The one with the Turkish camel's piss

Today was interesting. We had a productive meeting with our civil contractor ... FINALLY!!! In their office, I was seated with our local partner, my Deputy Project manager and of course a couple of the contractors. So most of the conversation was carried out in Arabic and boy do they look intense. The flinging hand gestures, the raised phlegmy voices, the awkward pauses ... so fascinating just to watch. On the table was a box of sesame cookies and one of the contractors kept on motioning for me to try it. It’s impolite to decline, so I took a piece ... each the size of our 50 cent coin. It looked good anyway and tasted sweet and crunchy. Apparently, the cookies were from Syria and not available anywhere else. Lucky me I guess. Each time he (the contractor) nudged me, I had to take a piece. By the time he was done, I had consumed no less than 15 pieces.

What was more interesting was the coffee dished out later. Served in a porcelain cup slightly bigger than a expresso shot glass, this Turkish coffee as they called it was so strong it felt as if it could melt my tounge. Oh and it tasted VILE!!! … if I have to choose words to describe it ... I’d probably say it’s worse than camel’s piss. How do I rate camel’s pis ... I dunno but I’m guessing that can’t taste very good either. No sugar ... no milk. Just horribly bitter and it leaves a herbally after taste. In comparison, our Starbuck’s double expresso back home tasted like diluted Ribena. As I let it trickle down my throat, the sensation is akin to letting fiery poison into my body. Ok la ... I may be exaggerating but you get the point. Each torturing sip was accompanied by large pacifying gulps of ice water and that bloody contractor to my right kept on insisting that it’s good coffee and I should take seconds. KNNCB!!! It was suppose to compliment the cookies well. Where got???!!!

Also on the table was a saucer pan filled with yellow and black dates. This was also supposed to go well with the aforementioned poison coffee. Where got???!!! But have to admit that the sweet dates went well with my pallet indeed.

Then kena teased for not smoking also. All of them were filling the room with Marlboro and Davidoff 2nd hand smoke and mentioned that as a man, I should give smoking a try. Oi ... lim peh just trying to live healthy and longer ok. You wanna spend money to kick the bucket ... then go far far please.

Anyways, the clock is now ticking 10:45 pm and I’m still working with the Deputy PM. The only consolation ... well, there’s a fine bottle of Lindermans 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon to keep me sane and happy. *Hic* Let’s just say it was a gift we received earlier today. An interesting story went with this bottle of red. After dinner, we realized there wasn’t a cork opener in the room. So off I went to the nearest supermarket, took me 15 minutes to locate the opener, 20 minutes in the cashier queue only to return and found out that the bottle had a twist cap. Sib beh MCH!!!