Dubai Jazz

Gleaned through five years of working in construction in Dubai.

1-If you’ve heard what had been said in a conversation, don’t mumble ‘ha?’ or ‘sorry?’ or other dumb retorts that are obviously designed to gain you some time to respond; this is a very old tactic that would make you come across as dishonest person and as an overall asshole.


2-If you’re seeking someone’s advice or consulting them in a technical or procedural matter, it’s very rude to respond to his/her advice/tip/piece of information saying that you’d already asked person X and he told you something else that sounds better for you. This really makes you sound sneaky and somewhat stupid; stupid because people will become wary of exchanging ideas with you and you’ll end up with little stimulation. But that’s all right; you probably don’t care anyway.


3- It’s all right to interrupt people while they talk. Thing is, just don’t make it a habit. It’s also equally offensive to let people talk without really listening to them and imparting what’s been said with sufficient attention.


4-Gossip is fun. Just don’t spend the entire afternoon discussing the marital status of every other individual in your organization. Loose monitoring by a manager shouldn’t encourage you to shift your focus off your work towards mundane issue. Water cooler gossip are called that for a reason, they’re limited to an area within 6 feet radius from the water cooler.


I’ve got a writer’s block right now. Feel free to continue the list.

5-………………….

A little while ago, we've appointed an Interior Designer for one of our prominent projects, I may hastily add that we've brought this fine, urban Iraqi/Canadian gentleman a little later than we are supposed to. Normally, he would have been given the chance to take a long contemplative look at the blueprints of the project before the shovel hit the ground and the construction began. But, you see, we've been a little lazy. The first time Mr. Sami was entitled to suggest any changes on the building, most of the two underground basements have been completed and he didn't really have much of a wriggle room to overhaul and amend our design.

Not that it would deter him. As it turned out later, basic laws of logic and common sense didn't strike that high on Mr. Sami's priorities' list. He does see the world through a binoculars full of colored three dimensional sketches, fancy pieces of furniture and sexy sanitary ware (probably fancy underwear as well, but we didn't get that far with Mr. Sami yet. However, if things kept going the way they are, I might be able to report to you soon on that matter).

The first thing Mr. Sami proposed and insisted on was to raise the height of the ground floor of the building. The current proposed height is 425 CM (or 14 Feet). The maximum allowed according to by-laws. This, according to the fine vision of Mr. Sami, isn't enough to impress the visitors. To be honest, it's Sami's perfect right as an interior designer to come up with ideas, and its our right (or privilege) as consultants and client representatives to reject or approve of his ideas. But in the devious business of construction things don't simply go that way. Sami, knowing his salt, had caught the client by his elbow and took him on a tour of some Hotels with 'nice' interior. Never mind that the hotels visited were of 5 stars rating and not 3-4 stars like the project in question. Never mind that matters of height and other crucial issues would have been decided on over the safety of plain papers before lines morph into concrete beams and shear walls. Sami was, with his urban smoothness, able to lure our client into this great idea of increasing the height of the ground floor by at least one meter. (approximately 3 feet 4 inches)

Our structural engineer emitted a little gasp and asked in horror: but I have columns 6 meters long in the underground ramp area, the buckling factor is already very high and these elements will not 'check' through calculations. He was simply told to 'do something about it'.

Our site engineer--the guy who's responsible for the supervision of the construction-- cried in horror: such a major revision will affect the pace of work at the site and bring things to a halt. He was just told that work could stop as long as it takes for this noble cause.

I, on the other hand, your knight in shining armor, the architect and liaison of the project, kept calm and told the lot they could have their extra meter, provided they expect long delays and major changes to all staircases. I should also be able to confirm with the Municipality whether the new proposed height is permitted or not.

That's fine, they said. We think it's a worthy challenge. Do whatever it takes. Exhaust all channels and knock on every door.

