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We have wasta

20th November 2008 by Helena 3 Comments  

Wasta is what you need to get ahead in the Middle East. It can best be translated as connections or influence.

Yesterday as Rupert and I were walking to lunch a tiny black and white kitten literally threw itself in my path and started miaowing at me.  I picked it up and it started purring loudly. It was tiny enough to hold in one hand. I looked at Rupert but he already knew what was coming.

“Fine,” he said, handing me the car keys. “You take it home, I am going to lunch.”

I took the little thing back home and installed it on the top floor of the house. Now instead of living under a truck it has four rooms, a lovely red carpet it uses as a loo and a terrace as well as three children who love it to bits. Picking on me was the cat equivalent of getting some wasta. Hence the name we have given it until the vet tells me what sex it is.

I am thinking of adopting a similar approach when I next see a passing Sheikh; hurling myself in his path and miaowing. I may end up in a palace somewhere, who knows? Anyway, we need something as our tenant in France has decided to leave after just one month.

So any ideas on potential tenants and/or names for lucky kittens would be appreciated. I am thinking Wilfred (after the explorer and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger) if it is a boy.

Or maybe we will just stick to wasta, at least then we will have some…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, blog --> Tagged With: wasta

3 thoughts on We have wasta

  • snusmormor says:
    20th November 2008 at 6:07 pm

    I think Wasta works for both boys and girls. Post a picture of it as I am sure everyone would like to see the poor thing and maybe you could introduce it to a litter-tray? Possibly in one of the four rooms, just to teach it some manners? You must have plenty of sand there?

  • sharyn g says:
    21st November 2008 at 7:34 am

    Helena,

    As my Mother always said, you have a sign on your forehead that attracts strays and other castaways. Maybe the kitten is a sign to help the children settle here. How about Destiny?

    Sharyn G

  • Patricia Rodriguez says:
    22nd November 2008 at 6:34 am

    Post a picture please! I’ve never seen a Dubaian kitty before 😉

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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