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. 

The Adventures of Little Ethnic Man

We'll call him LEM for short.

As a graduation present this past summer, our STARTALK Arabic teachers gave each student a pocket-sized, vaguely-Arabian-looking plush weeble person. We lovingly dubbed him "Little ethnic man" just to be on the safe side of not offending any particular ethnicity. 

Naturally I brought him with me to Muscat and he has been having the time of his life 

LEM has his morning coffee

LEM gets new clothes for Eid

LEM eats a traditional Omani meal

LEM goes grocery shopping for the essentials

LEM is unable to emotionally process the fact that it's raining

LEM dies alone in the hot Arabian sun

Just a silliness for now but I'll have posts about Eid and Halloween and cultural stuff up soon!

Adventures in Fabric and Culture

There's one kind of store I can walk into anywhere in the world and be instantly at home. Whether peopled by blue-haired old quilters, somebody's Abuelita, ironically-grey-haired hipsters, or floral-swathed Balushi women--fabric shops all have that familiar musty smell that means I'm home. 

So much shiny

We recently went to Pakistani fabric shop, in search of traditional-style Balushi dresses for Eid, the holiday that's coming up at the end of October. Long story short, we didn't find them. However that didn't keep me from getting distracted by shiny things and buying this beautiful totally non-Omani piece of fabric. 

The next day we went into the Mattrah Souk, an old-school marketplace that's 50% tourist trap 50% place where actual Omanis buy stuff. 

The souk is a maze of tight alleyways, bustling with women in abayas, men in dishdashas and old British tourists trying to haggle over prices. The main area is lined with shops selling random and generic things like camel-shaped snap-close gold leaf boxes or football jerseys. Every so often the line of shops is interrupted by a corridor jutting out, where the shops on either side sit within kissing distance of one another and the rows of vendors seem to stretch on for miles. Each of these alleyways loosely specialize in one good or another, ie textiles, silver, gold, etc. 

This entire shop was devoted to selling fancy trim

I spent most of my time flitting from one stall to another in the textiles area, constantly being distracted by the next exciting shiny thing. I think between that and the sparkly green fabric from the day before which I was wearing as a shawl, (classic white person tries to wear something "cultural" which just further accentuates their whiteness) I gave off the impression of some kind of deranged bird-woman. 

There's this feeling that pervades the entire experience of the souk that, as a foreigner, you're constantly being ripped off, so I felt kind of bitter about buying anything because I knew the "special discount price just for you" was still way too high. I ended up settling on some ribbon trim for a skirt that I will totally actually make and not just leave in the corner and sigh at while I do less productive activities like write blog posts.

All the cramped stores reminded me so much of the little junk / antique shops in old Ellicott City or Hampden. Of course "antique" here has a very different meaning than it does in the States, by a margin of about a thousand years. It was funny though to see that even, maybe especially, here in the souk, a place touted as "super actual traditional Omani" there were so many things not from Oman. Turkish antiques, Pakistani fabrics, Indian silvers, Chinese Khanjars, sold much cheaper than the real ones.

These are the traditional Omani daggers, called Khanjars, worn at weddings or cultural events by men 

So you have these distinctly-Omani daggers, which are being made in China to be sold to Americans or Brits or any number of people for whom Muscat is a port of call on their 10 day cruise. I don't know if that's a bad thing or a good thing or a the-world-is-becoming-a-mono culture-homogenized-wasteland thing, but it's definitely an interesting thing. 

It's a theme that keeps being repeated over and over in everything that i see. Omani culture is so much more than everything we think of as "traditional." Sure, it's easier to simplify Omani culture down to a twelve-person family sitting on the floor eating biryani with their hands, and I'm not saying that's not a part of the culture, but to get the full picture you need to see all the people speaking Swahili and Tamil and Tagalog. You need to see all immigrants and the native-born Omanis who don't follow any of those stereotypes. Omani culture historically has been and continues to bear strong influences from India and all over Southeast Asia. There's strong ties to East Africa, and Western Europe, particularly the UK. These influences aren't separate from "true" Omani culture to which all the rest is merely an addition. Culture isn't a snapshot of what people think it should be, it's an ever-changing, intangible conglomerate of the people who make it. 

Cliff diving and rock climbing

The other day my family went to see the "Cliff diving world championships sponsored by Red Bull" held at Wadi Shab, about two hours from Muscat. (Wadis are these naturally-occurring oasis-es, usually in mountain valleys. For reference see below.)

 Posters and adverts have been plastered everywhere since I got here, but honestly, few Omanis seemed as interested in going as me and my sister Mariam; a characteristic response was skepticism that it really was the championships, because, "This is Oman, why would they have something big in Oman?"

That attitude was evident as I looked out at the crowd, about 2/3 expatriate, and not few of them my teachers. It was weird seeing huge crowds of people completely disregarding Omani standards of modesty. A month ago I couldn't care less if someone was showing a ton of skin in public, good grief I worked at Merriweather, a living shrine to old people dressing inappropriately.

Also just a generally strange place

Now it seems obvious and kind of funny to see people walk around like they're in Miami rather than Muscat--I've definitely gotten very judge-y about my fellow expats who don't dress like they're in the Gulf. 