So on a Sunday morning, after I sipped my green tea and skimmed through the paper, I drove lesirely from our office on SZR to Bur Dubai. Swung by the shisha place for a smoke, read a little of an interesting novel and listened to some radio. When I got bored I rod the water bus to the DM (Dubai Municipality) building on Deira side of the creek and sauntered happily in the sun towards its gate, taking all the time in the world. I then climbed two flights of stair and walked through a busy corridor toward a room at the corner, where I knew an Iraqi architect with giant experience in regulations and by laws dispensed advices to the crowd. I had a brief conversation with him, which only served to confirm what I'd already knew. You see, having read the by-laws book of DM from cover to cover a hundred time, I knew it inside it out by then. I really didn't need to consult the guy who wrote it. But his assurances didn't hurt.

I drove back to our office and wrote the following email to our client:

Dear Sir,

Re the subject of increasing the GF height of the aforesaid building; upon checking with DM today, we've arrived at the following conclusions:

1- Increasing the height is indeed permissible, even though it exceeds the limits set by DM. However, we need to submit a 'special case' study to them and upon an approval, they will levy a certain fee on the owner of the building. This fee usually corresponds to the benefited (affected) area and the price of the plot of land. My rough estimate is that our fee in this regard is going to be 300,000 DHs.

2- You may recall that the zoning regulations of our plot dictate that the setback [the setback is the distance between the plot (land) limit and the edge of the area where you are allowed to build] be calculated according to the height of the building. Increasing the ground floor height, even by a distance as little as 10 CM (4 inches) will also increase the setback substantially. It is, however, structurally speaking, impossible to increase the setback since we've already cast the basement concrete columns at the outline of the present setback.

Given the above, it's our view that this height increase is practically impossible.

Thanks and best regards,

When I came back from lunch in the afternoon. I found a two lines email waiting for me. Our beloved client had called off the whole idea. Go on on the same height, he said, it really is not that bad.

Oh yeah, and do not forget to inform Sami of my decision.

Five minutes later, Sami received an email telling him what I knew all along; DM won't allow it, get on with your design and shun all fantasies of heights and grand foyers.

Was I being dishonest? you bet your ass I wasn't. For like Sami, I know how things are done and I know that the might of statutory law is much more compelling than the reasoning of an architect in the face of a euphoric client and a sprightly, dreamy interior designer.

This could happen anytime, anywhere.

I’m in a clinic of a general practitioner. I finish my presentation and the clerk sees me out and with the that I call it a day. When I joined the school of pharmacy more than a decade ago, I haven’t had the faintest idea I’d be peddling drugs (medical drugs, that is) for lousy pharmaceutical companies. I see dozens of doctors everyday now and give them the pitch; rattling off the properties of each new item my employer is trying to push into the drug cabinets of sick, uninsured people.

I twist the key into the ignition and the engine comes to life. I negotiate my way away from the curb with its sad grimy cars and head in the general direction of my home. But after couple of hundred yards the heat indicator is screaming at me. I pull over to the side of the road. I pop the hood open. I try the cap on the radiator, think if I could let the steamy water exhale a little, things could run more smoothly. Instinct tells me to keep my face away, but that is as far as my primal sense could get. Once it gets free from the restraint of its screw, the cap takes off like a surface-to-air missile. The boiling water ejaculates out of the radiator and burns my right hand rest and forearm.

I scream and curse and whimper all in one loud sound. When I stop for breath I hear the ringing tone of my mobile phone. I pick it up and put it to my ear. “Hi, how you doing.” They say. “We have this intimation for your required presence as a witness in court“, they go on while I nurse my sore arm under the flow of the car air condition. “Come pick it up right now, sir, or else we’ll fine you.”

I keep the phone to my ear and call my neighbor, he’s a car mechanic who’d done a substantial job on my sweet ride before. He says you can drive it home but just be gentle on the pedal. On my way home I pass by my pharmacy and pick up a spray for skin-deep burns. I spray and curse and bitch while I hike the little rise in the road towards the office of the governor’s representative in my area. But when I step inside there’s more than just a warrant waiting for me, there are handcuffs too. The policeman slaps them hard unto my burning wrist, and I curse and scream in pain. But I manage to ask what the heck is it all about. The law enforcer shrugs and says I’d know soon enough.

………………………………........

