Dogs are not allowed in the mall
Monday, fun day! At 7:30 in the morning, my Teta and I left to drop my off at SeSoBEL. It felt like going to the first of preschool. I walked in with my backpack full of clothes and anticipation. Meanwhile, Teta was crying…
My internship consists of pretty remedial work at the moment. There are no kids at SeSoBEL as of now, so the work consists of cataloging, creating files, searching through photos, etc. Once it got towards around noon, I knew I had about two hours left of work meaning that I had to find something to do in the next two hours or I would be left abandoned in the building until nightfall. Not likely.
My boss walked into the room at that moment. Translation: “Tracy (side note — Casey is not a real name in Lebanon), Christine would like to see you on the fourth floor.” Who the fuck is Christine? I got up from my desk, grateful for any sort of movement that did not involve typing, and stretched towards the stairwell. After making the loop around the fourth floor, I stumbled upon an office labeled ‘Christine.’ I hope there aren’t two Christines. I knocked and immediately heard “Come in, Tracy.” I walked in to see a woman I had seen once. “My daughter does not have work today, and we would like you to spend the day with us. I’ll meet you downstairs at 2:00.”
What just happened…? “Merci! Anjed, merci!!!” (side note 2: for those of your Arab learners out there, no one says Shukrahn here — we speak French cause we’re cool like that). 2:00 could not come soon enough.
When I heard shuffling in the hallway — ’twas time. I leaped from my desk and saw Christine for the third time in my life in the lobby. First up was to meet the family. This consisted of Christine’s husband, George, and their daughter, Carole, and their three-month-old Yorshire Terrier puppy, Yorkie. They fed me a delicious lunch of stuffed malfouf (a.k.a. cabbage). After happy stomachs and pleasant conversation, we stepped foot out of the door only to see a whining, shivering Yorkie cowering in the corner of the room. What else were we supposed to do? We snatched him up and took him along for the ride.
He may be small, but Yorkie’s definitely dominates the house.
Two proud papas: George and his son, Elie; Elie and his son, red vehicle.
First stop was ABC Mall in Dbaye to pick up their son, Elie, from work. We brought Yorkie into the building, met Elie in Zara and were en route to our next stop. While wondering around the parking lot looking for a very elusive Honda, a security guard ran over with eyes fixed upon the dog. After a very hurried conversation, Christine turned to me unable to contain her laughter. “Whoops! Dogs are not allowed in the mall. What do ya know?”
That was pretty unfortunate, because our next stop was another mall, Le Mall (yes, that is its name). After debating for approximately five seconds, the family decided it would be best to leave Yorkie in the vehicle while we walked around Le Mall. Being a card-carrying PETA member and vegan, I tried to explain in my best Arabic what the consequences of that decision could be. They assured me it would only be for a few minutes. As if Allah was listening to my worried prayers, we entered Le Mall only to hear a glorious bark. We frantically ran to find the sound — maybe dogs were allowed! Our Sherlock Holmes skills led us to… a pet store. Nonetheless, we decided to ask of dogs were allowed. The employee in the pet store looked at us with eyes glazed of either I-need-a-new-job or these-guys-are-idiots. “Aqiid. Of course.”
Enthused that the dog was not going to die of heatstroke in the car, we sprinted to the car. From the exterior, everything seemed fairly calm. But the eye of the hurricane had definitely been reversed. We opened the door to find the small dog trembling in mounds of poop. Shit — figuratively and literally. We divided and conquered as one of us ran to get the napkins, one of us went to clean the dog and two of us tried to calm Elie who had just witnessed his new car go to the dogs.
After our thirty minute rendez-vous in the parking lot, we decided it would be best to take the dog home before heading to the movies. We came back to the house to calm the dog and Elie and to eat more food. Duh. Considering the fact most of the malls are so large here that they contain cinemas, we returned to ABC Dbaye. After buying our tickets to Now You See Me (side note 3: go see it), we settled down with popcorn and enjoyed our movie.
The movie finished around 11:00, and the family drove me back to SeSoBEL for the night. On the way home, they continually apologized for the ‘incident’ with Yorkie. But I repeatedly (literally ‘repeatedly’ since I had to keep rephrasing my Arabic in order to have them comprehend what I was saying) told them that it was not a problem. As I hugged each of them good-bye in the dark, I felt tears well in my eyes. Things had not gone according to plan, but that is, in fact, wonderful. Nothing in Lebanon ever has a plan. It is people like this family that make me love Lebanon — the friendly yet unfamiliar faces, the willingness to give whatever you can, the spontaneous kindness of complete strangers.
Life of a HashBrown 