Another one of my favorite memories...
There was a camp move, and all our trailers were being slowly transported on large trucks to a new campsite. That means for most of the day you are in the middle of the Omani desert with no room, no bathroom, no office. Just a lot of desert, and if you are lucky, a seat in an airconditioned pickup truck.
After several hours of sitting around the campsite-to-be and doing nothing, I got inspired and took a walk with a nice thick book. A little ways away I found a random wooden crate and a cheap plastic blanket on a nice sandy incline. They looked like they had been there for a while. So, I laid myself down on the blanket and began to read. Maybe two hours later an Omani guy showed up in a truck and got out. I was embarassed, because it looked like this was his stuff.
To be honest I'm not sure how I didn't get overwhelmed with awkwardness and leave immediately, but somehow I ended up sitting and talking to the guy.
He was a tall, thin, weathered looking guy with a kind of scratchy voice. He was setting up a sheesha shack. There are always a couple of those a little ways around camp where omani guys go after work to hang out, light a camp fire, and smoke sheesha. I'm always jealous of them.
We had a rudimentary conversations with my small arabic vocabulary, and his equally small english vocabulary. With these conversations, it's a struggle communicating, but it's rewarding because every little bit you communicate feels like an accomplishment. I learned various things about him. He was a bedou from somewhere in the vicinity of Ibri. He had a problems with maggots getting in the eyes of his goats. His mother died a few years ago and he missed her because he was very close to her.
He made some tea, or some "shaayy" as they call it in arabic. So, I learned how to make Omani bedou tea. This version included a few tablespoons of loose black tea, water, a can and a half of condensed milk, a couple spoons of Nescafe, and about half a cup of sugar. All this he put into a beat up looking tin pot. Then he took one solid hunk of wood, poured something flamible over it, set it next to some large stones. He lit the wood and balanced the pot on the stones. I made myself the official stirrer while he hammered hunks of wood into the ground to make a windbreak for the future sheesha shack.
I admired the bag from which he took out his tea ingredients. It was a large ladies purse, in a purple velvet tigerskin motif. With sequins. He seemed completely oblivious to the irony. I guess to him it was just a thing that he could carry stuff in. Who knows where he got it from.
I was amazed by how he didn't in any way act wierd around me. This is Oman where it is not normal for men and women to mix. Yet he wasn't all formal and standoffish, but he wasn't sleezily overfriendly either. Maybe that is the way it is if you live in the desert and you are mostly on your own with a lot of goats? Any other human being...male, female, brown, white...you are just glad they aren't a goat.
After a cup and a half of tea I thought I should go back to camp. So got up and I took a bit of water and rinsed my cup out and wiped it clean. He smiled when I did that and said "same same bedou". And that was the best compliment I could ask for.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Arriving in Muscat
One thing I don't want to forget is what it is like arriving in Muscat after a vacation. It takes 20 hours to make it from the Philadelphia International Airport to Muscat. By the time I arrive, my feet are swollen, my hair is greasy, and my cloths have been on for 35 hours.
We walk down the stairs of the airplane to a shuttle bus. It feels a little bit like walking through an oven, even at 10pm. As soon as we step inside the airport there is a race to get a good place in the lines. But, even if I end up in the back it is okay because it is good people watching. There are always lots and lots of Indian men in khakis and plaid short sleeve dress shirts, which is a uniform for Indians the way jeans and a T-shirt is a uniform for Americans. I see tiny old Indian women wearing saris and heavy gold jewelry. They are careful about covering their legs and sometimes their hair but even an old women will show her midriff. There are Arabic men and women, wearing lots of perfume. The women are covered head to toe in black, but the hems of their cloaks are decorated with decadent gemstone designs. They usually have really fancy purses, things that look gaudy to my eye. There are also Brits scattered in the crowd and they look very tall and big. Also they usually look old and rich. Oil workers.
We go through immigration and customs and collect our luggage. The airport has a steril feel the way an airport usually does. Fluorescent lights. Muted tones. White walls. Then after the last baggage screening, you step through sliding doors and suddenly there are 100 million indian men pressed up against a velvet rope, staring at you as you walk down the "red carpet" of international arrivals. And there is noise. And the smell is a mixture of cleaning fluid, body odor, and strong perfumes.
I walk to the back of the crowd and look for Mahmood, our driver. I find him and we step out of the airport into the oven/steam bath of a Muscat night, and make our way to the car. Mahmood will patiently have a conversation with me in Arabic. It is a pretty basic conversation - How is your family? How was vacation? How long is the flight from America? Wow that is so long! My speech is always peppered with umms and errs and hand motions, but still it's a conversation. In Arabic!