It happened two years ago. I was heading to work one morning, my pharmacy practice was in the country side at the time. I saw a truck hauling rocks ahead of me and I slowed down. Out of the sudden a girl emerged from behind the truck and she runs across the road. I screamed and cursed and kicked at the brakes. But I knew the brake wouldn’t catch up, so I swerved to the left. My heart bounced on the steering wheel as I fidgeted hopelessly in my seat. I managed to avoid hitting the girl but the side mirror brushed by her shoulder nonetheless. And since I was driving a little fast, the impact swept her off her feet and she fell head-first on the blacktop.

I watched in my rear view mirror in horror as I slowed down and then sprinted back to go check on her. By the time I got there, there was a bruise on her forehead and her father was down on his haunches besides her, crying and slapping himself on the temples. I yelled and cursed and nudged him into action. He finally lifted her off the road and carried her along. I waved him to the back seat of my car and we drove off to the nearest decent hospital, which was thirty miles away. I parked haphazardly by the emergency gate and we crash-opened it with the girl on her fathers‘ arms. She looked tiny, although he‘d told me between sobs that she‘s ten years old.

She went through the whole process of check ups and scans of all kinds of acronyms. I didn’t care, I told her father that although I felt it was his mistake to let her loose by the highway, I’d make sure she’d not leave the hospital until her doctors are one hundred percent sure she’ll be OK. The obligatory policeman present in the hospital had registered the incident against an unknown cause at the father’s request. As the evening approached, her doctor stopped by while making his rounds and checked all kinds of vitals and peered at X rays and lab reports. He said she was fine and ready for discharge. We did that. I settled the hospital bill. I shook hands with her father and split at the entrance, his relative would give him a lift back to the village.

Six months later, I received a phone call from the father. He said that the police are asking him for an MRS scan. I was dumbfounded by the news, it’s not like we have a rigorous child services here. And then it occurred to me, the guy had probably run out of cigarette money and he wanted to milk the old cow a little. I simply reminded him of my full commitment to checking and treating his daughter at the day of the accident. Of my insistence on admitting her into one of the best hospitals in town. And my settling the bill at the end, when we’d made sure she’ll be absolutely fine. No concussion. No skull cracks. No internal bleeding. No further medical attention needed. Just a surface bruise which healed in couple of days. I reminded the old dad of that and told him not to ever call me again. And I then hung up.

………………………………........

But he didn’t give up. He sued me in court. For some inexplicable reason, and although I was the defendant in the trial, I wasn’t informed about it. You heard that right, ladies and gentlemen, I wasn’t informed at all. Not prior to preliminary hearings, not before or after the presentation by the plaintiff’s lawyer. I wasn’t even informed of the verdict. Yes, I was sentenced in absentia. That is what the desk sergeant is telling me now. I ask him why I wasn’t informed from the beginning, he consults the file and tells me that intimations had been posted nearby my buildings. How near? I ask him. The file doesn‘t say.

When I finish talking with the sergeant, I’m lead through dark corridors to the holding cell. The holding cell is wide and deep underground bunker. With lots of people inside. The only source of ventilation is a little exhaust fan at the far end. The only source of light, artificial or otherwise, is a florescent light high on the ceiling, flickering endlessly. The only mean for bodily relief is a doorless toilet next to the door. The design must have been inspired by some open-plan school of architecture. There’s absolutely no privacy. And there’s no space for me except to stand still. I stood for couple of hours. Have you ever tried standing in the same spot for longer than half an hour? Shifting weight from one buttock to the other? I eventually lean back on the wall and slide down to the ground. I don’t care where my ass is landing. I’m tired and my legs feel like dry logs. And I have the burns on my wrest to worry about.

But the burns prove useful. I get couple of stares from the inmates, my new comrades in the slammer. The stares grow more frequent as time passes by. Eventually, one of them breaks free from his eternal lazing and asks the ultimate question: What are you here for?

A fight, I say. Don’t you see how badly injured I am? Well, don’t even ask what happened to the other party. They’re keeping couple of doctors busy at the moment. Hospital occupancy rate are a little higher than usual now. And so on and so forth of all that posturing. My comrades aren’t impressed, which is OK with me. I do not want to impress them. I just need them to stay away from me. I was told on the way in to the holding cell that shall I engage in a fight inside the cell, I and all other parties involved would be severely punished with flogging on the soles of our feet. Hence, no one is really interested in a fight. Especially since we can all clearly hear faint screams coming from upstairs. Which we are told are the sounds of those who are undergoing a ’corrective’ regimen to ease their hostility. Although, given the relentlessness of the screaming, I secretly suspect that this is a tape being played for the benefit of these poor souls huddled together in this crowded, underground bunker.

