Happy New Year Updates

It has been a while. I have two overdue things to write about.

1)I finally got to see small town Oman! I visited the family of one of my co-workers, Soleman. They live in Bahla, about a half hour from Nizwa. I got tobe "that crazy foreigner". In one situation, a kid on the street saw me and proceeded to run into his house, yelling "ingleezi, ingleezi!!". Then his 3 siblings all came out to stare. I ate lots of "Kahwa" and dates. I had to try to speak Arabic. Finally a place in Oman were people don't speak much English. It's hard to find.

I was struck by how not-busy life is in rural. Other things that struck me: People don't have furniture. Everyone, babies and grandmas alike, just sit on the floor. Eating is very different too. The family just spreads some newspapers on the floor and they all eat from one big plate. They grab a handful of food, usually rice and something. They squish the food into a lump in their fist and eat that. I like it! And it certainly makes for fewer dishes.

2) For Christmas I went to Mexico to a town that takes two days of traveling to get to from El Paso, and that has cows and chickens roaming freely through the streets. The most exotic experience of this trip was purchasing meat. There isn't much fresh meat in the stores, so we got the idea in our head to buy a goat and have it slaughtered. I came down the morning we bought it and there indeed was a little cute white goat tied to a tree, happily eating grass. Then they tied it up, slit its throat, and we watched it die for the next 15 minutes. That was intense. I always wanted to see something large be killed, I feel morally obligated because I eat meat. It wasn't fun.

I got into Muscat today at 3:45am. Emirates Air just started a direct, 13 hour, Houston to Dubai flight, which makes my trip easier. Although, I spent 7 hours last night wandering around the Dubai Airport.