I digress. As beautiful as Wadi Shab was, it was also hot and crowded, so we dipped out early to have a picnic on the beach. 

very very crowded

We went to a beach a few miles away, near a town called Fins. My host family owns some land there, on which, inshallah, they plan to build a bed and breakfast one day. Right now it's just an empty beach with lots of exceedingly climb-able rocky outcroppings. 

The village of Fins is just as photogenic, it looks exactly like one of the quaint little towns you picture when you think "Arabian village." 

All in all, an amazingly-wonderful-I-can't-believe-this-is-my-life kind of day.

Adventures in learning Arabic

"WAKE UP AND SMELL THE....!?!"

"HUMMUS!!"
By now as an Arabic class we have learned the appropriate response to whenever my Arabic teacher decides to shout this at us. It's our favorite food and his favorite line from Disney's Aladdin. And he quotes it, frequently. Usually when we look too tired or aren't being enthusiastic enough. So, very frequently.

here we are "fareq al hummus," all dressed up for sports day

We even named ourselves "team hummus" for sports day. 

It's all part of the Startalk program-- language classes funded by a federal grant that gives high school students college credit to take a "critical language" (Chinese, Arabic, Persian or Hindi) through a local university or community college. 

Oh look, here we are on the local news, and look they kind of interviewed me:

DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

It's my second year doing the program, last year I took 101, and because they got an extra grant this year they expanded the program to include the 102 I'm taking this summer.

And of course with extra grant funding comes extra ambitious field trips. 

Earlier this month, we went to DC to look at some Arab/Persian Art and point to the Arab/Persian art and say "Arab and Persian Art" in Arabic. And then we clapped for ourselves. In Arabic.

A door! Maybe! But definitely art! 

Closeup of an old plate depicting people killing each other on horses! Art! 

I call this one the "the best picture I have ever taken or has ever been taken with an ipod camera"

My group for the day, plus Alaa, our TA

In addition to learning important vocabulary like the words for dragon and statue (tineen and timthal) we did other museum-appropriate things like scavenger hunts or practicing verb commands by yelling directions in Arabic as a blindfolded student tried to find their way through the gallery.

More recently we went on another field trip to New York City. Although the city doesn't really have a "Little Arabia" or anything comparable to say Chinatown, the street we were on had a bunch of shops with signs in Arabic and people who would stop and talk to our teachers in Arabic when they saw a bunch of teenagers making a big deal over reading "half-priced falafel" off a sign.

Generic-group-shot-where-you-can't-tell-that-we're-in-New-York

Being the social Lebanese man that he is, our teacher would pretty much strike up a conversation with anyone he saw on the street. He'd then have us all talk to his new best friend with our limited Arabic, quizzing them on their names, their father's names, their father's uncle's names, etc. Like I said, limited vocabulary. The funniest part was that everyone we talked to acted like it was the most natural thing in the world to strike up a conversation with a random stranger, I guess it's a cultural thing. 

In addition to accosting random strangers we got to order food in Arabic and attempt to make small talk with some of the shop owners. Then we piled back in the bus for the 4 hour ride back home.

I found this sign funny because "Mashalla" roughly means "Godwilling." I've been told you say it all the time in  Arabic, but I didn't realize that extended to shop sign too!

One more week left of class then camp then vacation then frantic packing and buying of unnecessary things that I will end up not taking with me then OMAN!

In which we are orientificated

From literary references to Edward Said, visits to embassies and monuments, and of course, the hours of cultural preparation via powerpoints, "orient" was the word. 

It was the cause for a buzz in the air, created by new friends that all felt like old friends, as the windowless conference room slowly filled with teenagers whose wildest dreams were unfolding. It was license to speak passionately, inquire incessantly, and note-take wildly (okay, more like occasionally). 

Future Omanis

I spent the past four days in DC, where all the YES students converged for a cultural crash coursee. It was also the first time the entire Oman group came together and we really got to know one another. I feel so blessed to be a part of and travel with such an awesome group of people. 

I think I spent most of the time asking questions, whether it was to Mother Hen Noah (so as not to be confused with Little Noa, who is Morocco-bound) the alumnus and group leader who bribed us with Doritos and attempted to field our often tactless questions with some tact (though we wore him down in the end), or to important-looking public servants behind State Department conference tables, I questioned until couldn't think of anything else to ask and then I asked some more. 

I'm the sort of person that hates and has to break group silences. The kind that emanate after an ominous "Any Questions?" lingers in the air for longer than a few seconds. It's not that I want to say something, it's just that, I don't know if you've noticed, but with every second of awkward that passes, a raging fire of uncomfortable rains down on your brain and it will grow bigger and more painful until someone, please, for the love of shawarma, somebody breaks the silence. I envy those of you who can sit by in silence and ignore the firestorm of pain. 

But even for someone like me, and even for someone desperately eager to learn as much about Oman as humanly possible, there comes a point when you recognize that the answers given to you can only go so far. 

Not that I think I've learned every cultural subtlety, or asked every question possible. I'd be delusional to even come close to thinking that. But, an orientation is only a pointing in the right direction. This week I've been inundated with metaphorical maps, and compasses, flashlights, and maybe even a tent or two. 

Also, a mug

I'm thankful to everyone who's helped orient me, but now it's up to me to move. I want to find my own answers, make my own mistakes, live through my own embarrassing anecdotes. I know it's coming soon but August 25th still seems eons away