wasta

we have none.

Wasta means that you have a degree of influence with others. That you are important.

We found the perfect house yesterday. PERFECT. A little above what the company will pay, but we were willing to pay it. It was perfect afterall. WELL, the owner told our real estate agent that he either wanted it to go to this particular british guy or a government family. In other words...NOT US! I won't even bother crying foul and discrimination. As far as the food chain is concerned here we are almost the top...still...isn't our money as good as anyone else's? I do believe it is our realtor's fault though...she should have never shown us the house if the owner was not going to allow us in. I just feel like she was trying to push us into making a decision...it all felt very underhanded because her first question was "if you can't get this house which one do you choose?" I think she was just trying to wear us down. There are a lot more details for convincing me of this of course...but too many to actually sit down and write. Because frankly my shoulders are getting stiff from the anxiety of even thinking about the situation. I wanted to tell the realtor to call the owner back and tell him that we were great and my children were perfect and that we may not work for the government but that we would be good tenants, etc. But I knew it was hopeless. So we settled. Mostly because as great as the Grand Hyatt is I don't want my children thinking that this is home. Plus, we can't stay here forever. Our suite is sweet but I would like to be in a home...a real home. So, I will admit it, I settled and I will have to get my dream home when we live someplace else. Of course the next stop is Dubai and we will probably end up in the same situation we are in now...in a townhouse-like setup.

The place we "settled" for is beautiful...just not what I wanted. It is an inside townhouse. It is about a block away from the beach in Azaiba and the views are beautiful! Our landlord lives next door and seems to have the whole wasta thing. He is great and thinks that we will be in by Saturday even with the changes we asked for. It has a nice security system. It has a beautiful kitchen (which is a very western thing to want) and none of those complicated bathrooms. It is 6 bedrooms. One will be the playroom. I am most excited about that. There are lots of stairs and that worries me with Parker...and Madelyn our local klutz. But the landlord is going to have stair gates installed. He also offered to pay for the curtains and all I have to do is go and "sit" with his wife for awhile to work that out. His wife, by the way, has impeccable taste. Nothing gaudy...very sleek, elegant and contemporary. I got to tour their house when we were looking. Anyway, not a bad house, just not a single with a castle feel and lots of room for the kids to run around outside...but inside there is so much room. I shouldn't complain at all..it is a great location and a beautiful house. Now, to make it a home is going to be a different story.

Ramadan was supposed to start today, but the start date is based on the moon and last night it wasn't right. So, perhaps tomorrow. Ramadan is a very interesting month and I am actually really excited to get to observe and be a part of it all. I am sure that at some point I will get frustrated with not being able to eat in public during daylight hours, but a little fasting won't do me any harm....although having to eat out of sight kind of makes me feel like I have an eating disorder ;) I guess I will be ok as long as it isn't chocolate cake all the time...

About those sweets. Yummy! The baklawa is wonderful. Lots of pistachio in them. So good.

In addition to the house, we have other wasta problems. The car dealership is giving us problems. We are renting from a Internationally known car rental establishment. When we went to retrieve our Land Cruiser Prado they told us something was wrong with the tires and that they would issue us their "extra" car and in 2 days call us. Well, the extra car was a Toyota Fortuna...not a bad car at all...BUT the inside of this thing was nasty. Disgusting. I put my hand on the handle to close the door and there was gum in it. Ewww...not how I wanted to start the day. The rest of the car was equally nasty. And stinky. 4 days later they still had not called us. So we called them. Only to be told that the tires were still not ready We have no wasta...none at all. I told David he was too nice. He got a little irrate and (not) to our surprise the prado was ready! We picked it up yesterday and I kid you not, it smells like fishy urine and there is no a/c in the back. The kids were sweating....so David called back the guy from work who gave us the managers number. We called him, complained and in a few days we will have a brand spanking new Land Cruiser Prado GX safari edition...whatever that is, but at least it will be new.

So...wasta? Do we have it? I think it comes and goes.