Living the Travel Channel

Before we moved here, we decided that we were going to be big tippers because the service industry workers here don’t make very big salaries and we want to spread the wealth around. (When the standard tip is about $0.55, it’s not hard to be a big tipper.) I usually leave the decision of how much to tip to Paul and sometimes he is a VERY big tipper.

Paul’s favorite restaurant is Aroos Damascus, a Syrian restaurant a few blocks from our apartment. We have eaten there together about four times. Now, the waiters see Paul coming and herd him into their sections. There is a main waiter who takes the order and oversees the section and there are assistant waiters who bring the dishes, food, bread, etc. Our assistant waiter brought out the usual plates, silverware, bottle of water and plastic cups. Our head waiter saw this and told him to bring out glass glasses. No plastic for us. I looked around at the other tables to see if glass glasses were the new policy. No, everyone else had plastic cups.

It was a moist night (there was dew on our car when we got back to it – weird) and I was having trouble with the salt shaker because it had gathered moisture and the salt wasn’t coming out. I tried to solve this problem inconspicuously, but that was impossible, so the waiter saw what was happening and brought me salt from another table (which had the same problem unfortunately).

The bread is pocket bread baked fresh on the premises and the bread they were bringing us was almost too hot to eat. It was literally right out of the oven. At one point, our bread waiter collected the “old” bread from our basket and put in fresh hot bread even though the “old” bread had been there about 3 minutes.

They clucked over us and saw to our every need. When Paul’s meat entre arrived, the head waiter set it down with a flourish and said “Special, for my friend!”

A little good will goes a long way, especially in the Arab culture. Diplomats could learn from this.

We basked in the v.i.p. treatment then tipped big and went home.

Let me start with another [contrite hanging of the head] confession. We shopped at IKEA last night. In my defense, let me say that it is often difficult to find what we need at all, let alone at a reasonable price. We even found something close to drapery hooks which we have been seeking since we moved in. We bought a mess of kitchenware. Up ’til now we had been getting by with a couple of malmac plates and some cheapo silverware. We also bought two office chairs.

When we moved in here we inherited a few leftovers from the previous tenant including 4 plastic patio chairs that had been out on the balcony all summer long baking in the sun. This made them brittle, so two of the chairs quickly shattered (while we were sitting in them) and we have been babying the other two as Paul sits at his computer and I do my sewing. Knowing that they might shatter at any moment motivated us to look for something better. We resorted to IKEA only after looking in a store that was exclusively chairs and finding that the price was thousands of dirhams. They were nice chairs, but really!

So, on our way out of the store, I was pushing the cart full of kitchen stuff and Paul was pushing the cart with the two chairs (in boxes). An IKEA employee whose job it is to hang out in the parking garage and help customers like us offered to take the cart for Paul, who being an independent American said “No thanks, I’ve got it.” The man did not accept this and followed us reaching for the cart handle until Paul gave in. He then helped us put our stuff in the car and we thanked him.

We get home, where we have basement parking, and now have the challenge of how are we going to get all this stuff up to the 8th floor? So, we take what we can carry for the first load and head up. I pulled my suitcase wheel thingy out of the closet and suggest that will be useful to bring up the chair boxes. Paul takes it and heads down to the security/reception desk on the ground floor where they have a grocery cart that we’ve seen others use to bring up groceries, etc. Paul asks if he can use it. The man asks “downstairs?” Paul says “yes.” The man asks if he should help. Paul politely declines. The man says “Respect me, sir.” … How can one not accept his help after that.

Being from America where everyone is supposed to pull their own weight (bootstraps, or whatever), clean up after themselves and make their own way, it is difficult for us to make the shift to a culture where letting someone do our manual labor is respectful. Service jobs are anything, but respected back home. These people take pride in toting someone’s groceries. It beats what they come from, which makes me shudder to think what they come from.

It’s a whole different world.