Al Hamd li Allah! (Praise God!)
Ok, so just a quick post:
I'm using fast internet for the first time in Oman now, and it feels great. Unfortunately, my battery is getting low so I won't have too much time to write now, though. Just to make the point, though--it is true that I haven't been on the internet too much, and when I have, it's been pretty slow (up until now).
A couple highlights from the last week or so:
We took a trip to Sharqiya region, including the port of Sur and the Wahiba sands. The sands were absolutely great. Honestly, I remember thinking that it was the most raw "fun" I've had in a long, long time. We left from here in Muscat in land cruisers and stayed in a little "camp" in the desert. Not long after getting there we went on what tourist brochures here advertize as "dune bashing" in the land cruisers. Basically, we just deflated the tires in the land cruisers and then went all over the dunes doing things that looked extremely dangerous. It was so much better than at least half of the roller coasters I've ever been on, and it was real. Eloquent words fail me. I also went "sand boarding"...which is exactly what it sounds like, and was decent fun as well. Unfortunately my camera got sand in it early into the trip, so I took no pictures after that. I'm gonna try fixing it soon, and I think I can still move the pictures I have to my computer (although I haven't yet)
We also visited a green sea turtle nesting ground at night (green sea turtles are big and slow and green and endangered so they're a big deal), and swam in the Indian Ocean and played soccer on the beach during the day. On the way back to Muscat, we stopped at Wadi Shab and swam in it. The wadi was amazing. It's this huge canyon with some parts where you can't walk along the bottom but have to swim. There were spots where you could jump off cliffs into the water, and some parts where you could go through caves with only a little breathing space to get to covered caverns with waterfalls and such in them. It looked like something that could be designed at a water park but it was entirely natural.
I didn't feel too cheap for doing all these "touristy" things since understanding tourism in the country is part of understanding its development and diversification strategies. (right? right??) That, and I've been living in a pretty normal home so I don't feel like I was visiting touristy things at the expense of the "real" Oman at all.
Other than that account of one of the excursions, I'll just say that now I'm going to classes every day, doing homework, eating amazing Arabic food, and thinking about what I'll do for my Independent Study Project. I'm pretty sure I want to do something about Islam, but the world's second largest religion is a very broad topic, and I need to research and explore a very specific question so that I can actually do my own reseach and answer my question.
With peace,
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Family Time
I am so back in the blogosphere. And with a vengeance.
Things are going well. I was placed with an Omani family about a week and a half ago, and I’ve been more and more content with my situation. I’m with what I’ve come to understand as a fairly typical middle class Omani family in Seeb, a city in the capital area that’s a hub for local fisherman and home to a sizable daily fish market. Fortunately, the building where our classes are is quite near—about a 4 minute drive or so.
About the family: Saad is the father of the family, and the person who I spend the most time with. He’s very into me learning Arabic, which has been great cause he’ll have conversations with me and speak in modern standard Arabic with me. Even though I had been told about it ever since I started learning Arabic, I was still somewhat surprised to find that the local dialect of Arabic differs a fair bit from the Modern Standard Arabic that I’d been learning at Brown. This is the case everywhere, though, since MSA really isn’t spoken as a first language everywhere. I can still carry out basic conversations all over the place, though. It’s just that if I run into someone who never studied formal Arabic at school (usually meaning middle aged and over or very young), then half my vocabulary becomes obsolete. Saad has one wife and four children, Ali, Suleiman, Selma, and Sarah, all under the age of 10. I don’t know his wife’s name, because, while Saad is open enough to let me stay with his family (he had only accepted female students until me); it’s quite culturally unusual to have a strange man stay in the house. In keeping with this, I only eat meals with Saad or by myself if he’s not here. All of the children are energetic and have inadvertently taught me quite a bit of colloquial Arabic. I have tons of pictures and videos on my camera from the first day here from them asking to use my camera. Half of them are of them and other children (their cousins live nearby and come over often) dancing with a fake trophy that they pretend is the "Gulf Cup" from a recent soccer tournament in which the Omanis beat both the Saudis and the Emirates.
It obviously would be impossible to describe all of what's happened even in just the last couple weeks, so I guess most things will have to be turned into oral stories later on.
Classes have been good as well. I usually get picked up in time to be at the school by 8:30 with classes starting t 9. From 9-12 every day we just work on Arabic (with a half hour break). After time to go get lunch nearby we usually have some sort of lecture or class in the afternoon but not always. We operate on the usual system here where Thursday and Friday are the weekend. Unfortunately, this means I can't really go to a church on Sunday mornings since I'm in class then. After school I do different things, sometimes hanging out with SIT kids for a bit, usually going out with Saad on various errands, and occasionally doing homework. Dinner usually isn't eaten here until very late—9 or 10 at night or even later, so lunch is pretty big usually.
