Same World, Different Planet

The phone rings. I clear away the empty shot glasses and answer.
Simon is clucking again. Pop, pop, click, pop. He is in a cab riding
around somewhere looking for a bank. The taxi driver speaks no
English, and seemingly is holding Simon hostage. Jeff returns and
sees me on the phone. “I’m not here.” I flash him a pleading look,
begging for a way out of Simon’s increasing panic. Jeff laughs.
Three hours later, Simon reappears.

“I hope you didn’t pay him,” Jeff scoffs. Simon is breathless,
indignant: “He would not let me out of the cab. He took me south
of downtown and would not let me out of the cab! I had to call the
police!” Simon is wide-eyed, and nearly spitting. Jeff and I look at
each other: this will be a long night. “Do you have anything that we
could give him?” Jeff asks. I laugh. He’s serious.

The rest of the group is clearing security. One by one, they join us
in the lounge. What started out as one beer and some wings is now
a full fledged party. Our last gasp, you might say. We are too
convivial, too familiar. Each one of us is wondering why we are
doing this, but no one will address it. Instead, we drink. It seems
like the right thing to do.

I nurse a too-cold glass of cheap wine as someone tells of his wife in
Wyoming, another of his ex-wife in Texas; of dreams of buying new
cars, new motorcycles, new women. Inevitably, Jeff tells Marine
stories. I drift off as he begins with another camel joke. Simon
nervously glances at his watch, stating that he “…doesn’t want to
get fired for drinking.” “Yah, right” is the unanimous response.
“Simon,” Jeff taunts, “you can’t get fired for drinking until we’re
in country.” “No, no, they said ‘no drinking.’” Pop, pop, click, pop.
Simon rises in a huff and walks off, as if he can be fired for merely
associating with us. “You’ve got something to give him, right??”
Someone trips backward over my foot, “Yeah, we gotta drug him.”

Finally, the boarding call crackles. As we board, I glance up at the
Door 1L manufacturer’s plate: yup. Boeing. Great. I strain to read
the plate, but can’t quite get enough information to figure out if
this was the plane. You know, the one that we forgot to bolt the
tail onto. Or whatever the hell else it was that we chose not to do.
I began to flash back to the fights: Mike threatening to “flatten my
head.” Or his crew so nicely waiting until I crawled inside the
vertical fin to start riveting the skin next to my head. “Sorry. We
didn’t know you were in there…” Or maybe this is the one with the
contaminated hydraulics. Or the one where we used the T2024-O
metal to fasten the sections together. Or the one where the
Supervisor said that the Quality Procedures were only a
“guideline.” Or the one where the inspector bought off all the
electrical tests without anyone doing them. Or the one…..I catch
myself as a tear is in my eyes. I look down so the very stern, very
sturdy looking Dutch flight attendant won’t see. As I take my seat,
Jeff is already asking for drinks. It’s 9PM, and we’ve been up since
4AM.

I’d always heard that KLM had legendary service. Well, it’s a bit
tattered around the edges these days. Yes, the drinks were all free
(South African Chardonnay for me); yes, they brought hot towels
before each meal. But the food seemed familiar: yes! Yes, it
certainly seemed like the food that United used to serve before
they went into peanut and pretzel mode. Chicken that is a little too
rubbery, salad that is just a bit too cold, bread that has been
warmed in a microwave and is rock hard by the time it is served.

I watch the flight tracker as we make our way up through Texas and
fly right over McAlester. Northward across Kansas and Nebraska,
South Dakota. I dream that I can make a left turn at North Dakota
and just go back home. I picture the plane turning on the screen,
and if sheer will could have made it turn, we would have. But
instead we make a wide right turn and head across Canada, out to
Iceland, and across the pond. After two TV shows, one boring
movie, the proverbial “snack” and a meal, and five drinks, I
attempt to sleep. Jeff moves to the front of the plane, and
continues slamming vodkas. Simon is passed out cold. I know
nothing about how he got that way. I snap a picture. Tomorrow
we’ll be in Amsterdam.

It looks wet, cold. A lot like the NW. If you really didn’t look too
hard, you would think it was. I turn backward trying to see around
the wing: puddles, green, cars on a highway. But the sign posts are
different, and the houses are small. There are farms, animals,
puddles. Dikes, barns, puddles. Bicycles, busses, puddles. Glorious
puddles! After three weeks in hot and humid Houston, I want to
dance in the rain and FEEL COLD! This must be Amsterdam.

