how to lose your rant

Yesterday a few of us decided to work late and then called a recommended taxi driver to shuttle us around. First we went to the gym for a work-out, then we got groceries, and finally back to our apartments, or “flats’ as they are more commonly called here. The driver’s name is Mohammed. He’s a chubby Bangladeshi man in his 30’s, very polite and smiley. He has a habit of starting sentences with “this is.” This is very happy to be of service, Sir. This is I come back at six thirty, pick you up.

I was hungry so I bought a pack of chicken-hotdog crescent buns at the deli and waited with Mohammed while the others finished their shopping. I offered Mohammed one of the snacks. He put his hand on his heart and declined my offer. “This is I am very fat,” he said. I thought of his wife making big pots of curry and rice for their family. The conversation went like this.
“You have children?”
“Yes, sir, I have.” He beamed. “You have?”
“Me, no.”
“No?”
“No children, no wife.”
“But why, sir?”
“Some people don’t marry, Mohammed. You understand that.”
“But marry is life, sir. Before marry, this is no life. After marry, this is life. Why you no marry?”
For some reason I felt no particular sting. I was just touched by his sincerity. How does one begin to communicate the endless tangle and puzzle of something that can never be understood, even by the person who knows it first hand? I decided to borrow a completely insufficient answer and let him fill in the blanks.
“I am a funny man,” I said. “You understand, don’t you?”
He tried to look like he didn’t know what I meant, but I could see it register.
“Oh, come on, Mohammed. I know you understand. You know about this.”
“Ah,” he smiled.
“Yes, I know you understand. You are a very smart man. You understand.”
“Thank you, sir.” I think he smiled because I‘d seen through his attempt at playing innocent. He understood well enough. Funny man. It was a shallow and incomplete way of putting it. No matter. Wording was not paramount here.
The others finished their shopping and we loaded it all in the trunk and headed home. On the way we continued talking about children. Mohammed had “one children” -- a little one, three years old. His wife and child were with him in Kuwait on a family visa, but he wanted to take them back to Bangladesh. Bangladesh is green, yes? Yes, Bangladesh very green. Not like Kuwait. Kuwait very bad. Before nice, now no more nice. Everything expensive.
Mohammed had told us that we could pay him whatever we wanted. He did not set a price. My friends and I had agreed on a price of 4 dinars for the combined trips. That’s about $14 for three rides. He had picked us up at 4:30 and had mostly just waited around for us while we did our workout and bought groceries. It was going on 8:00 pm. Now I was thinking maybe we should give him an extra dinar for all the waiting, but I knew that my friends were trying to stretch their “settling in allowance” from school and had probably just spent most of what they had left on their groceries. I have a tendency to want to tip everyone here, because I know the money is worth more to the poor people here than it is to me. But I had a feeling I would be calling Mohammed for a lot of taxi rides, and if I gave him a big tip the first time, he might be disappointed in the future. I compromised and gave him a half dinar tip. I know he’s not that poor--after all he has a job and a fat belly. But he's from Bangladesh and has come to Kuwait to drive a taxi and accept what people will pay.

I’m finding it very eye-opening to meet and connect with people of vastly different socioeconomic worlds. Things matter differently. I used to be embarrassed to ever wear the ring my Aunt Dot gave me, because it was a bit flashy and gold and had a diamond. I wore it once when I was working at Mechanicsburg High School because I thought maybe the special ed kids there wouldn’t tease me, but they still did. Someone said, “Look, he’s wearing a gold Mafia ring!” and I didn’t wear it again. But here, the rich Kuwaiti kids at school don’t even notice it. They probably have one maid at their house whose sole job is just to polish all the family’s gold. So I don’t feel scandalized by wearing something “rich.” At the same time, all the political correctness and self-righteous indignation that becomes the coping mechanism of “funny men” at home just doesn’t translate here. You see too big a picture. Your pet causes start to feel silly. A few weeks ago I was sitting with my brother, sister, niece and nephew, de-stemming the wild elderberries that we picked on his land and discussing my distaste for weddings. I really don’t enjoy weddings. I had asked my other nephew if he would mind my not attending his wedding long before I knew I would be out of the country anyhow. I wanted to get my everyone used to the idea that I was not really into being a wedding guest. And I made the comment, “Since I would not legally be allowed to get married to a partner, I don’t want to go to any weddings.” Well, my family can go along with my liberalism, but only so far. My sister said, “You could get married in Massachusetts, couldn’t you?” and I had to admit the faultiness of my logic.

If anything, coming to Kuwait has made it even harder to buy into my own arguments. I am reminded by other people’s lack of understanding that I myself don’t understand very much. And when one admits that one doesn’t understand so much, it’s harder to keep a firm position. It’s a very vulnerable place to be. Assumptions evaporate. The women in their black burka covers start to look less sinister... they sort of remind me of nuns. The call from the minaret starts to have less of the sound of an evil chant, and I imagine that the guys doing it probably compare themselves to one another and harbor some vanity about their singing voices. And in this city of two million, there are certainly a lot of misfits who don't really understand what their role is in the larger scheme of things, but they don't get any further than wondering about it. I'm not sure I have any less in common with them than I do with the edgy radical types I've admired and emulated from time to time back home. The world's just too damn big and crazy. You can't figure anything out.

So now off to a party at the apartment of my friends who bought all those groceries last night. My contribution will be the bucket of mango juice to which I added necessary ingredients and let sit on a shelf for a week, according to another expat's instructions, for desired fortification. Cheers.