On an unrelated note, one of the great things about Oman is kahwa (Arabic coffee) and dates. Both of these are everywhere and are offered to guests, snacked on, and eaten after meals (dates that is). I don't know how I ever lived without eating dates all the time.
I'll try to put in some interesting stories next time instead of utilizing this ultra hip, post modern, stream of consciousness technique.
Things are going well. I was placed with an Omani family about a week and a half ago, and I’ve been more and more content with my situation. I’m with what I’ve come to understand as a fairly typical middle class Omani family in Seeb, a city in the capital area that’s a hub for local fisherman and home to a sizable daily fish market. Fortunately, the building where our classes are is quite near—about a 4 minute drive or so.
About the family: Saad is the father of the family, and the person who I spend the most time with. He’s very into me learning Arabic, which has been great cause he’ll have conversations with me and speak in modern standard Arabic with me. Even though I had been told about it ever since I started learning Arabic, I was still somewhat surprised to find that the local dialect of Arabic differs a fair bit from the Modern Standard Arabic that I’d been learning at Brown. This is the case everywhere, though, since MSA really isn’t spoken as a first language everywhere. I can still carry out basic conversations all over the place, though. It’s just that if I run into someone who never studied formal Arabic at school (usually meaning middle aged and over or very young), then half my vocabulary becomes obsolete. Saad has one wife and four children, Ali, Suleiman, Selma, and Sarah, all under the age of 10. I don’t know his wife’s name, because, while Saad is open enough to let me stay with his family (he had only accepted female students until me); it’s quite culturally unusual to have a strange man stay in the house. In keeping with this, I only eat meals with Saad or by myself if he’s not here. All of the children are energetic and have inadvertently taught me quite a bit of colloquial Arabic. I have tons of pictures and videos on my camera from the first day here from them asking to use my camera. Half of them are of them and other children (their cousins live nearby and come over often) dancing with a fake trophy that they pretend is the "Gulf Cup" from a recent soccer tournament in which the Omanis beat both the Saudis and the Emirates.
It obviously would be impossible to describe all of what's happened even in just the last couple weeks, so I guess most things will have to be turned into oral stories later on.
Classes have been good as well. I usually get picked up in time to be at the school by 8:30 with classes starting t 9. From 9-12 every day we just work on Arabic (with a half hour break). After time to go get lunch nearby we usually have some sort of lecture or class in the afternoon but not always. We operate on the usual system here where Thursday and Friday are the weekend. Unfortunately, this means I can't really go to a church on Sunday mornings since I'm in class then. After school I do different things, sometimes hanging out with SIT kids for a bit, usually going out with Saad on various errands, and occasionally doing homework. Dinner usually isn't eaten here until very late—9 or 10 at night or even later, so lunch is pretty big usually.
On an unrelated note, one of the great things about Oman is kahwa (Arabic coffee) and dates. Both of these are everywhere and are offered to guests, snacked on, and eaten after meals (dates that is). I don't know how I ever lived without eating dates all the time.
I'll try to put in some interesting stories next time instead of utilizing this ultra hip, post modern, stream of consciousness technique.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Orientation
First the important things. Coca-Cola is widely available, but unfortunately Pepsi products actually seem to be more popular here than in most other places I’ve been overseas. I’ve also become reacquainted with some old friends and acquaintances from PNG, like P.K., Milo, and Miranda. The food here is amazing, and (obviously) beats the Ratty hands down (even chicken finger Friday and Cajun chicken pasta—no joke). There are traditional Arab foods, but also Indian and African influenced foods as well.
So I’ve been in Oman for a couple of days now. We’ve been staying in a hotel by the port in the old part of Muscat. The old city is comparatively small, since there has been tons of construction in the area since 1970. There are western and Asian brand name fast food chains, malls, and car dealerships strung out along the Sultan Qaboos Highway, which runs along a stretch of the coast here with several different centers including government ministries, shopping centres, Omanoil headquarters, and if you get far enough, the SIT headquarters in Seeb.
Our days have consisted of lots of information, tours, and briefings mixed in with a fair amount of freedom. Our evenings have been entirely free so we’ve had time to explore, eat on our own (with an allowance we were given), and wander around the local sooq (market).
