Paying Rent

It is the beginning of another month - my eighth one here - and that means it is time to pay the rent.  I look forward to this event, all the more so because it is a tricky feat to accomplish.   First, I live in a cash economy - no cheques - so I have to accumulate the right amount of cold hard cash over the course of the month.  This means taking it out in the allowable small increments from the bank machine - when it happens to be working - and remembering to store up 50 dinar bills over the course of the month, like a squirrel preparing for winter.  Second, I need to be in the building at the right time - when the owner is here and the office door is open.  The office hours are unpredictable - non-existent, actually - and I need to watch out or else weeks will go by and I will suddenly wake up to the fact that I owe 2 months back rent plus utilities.

So around the beginning of the month, when I see that office light on,  I dash up to my apartment, grab  the envelope full of cash, head back downstairs and walk through a dark hallway filled with old broken furniture and other detritus into the back office of Abu Mohammed.

Abu Mohammed is the building owner. His name is Mahmoud and the "Abu" title literally means "Father of" which is both a mark of respect and an indication that he has a son named Mohammed.  He is a large man, in his mid 60s, who looks like he has done his share of heavy manual labour.   In contrast to his appearance, he has a gentle voice and an elaborately polite manner, bordering on deferential.   He conveys a certain simplicity.  He is the opposite of the polished, expensively dressed people I deal with in my day job, those with perfect English and excellent degrees from foreign universities.   Sitting behind the scratched wooden desk in his dusty, cramped office,  you could easily think that this is a hard-working labourer who had the good fortune to build an apartment building in a part of town that has now become popular. And here he is now reaping the benefits.

But things are not what they seem.  The lesson I learn approximately 2 times every day in this country.

In fact, this lovely unpreposessing man has a major contracting business with an expertise in energy projects and is involved throughout the Gulf and east Africa. The apartment building is a little tiny side project that he keeps going for no discernable reason except as a place to store old furniture - and a good little investment.  When I get that chance once a month, I like to sit with him in his office, and have a  chat to hear the latest news about contracting jobs in the middle east.  They are mysterious and amazing.  Yesterday, he reported that he was just back from 30 days away - 20 days in Abu Dhabi, 10 days in Sudan where has managed to secure financing from a Swiss Bank with a big pile of Emirate money to build a solar energy project in Sudan.  This is in partnership with a Chinese state company who are bringing in the technology.  "I will have a labour of thousands of people, Miss Hannah.  It is a very big project for me."  All the paperwork is signed - he showed me - which is why he had to go to Sudan  - to chase down some signatures.  

We talked about what it is like to work in Sudan.  "Hot" is one word.  "Miss Hannah - it is 60 degrees in the sun and so dusty and dirty.  The roads are just from sand, no asphalt, dust everywhere."

This constellation of Abu Dhabi - Chinese - Sudanese interests - with a little Swiss Bank thrown in on the side - fascinates me, of course.  All the more so since I am currently reading the (very good) book "What is the What?" by Dave Eggers about refugee children in Sudan.  Place names like Darfur come to mind.  Do people do business in this place?  It seems so.  I try and ask him political questions - what does he think about the outcome of the recent election in Sudan? Are people discussing the separation of Southern Sudan from the North? - that sort of thing - but he never takes the bait and remains unfailingly polite.  I remain fascinated and somewhat uncomfortable.

As we chat, his nephew sits on the side, like a character from Charles Dickens, making elaborate notes in a giant ledger book where all of the apartment transactions are duly recorded.  And various renters and other petitioners come and go to pay money or just pay respects.

After 15 or 20 minutes, my time is up, and - honestly - he has better things to do than satisfy the curiousity of nosy Canadian.  But he is deferential and gracious and we part with many repeated "go in peace" salutations until rent time comes around next month and I hear more about building big infrastructure projects in hot, distant lands.