Muscat Festival(s)

I recently had the opportunity to go to the Muscat Festival--think state fair with more culture and less sand art. Actually, it was two different fairs, one with my host family that focused on Omani heritage and cultural events, and one with the YES and some Omani girls that was more of the fried-food-and-spinning-rides variety. Also firework displays that happened randomly, spectacularly, and without warning.

At the festival in Al Amerat, there was a mini "village" set up with traditional Omani crafts. Sellers lined the way with everything from tassels to woven baskets. 

There was also an international village area, where artists from all over the world were selling and demonstrating their respective crafts. As I walked around the sizable square of vendors, I kept track where I was in the world by how aggressive the sellers were. As I moved from the Middle East towards Europe, I went from being physically pulled to look at some Moroccan shoes (And yeah, I ended up buying a $15 pair that are worth maaaybe half that. The justification for this is that I had a long, Arabic conversation with the seller, and got to learn a bit of Moroccan.) to being coolly ignored by the guy selling Uzbek chess sets.

Egyptian metalworker

Sudanese Potter

French stained-glass artist

Iranian weaver

Thai silk-spinner

One of my favorite spots was the Palestinian area, where this guy was making blown-glass sculptures. I was completely mesmerized watching him delicately shape molten glass for twenty minutes, and so was the small crowd  that formed as he worked. 

 Right across from him was this table, with passages from the Qur'an and nativity scenes displayed intermixed; and I thought it made an interesting statement about how this Palestinian shopkeeper viewed the relationship between these two religions. I don't think I would have ever seen a display like this in America, we're much more comfortable with religions neatly segregated, playing into the media's Us vs. Them narrative. Just some food for thought. 

About a week later I went to the Naseem Park festival with Lisa, Claire and a big group of Omani girls. They're all in a program called Access, also sponsored by the State Dept, an ESL program that's run by Amideast in classes all over Oman. It was really fun to hang out with them and to help them practice their English while we practiced our Arabic. 

The three Americans decided to go as Omanis, or at least attempt to. Even in full abayas and lahafs, our terrible accents and pasty skin give us away pretty quickly, but I think we did manage to make quite a few people quite confused.

Naseem reminded me the most of the County fair, with rides that looked like they could break down at any second and a cornucopia of blinking lights. I only have a few pictures since technically cameras weren't allwoed, so I had to be super sneaky . 

Las Vegas of the Middle East

Of all the cities I've seen, Dubai is the shiniest. It screams "Look at me! I'm the ____-est!! I have lots of blinking lights!" The buildings are a mishmash of styles and imaginations, like if a crayon skyline came to life, rising out a the desert, completely disregarding its context. 

It was a fun weekend, and my host family was nice enough to invite along some of the YES girls to come with us. As a group of twelve people (my host family, the YES girls, my host aunt and miscellaneous cousins) we were about the size of a "normal" Omani family.  

The first place we went was the Old Souq, and what I found most interesting there was this sketch-looking alleyway. 

Well, not exactly the alley, but the neat little museum that we found at its end, buried inside the maze of Arabizi nick knacks that is Dubai's Old Souq.

It was devoted to a famous old Emirati poet, whose house had been converted into the museum. I honestly didn't spend much time reading his poetry (it was in Arabic) but the house was huge and fun to explore. 

This photo reminds Hannah that museums for dead poets aren't exactly Dubai's biggest draw, and that she probably ought to touch on those things as well.

We also did the customary Dubai-y type activities like mall-ing

And they were sufficiently ginormous, not that any of my photos capture that.

And fountain-ogling 

 (Photos that don't suck are courtesy of my host dad)

And giving out valentines to random strangers. Since we went over Valentine's Day weekend, and the city has enough foreigners that we didn't think anyone would be horribly offended, we decided to spend the day giving out cards to lonely-looking-turned-confused-looking people. 

A very nice weekend.  

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. 

A Word on Omani Time

Fun fact, after searching for and failing to find any pictures pertaining to time, I just went downstairs and took a picture of our dining room clock, which gives you a sense of how long it took me write this post.

One thing that varies drastically among cultures is the concept of time. "Meet me at noon" means something different in New York City than in Berlin, Bangkok, or Barcelona. In Oman it means, why the heck would we meet at noon?? I'll be staying inside where there's A/C thank-you-very-much. 

Back home, I'm not exactly known as the most punctual person, to put it mildly. But I have nothing on the Omanis, where procrastination is basically a norm. Even public holidays (think the equivalent holidays of Labor or President's day) aren't officially announced until days before they happen. Until a few days ago, I had no idea whether or not I would have today off of school, even though everyone knew that a holiday was supposed to happen sometime around now. The Muscat Festival, a big month-long Columbia-Festival-of-the-Arts-esque shindig hypothetically begins the end of this month, but apart from a few sponsor signs, there has yet to be any kind of schedule published. 

And, it works. Sure, it's difficult to plan ahead, but then you realize, the problem isn't that it's difficult, it's that you're trying too hard to plan ahead. In Oman, I've learned that I'll save myself a lot of strain and frustration by just doing as the Omanis do, being spontaneous and going with the flow. And by assuming that any plans that are made will commence a good 1-2 hours after the agreed-upon time. 

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