Is Justin Beiber Muslim? And other important questions

As an gap-year student, my school here had basically no clue what to do with me. I spent the first couple months auditing a bunch of classes that, while interesting (Economics is equal parts wonderful and terrifying; it lures you in with liberal-arts-friendly human behavioral patterns and then BAM. Math.), were basically a review for a test I wasn't going to ever take. So I asked a bunch of people if I could instead read books with kids all day, and they said, sure, we have no idea what you're supposed to be doing here anyway. 

The guys pictured pictured below I've been working with the longest. They're known as the 'scholars' because they come from the interior, living and studying at the school on a scholarship.This means that they're wicked smart but not used to learning in all-English, so they get extra ESL classes to bridge the gap.

 I spend most of my time asking them what they think of a book, prodding out full sentences and proper grammar. Right now we're reading about the first expeditions to reach the South Pole; it includes such hi-lights as "the dogs were our good friends, and now they are our good food" and disgruntled Englishmen writing letters to their mothers about how disgruntled they are. Riveting stuff. But their commentary makes it entertaining.

In third grade we do lots of writing exercises, they're learning cursive now, a skill whose purpose in 2013 I somewhat question; there's also many new adjectives to be had and the weird rules of English spelling. And they never fail to give me a full report on "Miss, I saw you in the car park" or "Miss, you were in Al Fair the other day," and anywhere else they saw me, so ya know, my heart melts.  

In first and second grades it's a lot of controlled chaos and the breaking up of arguments over Justin Beiber's religion, it's one of many hotly debated topics. It's interesting to note how much more Arabic is spoken among the kids in these classes, since about half of the students are just beginning to learn English. I'm happy to report that my Arabic has officially graduated to first-grade level, as I can understand their arguments just fine. Here are some of them, chasing bubbles, because when you're in 1st grade, you get to do that in class. 

It's fantastic experience in the realm of figuring-out-what-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up. And it's more fun than Economics. 

RC44: perspectives from someone who wasn't supposed to be there

At first I was mad at this guy for ruining my shot, but then I decided that he just makes it look that much more official

Some of you may know that I've recently taken up sailing lessons, it's all a part of my plan to travel the world crewing rich people's sailboats, a plan just as  viable as the one involving hitchhiking to North Dakota and becoming a 1950s diner waitress. It's gonna happen.  

There's not much else exciting to say about that and I have no pictures because every time we go out there's a 50/50 chance I'll capsize, odds to which I don't care to trust my ipod. I apologize for completely mangling that last sentence in an attempt to not end it in a preposition. What I do have something to say about is the sight I walked out into after my lesson this past week. The outside of the nice-but-normal-looking-sailing-place had been transformed into fancy-pants-private-yacht-club-event-thing. 

Historically, Omanis have been sailors, the character of Sinbad is said to have originated from here, and ancient Oman built some pretty badass boats. So in modern times, The Sultan and Omanis have decided that sailing is like their thing. There's been a huge push to revitalize interest in it, for students to learn how to sail (which is why I have the opportunity to take lessons in the first place) and for Omanis to become more competitive worldwide as sailors. And thus, fancy-pants international sailing competitions happen here to try to attract more attention for the sport. 

It reminded me of the VIP section at Merriweather, when the concerts decide to get all classy (lol, okay try). Like any good event there were white cabana tents housing bite-sized hors d'oeuvres, ample numbers of tanned people in polos, and a short woman running around with a clipboard yelling at people to do their jobs. Every event staff has one. (Hi Lisa! Please let me work at Stand 6 this summer!) 

I idled around for a bit, only moderately fitting in among the white-linen clad racing crews and their entourages, making a mental note to one day worm my way into a sailing crew entourage. After ogling the boats and team Italia for a bit, I decided I should probably not make my ride wait any longer and wandered out of the elite-world-within-an-elite-world. I guess I'll never know who won. 

Adventures in Desert Camping

Adventures where exactly, I'm still a little fuzzy on. It was the desert, and there were mountains. In Oman, I'm pretty sure. 

All pictures of any quality are courtesy of Outward Bound Oman 

Words like "Wahiba Sands" "Wadi Abyad" and "Desert" have been thrown around, and I was told that "Where exactly are we hiking?" was a "Great question, I'll get back to that," but no one ever really got back to it.

