The filth behind the thobe

Behind the gleaming white thobe (a flowing Islamic religious gown) of a wealthy Persian Gulf Arab is a reeking brew of intolerance and racism. The latest example. I teach English Literature to high school students in Bahrain. The class is reading an account of a Russian immigrant to the United States in the late 1800's who is employed by a wealthy family as a domestic servant. At the end of the month, the narrator expects to receive her wages but is looked on with utter contempt by the wealthy couple. They provide her food, clothing, shelter, the couple scoff. She has no right to expect anything else.

So I ask what conditions created this situation. Most students agree it was about the power differential. The immigrant was poor, the couple was rich. She didn't speak the language, they did. The laws favored the couple, not the recent immigrant.

Then I asked if this could happen today. Most imply that it could happen in some place like Africa (those dirty uncivilized brutes). So I play a news report by NPR.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7626754

It describes a Kuwaiti diplomat in Washington D.C. accused of abusing three Indian domestic servants in his employee. At one point, one of the servants demands her wages from the Kuwaiti couple. They deny her request. They provide her food, clothing, shelter, the couple scoff. A couple of the students notice the blatantly obvious similarity.

After the news story concludes, we explore the similarities and differences between these two accounts. Most seem to agree that the abuse was a result of the power inequality. The added tinge of racism in the modern day event doesn't seem to register with them.

But then the ugly truth pokes its head from behind the thobe.

Ali in the back room says maybe it's not always about the employer taking advantage of the employee. Maybe it's the other way around. I ask him to explain and he relates the tale of his own servants. He first makes it explicitly clear that his family provides a bedroom, a TV, food, and wages to their servants. But on one occasion, a servant brought a man into her bedroom alone. The brother of Ali chased the women from their house and they haven't seen her since.

And then the dam breaks and the bile comes crashing down. Anfal refers to herself as an "owner" of a servant. She says that as an owner she has certain rights. One of those rights is to not allow the servant to leave the home. Other students display more magnanimity. Their families allow the maids to occasionally have a breath of freedom. But that poses the terrifying risk of the maid bringing "bad influences" back into the house. I press for specifics on these "bad influences." Bashayer pathetically suggests drugs and alcohol. I pose the question, "Where would a maid get these things? There is one liquor shop on the island and drugs are virtually non-existent." The student is adamant that such evil vices exist and the maid is doing her utmost to corrupt the sanctity of his family. Mustafa implies that the maid can bring back voodoo icons to perform ritual ceremonies. All the students are in near complete agreement: they and their families are victims. The maids have taken advantage of them. A woman from a desperately poor village in Indonesia, for example, who signed a contract with a recruiting agency in her own country, who flies to a strange land where she knows not a single soul, who is deposited unceremoniously in a villa with no access to public transportation, no way to contact her family in her home country, and almost no freedom of movement, has taken advantage of them.

When the oil revenue begins to dry up, Persian Gulf societies will fray and unravel. On that day, I’ll most likely have a tear in my eye.

Zapoy

A few mornings ago, as I rushed to the metro, I spotted a man slowly making his way across the busy street in front of my apartment building. That normally wouldn't strike me as unusual, except for the fact that he was crossing at a tortoise like pace...on his hands and knees.

The first thought that blasted my conscious was to rush out there and help him to his feet. The morning traffic, as usual in Moscow, was bordering on aggravated violence, and the guy was bound to end up underneath the wheel of a Land Rover. But just as quickly as this samaratorious act passed through my mind, I realized the guy was on zapoy. The closest direction translation in English is alcoholic bender, but that doesn't quite encapsulate the nuances as explained to me. For a zapoy is a period of time, sometimes lasting for weeks, when a Russian, usually male, goes away for awhile.

