Drinking / Ex-pat teaching

Today I got two Palestinians drunk for the first time. Haram! (that means forbidden by Allah) It was their idea but. Two friends of mine asked me to get them liquor and I was kinda thrilled at the prospect, as well as being keen to show off my knowledge and expertise in this area.

I think part of the appeal of being an ex-pat teacher in a foreign environment is the ‘big fish in a small pond' thing – back home we are nothing special, but we are made to feel important here just for being different and possessing culturally specific knowledge; like what alcohol is good to buy and what pornography and dating is like.

Similarly, going by the characters I have come across, I think that some are running from something or just can't fit into the 'real' world so they take the opportunity to get away from it all for a bit. Or longer, if they can hide away forever. It's kinda tempting in a way, but not too much!

It's also a good place to experiment, career wise. To quote a long-term teacher here, the good thing about teaching in the Middle East is that you can't fuck things up much more than they already are.

Anyways, I bought the booze from the local Christian village (small bottle of Smirnoff and red wine) and we got drunk and that was that. It was quite sweet to see them lounging around and talking the rubbish of first time drunkards worldwide; you might know the kind. ‘Ask me any question! Go on!’ ‘My head feels fine but I can’t quite control my body!’ One had this repugnant habit of tipping the ash from his cigarette into his drink and then drinking it. Maybe he thought it was a madcap thing to do!

I think they enjoyed it but I don’t know if they’ll do it again, just because it's too taboo, different and can't fit into their regular lives unless I am there all the time to buy it for them. (which I'm not). It made me wonder a little about the reason we all do it in the west, probably just because it's part of our culture.

Was funny, when I was filling them in on it (they were quite anxious beforehand - "I don't want to piss in my pants") all I was doing was listing the possible consequences and bad points, so they asked me what the good ones were. I couldn't really think of them, and in the aftermath I still can't really. One of the bad points I mentioned was feeling melancholy afterward, and funnily enough that's how I feel now. Oh well!