Our connection is short, just an hour. But I have time to visit the
gift shop, and see what I presume annoys the locals (just as the
endless array of “Sleepless in Seattle” t shirts annoy me at Sea-
Tac): shelf after shelf of blue and white Dutch girls and clogs. Clogs
with chocolate in them, clogs with fruit, clogs with tea, clogs with
biscuits. Dutch girls kissing each other, bent at the waist, with frilly
skirts skimming their ubiquitous clogs. I look around at the
salesperson: thankfully she is not dressed in the same outfit.

The waiting room is cramped. When the flight is finally called, we
board yet another Boeing plane, this time a 77. Well, for all the
pink plazas and morning “working together” circle jerks, it looks
pretty good. The ceiling panels a curvy, providing lots of headroom.
Yup, this was the plane that they designed all by computer. None of
that old manual crap like the 47. Nope. Never mind the panic when
the all-CATIA parts didn’t quite line up, or that they accidentally
omitted the Class III mockup. Oh, well. If they got a plane right, I
guess this would be it. I smile. Maybe it was better I never worked
that line.

We played a selection of CD’s from the plane’s entertainment
system. We watched the flight tracker. We watched a selection of
movies and TV shows that we could pick ourselves. Finally, a real
passenger’s plane! Ultimately, my exuberance was tempered by our
imminent landing: no one was drinking any more…we had settled
into nervous anticipation. At least in Amsterdam, they still used
English letters. By the time we get to Dubai, we won’t even have
the same alphabet.

Time is a funny thing. Everything is so neat in the US, so arranged,
so orderly. But crossing the world begins to test reality. Day
becomes night, night blends into day, and the endless hours seem
to melt it all into one messy splash in my ever-present, very
organized Outlook program. I no longer know what day it is, nor
what time it is back home. I struggle with even the easiest
computations, and still can reach no conclusion. It is as if I can hold
onto my old world if I can just adjust my watch to keep west coast
time. But I know it is too late for that. As we exit the plane into a
huge, bright hallway, we are stunned to see the opulence of the
airport. Giant palm trees are in the center arboretum, lit up like
Christmas. Modern stores surround us, still open at this hour. The
clock says it’s close to midnight, but the airport is full. Women in
abayas whisk silently past the Maserati’s and Bentley’s that line the
halls. The rich, the poor, Eastern, Western: it is all jumbled here. I
reach to roll up my sleeves, and remember that it is Ramadan: I am
forbidden to reveal my arms in public. And we cannot drink, eat,
smoke, and God know’s what else.

As we make our way to immigration, there are armed guards
roaming the hallway. I remember the National Guard at Sea-Tac
following 9/11 and how piqued we Americans were when our public
spaces suddenly seemed under an omnipotent military-like
presence. I watch the officers: short, dark, angry. Pacing. We are
not in Kansas any more, Mommy. Men in ghotras line the
mezzanines overlooking immigration.

The line moves slowly, and I am hot. It is midnight now, and still
over 90 degrees. A passenger steps across a yellow line, and the
officer rushes to point her back in line. She drags her ripped
suitcase and shuffles back, saying nothing. He catches my eye as I
watch, and seems suspicious that I am watching him. I look down.
I’m hot. And I want to push up my sleeves.

As I’m called, I approach the bulletproof glass. My bags are in my
right hand, and I hand him my passport from my left hand. He
pauses, and does not reach for it. Perplexed, I put down my laptop
and switch hands. He whisks it from my right hand, eyeing me
sideways. “Origin?” the man inquires. For a moment, I am
confused, and fear that the wrong answer will get me hauled off to
the back room, where I’ll be beaten, thrown into a dark cell, and
forgotten forever. Does he mean origin of this flight? Or the origin
of the original departure from the states? After an uncomfortable
hesitation, where I feel his eyes burning into me, I croak
“Houston.” “Go ahead” he barks. I breathe a sigh of relief, start
walking ahead, and push up a sleeve. “Hey!” Simon is looking at
me, then at my arm. I have committed the ultimate offense: my
arm is exposed in public. “But does that count after dark?” I don’t
really want to hear the answer. I push my sleeve down again, and
the sweat is pouring off my face. We are herded outside, after
dropping off the NBC gear, and wait in a hot corner underneath the
parking garage. It is even hotter outside, with no ventilation and a
hundred taxis idling in front of us. I look at the others: we are all
drenched, our hair still looking like we’d been asleep for days, our
clothes wrinkled and wet with sweat. We smelled no better.