Sometimes literally, like the old man I met on the commuter train who went to his dacha for a couple of weeks, consumed so much cheap beer and vodka that at first I mistook him for the most down-and-out homeless guy I'd ever seen. When my fiancee and I boarded the train in Vidnoe, he was sprawled on his side across one of the benches that normally seats three people. A plastic litre of beer rested on the floor, his hand still territorially wrapped around its contents. He awoke after about twenty minutes, blinked several times like a new born glimpsing the world for the first time, rubbed his eyes with his fists so hard I thought he might permanetly blind himself, and asked my fiancee if this was the train to Moscow. His question exposed a broken row of jagged teeth, with several missing altogether, yellowed by years of nicotine. His graying hair jumped from his head in a tough springy mass and his skin looked like a mountain top scraped bare of all vegetation. He then smiled and asked sheepishly how he looked. My fiancee seemed at a loss for words, before tactifully saying that maybe he would look better after a shower. The window caught his reflection and when he turned to appraise himself there was a visible physical reaction, as if he'd just spotted a terrifying looking man, hovering like a translucent being, peering in at him through the window of the moving train. He made a futile effort to mat his hair down, abadonded the cause effort a few moments, and turned his attention back to us. He said to my fiancee that he'd heard us talking in his semi-conscious inebriated state a few minutes before and asked if I was English. She told him close but I was in fact American. At which point, he grew animated, and began listing off the words in English he could remember from his school days. Which as far as I could tell consisted of the word "yellow" and the number "five.

He left us in Vlikino, the station before the Moscow terminus, waving at us through the window, dissapointed that we couldn't accompany him to his apartment for a longer chat, but understanding, what with our jobs and all.

And sometimes figuratively, allowing a few bottles of vodka to transport the drinker to perhaps imagined taiga forests and the crystalline waters of Lake Baikal.

The man on his hands and knees, in the soiled pair of blue jeans and a powder blue tracksuit top, appeared to be on a figurative zapoy. After all, no one would be insane enough to take their actual holiday in Moscow. As he passed the center yellow line of the road, the traffic that had stopped to let him pass began slowly moving. Now in the opposite direction, cars and trucks began backing up for about 500 meters. But strangely none of the first few cars in the line, the ones which the drivers had a clear view of the guy, honked their horns, yelled at the guy, or displayed any visible traces of irratation. It reminded me of a long string of cars waiting patiently as a mother duck led her brood across the highway. The sight of a grown man in such a state of drunkenness (at 7 am!) didn't appear to ruffle the feathers of the drivers. Everyone, after all, needs a zapoy from time to time.

chilling times

In Moscow, the hot water pumped into my bathroom apparently doesn't originate from the basement. I had naively believed that (well actually I'd never really given it much thought) that deep in the bowels of my apartment building, a boiler heated the water for all the tenants and delivered it through a system of aging Soviet pipes. My first clue that a different method is at work here is the fact that my building doesn't have a basement. All the Khrushchovkas built in the 1960's and 1970's were constructed as temporary residences. So they were built on blocks much the same way that a mobile home might come to rest on cinderblocks in a Missouri trailerpark. Actually, when viewed from the proper angle, the Soviet era flats bear an uncanny resemblance to a double-wide trailer home.

My second clue came from the icy cold water spraying on my face.

Apparently, the central planners of the Soviet era decided to construct water heating plants in various locations around the city that would deliver hot water to all the "temporary" apartment buildings. But like so much else of that era, the pipes that feed the homes were built with substandard materials. Which means that for up to three weeks each summer, every district in Moscow is deprived of water on a rotating basis so that the city water authority can peform the needed repairs to get the pipes through one more endless Russia winter.

The symbolism is quite beautiful though. The instant wealth of the oil-fueled economy pulses everyday through the streets of Moscow, rubbing it's silicon boob job in the face of those who missed out on the party. The party going on RIGHT NOW in the stretch Humvee limo racing along the Garden Ring road at 120 km/h on it's way to the newest Sushi bar opening where the diamond encrusted party-goers will down shots of overpriced sake and feel a certain sense of disappointment bordering on slighted outrage that the prices are not sufficiently outrageous enough, failing to reflect the true value of the patrons.
And yet, silently rusting below this grand party is the constant reminder that all those years of deprivations and corruption, all those hours spent standing in endless lines for a ring of mealy sausage, all those silently borne humiliations of communal living, all those mornings spent with clenched teeth as the bone-numbing water pours from the shower head are not quite over.

