Queen Nefertiti of Ancient Egypt was known for being one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. A millenia and some change later in the northern emirate of Ras al Khaimah and the name Nefertiti is synonymous with ladies salons offering six services for 100dhs, or about 25 USD. These salons are off the beaten path, past a few wandering feral cats, up a dimly lit elevator, and usually the last apartment on the ninth floor. The sign on the door will read, “Ladies Only.”
Before we enter the ladies only zone, a little context.
As an expat, you don’t know much. That seems obvious, but let me elaborate. When I landed in this country I had no working phone. I had no internet connection and no means of transportation. If I had a phone or the internet I would not have even known who to call to drive me somewhere. And if I had that, where would we go? When we eventually rented a car, my roommates and I found a stationary supply store called Dubai Library by following a friend’s verbal instructions which I believe were, “Go straight for a while. You’ll see a sailboat in the middle of a roundabout, keep going until you see a yellow sign. If you see a yellow sign you’ve gone too far.” We went there everyday because it was the only place we knew besides our villa.
All you have are little pieces of information others give you about groceries, electricity bills, feral cats, and sim cards. The expat commodity is inside information. If one person knows a guy, soon all will know the guy. If you have the most information, the other expats will honor you and make you their information queen.
A subcategory of this commodity is information relating to and about the best deals. You may have squared the market on the best deal for fixing your car’s ac with your guy, but soon enough someone else has a guy who will do it for half the price and throw in 8 boxes of face tissue. Your bad intel will dethrone you until sharing about 6 salon services for the low, low price of 100 dhs puts you back on top.
I was following this intel to the end of the ninth floor, Nefertiti’s Ladies Saloon. The entire list of salon services was available: facial, manicure, pedicure, waxing, eye-brow threading, massage, haircut, henna, and hair dye. Beyond the Ladies Only sign stood one lady ready to render 24 services to me and my two friends.
The hope you feel as you scan through the services, deliberating with your friends on the merits of each one, is like seeing the yellow sign beyond Dubai Library before you’ve gone too far. Everything is going to be alright and you’re going to find your way.
More than that, you feel the high of knowing something. In a conversion you’ll have later, you’ll say, “Oh, I know a great place to go for a haircut. Have you heard of Nefertitis?” She hasn’t and you’ll be the one to recommend it.
Our services selected, we walked deeper into the apartment. L’Oreal advertisements of models with overly coiffed hair covered the peeling lavender walls. Like sentinels they guided us onward. I laid on the table expectantly while I heard her open the fridge. This was my first facial so I didn’t know there would be a fridge. When I saw the cup of yogurt, I thought maybe she just reused the yogurt container. Recycling. Smart.
It was yogurt. With my face slathered in Almarai plain full fat, she left me with a steamer while she tended to my friend. Through yogurt glazed lids I saw her brush my friend’s hair, pull some scissors out of the fridge, and cut one straight line from left to right. That was service number 2 for her.
For the next hour, I watched this woman paint 40 digits, thread three eyebrows, and half-heartedly massage some shoulders while she chatted in a language I had never heard with another lady who had appeared out of a back room. Second lady didn’t seem like a customer, and if she was an employee her job description would read “watch everyone else paint toe nails.”
The yogurt had crusted and was scratchy, which I took to mean it was really working some kind of miracle on my pores. First lady returned and vigorously scrubbed the contents of another yogurt container on my face. She was visibly weary from competing in this toe nail painting relay race running between the three of us while the second lady sat in an arm chair giving commentary. Another two hours passed.
How long had we been here? Why were the scissors in the fridge? Was yogurt supposed to go on your face?
The room was silent as the realization that the completion of six services each was either going to put this woman in a coma or cause our skin to fuse to the furniture from prolonged sitting.
She took out the fridge scissors for the last cut, hesitantly. There was frenzied eye contact. Second lady spoke to us for the first time. “I think you are all finished now, no?”
We spoke more out of American consumer obligation than our own desire, “But…we have only gotten…three services?”
No one moved. We feigned protest for a moment, but clearly they had worn us down. At that point, I would have happily paid triple just to be released and see daylight again.
I wish I could say that I was never bamboozled by another offer promising a complete cosmetic work-up for 100dhs, but I would be lying. There are dozens of other salons I have left half-waxed, but the deal that would crown me info queen remains elusive. Someone else will always work harder to know more and save more than me, but I am content. I know how to get to Dubai Library. In expat commodities I am poor, but in Nefertiti services I’ll always be rich.
Busy Nothings 
You write incredibly well. What an amazing gradual…revealing of context? Like you don’t just spoon-feed the audience. And even the way you use indirect sentences/pictures to cimmunicate what you want to say. I just really really like the way you write, having read this post and the previous RAK post (I just found out about your website some minutes ago). Hope to read more of this RAK series!!
That’s really kind–thank you!