“He wouldn’t take my passport?” I complain. “I handed it to him,
but he just stared.” Simon replies “Which hand did you use? You
can’t hand anything to them in your left hand…that is the one they
use...to clean themselves.” “Oh.” I struggled to wrap my mind
around the concept.

Men above us are working on a scaffold replacing lights. It’s well
past midnight, and I idly wonder why they are working so late. It
then occurs to me that this is the coolest part of the day. I wipe the
sweat off my face, again.

“Three lines please!!” The woman barks. She is large, sweaty, and
very tired looking. And apparently cranky. “I said three lines.
Straighten up!!” We shuffle, dragging all our bags, crashing our
carts into each other in what could pass as some sort of airport
roller derby. A small, dark man comes by and hands each one of us
an envelope containing a key and a number. A second man comes
by and chalks the number onto our bags, then starts loading the
bags onto a large, open sided truck. It bears an awful resemblance
to the truck that the Jim Jones gunmen of Guyana rode into the
airport before they whacked Leo Ryan and company. We are taken
up to a parking lot, line by line, and placed on a bus.

Through the streets we careen. It looks much like what we had seen
on TV: small storefronts, Arabic everywhere. Someone asks the bus
driver what the speed limit was: he replies that there is none.
There are few street signs, and no advisory signs that I can see
anywhere. He comes up on another car fast, then veers into the
other lane. I am fairly certain we are going to die, but I am so tired
it seems like a good option.

We reach the hotel. It is tall, and nice looking from the outside. We
are taken to a meeting room, and “the process” is explained to us.
It is 5:30AM before we are allowed to go to our rooms. We are told
to rest, we have another meeting at 4PM.

The lobby was misleading. The room is a throwback to the 50’s: the
headboards are nailed to the wall, there are no electrical outlets in
the bathroom. There is mold growing under the sink, and a
clothesline in the tub. I glance at the mold, and consider-just for a
moment-that it might be better to just do a complete wash down in
the bidet. But it comes with no instructions: do you sit forward or
backward?

By the time I fall into bed, the sun is rising. I look out the dirty
window, and see a world in shades of brown, tan, buff. Buildings
are low, hunkered down against the blaring sun above. Stone
buildings for the most part: no shiny skyscrapers, no hint of
modernism. Nothing that resembles anything I have seen before.

Mostly, no green, no blue, no color at all. We have transitioned to a
world of dust, parched russet as far as the eye can see. I recoil,
physically pained by the striking sparseness. I return to the TV, idly
flipping the channels. There are only five. Two are Hindi. It’s time
to sleep.

Following the meeting, we are again warned that it is Ramadan,
and cautioned that the women cannot be seen in short sleeved
shirts. Those in T-shirts reach for a jacket; a bizarre sight for the
temperature outside is approaching 100. One man carrying a water
bottle is told to return it to his room. We are then taken to dine in
a shuttered off area where we cannot be seen by Muslims. The
hotel has allowed us “westerners” to eat prior to the Muslim iftar
each night, but we must be cordoned off from all sight and smell of
Muslim hotel occupants. The shutters are closed by young men who
drift in and out of the dining room without speaking.

Following dinner is our first opportunity to venture out: two by two
we sign out of the hotel and cross the street to a crowded village of
Indian storefronts. The fact that it is an Indian section of town
indicates that the hotel is in the poor side of town. We are actually
in the Emirate of Sharjah, a far cry from the modern city of Dubai.
Sharjah is more conservative, and far less westernized than it’s
neighbors, and this, too, is a deliberate move to keep us out of the
bars (and out of trouble) that are available in Dubai.

We cross the street and enter into a never land of narrow, winding,
unmarked streets. Simon looks up at the street sign, “I know where
we are.” “Are you sure that you can find your way back??” I ask.
“Sure.”

We head off. It does not take long to get lost in this maze, and I ask
Simon if he knows where we are. “I am lost. I am horrible with
directions.” Pop, click, pop. Stunned, I look around. All the alleys
look the same. All the storefronts look the same. “Do you know
what street the hotel was on?” “No.” My anger flashes, “I thought
you were looking at the street sign!” “I was, but I always get lost.”
Pop, pop, click, pop.