But I gotta go. I think I hear my bath water boiling on the stove.

a soviet gold mine

My sources tell me that the real money in Moscow is in real estate. To the untrained eye, the thousands of gray, crumbling Soviet era apartment buildings scattered around Moscow look like relics from a long ago civilization. The stairwells painted a uniform lime green, the interiors so cramped that two cooks in the kitchen feels overcrowded, the walls so thin that the muffled sighs of lovemaking have to be consciously ignored by the people in the bed next door. Each unit of these side by side aparment layouts uniformly designed to accomodate the unfullfilled needs of their citizen comrades.

But with property values in Moscow at some of the highest rates in the world, and developers scrambling to throw up cheaply constructed high rises that will crumble as quickly as their Soviet ancestors, the time has come to tear down all those Kruschevys. The only stumbling block for the financiers, developers, and property managers is that most of these apartments are occupied--by people. But minor nuisances have never interferred with the great pursuit of profit before so why should this time be any different. And so enter the Moscow Housing Adminstration. According to my sources, a well placed blonde bombshell with a taste for Armani and plastic surgery, all the former Soviet dwellings now fall under the domain of this particular agency. The managers of this agency have the authority to sell former state owned properties to developers. And considering that one apartment building nestled inside the Garden Ring could easily fetch several million dollars, with the developer then turning around and constructing a new office building or high rise luxury flat facility, the managers might feel a certain temptation to dip their fingers in the honey pot and take a lick. Or on the mornings they forget to eat breakfast, simply plunging their faces right into the pot and slurping like a cow at the trough. Now my sources (see above) tell me that any occupant of an apartment that is on the selling block has the right to refuse to vacate the apartment. Of course, such a decision might result in an inspector arriving to pronounce the wiring in the flat faulty and delivering an eviction notice or a mysterious fire gutting the interior. For those flat owners who see the wisdom in selling, the housing adminstration provides (free of charge) new accomodations. The fact that these new apartment buildings are almost on the border with Ukraine is also to the benefit of the occupants, as many of them are ailing babushkas who can only benefit from the fresh air and country living of being a five hour train ride from their friends and families and the only life any of them have known for the past 75 years.

a morning ride

Morning in the Moscow metro. Waves of commuters flood onto the station platform, standing five deep in expectation of an approaching train, everyone jockeying for position to be in the most strategic position when the doors open. And no matter that the trains run every 60-90 seconds, the tide of humanity seems never to ebb. Like desperate survicors of a shipwreck, frantically bailing out their lifeboat only to watch in horror as the water slowly climbs to the gunwales.

While riding on the metro this morning, feeling an intense hatred for this passive, compliant mass of humanity crushing my internal organs and doing my best to hold my arms stiff by my side to give myself a few inches of breathing room, a woman boarding the train audibly inhaled and then flung herself into the crush. Once safely ensconed, she exhaled even louder and her entire squat body seemed to expand, apparently adopting the blowfish technique for creating personal space.

Not long after, a man wearing a stiff, almost polished brown leather jacket and sporting a shaved head to hid his receding hairline looked at me and snarled something while gesturing for me to move over into the fraction of an inch of free space to our right. I looked him in the eye and with a flash of murderous rage surely passing over my face told him that I don't understand a word you just said, but go fuck yourself is probably an apporpriate reply. Whatever culutral exchange we were on the brinking of having stopped abrubtly at that moment and he was left to perhaps wonder about the astronomical odds of being threatned by a huge foreigner on his ride to work that particular morning while I was left to imagine what life in a Russian prison might be like should I choose to kill this guy. That act of transcendtal meditation thankfully pulled me back from that precipice.

