The most important event since I last wrote was my first visit to the gym. If you read the account of my previous summer in New Orleans, you'll know that I took advantage of being in a new place with few distractions to become a gym rat. It's my goal to do the same thing in Dubai but I'm off to a rough start.
A few days ago, I found the men's gym inside the new bloc of dorms. If someone nice asked for an assessment of the facilities, I'd tell them that while the building isn't very old, the equipment seems to be second-hand at best. If someone I liked asked me what I thought, I'd tell them it's a piece of crap. Overhead lifts with the free-weights is nothing short of a high stakes gamble as at any moment, it feels like the screws will come loose, sending any number of kilos crashing down on your skull. The foam of the benches is cracked and peeling providing a lovely decoration to one's workout attire and the "sound system" consists of a pair of computer speakers that are in perfect working condition aside from their hacked and mangled cords. Like a fool, I disregarded my past three months neglect of personal fitness and dove headfirst into an intense arm workout. That was three days ago and I haven't been able to use my arms since. Consequently, I am typing this with my feet.
The morning after my brilliant gym session, I met my roommate. He came in around 3:00 am. Drunk. I knew from the moment he blearily rolled out of bed that I liked him. His name is Payam and he's from Tehran. We took his Ford something-or-other to the mall for some breakfast. Nothing like eggs and sausage to cure a hangover and we talked for a while. On our way out, he told me something interesting. When one of the Indian men working in the parking lot offered to clean the car, Payam noticed my surprise. He told me the laborers here are much more subservient than anywhere else. He illustrated this by saying that in Tehran if you were to hand a streetsweeper a piece of your garbage, you would be viciously sworn at and then directed towards the proper receptacle. Here, you hand someone your trash and they thank you.
Following our breakfast, I spent the day intensely working on absolutely nothing. However, being Sunday, it was soon time to go to mass. I was well prepared and had a route all planned out in advance. This proved to be about as helpful as having the French for a war-time ally. Conveniently, the very first bus-stop I needed to go to only exists online. Change of plans. I walked to the Metro (tram/subway/monorail/trolley/rail/what-have-you) and paid for a ticket. Getting to my stop was no hassle and I ended up exactly where I would have had I taken the bus. So far so good. As planned, I began walking towards the church. I knew the walk was long. What I didn't know was that it would take nearly 40 minutes and make me late for mass. Like Shackleton, I blazed a bold trail through uncharted territory, besting obstacles as they hurled themselves at me. No gravel parking lot or sidewalkless road could break my spirit and within the hour, I arrived at the church, brushing the dust off my clothes and shoes.
St. Francis Catholic Church is, like everything else in Dubai, in a shopping mall. This mall is unique, though. Instead of retail outlets, the area is populated with... other churches. An area the size of a few acres is home to a massive, two level structure, occupied entirely by churches, each representing a different Christian denomination. Such houses of worship are hard to come by in this largely Islamic part of the world so it makes sense that St. Francis offers mass in 13 languages, 34 times a week. And thats just one of the churches in the complex. Understandably, the parking lot is enormous.
I hustled up the stairs and into an inconspicuous seat in the back. Mass was only about 5 or 10 minutes in, and so I enjoyed a peaceful and fulfilling service. Until communion.
In my experiences, the process of going up for communion has been an orderly and solemn occasion. People keep their heads respectfully bowed and piously shuffle out of their respective pews on their way to the minister. Usually, only a handful of people refrain from the Eucharist and so a very organized and organic system of procession takes place. There's little confusion and everyone's happy. At St. Francis, this isn't the case. In what I imagine is a reflection of the local culture, there are no lines. My idyllic idea of communion was thrown right out the window the moment the Eucharistic ministers descended from the altar to begin administering. They headed off in direct lines for areas within the building that would be sure to create the most bottlenecking and inconvenience. Reflecting the minister's movements, the congregation began to move in an equally bewildering manner, one more appropriate for the opening of Black Friday at Wal Mart than communion at mass. People crawled over one another, elbows were used to shove fellow churchgoers out of the way and a general jockeying for position ruled the day. On my way forward I had to resort to grappling in order to maintain a position in the "line". The only thing that remained similar to my past mass experiences was the politeness of it all. I saw one man step directly in front of an old woman shuffling as quickly as she could. Rude, indeed, but you'd never know it because no glares were exchanged or words uttered. I, personally, felt a constant poking at my ribs that only subsided when the perpetrator succeeded in passing me. Bruised, I fought my way back to my seat and plopped down to nurse my wounds.
Returning to campus was as much of a battle as the communion line. However, where communion was like a boxing match, the return home was more of a chess game. The former required all my physical ability and the latter demanded every ounce of my mental prowess. Unfortunately, the ticket-machines bested me. Their deceptively simple interface belies a confounding structure of zones, lines, rates and exceptions that spell tough times for the unsuspecting foreigner's (read: my) cash reserves. Based on my experience with the local public transit system, you can't move more than 30 feet in this country without purchasing a new ticket. Wanna ride the bus back to the Metro station? Gotta buy a new ticket. Wanna get on the Metro to go back to campus? Gotta buy a new ticket. Wanna leave the Metro station to walk to campus? Guess what? Gotta buy a new ticket. At one point, I literally had to pay a ransom to leave the station, my only other option being to hop the barrier and hope the uniformed, submachine gun toting guards were feeling gracious.
Day over. More to come.
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