As time progresses, I push and shove my way ahead through the cell. One after the other, people are either being discharged or transferred from this place. But there are fresh supplies, and I can claim seniority now. In less than twelve hour I’m in possession of the best sleeping mattress in the cell. The one below the only exhaust, at the furthest point from the open toilet. I fold the pillow around my head and jam it under my arm, shielding myself from the world, and I sleep for twenty four hours. Interrupted only twice by my visiting father. He’s pulling all the strings and calling all the favors he has to get me out.

At the morning of my third day in prison, a judge somewhere hears a plea from a lawyer whom we’d hired hastily to take over the case. After a short but robust presentation, the judge revokes the old sentence. He then orders my release and a retrial. The cuffs come off as easily as they’d been put on. I walk down the steps of the city court, a free man. The sky is a little cloudy and a gentle drizzle is keeping the sidewalk damp. A chill breeze is pressing against my shirt and I suddenly shiver. And I realize that my eyes are misting. I walk to the nearest cypress tree and I hug it. My hug is actually bigger than its trunk and my arms end up overlapped. My family watches me, baffled. I squeeze my eyes shut and hug the tree tighter and tighter. The smell of damp earth and dewy bark is intoxicating.

A smell I haven’t had the time nor the patience to savor before.

Freedom, I find out, is highly underrated.

My mother just told me she feels scared for me. She’s not worried about my career or well-being or livelihood, she’s just worried about my ‘after-life’. She said it in such a grave tone that I almost felt scared for myself, myself.

What had induced her fears, though, is that I had told her that a guy we’d been watching on TV was talking crap. She didn’t like that.

This guy, with the fancy resounding name of Abu Isehaq Al Hudaini (if I’m not mistaken), and who comes on Al Nass satellite TV channel, was blasting secularists left and right. The subject of discussion was the Niqab (women veil or face cover), which is a raging issue in the discourse of the Arab world right now. (we, it seems, had conquered all our other problems and were left with the job of deciding what we should do with a female’s face). This guy is Egyptian. But that doesn’t stop his voice from crossing all borders and stomping cultural differences in order to achieve a big, spanning, monotonous and conforming Arab society from the Gulf to the Ocean. (and probably beyond)

The guy has a peculiar point of view: he acknowledged that secularists (and I believe he was referring particularly to liberals) had supported a woman’s right to wear the Niqab (if SHE wanted to) in the midst of the stormy dispute. But he’s too smart to appreciate this support. No, ladies and gentlemen, he knows those little filthy secularists have a grand scheme of undressing all pious Muslim women. So you beware, he tells his listeners, of those underhanded conspirators.

He knows that the reasons behind secularists’ support of women to wear the Niqab (if SHE wanted to) is that for them, the freedom of a person to wear what he pleases is inline with the concept of personal liberty. And he doesn’t like personal liberty. He said we’re not free. He told his viewers that their freedom is limited and constrained. And that those limits and restraints shall be decided by him. He goes on to say that man shouldn’t have a say in his life, for every detail in his/her life he/she could fall back upon the relevant religious text and apply it. He said that positivism doesn’t have a place in our ‘Muslim’ countries. That we should flog the adulterers and cut the arms of thieves.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. A thief should has his arm cut so that ‘he wouldn’t do it again’. Imagine disfiguring a person for life just because he’d stolen something. Would that deter him? Yes. The proponent of this proposition would tell you. Cut the arm of one person and the entire society would become deterred and scared.

As if our ultimate target should be to scare society into submission.

My mom is scared for me, and I’m becoming scared for my scared society.

I walk down the streets and I see molds. Molds made of lead. Hard, seemingly unbreakable, lead. I wonder what an X mold looks like from the inside. Without all the fuss and the accessories. I have a lingering, nagging fantasy that I should stalk a mold and follow it home, peer through the bathroom exhaust and eyeball the unsuspecting victim while it bathes. Must be a nice scene. Because every other wanker is clinging to his mold for dear life. You could see it happening later, in the dark, the fumbling and the thrashing around with an undressed mold. That about all it comes down to with molds and their wankers.

