Bartering

The value of any item is ultimately based on what the seller and buyer want from the deal. I’ve been exploring this concept recently in some interesting interactions with friends and neighbors.

It all started about 8 weeks ago when I had to decide if I should put a new batch of whine on before I left for my late January US trip. I decided not to do it and eventually drank up the rest of my stock in February. I now have 40 or so empty glass bottles collecting dust.

Our jaunt to Bahrain at the end of February gave me plenty of opportunity to enjoy the real thing but eventually I was going to need a little something to tide me over until I left.

So the bartering began.

I traded 0.4 kg of smoked, streaky bacon for two bottles of white (haram for haram, my friend said; “haram” means “forbidden” in Arabic).

 

I exchanged 9 GBP in coins (can’t turn coins in at currency exchanges) and a pound of organic butter for a bottle of sid (always good to have a bit of that stashed away).

 

I gave away all of the potted plants on my porch for two more bottles of whine; they haven’t arrived yet so I don’t know whether they will be white or red. But of course, that doesn’t matter, does it?

 

And I traded my 12 stick-in-the-ground weave poles (assembled, decorated with tape) for 12 stick-in-the-ground bottom pieces and three more bottles of white.

 

I probably don't need all this whine but now that I'm on a roll, it's become more about the principle. What else do I have that is of sufficient value that it is worth a bottle or two of whine?

 

Before my kitchen stuff gets packed on Saturday, I think I'll bake a loaf of banana bread (with real butter). That should be worth another two or three bottles, don't you think?

Agility in KSA

The final session of agility in Dhahran is drawing to a close. As of this post, we only have two more classes left. We have had a dynamic and dedicated group for this last set of classes so it is a bit sad to know it will soon end. It is so heartening to see the progress that the handlers have made.

 

Last week, I designed a Novice Snooker course with three red jumps. I don’t actually have three red jumps so the yellow jump had to be a red one for the morning. And I included the table, an obstacle which is never used in Snooker in the real world. But when doing agility in KSA, we can change the rules as we need to!

 

Some of my friends have been making jokes about “you won’t miss that” when the F16s scream overhead every minute or so or when we are faced with some particularly idiotic situation that is unique to living in Dhahran and working for Aramco. And they are right, I won’t miss any of that. There isn’t much I’m going to miss when I leave here.

 

Mangos, now that is something I am going to miss. Round, oval, green, red, or yellow outside, gorgeous pale yellow or deep orange inside, sweet or sour. I will miss mangos in all of their glorious variety.

 

And I’m going to miss the agility classes too. They have been such a lifesaver for me. They are close enough to the real thing to satisfy both me and Mimi. And being the instructor has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much about teaching agility, which is not at all the same thing as doing agility yourself with your own dog. I will miss all of the agility class participants as each one brings a unique challenge and perspective. I know that I am a better handler by the simple act of helping others to become better handlers.

 

We don’t have a lot of equipment but I’ve tried to make the most of what we do have. Even with the challenges of our limited equipment, I now see patterns of obstacles and handling pathways very differently than I did before I started the classes.

 

The weekly exercise of designing a sequence with the intent of teaching a specific skill has given me deeper insights into handling. Having all sorts of dogs in class (old, young, slow, fast, tall, short) has given me a broader understanding of handling paths. I have learned an amazing amount about agility and dog handling by teaching the agility classes and will really miss the weekly challenge of figuring out what we should work on and how to get us all there.

 

I grumble to myself every week as I pack the car on Wednesday night. I have to haul all of the equipment from my hovel to my car in at least two, sometimes three dolly trips, over a distance of about 100 feet, which doesn’t sound like much until you walk it back and forth four times in a row. The equipment fits into the car only one way so I can’t just toss things in there. Then at the school parking lot, we have to unpack the cars (CJ is regularly carrying some of the equipment for this session) and haul it up a curb then down a somewhat steep hill over a distance of about 300 feet. Depending on the morning, it might take us a couple of trips to accomplish that. Next we set up the course, usually in the dark as the field has no lights. Then after class, the whole thing goes in reverse, except now it’s uphill. I spend more than a couple of hours each week hauling equipment around and stacking and unstacking it in various locations. Grumble, grumble.

 

I’m going to miss that.

Easy Bok Choy and Tofu

Yes, yet another recipe. I’m stressed and cooking calms me. Here is one of my favorite dishes. It is another vegetarian offering because I’ve been eating a lot less meat the past few weeks. I love greens and bok choy is a great one to cook with. It’s not bitter and is easy to handle. If this is the main or only dish, this recipe feeds 2 hungry people. But it is easy to double it.

