Dealing with local sensitivities

[Geetha Balvannanathan]

The trip to Fujairah today was a little disheartening. We had a few issues on the road, reached later than expected and found out that the local charity located in Dibba, Fujairah rather than the main city of Fujairah, closed its doors at 1.30 pm without exception. We therefore could not meet the lady who was the director and it would not be possible to reschedule to meet her the same day although we were travelling from Dubai for the purpose.

Manal, Amna and myself were slightly disappointed but decided to cheer ourselves in the best way possible for most women - no hate mails required ladies ; I give it to you in a million guesses, yes, we went for a nice lunch in the city of Fujairah.

Revived by the lunch, we reached out to the husband of our local champion (she was back in Egypt for a few weeks so we could not meet her) who gave us an indication on where to go, Mahdhab, Fujairah. He had enquired as agreed during our previous trip and the locals had mentioned this was a community where we would find several in need. We set out to Madhab and found it to be a forlorn place stretching out between two sets of mountains. Deciding to try our luck, we knocked on the door of a house which seemed in great need of restoration but there was no answer. Walking around in the sun, we found another house which doors were open. After a brief knock, we saw a lady hanging clothes in the courtyard who looked up and greeted us. She seemed to be a maid and we asked to meet the lady of the house, upon which the lady introduced us to another lady who seemed to be the housekeeper. This last lady went reluctantly inside the house and promptly we were faced with a junior Emirati who seemed very annoyed to be interrupted in the midst of watching his TV program. After apologising for the disturbance and indicating that we had attempted to knock but the door was open and we had been invited in by the maid, Manal asked whether we could meet his mother. The teenager sullenly responded she was at a wedding so Manal set about explaining the purpose of our visit to this community indicating that we were looking for widows or divorcees who might be interested in making a living for themselves and their families. The young Emirati shook off the assumption of divorcees existing in his community but indicated that his mother was a widow. We were utterly pleased with ourselves at this chance finding and asked if we could have contact details to get in touch with his mother but got his elder brother's phone instead. After bidding him and his two cute younger sisters farewell, we set about for a return journey to pass by Muhaisnah.

On the road, we decided to call the brother to explain the purpose of our visit. As I was driving, I handed my phone to Manal so she could speak to the brother. In the rearview mirror, I saw her face turn a shade of red and she was apologising and was obviously upset. It would seem that the brother was extremely angry that we had visited their house and mentioned his mother was not in need of our help. He seemed to be enquiring as to where she got the contact details from and how come we had chosen their house to visit and of all times at 3 pm in the afternoon, which he deemed an unearthly hour. This went on for a few minutes while Manal kept apologising and repeating that our intentions were to help not to hurt or intrude and that we had not been guided to their house but had chanced upon it. She kept asking in an apologetic tone if he knew of any other families in need that we could help given his was in no need of assistance (I can tell you the household would clearly welcome a new source of income) but he seemed to be seething and too angry to be in a collaborative mood.

After apologising again, Manal hung up and handed me the phone quietly. I felt utterly sorry for her having taken the brunt of it and we drove on silently for a few minutes while I pondered on the incident.

When I had set out on the initial trips I had already realised a while ago that implementing an individual Microfinance model in the region was going to be a challenge. I had been convinced, however, that the current social assistance based on a charity run on the model of giving money out to poor families was not a sustainable one. This had enforced in me the desire of reaching out to rather than waiting for women to come and on providing active involvement money rather than charity money. The model was intended to build, sustain and nurture a business within the heart of the community; to allow a woman to work in the safety of her own home and to help her grow that business to a larger scale. What I had not counted on was the variation in temperament between the various Emirates.

It is true that the first time I had visited Fujairah with the Microfinance model in mind, I had been aware that this would be more of a challenge. Something in the nature I guess. I have always had at the back of my mind the conviction that the people of a place acquire characteristics and traits that are very similar to the nature that surrounds them. I had cast a glance at the grey/brown hills around made of rock and earth and had felt instinctively that this was not going to be an easy task unlike the outskirts of Dubai or even Ras Al Khaimah for that matter.

Finding the local champion, the Egyptian lady, who happened to be interested in sewing had been a streak of luck. Today's misadventure was just an illustration of the difficulties we were going to face. In Muhaisnah and Ras Al Khaimah, we had been welcomed and the same project, explained in almost exactly the same words had received words of praise there while it was almost being decried here.