The culture here is amazing, and I find myself reminded again and again about why cross-cultural experiences are a good thing. Nearly everything is clean here, and the smell of frankincense and other perfumes and spices being burned hangs around various places here in the old city. Virtually every Omani wears the traditional dishdasha or abaya—to the point that you can tell who the expatriates are by dress more easily than by anything else (including skin shades and tones). I’ve already put my Arabic to use, and two and a half years of study are totally worth a couple compliments from taxi drivers and the automatic 500 Baisa drop in price I received at the market just for responding to an offer in Arabic rather than English.
A main focus of our orientation so far has been to prepare us for the home stays. Omani culture is highly formal—more similar to Japanese or Korean culture than Papua New Guinean in that respect (although I still find myself making comparisons to PNG all the time). The formality allows for the possibility of lots of inadvertent cultural errors, however. Using your left hand to scoop rice into your mouth (note the implied lack of a fork in either hand), setting your money on the counter when paying for something, crossing gender lines, and smelling or dressing improperly are all potentially troublesome areas. I think we’re all trying to acclimate ourselves, and we’ve been given several opportunities to try things out through “drop-offs” at different areas in the city.
An unexpected possibility has come up in regards to the homestay, though. Apparently we have a larger than usual number of guys on the SIT program this semester, and finding families willing to take a strange, foreign man into their house are much harder to find than those willing to take in a strange, foreign girl. There’s a possibility that I may end up in a house full of young men who have come into the city from the interior for some reason or another, then. I’m definitely opening up to the idea, especially since such a living situation would probably help my Arabic more than even staying with a family would. (where conversations with half the family—the women—would be limited, or where Swahili or English may be the main language of conversation at home). The Omani empire used to include a good part of the East African coast, and up until a couple decades ago still included Zanzibar. Many of these families have returned to Oman since 1970, and a disproportionate number of the host families for SIT are of such a background.
I will write more later, when I (in sha allah) will have a host family, and can tell you more about them.
Masalama.
So I’ve been in Oman for a couple of days now. We’ve been staying in a hotel by the port in the old part of Muscat. The old city is comparatively small, since there has been tons of construction in the area since 1970. There are western and Asian brand name fast food chains, malls, and car dealerships strung out along the Sultan Qaboos Highway, which runs along a stretch of the coast here with several different centers including government ministries, shopping centres, Omanoil headquarters, and if you get far enough, the SIT headquarters in Seeb.
Our days have consisted of lots of information, tours, and briefings mixed in with a fair amount of freedom. Our evenings have been entirely free so we’ve had time to explore, eat on our own (with an allowance we were given), and wander around the local sooq (market).
The culture here is amazing, and I find myself reminded again and again about why cross-cultural experiences are a good thing. Nearly everything is clean here, and the smell of frankincense and other perfumes and spices being burned hangs around various places here in the old city. Virtually every Omani wears the traditional dishdasha or abaya—to the point that you can tell who the expatriates are by dress more easily than by anything else (including skin shades and tones). I’ve already put my Arabic to use, and two and a half years of study are totally worth a couple compliments from taxi drivers and the automatic 500 Baisa drop in price I received at the market just for responding to an offer in Arabic rather than English.
A main focus of our orientation so far has been to prepare us for the home stays. Omani culture is highly formal—more similar to Japanese or Korean culture than Papua New Guinean in that respect (although I still find myself making comparisons to PNG all the time). The formality allows for the possibility of lots of inadvertent cultural errors, however. Using your left hand to scoop rice into your mouth (note the implied lack of a fork in either hand), setting your money on the counter when paying for something, crossing gender lines, and smelling or dressing improperly are all potentially troublesome areas. I think we’re all trying to acclimate ourselves, and we’ve been given several opportunities to try things out through “drop-offs” at different areas in the city.
An unexpected possibility has come up in regards to the homestay, though. Apparently we have a larger than usual number of guys on the SIT program this semester, and finding families willing to take a strange, foreign man into their house are much harder to find than those willing to take in a strange, foreign girl. There’s a possibility that I may end up in a house full of young men who have come into the city from the interior for some reason or another, then. I’m definitely opening up to the idea, especially since such a living situation would probably help my Arabic more than even staying with a family would. (where conversations with half the family—the women—would be limited, or where Swahili or English may be the main language of conversation at home). The Omani empire used to include a good part of the East African coast, and up until a couple decades ago still included Zanzibar. Many of these families have returned to Oman since 1970, and a disproportionate number of the host families for SIT are of such a background.
I will write more later, when I (in sha allah) will have a host family, and can tell you more about them.
Masalama.
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