We move forward. I am determined that if I keep turning left we
will somehow wind up back at the hotel. But I don’t know that for
sure, since we are no longer walking along perpendicular streets. I
take charge, “This way.” Simon follows. Great. Lost within three
minutes of leaving the hotel. So much for Simon, my little world
traveler. So much for Simon and his five languages. So much for
Simon and his damn OCD. They will never find us. Our flight will
leave tomorrow without us. They will use us as a cautionary tale
back in Houston, I can just hear it: “…we lost two employees
because of their own stupidity. They took off into a slum in a third
world country and were never heard from again. Be aware of your
surroundings!”

It is getting dark, and some of the stores that were closed are now
opening following iftar. Merchandise is piled in front of the stores in
heaps: TV’s from the 50’s missing antennas, holes in the tubes,
covered in a thick layer of dust. I silently wonder if they are moved
inside when it rains, but decide that this is a stupid American
question. Plumbing supplies, lamps-outdoor, indoor, it doesn’t
seem to matter. To me, it is beyond junk: I have thrown away stuff
that was in better shape than the goods that they were selling.
Tubing, silk fabric, “silk like” fabric, denim pants wider than any I
saw in the 70’s. Plastic shoes from Russia. Dishes from China. Car
parts from Turkey. Food carts squeeze in between the jumble of
junk: something that looks like fried vegetables, some kind of meat
in sauce, a hunk of meat on a dirty kabob stick. And Fanta
everywhere! Fanta is definitely the drink of choice: orange cans in
lines above the food carts, orange cans in windows beneath signs
screaming ‘Fanta. Sale!’ Simon and I venture into a grocery store,
and press in between the aisles. A man turns up the stereo,
screaming into the customer’s face, “See, velly goo. Velly goo.”

Simon shrieks, “Baca! Baca!” I reach back to my now limited
memory of Spanish, and cannot place the word. “What?” “Baca.
Have you ever had these?” Pointing to the candy aisle, he is
practically jumping up and down. “Baca. Baca!”

I wander off to spices. Row after row of strange concoctions, some
with little labeling. Guess there’s no FDA or anything to worry
about. I lift, and smell, and shake little containers of Masala curry,
coriander, fenugreek, coffee beans, more curry. Not too many US
exports here, but I laugh when I see them; this is apparently the
graveyard of all the banned US items: Coca-Cola still has the rip off
tab here, and nearly all of the lotions, deodorants, and other items
are packaged in pressurized spray cans. So much for the
environment. But I guess you have to have trees to protect, and
there are certainly none here.

We wander back out to the street, Simon clutching two packages of
Baca close to his breast. I step over a smelly river that looks to be
urine. There are more people on the street now, but none are
female. I walk slowly, taking it all in, but I feel an increasing
presence watching me. When I look at the shops, I notice that the
men exit their shop to watch me walk by. Some are eating now, but
they put down their food and silently walk toward me. As I walk by,
they stare, and they don’t stop until I am out of sight. My arms are
covered, and I have not had anything to drink or eat in public. Yet
they stare. I wonder if something is hanging out that shouldn’t be,
or if I have broken some sort of religious law that I know nothing
about. They say that ignorance is no defense: I can be jailed
without question for violating laws I know nothing of. I begin to
worry. I can’t remember if I am supposed to meet their stares or
look away. I look away. Some of them are following me now.

My left turn plan ultimately leads me back to the main street, and
the hotel, thankfully, is in sight. I nearly drop to the ground
thanking Allah myself. I spot another from our group: he has his
laptop strapped across his chest, and a butter knife for protection. I
am mystified. We pass a mosque, and hear the prayers blasting
through the neighborhood. The shoes are lined neatly in rows across
the dirty steps. We walk on, not sure if we can even look at the
mosque without inviting irate stares from the locals. By the time
we get back to the hotel, I am drenched in sweat, and exhausted
again. Nothing makes sense in this world. I miss home.

Returning to my room, I drop on the bed, and numbly turn on the
TV. The only English language show is an old rerun of “The
Simpsons.” I wonder if Marge and Homer have now become our
international ambassadors. Great. Marge, Homer, Ashcroft, Bush,
Phyllis Schafly. Visions of Clinton playing the saxophone flick
through my sinking consciousness. Monica, OJ, Kobe Bryant, Michael
Jackson, Britney Spears, Gerry Spence. What is America?
I drop into a fitful sleep, no longer knowing what day it is, what
time it is, where I am. I feel drugged, but am not.

Tomorrow we are bound for Baghdad.