My Accidental Dinner Date with Royalty

I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

I thrust one out to shake his, but that didn’t feel quite right.

I hung my arms by my side and that felt worse.

Finally I compromised. I clasped my hands together in front of me, waiting for a sign from each of the white-clad Arabs entering the cavernous room. To shake or not to shake?

I’m not often at a cultural loss but then, I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by so many men who are dressed alike.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My intense discomfort had such a benign beginning.

A quick check to see if a friend would be available for a light dinner during my brief stopover in Dubai suddenly turned into an invitation to Iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, at the palace of one of the most powerful royal families in Abu Dhabi.

“The Sheikh told me to bring you along,” my Dubai friend told me.

Bring me along?

I was stepping off a flight from Sri Lanka, having spent a month at an ayurvedic retreat. I was rumpled, ruffled, and a little disoriented.

And rather underdressed in my hiking sandals and crinkled linen trousers.