Penang -- Week 11 -- Latin brunches and other stories.

Week 11

FRIDAY, May 23rd
I'm invited to a brunch with the Latin ladies. Carmen picks me up. She has a different driver now (story to follow) and he's learning where all her friends live, so it takes us a few minutes longer to get there.

There is another beautiful home. I'm starting to pick up a trend here. I'm TOTALLY generalizing, based on completely insufficient data, but it seems that the Anglo American expats here live extremely modestly and are mostly missionaries, whereas the Latins are livin la vida. Up until now I have been almost embarrassed for the playgroup to come to our place because it was so much nicer than theirs, now I'm back to feeling like a pauper entering a palace. It's a tad smaller than Carmen's I think, but no less decorated or fabulous. They have a really stylish enclosed outdoor patio between the kitchen and the living room and I have taken lots of mental pictures of it so I can one day copy it in my own place.

I think the relative lifestyles may be telling of the cultural differences between Latins and Anglos. What does it tell? I don't know. I'm trying to come up with theories though. It's just interesting that the only Anglo Americans I have met here (with the exception of the Miller family -- George's carpool buddy, Eric) are missionaries or similar, and the Latins that are here are working management positions (or similar) working for major companies. So I guess between George being Latin and me being Anglo it makes sense that our place is somewhere between the two worlds. But are we the only ones here who aren't religious?

The brunch itself is really nice. They're so thoughtful to have made sure I have food I can eat, so I don't drool too much as the others casually dine on their french toast with walnut (pecan?) syrup. Regin is with and he should be napping, but he's entertaining the ladies a little. Mostly I learn that, as dominant a personality as I may have, I have to really kick it up several notches if I ever want to partake in the conversations. Goodness these ladies have strong personalities (and voices)! I love it, but it's a little unusual for me to be the soft-spoken one that can't get a word in, and seems relatively lacking in things to say, compared to the rest of those present. Can you imagine?

It's a relief for me that it's mostly English spoken at brunch, but I am a little disappointed that Regin isn't getting the Spanish exposure I thought he would with this group.

--

And now for the story of Carmen's driver. The details escape me a tad, so I'm filling in some of the hazier parts. Sorry C if I'm telling it wrong. As you know I love my stories, so I can't resist telling this one. Here goes.

Carmen's original driver is in his early thirties and is in utter despair that he hasn't yet married. He was madly in love with one girl a few years back but I think she's muslim and he isn't and it was forbidden. Then he decided he would like to marry his cousin but she was only 16 so it was forbidden. Years pass, the 16 year old comes of age, and the family agrees. So he's set to marry her. Then, he catches her, while preparing for their engagement party, combing the long hair of another man. At this point I guess there are promises not to see the other guy anymore and they move forward. Then she texts him a love poem one day and he gets suspicious. It's in English, and her English is not that good. Turns out she forwarded it from her other guy. Wedding off.

Then he meets Carmen's maid. They see each other regularly because of their jobs. She is in a desperate situation. Her husband, who had been beating her, left her for a muslim woman and took the kids with him. He also left her with a lot of messy finances to deal with. The driver says to himself that this woman has potential for him. She will be divorced (= social ruin) and is missing a finger, who else would take her? He helps her to get her life straightened out. Then he asks her to marry him and she says no. He asks why. She says that her husband has told her that if she ever remarries she will never see her kids again, and supposedly the non-muslim wife has no legal say, even if she is the first wife and mother of the kids.

Now he's thoroughly depressed, and as if that wasn't enough, his cousin and former fiancee is getting married. Thing is, there is some expectation in his culture that the uncle buys her jewelry. Somehow uncle can also mean cousin, and so he is expected to pay for her jewelry for the wedding. There is no way to get out of it. They know he has an ultra cushy job with Carmen, and indeed she's just recently given him a raise, so he's the 'rich' one they're hitting up for things. But how can he pay for this when she was supposed to marry him? He's beside himself.

Carmen really cares about the guy, they've become friends, and he's been a tremendous asset to her, so she offers a solution. She suggests that she fire him. His family will never expect him to pay it if he no longer has the cushy job. And she'll rehire him in two weeks and no one will be the wiser.

Some time later, just before the wedding, her driver contacts her crying about how sorry he is and he can't deal with it anymore, and he quits. Just like that. No notice. She has to find another means of getting to work and picking up the kids. She's upset. She had promised him a good reference in the past if he'd given her notice. She's forced to get a cab. The cabbie is driving her home and he says, "hmmm... Jesselton. Don't most the people here have drivers?" She says she had one too, but he unexpectedly quit. "800 a month." Just like that he offers, and she accepts, and now she has a new driver at a fraction of what she was paying the other guy.

Does anyone else see what happened here? There is this whole thing here in this culture about saving face and not admitting your inadequacies. Add that to the local tendency to be indirect about things. Driver couldn't be fired, how would that look? This was his way of taking Carmen up on the offer she gave him, but he didn't clue her in, perhaps doing so would have been too direct. So she didn't know. Aside from that he left her without warning and how could that not make her angry?

Two weeks later, you guessed it, the driver starts communicating through Carmen's maid that he's upset that she hasn't called and said she needs him, misses him, and wants for him to come back. Oh the drama! Well, no way. She has a new guy now and he's much cheaper, sorry, see ya, bye!

Poor guy lost his job after all his woes, all because of a miscommunication and cultural misunderstanding.