Directions

by Cindy

We often receive directions on how to get places - but not directions like you would expect with a street and house number. Here is something that we received recently - very typical.

His house is located at Al Taawun Area, behind Al Khaleej Newspaper, Al Andalus building (ZEST Laundry in the ground floor), flat 901.

So here's my American interpretation of the directions:

1. It is in the Al Taawun Area. This is just like New York when they talk about the Bronx, TriBeca, etc. If I am not familiar with the area, it should be easy to find on a map.

2. His building is behind the newspaper building. This assumes I know where the newspaper building is, it is a large enough building to find, etc. This is a BIG assumption. There is no point of direction as in, "The newspaper building is North of his building." We never get directions using the points of the compass. Ever.

3. His building is called Al Andalus and it has a ZEST laundry center on the ground floor. His building does have a name but it is probably on one door, one place in the building. Unfortunately, it is not in neon on the outside of the building. The ZEST laundry might be helpful but you will probably only see that from one side of the building and it is possible that it is a small joint that's only eight feet wide. It is not that ZEST is big and easy to find, it is that ZEST is something familiar to him. It would be like living next to Wal-Mart and instead of telling people to look for Wal-mart, you tell them to look for the mom-and-pop Chinese restaurant in a strip shopping center.

4. He lives in apartment 901. Assuming I am in the right building, this SHOULD be easy to find.

Needless to say, it is possible to spend a lot of time being lost in this country.