Know Your Audience

Daily Report
Sunny, 119

In my days as a single girl I was focused. I had it all together and could handle it all myself. I didn't need or want someone else to tell me what to do or try to do it for me (some people call that help, I called it nosing in). I didn't want anyone to be my excuse. "I'm not helpless, thankyouverymuch. I can do it by myself." (Another childhood phrase that repeated itself during wedding festivities and, probably, pre-proposal permission discussions).

I didn't want someone to change my tire, my faucet, my mind or my plans.

Let me tell you about how effective that particular line of thinking is here, in the Muslim Middle East, where it's a religious affront, a family breakdown and a societal ill if a woman is unescorted by a father, uncle, husband or brother. At first I bucked against it. I found it restrictive to need someone there with me and yet found the behavior of some men in the presence of an unescorted woman beyond abberant (maybe worse because I didn't feel that I could respond and, believe me, if someone is inappropriate with me back home, he is going to hear about it). To be fair, that kind of behavior was more common metropolitan Morocco than here in Oman and the UAE, where it's more frequent to draw sidelong looks or outright stares before a crude comment.

I'd like to say that I'm just smart enough to adapt and sensitive enough to be culturally acceptable, but it was an accident that I learned to turn it to my advantage.

One afternoon, the SC group had piled into the van and headed to the Jimi Mall to do our weekly grocery shopping. Unfortunately, the van was the first victim of the heat and the battery had given out. Leigh and I were assigned to sit just inside the foyer of the mall along with the groceries from 7 other people to prevent the food spoilage that is sped along by the desert temps. As we sat, waiting for the van to be repaired Jacob and Matthew ran into the store to purchase jumper cables and the others were outside tinkering with connectors and such.

A security guard (yes, the malls are full of multi-national expat Paul Blart wannabes) approaches and starts going on and on about how "You can't sit, you can't sit. Management doesn't want you to sit here. You can't be here." I tried to explain the situation, I tried to say it would only be a few more moments, I told him I was a customer - look at all this stuff - and was just waiting for my ride, so I should be able to stay here, I even became annoyed and asked him where I was supposed to go exactly, and was he going to carry all these groceries because, if not...

then an idea. "My husband went into the store to buy something else and he told me to stay here. I can't move until he comes back. Are you telling me to leave when my husband told me to stay?" I watched and waited. I swear, fear nearly came into his eyes and he acquiesced, saying weakly only, "Ok, but when he comes and says so, you have to go." Triumph! I put my hands on my hips and stuck my chin out. "Ok, I will go when he says I can go, and not until then."

I've discovered my trump card. Who would have ever thought that my trump would be in submission? Not me...