Inaya the Guarding Angel

Hello everyone, my first post on Hakaya El Maraya is live. It's called Inaya the Guarding Angel . True story talking about how i came to Dubai.




Where would I’ve been now should not Inaya take care of me when I first came to Dubai? I would have taken the same flight that brought me here back home.Those were tough days, although I was almost 25 years old, although I have been working in the most corrupted environment for six years, although I have been engaged twice. Despite all of that, I was still a virgin. I was a virgin in every way. What did I know about negotiating a contract? I do have a business degree but do I know the slightest thing about contracts?? Hell no. What do I know about being a Lebanese girl living on her own in the gulf? I saw them traveling everyday but did I foresee the challenges?? Hell no.Inaya was like a mother to me. When I first joined Middle East Airlines in 1993, I was one of the less than 100 employees to join MEA after 10 years of freezing – MEA was not employing at all during that time- We were called the new blood, or was it the fresh blood? No, no, it was the new blood. Anyways, 10 or so “new blood” joined the passenger handling department at the airport. Now I don’t know how many of you remember how the MEA employees were before 1993, even few years after 1993, they were OLD. I had to mingle with the “young generation” where the younger person was 20 years older than me. Most of the old staff were very skeptical about the new blood, and refused to train us or give us the “secrets” of handling the flights. We were a big threat to their jobs; maybe they will kick them out if we learn ho to do the job properly, what do they know! But we were not a threat to Inaya, neither to Inaya nor to her clique of girls: Sanaa, Liliane and Mona. Those were the “Golden Girls” of the MEA and they accepted to train the new blood.In her early forties, Inaya was a petite brunette with short hair and clear brown eyes. She was very active, preparing for her masters at the Lebanese University, attending overseas scouting meetings, working on the syndicate campaigns, in one word: always busy. She’s never been married or engaged, no one knows that she had ever had any kind of romantic affairs. She was too idealistic, too feminist to accept the cocky Arab men mentality. Also she was too religious and too conservative to even think about a foreign husband. But still she was the best mom I had ever seen. Sanaa was the pretty one, mid to late thirties, analytical thinker, always wearing a light but a beautiful make up, black shoulder length hair, black eyes and white skin, very sensitive, very soft spoken and always joyful. Liliane was the shrewd, no make up at all, thick eye glasses, short fizzy hair and always with a book, a cigarette and a rosary in her hand. Although she swears that she had never lifted a hand for any kind of exercise what so ever, she had an athletic body that burns all the 7 spoons of sugar she takes in every cup of her 20 cups of coffee a day. Mona was the funny, tall, white, chubby, thin black hair, she was the secretary, always in charge of anything related to food and she wanted to get married, by all means.They were like a second family to me, and when in 1999 Israel hit Beirut again, I had it! What the fuck! There is no way I could move a single step in this company: look around you Rania, You’ve only been here for six years, do you expect any kind of promotions soon, look around you, Passenger Handling Officers have been officers for 10 to 15 years, and they all have bachelors, Masters and some PhDs, They all have wasta (pull) no one in the MEA does not have a wasta! And Lebanon, the country that you believed in, the country that you refused to leave as kid in the midst of the war, your beloved country, will you leave it now?? Excuse me Lebanon, but I lost faith, there is no way that this will be a normal country, not during my life time. I ran to the rest room and exploded in tears, I can’t stand the war anymore, and I’m getting out of here. I put in my purse the Canadian Immigration form that Rana has left in the office trying to convince me to apply with her and I started reading the ads section in the newspapers: DO YOU WANNA WORK IN DUBAI FOR THE BEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD? Well, yes I want to leave here, I will apply. I only sent an email, only a tiny miny email. The next day I got a reply and the next month I was in Dubai.My mom thought that it was crisis and it will pass, I had around 40 vacation days so I took them all and I took my yearly ticket to Dubai, what am I gonna loose? I have my return ticket and Inaya is there, she’s been in Dubai working at the MEA sales office for a few months now, she will take care of me. She offered to pick me up from the airport; I said no, Jumeirah will pick me up.They picked us up, the four of us out of hundreds who applied for the job. They dropped us to a compound in the middle of the night, but not before taking our passports. I entered my room; it looked scary, and I’m sharing it with the girl who was with me on the plane, gosh I was not supposed to share a room! Gosh this stranger of a girl looks scary. The recruitment agency said that I will be sharing a flat not a room, especially not a prison room. This is not a five star accommodation! I couldn’t sleep that night. The first thing I did in the morning since it was a Friday, I went out of the room to see where I am, Oh fuck! I was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people from another species; I was the only white skin in the compound, THE ONLY one, not even my Lebanese roommate, she was more like an African. I never thought of myself being racist but I got scared. We went to the cafeteria, the food sucks, it looked disgusting and it sucked. My tears were falling on their own. This is definitely not what I came for, definitely not. How am I going to get out of here? I don’t even have an access to a telephone! They took my passport, they took my passport, I wanna go back home, NOW.All of a sudden, somebody came to the cafeteria and told me that there is someone waiting for me outside; oh God it was Inaya, how did she know where I am? How did she manage to come to the middle of Al Quoz, the industrial area? How did she? How did she? All That I know is I shouted Inaya, ran into her arms, hugged her and burst in tears. She took me as I am, in my shorts, my sleeveless shirt and sandals, without my baggage without a bag without even my passport; as I am. She put me in her car and straight to her house where I stayed one of the most decisive months in my life.