I see skimpy skirts on display. Outrageous lingerie with ‘come fuck me’ on the price tag. And I wonder which mold has them on under all the armors. But then other yobs line up to watch and they make me uncomfortable, they seem on the verge of masturbating. So I walk away thinking that it must be tough to be a mold in this town.

A mold gave me the look the other day, couldn’t discern which look since only the double periscope was up there above sea level. The rest of the thing was well concealed. I wondered if the dismantling of a mold’s shield (once it’s berthed home) is similar to maintaining a submarine: you get the thing into the safety of the dry dock, and then you drain the basin of all water. Up comes the naked mold. And it’s yours.

You can’t communicate with a mold, though. At least not conventionally. A friend of mine who had just landed from the far west tried to talk a mold into giving him the directions downtown. It gave him the finger and mobilized the passers by. My friend ended up pinned down in his place, shaking hands and apologizing to them all. And when the procession was over, the mold pardoned and moved away. Must be a tenuous relationship between the molds and the passers by; it relies on them for protection and yet they’re by far its worst enemy. There’s the ogling, the verbal abuse and the stomach churning facetiousness. And I wonder if the mold always uses passers by as a metric for assessing others. Because, out of concern for the mold, I’m thinking that is setting the bar very low. The poor mold has a limited choice.

When the going is good, though, the mold may grace you with a smile. I guess you can tell by the little creased lines on the sides and the fluttering of the mascaraed lids . But then it could also be grimacing. I ventured unto the molds’ market today and looked out for the subtle signs. I got none, or maybe I did. It’s very hard to tell with molds, isn’t it? I imagine there’s a secret language going on there. With gestures and postures and audible approvals and disapprovals. It would have to be a precise economical and lithe language. With stringent conveyance of explosive messages. Not all molds wish to be left alone. Some of them do not mind the silent surveillance. I guess they enjoy it, to a point. And they respond with a blowtorch lashes of their own laser pointers. You’ve got to be up to the task of deciphering them for what they really are, after you shed away the layer upon layer of sanctimonious fastidiousness.

On the other hand (the clean, virtuous hand with which you do not masturbate), there’s an established mechanism for owning a mold. You pick up the phone and call some middle women of social stature. You go and inspect the mold, you get some other broad, generic descriptions through a third party. Then you have to make up your mind real quick. The mold guardian names a price, and you pay a part upfront, and leave some for the rainy day. Then the mold is yours.

Must be an interesting life style. Must be an exciting way of burning time. It will never fail not to impress you, to dare you to wrestle with it and change it.

I don’t really want a mold of my own. I just wonder if molds are happy. That’s all.

And you’re there at the gaping mouth, getting drawn in and in and in…..until your senses are taken over and you’re totally hypnotized by this wilderness.

This is a picture so calm it’s almost frozen in time and place, yet it’s so alive it could erupt in revolt without notice.

This is a zone of care-free indulgence that lure you into irresponsibility.

This is…….

I was jolted out of the reverie at the sound of squealing tires on the blacktop. I sat forward in my folding chair and peered at my companions. They were engaged in an aimless conversation. I looked around. I cursed under my lips and stared into space again. This little clearing was swarming with garbage. Soda cans. Food wrappers. Plastic bags. Water bottles. Diapers. Sanitary napkins and all kinds of un-biodegradable stuff. Probably a summer-long load of leftovers from filthy passers-by. Disgusting.

Later that day I met the guy who had leased the chalet to us. The breeze was balmy and cool as we sat under the grapevine. And as the reputation would suggest, the conversation flowed smoothly under the grapevine. I told him how pissed off I was at the sight of garbage in the forests. The guy opened up and spelled the bag of beans. He said “la teshkili bebkilak” (don’t complain to me, I’d cry to you). The guy operates couple of chalets and lease them to holiday makers from all over the region. He told me, with an apologetic smile, that his Aleppo clients are ‘the worst’. They just dump their garbage wherever possible and move on. He’d been having one bitter experience after the other.