From what I've pieced together, we were around Wadi Abyad, or the Abyad Desert. Abyad means white in Arabic, but everything was distinctly tan-colored, so, more mysteries there I guess.  

I looked it up in a guide book when I got home, and  think we were here-ish

We spent two nights backpacking, a group of fourteen including the YES kids, Omani YES alums, and students from the Access program (another State Dept program that sponsors ESL classes all over Oman). We went with Outward Bound Oman, an organization that does hiking trips and wilderness learning-y events for schools, corporations and the like. So there were lots of trust exercises. 

Oman has so much crazy-awesome wilderness, the chance to get out and explore it was wonderful. Hiking up and down dunes was a new and challenging experience, as the ground basically swallows your foot every time you take a step. But our dunes were pretty beginner-sized and quite a bit of fun to slide down if you didn't mind getting sand in your everywhere. 

Stopping at the top of a dune to shake off the sand

The second day we stopped at the Wadi, which was possibly the most beautiful sight ever after kilometers of sweaty hiking. 

We also got pretty up close and personal with some camels that belonged to Bedouins who live in the area. 

Just chillin with the camel, nbd

I enjoyed most was getting to know the alumni and Access kids. Many of them were from outside Muscat and it's always interesting to hear about Oman from different perspectives. I learned some new Arabic words  (Claire, what's the Omani word for goa--HOSH it's hosh, I know this one!) and learned a bit more about life outside Muscat. I think what this trip and others have really driven home for me is how much there is about Oman I still don't know. After 5 months, I may feel like I've gotten my little Muscati bubble figured out, but I'm dying to experience life in the dakhlia (lit. the interior) of which I have no real firsthand knowledge. Inshallah, we'll see if I can convince anyone to send me there :) 

I have become a Tea Person

They say that studying abroad will change you, but I never expected to have my fundamental beliefs so rocked to the core. At the beginning of the exchange, they had us sign a contract promising that we would not make any "life changing decisions" (seriously, I can show you the paper) but I'm afraid I have broken that covenant, both with Amideast and myself.

It's partly due to the sore throat I've been nursing the past couple days, partly to the fact that my host family does wonderful things like growing lemon grass in the side garden and boiling fresh ginger in a real teapot, and partly to the fact that coffee made in a french press is just not the same. 

As you can see, we have drunk all the lemongrass,  and this is all that remains. Or this is some other dying plant in the garden, I'm not very good at identifying these sort of things.

Today I did a visual survey of the various tea paraphernalia around the house, to see if I was being subconsciously brainwashed. 

The evidence speaks for itself, my friends. And the evidence gives a resounding YES. 

I apologize to my family, to my friends, to my community, to anyone who ever thought me a person of principle. I ask you to please accept the person I have become, as difficult as it may be to understand, this is what living in Oman has done to me. 
=P

The Family "Farm"

One of the things I like most about Oman is how connected extended families are, family is always visiting, or  being visited, and many people count their "cousins" as close friends (Omani cousins are pretty loosely defined, there's not really any distinction made between the child of your parent's sibling and a 4th cousin-twice-removed, regardless of the convoluted line of relation, everyone is either and Aunt, Uncle, or cousin.)

Every Friday (the Omani equivalent of Sunday) my family has dinner with our Aunt and cousin, and occasionally we go over to the family "farm." Most families have a communal "farm" or misraah, where they get together for family reunions, holidays, and parties. For the Bahlanis, the misraah hosts a mini family reunion on Fridays, and different families drop in and out throughout the day. It's technically owned by my host Dad's older brother, but the whole family pitches in to keep it up. It might seem confusing to American sensibilities to have an entire house just for family gatherings, but in Oman, they happen so often it's just practical. 

Okay, so the term "farm" is somewhat misleading, while they do have a vegetable garden and some chickens,  it's more "house with lots of land" than "farm."

The farm also features this epic-ly massive tree, of which I've yet to take a satisfactorily good picture. It's beautiful. 

The green spaces are always filled with kids running around playing football and the house is usually atwitter with laughs from aunts and cousins, poking fun at one another like only family can. It's a good time, even though I only can understand a small portion of what's going on, as it's usually happening in Swahili or Arabic.