Manal, the cheerleader of the volunteers awoke me from my reverie by starting to giggle. I looked at her again and she was turning hilarious, she gasped out "well I wish he could make up his mind. Was it the timing that was bad or the fact that we went to his house at all. He kept changing his mind, I wish he could stick to something". She continued turning red in the face with mirth "one day, this will be a big success and we will have a full women's cooperative throughout the Emirates and if I happen to be interviewed about the foundation of this project, I will definitely have a thought for this young man here". The rest was babble so indistinct as submerged by her laughter that we could barely understand what she was saying. The effect however was very communicative and Amna and I started laughing and at each of our laughs, Manal would punctuate with another comment until we were crying with laughter.

Once the mirth settled, I looked back at Manal again. I was relieved that she had not taken the incident too badly. She had been initially hurt but was her usual optimistic and carefree self again. Finding her as a volunteer had been such a blessing and I vowed to myself again that I would find a way in my business to provide her a monetary compensation. Manal's own story was an illustration of how the less you have the more you give and I was truly impressed by her generous and loving nature.

We reached Muhaisnah and waited for Khairia to reach her mother's place where we had parked the car. Finally she arrived with her two little daughters and we entered the house. After a few formalities we got down to discussion of the details. Khairia had found around 10 candidates and committed to being the champion for these ladies. All we needed to do now is to have one lady give them lessons in stitching so that all of them would be operational. Khairia herself was very good in sewing and she removed her Abaya to show us her dress that she had stitched herself. We agreed that she and the other ladies would stitch initially Abayas, interior dresses for local ladies as well as the Shayla and other head garment that accompanied the hair clip. She mentioned they could even make matching bags if required. MENA MicroFinance would provide the sewing machine, the threads, the cloth and they would stitch and give MMF the produce to sell. The profits, after reimbursement of a portion of the costs borne by MMF would be split so that MMF could become self-sustaining and be able to help others.

Obviously, we had to explain that it would not be the entirety of the costs that were removed but an amortised amount for the machines, assuming their lifespan was around 5 years. We agreed that a standard remuneration for every piece stitched would be provided even before the sale so as to provide a regular income to the ladies. If the sale were to provide very successful, the profits would be split.

After a few minutes Khairia's father came back home. He had been recently released from jail for a crime he had not committed. He was in jail, for a quirk of the system, as it was his 15-year old son who had been responsible, in a fight, of the death of another 15 year-old boy. Both father and son had been jailed but the son obviously got a heavier sentence.

Manal, who had tried to help them as their lawyer had not been very diligent on the circumstances of the fight (a defense mechanism) was involved in a heated debate with the father. She was trying to convince him to appeal to the Sheikhs' Diwan for the blood money but he was adamant he would rather spend another 36 months in jail then beg for the money. In a strange twist of events, it was not the Diya of 200 k to 250 k AED that had been granted but a startling 1.1 M AED. There was no way this family could pay it and so the father was willing to go back to jail if he could not overturn the ruling. Khairia turned towards me and mentioned that they still had to struggle to make ends meet as well as pay the money they had borrowed to pay the lawyers. I had in fact wondered how they were able to cash out 60 k AED for the lawyers and visibly that had not been enough as the lawyer had sent his assistant rather than go himself to the court.

Soon the father calmed down and left the room so Khairia and us returned to our Microfinance subject and we spoke again about the terms finetuning them until the point in which we found her totally satisfied and willing to take on the task. We agreed we now needed to move from the theoretical part to the practical part so the next time we would be meeting, we would be laden with the sewing machines and the material to work with.

We left Khairia's home with the feeling that we had just been compensated manifold for the disappointing trip to Fujairah. This truly illustrated a quote from Robert Browning "A minute's success pays the failure of years".

As for how to deal with the incident in Fujairah, I can only think of what Henry Ford said, "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently". So yes, we will go again to Fujairah and start all over again going through the local charity only and not reaching out to individuals. Despite the presence of another Emirati woman, Amna from Dubai, with us, visibly only the presence of someone from their own community would have defused the unpleasant feeling of intrusion. We therefore decided that our next trip to Fujairah individual families would only be when our champion was back from Egypt. Although she was not Emirati, she was the neighbour, the one whom they knew and would feel comfortable talking to.

A lesson learnt today on dealing with differing local sensitivities...