? I opened Google and it came out in Arabic!

My first stop at the grocery store was an experience. Being Indian-Filipino, I grew up seeing a mix of Pinoy and Indian cuisine on the family table—on weekends, my mother would cook Filipino dishes; dad’s sisters would bring Indian food.

Indian and Mediterranean cuisine are cousins.

So imagine the look on my face when I saw rows upon rows of spicy seasonings and herbs, flat round bread that my Indian aunties would call roti, lamb chops, marinated lamb liver, shawarma, ready-made kabbab, garlic sauce and everything Arabian. I was in that trance-like state, if you will, savoring the smell of curry, turmeric powder and masala mix, eyes almost half-closed, when I noticed two Arab women in their traditional black dresses covering everything but their eyes, looking at me as they passed by. It reminded me of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black”… “I see people turn their heads and quickly look away…. It doesn’t matter now it just happens everyday….” or something like that.

It’s weird when you could only see pairs of eyes looking at you, not knowing for sure if the hidden faces were smiling or frowning.

I went home that evening and treated myself to fried, marinated lamb liver and round flat bread with olive oil—my first decent meal since I got here three days ago.

I guess the “firsts” are the ones you have to take off your plate fast to get the knack of how it is to be living in a place away from home, alone.

I wonder how my first Christmas here would be.