Put some rice on to cook.

 

Thinly slice an onion and dice two or three garlic cloves. Put in a saucepan with a liberal addition of olive oil and lots of fresh ground salt and pepper. Cook on low heat until the onions begin to turn clear. Stir often to keep the garlic from burning and becoming bitter.

 

Open and drain a packet of firm, lite tofu. I prefer Mori Nu. It has a very smooth texture. It comes in tetrapaks and is easy to use. Dice the tofu into pieces about one centimeter square. Add to the onions. With a spatula, gently fold the tofu into the onions and olive oil. You can increase the heat a bit because you want the tofu to brown. Stir often but gently so you don’t break the tofu squares up.

 

Check on the rice.

 

Clean a bunch of bok choy. Remove the root ends and coarsely chop the rest including most of the stems. When the tofu has begun to brown, reduce the heat and drop the bok choy on top. Allow the pan to rest for about a minute then gently fold the bok choy into the tofu and onions. Cook for a couple of minutes on low heat then turn off the heat and cover.

 

You can add a handful of dried pomegranate seeds after you turn off the heat. They add wonderful color and a sharp bite of sourness.

 

Serve over rice.

Me and The Meemers

March 8, 2013

Extraction 6: Selling the Car

In order to turn in my residence permit (iqama) and passport so that my final exit visa can be processed, I have to get the car registration (istmarrah) removed from my iqama. That is, I have to find a buyer who would get a new istmarrah for the car associated with his iqama.

There were some complicating factors. I need to use the car until I leave, which means the buyer would be paying for a car they couldn’t drive for at least three more weeks. While this is standard procedure around here, sometimes new hires have a hard time wrapping their brains around this.

I was getting pretty frantic a couple of weeks ago because the first couple of people who were interested in the car decided not to get it.

But I’ve learned that problems in Aramco can usually be solved if you can get the attention of the right person. Your ability to get things done is only as good as your own personal network. I ran into a friend on the way into the office one morning and he asked me how things were going. I said, not so good, I can’t sell my darned car. He said, there are some new hires in my area, send me the info and I’ll forward it. This guy, a reservoir engineer, has been here over 20 years, raised three boys here, and has wasta oozing out of his pores. It was a great stroke of luck that I ran into him and an even better boost that he so quickly offered to help. I emailed him the ad when I got into my office. And that morning not two hours later, I got a call from the perfect buyer: an expat (Canadian), wife is arriving in April so he doesn’t need the car yet, been here six months so he’s learned a bit about the strange customs in the weird bubble that is Dhahran.

He ended up offering me a little less than I wanted but it was an acceptable price given the situation. Once we shook hands on the deal and exchanged a couple of emails outlining the terms, the fun started.

In order to apply for a new istmarrah, the buyer first has to get insurance for the car in his name. This took a couple of days although fortunately he didn’t have to go off camp to do this. A couple of the insurance companies have offices in one of the outlying Aramco buildings, although this building isn’t particularly convenient for people like me and the buyer who work in the main admin area.

Then we had to turn over a pile of documents (ORIGINAL inspection report which I’d just had done in January, ORIGINAL buyer’s proof of insurance, copy of buyer’s DL, copy of DL’s iqama, copy of my iqama, and my original istmarrah) and SR 500 to Javed, the car “fixer” who works out the Arabian Auto Association (AAA, funny, right?). Javed takes this stuff to a government office somewhere and in about 24 hours returns the new istmarrah and the original documents. I think Javed is a driver for somebody but he seems to be making a reasonable amount of money taking care of car-related matters like this since very few of us want to visit Saudi government offices.

Next, I had to call my insurance company to learn what they needed so I could cancel my policy. I had to scan the new istmarrah and prepare another pile of documents that I faxed to my insurance company to request a cancellation of my insurance. I am waiting for them to email me a form which I will fill out and send back so I can get a partial refund.

Then I had to go online and initiate a request to cancel the “camp sticker” that is associated with my Aramco badge number. The camp sticker allows me to drive the car in and out of the residential part of camp. I was assigned an appointment date a couple of weeks from now but everybody knows you just drop by the Security office once you start the online process. I had to coordinate this trip with the buyer because he had to go with me. Once my sticker was officially cancelled, he had to initiate a request to add a new sticker for the same car, only on his badge now. They physically remove the sticker associated with my badge and put a new sticker in the window associated with his badge. This seems very silly since the stickers are pretty much identical and are never electronically scanned; why not just transfer the original sticker to his badge? That would make too much sense and would definitely not be the Aramco way.