Except for me and my new found friend, however, everyone else on the train looked bitterly resigned to their situation. The Soviets either were blessed to stumble upon the most docile and submissive race of people in the world or more than 70 years of bread lines, housing shortages, cramped Kruschevy life, and the pervasisve threat of informers had broken their will. But unravelling the cause/effect relationship in that equation is probably a bit like untangling a rat's nest of fishing line while wearing oven mitts. I tried to imagine New Yorkers packing themselves into a subway car like the Moscovites. I had a vision of a NYC subway train pulling into a station, the doors sliding open, a wave of human fury pouring out, heading in the direction of city hall where they would burn the place down before hanging the mayor and the entire city council from the Brooklyn Bridge. After which citizen action committees and non-profit organizations would form to unleash an unprecendeted campaign of public outcry. But for whatever reason, Moscowvites display no such righteous indignation, instead choosing to wear faces of perpetual glumness as their form of protest.

A return to Hanoi

Step out of the metro at the Dubrovoka station on the Moscow light green line and you'll find a world bathed in infinite shades of gray. Slate, steel, steely slate, stalin monolithic, soul deflating soviet. All the numerical representations of the grey scale. Inside the two story market located maybe 250 meters from the metro, you won't find a great deal of color either. Monotone jackets hanging from the seller's stalls, pairs of brown and black leather shoes lined from floor to ceiling, a few jewellery stores scattered about. But what you will find is Hanoi. And for a guy who's been in Moscow just short of three weeks, a trip back to my former temporary home of two years was a much needed excursion. Just as in Hanoi, the vendors sit on wooden stools just outside their stalls, calling out to you as you pass. Just as in Hanoi, the vendors are often young women with flawless skin and radiant faces. And just as in Hanoi, the sellers do their best to rip off the foreigners. While in search of a spring jacket, the first guy (who I even impressed with my pathetic knowledge of Vietnamese) tried to overcharge me about 500 rubles.

But it was the pho that made the journey worthwhile. Tucked away on the side of the market was the Dilmah Cafe. That being a hugely popular brand of tea in Vietnam, and seemingly half of the cafes there having the same name, I already feel a nostalgia creep up on me. But mostly it was just hunger. Three weeks in Moscow, three separate dining experiences, three exceedingly bland meals, and three eyebrow raising checks had left me in despair about the culinary scene. Until I read about the Vietnamese market. Wherever the Viet in the world so goes cheap tasty food. And at the Cafe Dilmah, I was not disappointed. Maybe six or seven tables pushed close together, a massive photo of a young Vietnamese girl in an ao dai, some chili pepper sauce on the tables, and a distinct air of Vietnam. Svetlana and I had a couple of really fucking tasty bowls of pho bo, some green tea, and a pair of cafe sua da. All for about $12. Hands down the best godamn deal in this overpriced culinary wasteland.

We chatted (actually just like in Vietnam, Lana did almost all the talking) with the owner who went by the name Tulia but who's real name is Thanh and is a viet kieu in Mosocw for the last twenty years. And just like in Vietnam, the guy was in awe to be talking with foreigners in his own language, displayed amazement at my ability to cough up a couple of convoluted questions in Vietnamese while being somewhat blase about Sveti's fluency, and in direct contrast to most of the denizens of this city--smiled! So basically to sum up. I was a total fucking idiot for not appreciating what I had going in Hanoi.

what did i do

9:46 a.m.

I took no notice of her. She was a middle aged woman wearing an ankle length gray coat. There are probably in excess of 700,000 women in this city who look exactly or nearly identical to this one. She was maybe 1.5 meters in front of me on the sidewalk which bordered the eight lane boulevard that city planners seem so fond of in this city. My head was down practicing my new found technique of closing my eyes for brief interludes to lift my exhaustion. It seems to work, but this was the first time I'd ever tried it while not standing stationary on a metro car.

And then the non-descript broad whirled and unleased a tirade on my ass. An invective of a very Russian magnitude. I never got close enough to actually invade her personal space, even by Moscow's particularly frigid standards. But there she was veering off towards the bus stop just laying into me with a string of words that I couldn't catch,despite my diligent study of Russian profanity (think of the gold mine I could have unearthed if only she'd given me enough time to jot a few of those gems down!).