Little things like that 1

I haven't been on this blog for a while, given summer and also given that I've migrated a lot of keeping up with friends to Face Book.  Underneath it all, too, I feel that the mystery of Dubai is no longer pressing.  There is so much press about Dubai.  You see it in Hollywood movies, and there has started to appear good writing on Dubai  ( c.f., George Saunders, "The New Mecca" in GQ or reprinted in Best American Unrequired Writing of 2006, available in many Barnes and Nobles).   Add to this that I am starting to move back to the US.  This summer I am teaching at Le Moyne College in Syracuse and now have a joint appointment there.  Starting in 2008, I will be there and then return from time to time -if all goes well- to AUS.  So the utility of this blog is diminishing.  Now it is more a record than a demythologizer.

With that said, I have been thinking a lot about both the US and the UAE, and also about moving back to a sleepy small city, away from one of the growth peaks of global capitalism and one of the change zones of global culture.  The reflections for now have been more on personal losses and gains.  In that spirit, I felt like starting a list of what I'll call:

Little things like that .

Little things like that are small things people do in each culture -American or Emirati/global UAE'ti- that make me like the place.  One just happened, and it is the inaugural item.

I was just in a convenience store attached to a gas station at the bottom of Thompson Road here in Dewitt/Syracuse.  It is Saturday, the school cafeteria is closed, and so I have to find my coffee elsewhere.  So I went to get some.

The man working the counter was an African-American with a gold cross around his neck.  He was upbeat and responsive to little things, like my presence.  When I went to the counter, he said, "How you doin?"  And then he asked me "You want a bag for that?"  I often notice that people can be seen in the kind of response they get from us.  The one from me was: "Naw, I'll just carry it."  --In a casual tone that felt real and relaxed.  The guy's body language was at ease and made one feel natural.  Then after paying, he said, "Thanks, Boss", and I said, "Have a good one."  We had a split second of eye contact, and I could see he was happy to be part of a mutual kind of recognition.  It felt very civil.

The US has problems with inequality, and racism is still a sore.  The "boss" part of his comment tacitly acknowledges that history.  He wouldn't say that, I bet, to a fellow African-American or even to a Mexican-American.  But the nice thing is that the overall interaction was egalitarian.  I wasn't dressed up -jean shorts, t-shirt, old sneakers- and none of us had airs.  It's a nice Saturday, and he was a nice guy.  I like this about America, when it works.  There is something very people are people  about it.  And it is pretty egalitarian.

So that's my first little things like that.  I felt good walking up the hill after the interaction.  I said to myself, "That's why I like the United States."

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"A real encounter is indescribable. I can only say that it is when you feel your whole self following a magic light leading to someone else's being."  Luz Villamil, American University of Sharjah class of 2008

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