I told him that generalizations are wrong. But I agreed with him nonetheless. I told him he only gets to experience this wonderful facet of the Aleppo society for a short period of time while we, on the other hand, are in touch with it on a daily basis. There’s a garbage dump in front of every building’s front door. And contrary to the public belief, the municipality cleaner does a very conscientious job. Every morning he’d make his round, plucking out all the stinking and leaking bags off the curb. Then he sweeps the footpath clean and collects more garbage from the flowerbeds. I watched him the other day and felt sorry for him. The fact is that the people of Aleppo (again, I must emphasize that generalizations are wrong) are largely not concerned with whatever happens beyond their front door. They don’t understand the concept of ‘public interest’ or the ‘common good’.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Aleppo and its people and realize they enjoy many impressive qualities with regards to social cohesion, family values ..etc… and I also realize that it’s not only the people of Aleppo who had contributed to the landfill by the roadside clearing. I realize all this, and yet, this is a virgin forest, for God’s sake. It’s a national treasure. Such thing is bound to make you angry, and you’ve got to direct your anger somewhere. It takes gazillions of years for plastic to biodegrade. I would have organized volunteers and campaigns to clean (if I had the capacity). But I don’t live here permanently. I’m confident I’m not the only one who’d noticed this abomination. So I hope somebody is doing something about it.

And hey, always remember: generalizations are wrong.

The Korean-made automobile whined and roared as it fought gravity and hauled us up the twisting mountain road. I pointed to a little clearing by the side and my companions noded. Wheels crunched dark gravels and pine cones and wicks as we came to a halt. I turned the tiny Korean made ignition key to cut the engine and absolute silence fell upon us. Soon it was interrupted by the sound of doors banging closed as we dismounted and stretched. We stepped closer to the cliff, shaded by thousands of truncks, branches and twigs.you could see the seashore at the far end, and inbetween hundereds of mountains were sprawled in all directions.

My eyes blinked incontrollably, my eyelids working overtime to adjust to a view so overwhelmed with colors. I should have brought my binoculars. This is the epitome of high definition images. So rich it is you could spend hours exploring it like an ever chaning master piece. After a little more focus, I could see more mountain chains beyond the earlier horizon, obsecured by a layer of an elusive mist. The mist thickened and thinned according to no plan. It just blended with the shadows of a million cypress and the flares of a benign sun. it squirmed through valleys and rode rough terrains and morphed into nothingness up close.

Our hearing is a very curious sense. It plays tricks just like our vision. After few moments of conscious breathing and squinting, the silence was replaced by an eerie, low-pitched rulsting sound that crept up my synapses. It rose and fell. It had no pattern. It had no visual concurrences. It indicated no directions for the winds. It just went on infinitely. The kind of sound you’d associate with the dark. It’s as if all the forest inhabitants had joined in a collective, intimidating chorus. Except that the outcome turned out invariably peaceful. It’s as if the mountain giants were communicating a coded audible missive from their caves. Except that what they communicated made whole lot of sense to the bystander. It’s as if the earth was breathing through hidden crevices in its crust. Except that this place, dotted with all shades of green imaginable, was just inhaling. And you’re there at the gaping mouth, getting drawn in and in and in….. until your senses are taken over and you’re totally hypontized by the wilderness.

This is a picture so calm it’s almost frozen in time and place, yet it’s so alive it could erupt in revolt without notice.

This is a zone of care-free indulgence that lure you into irresponsiblity.

This is a conspiracy of landscape.

This is Kasab!

I’m a staunch fan of public transport systems. Reliable, efficent transport systems, that is. My enthusiasm for them isn’t only prompted by the magnitudeof their benefits. There are glamorous aspects that keeps me fascinated with this mean of moving about. I wonder how it had developed throughout the history of mankind; there were probably certain inidividuals in societies that were adept in commanding and handling animals: so they moved through little dwellings and hamlets, offering their rides for hire – donkeys may they be or camels (sorry guys, can’t let down the stereotype here).