It’s been more than a week since we agreed on the car deal and no money has yet changed hands. That is planned for next week, hopefully Saturday. The buyer and I will go to his bank (most inconveniently, not on camp) and he is going to withdraw the purchase price in cash, in Saudi riyals. This isn’t as much of a problem as it might sound since I am going to need a fair bit of cash, probably ten to fifteen thousand riyals, for animal shipping, paying drivers and taxis, paying the overweight charges on my shipment, and other things that I’m sure I can’t even anticipate at the moment. I’ll take the rest of the cash to the bank here on camp and electronically transfer it to one of my US accounts before I leave.

This business of selling the car is fairly typical of the way things work around here. Nothing is written down in a guide book, not for Aramcon lack of ability or interest in doing that but because rules change in the Magic Kingdom without warning or explanation. What works today may not work next week. This might sound maddening to you in the real world, but after a while, most Aramcons become rather fatalistic about this reality. Even the simplest task is made excruciatingly difficult so you plan for that. The only constant is building your network and not being shy about using it.

Shakshuka

I don't think I can begin to reconstruct how I stumbled across this recipe the other day but I had to try it immediately. Shakshuka (or shakshouka) is a common dish in North African and the Middle East with various groups laying claim to its origin (typical for this area, really; what don't these tribes fight about?) and is often served for breakfast. It can be made in large quantities limited only by the size of your largest skillet and works well as a vegetarian main dish. Don't let the simplicity of the dish fool you: it has some wonderful flavors, textures, and colors.

I'm going to give a bare bones version of the dish here. You can visit this link or this one for more elaborate recipes.

Slice or dice some onion and garlic. Place in a large skillet with olive oil.

Add sea salt, chili pepper, paprika, and cumin to taste. Be generous, this dish is suppose to be quite fiery! Mix the spices in with the onions. Simmer, stirring often, until the onions begin to turn clear.

I've not researched this but I like to add dry spices to cook with onions because I think this method brings out more of the flavor than adding spices later to a cooking liquid. Anecdotal, of course, but my tongue tells me this method works well.

Dice several fresh tomatoes. I used canned because that's what I had and they work just fine too but you need to drain the juice from them. Let's be practical: we don't all have access to good fresh tomatoes and we don't need to be food snobs all the time.

Add the tomatoes and a container of tomato paste to the skillet. Stir well and cook for 15 minutes or so over reduced heat. Stir frequently to prevent sticking or burning. The mixture should be gently bubbling but not throwing tomato sauce all over the kitchen.

When you decide the tomatoes and the spices and the onions have joined forces long enough, carefully crack some eggs on top (be careful not to break the yolks), spacing them evenly. Allow the eggs to cook completely. This might take a few more minutes and you might need to reduce the heat a bit more.

Most recipes call for diced parsley to be thrown over the top but I didn't have any and it tasted totally fabulous without it.

One cooking pan, total prep and cook time about 40 minutes, vegetarian, relatively low fat and low salt (unless you overdo it). Plan on each person eating two eggs. It's a winner!

Red Cabbage and Cilantro Salad

Cilantro is certainly one of a class of foods that people either love or loathe with no room for fence-sitting. I don't use it often since I find the flavor quite strong. But it is a perfect fit for this dish.

I got this recipe off the internet. There are several sites that claim to have "invented" it and I can't be bothered to sort out who is being silly and who is right. But I'm certainly not going to add to the confusion. This is somebody else's idea.

I've made this salad several times now. It turns the most fabulous purple color if you can let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before serving. Because it is easy to make a lot of it, it is tempting to take this dish to parties. Beware the cilantro snobs, however!

Juice two limes. Add one half tsp of sea salt and 1 Tbs of honey. Stir well to dissolve the honey. If the limes are large, add more honey.

Remove the outer leaves and wash one small or half a large head of red cabbage. Finely dice and add to the liquid. Mix well.

Wash a bunch of fresh cilantro. Remove enough leaves to fill about 1/2 cup. You can give them a chop or two with your knife if the leaves are large. Add to the cabbage and lime-honey mixture and gently stir.

Leave in the fridge for at least a couple of hours and give it a good stir before serving. The leftover salad will keep for several days in a tightly closed container.