Finally Mahmood drops me off at the staff house. This is in a posh residential neighborhood, full of large white houses, palm trees and fuchsia bougainvillea. I walk in, check the list of who is traveling through Muscat to see if there is anyone fun, and then I drag my stuff upstairs. If Pankitch is around he will share some dinner with me. He is a big, friendly, energetic guy from south India. He has very limited English. The last time he was explaining what's for dinner, he frowned and patted his head while searching for a word... "err.... Head! Head.. Fish head". Usually it is some form of rice and fish curry, and it is always VERY spicy.
Before I zonk out, I'll get a cup of tea and step outside or go up to the roof. I love the roof. The house has two levels of roof. I have to climb a ladder to get to the highest part, but then I can see over the tops of all the houses. I see the moon, the mountains, the ocean, and a few minarets that top the neighborhood mosques. Sometimes I see other people hanging out on their roof. I can look down on the street which is bathed in the eerie light of the street lamps. Sometimes there's a cat prowling, or a pair of Pakistani men walking, or a car driving by. Sometimes the guys working on the construction project next door are sitting around a campfire eating dinner.
It's nice, I like it.
We walk down the stairs of the airplane to a shuttle bus. It feels a little bit like walking through an oven, even at 10pm. As soon as we step inside the airport there is a race to get a good place in the lines. But, even if I end up in the back it is okay because it is good people watching. There are always lots and lots of Indian men in khakis and plaid short sleeve dress shirts, which is a uniform for Indians the way jeans and a T-shirt is a uniform for Americans. I see tiny old Indian women wearing saris and heavy gold jewelry. They are careful about covering their legs and sometimes their hair but even an old women will show her midriff. There are Arabic men and women, wearing lots of perfume. The women are covered head to toe in black, but the hems of their cloaks are decorated with decadent gemstone designs. They usually have really fancy purses, things that look gaudy to my eye. There are also Brits scattered in the crowd and they look very tall and big. Also they usually look old and rich. Oil workers.
We go through immigration and customs and collect our luggage. The airport has a steril feel the way an airport usually does. Fluorescent lights. Muted tones. White walls. Then after the last baggage screening, you step through sliding doors and suddenly there are 100 million indian men pressed up against a velvet rope, staring at you as you walk down the "red carpet" of international arrivals. And there is noise. And the smell is a mixture of cleaning fluid, body odor, and strong perfumes.
I walk to the back of the crowd and look for Mahmood, our driver. I find him and we step out of the airport into the oven/steam bath of a Muscat night, and make our way to the car. Mahmood will patiently have a conversation with me in Arabic. It is a pretty basic conversation - How is your family? How was vacation? How long is the flight from America? Wow that is so long! My speech is always peppered with umms and errs and hand motions, but still it's a conversation. In Arabic!
Finally Mahmood drops me off at the staff house. This is in a posh residential neighborhood, full of large white houses, palm trees and fuchsia bougainvillea. I walk in, check the list of who is traveling through Muscat to see if there is anyone fun, and then I drag my stuff upstairs. If Pankitch is around he will share some dinner with me. He is a big, friendly, energetic guy from south India. He has very limited English. The last time he was explaining what's for dinner, he frowned and patted his head while searching for a word... "err.... Head! Head.. Fish head". Usually it is some form of rice and fish curry, and it is always VERY spicy.
Before I zonk out, I'll get a cup of tea and step outside or go up to the roof. I love the roof. The house has two levels of roof. I have to climb a ladder to get to the highest part, but then I can see over the tops of all the houses. I see the moon, the mountains, the ocean, and a few minarets that top the neighborhood mosques. Sometimes I see other people hanging out on their roof. I can look down on the street which is bathed in the eerie light of the street lamps. Sometimes there's a cat prowling, or a pair of Pakistani men walking, or a car driving by. Sometimes the guys working on the construction project next door are sitting around a campfire eating dinner.
It's nice, I like it.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Current Blog Strategy
I deleted those nasty comments and my post about them. I feel a little guilty for being a censor, but oh well.
I think my time in Oman is nearing its finish, and for that reason I'm going to kick myself in the arse to make some more posts and thus wrap things up in a nice symmetrical way.
I think my time in Oman is nearing its finish, and for that reason I'm going to kick myself in the arse to make some more posts and thus wrap things up in a nice symmetrical way.
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