When they decide to revive the city here, they don’t do it by half measures. In May, an entire street, previously occupied by cheap food joints much loved by the Asian ex-pats, disappeared over a couple of days. Yesterday, it was the turn of the group of buildings ringing one of the many roundabouts on the way to work. One of them sold Doc Marten’s. Gone, all gone; reduced to a pile of rubble. As someone said half this town is being knocked down while the other half is undergoing hectic reconstruction and you’re never quite sure which part is which.
One of the women in our office, which is overwhelmingly multinational in tone, wears the full yashmak, with only her eyes visible. In such an environment, there is something faintly holier than thou about it. In fairness to the woman, she’s thin and tall and manages to make the abbeyyah (long black dress) look elegant in an ethereal way. But I’m with the Turks and French in this – keep your religion at home, please.
You never quite know how to respond to someone who is entirely covered up apart from their eyes. Yet last week, I discussed the problems of obesity among children and the evils of fast food with a woman whom I would never be able to recognise again. We then moved on to dogs; you don’t see many here and I was curious. She had nothing against dogs she said (although I think they’re considered unholy in the Qu’ran). All I was talking to was a pair of brown eyes. For all I know she works in the office with the group of locals most of whom I do know. They wear the abeyyah over their jeans and t-shirts and cover their heads. But they still manage to be a good laugh and are easy to identify.
At that same gig, I was attempting to take photographs of a figure which I can’t identify at the moment. So imagine if you will Mickey Mouse visiting a martial arts class populated by over-excited young boys and girls average age eleven, who lunge at the poor chap as soon as he comes in the door. Lovely pic, yours truly thinks, but Mickey’s big furry head keeps bobbing about and the images I get are mostly fuzzy. Next day I ask one of his minders what was going on. Apparently the children kept pinching Mickey’s legs and every time, he tried to swat them away, his head threatened to come off!
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