But that is just transport. The ‘public’ component also indicates a congergation, a crowd and an availability to the public. Wikipedia tells us the first case of public transport was the oldest ferry man had deviced. Makes sense. You can’t just cross the water bodies anywhere or by any means. If you didn’t own one, then you’d have got to contract a boat to take you. Ancient ferry operaters would have , after a while, thought that making their crossing route (end and starting points and all) known to the public before hand, and then waiting until their boats are full before taking off, these two steps would have made their job more profitable.

Now, moving few centuries ahead, the industrial revolution had come and it had made large cities even larger than they were. The influx of migrant workers helped cities to evolve and mutate into metropolises. They bloated at the edges with distant subrubs where the population density was above what Is normally acceptable. Rich people also lived in suburbs, different suburbs, where they had their own carriages and flunkies. Migrant workers would eventually need to move around the cities where they lived. They would need to go to the church. Or to the public liberary. Or to one of the cheep watering holes where there are prettier chicks. Or to one of the speakeasies where hooking up with professional women was allowed. Whatever the reason, you live at a certain district in the city, regardless of how perfect the amenities around you are, one day you’ll need to haul ass downtown and see what the fuss is all about. So….cutting long story short, there had come a time when bus routes were introduced with regular service. That was only the beginning of an era of evolution which will lead public transport to the shape it is now.

And this is where I’m getting at with this long-winded post: somebody had had some sense in Aleppo transport authority to do something commendable recently. They’ve done away with the old ‘micro busses’ (14 passengers mini busses)-- each run by a private owner, and they outsourced the operation of entire routes to private companies. This is good privatization. In the early 90s’, when the micro busses system was introduced, all it took for somebody to operate on a certain route was to buy the vehicle and register with the transport authority. Lo and behold, you’ve got myriads of thugs and assholes running on these routes. Each driver of a micro bus had an assistant, a sidekick. Who will collect fares from passengers, shout at the top of his lungs for the intended destination, and who also doubled up as a partner to the driver in fights and bullying. That was bad, bad privatization. You had absolutely no expectations of micro buses. You didn’t even trust the frequency of their service. You always braced yourself for a rude assistant or a driver with a motherfucking attitude. I could fill pages with stories about those, but they’re really mostly unpleasant.

So the move to do away with those and contract the whole operation to a single private operator had made a big difference. Now, only after two trips I’d made downtown, I know what to expect (or not to expect) while riding. The driver is dressed in a uniform, complete with a nice tie. He speaks to you with, surprise surprise, some respect. You take your hard plastic seat (shiny, but clean) and wait for your destination to arrive. You’re relaxed. The bus interior is made to medium specs. Not flashy or luxurious, but not shabby either. Back in the days micro buses had padded seats that smelled, its fake leather upholstery tattered from wear and tear. The metal frame of the seat would jut out here and there, giving you a literal pain in the ass and imparting your pants a nice tear. A micro bus driver’s taste in music would have made you cringe. On the other hand, the private operator had chosen well by not allowing the drivers to play music or even tune in to the radio. Standards.

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Ok. So I thought I’d start this first account of my visit to my hometown on a high note. But you don’t fear, there are always an incessant supply of negative observations to make. Hell, I took my dad’s car for a test drive around the neighbourhood. I test-ran all the holes and ditches in the black top (saying blacktop doesn’t give enough credit to the plethora of colors you’d see on the roads here), and I can report to you that all ditches and holes are working just fine. All mild steel manhole covers of the roads’ storm drainage system are raised proudly by couple of inches from the level of the so called blacktop. In the dark, the horizontal headlight beams would make them out for you, duriung the day, there’s no telling. You’d have to look out for them, as you’d have to look for the holes, ditches, fresh excavations, ‘speed humps’…the lot. My dad opined that I should keep an eye pinned down hard on the couple of meters ahead of me as I drive, another eye on the long distant view. Look out for the A holes, he said. I imgained that if you put together a certain number of humans on the roads of aleppo and command them to dirve and reproduce for couple of millenia, you’d end up with a species that could move its eyes independent from each other. That would be quite the experiment.

An anonymous promoting a website called www.plantedroof.com

"If you can afford to live in a villa in Dubai, you can afford a green roof."

(p.s. sitemeter tells me the visitor came all the way from the United States)