But I go anyway hoping I'm not being too rude or too much trouble... because what a chance! To spend a few days living with a conservative arab muslim family. Here is a culture that is as different from mine as is possible to find on this planet.
Something I've found out is learning a second language is ridiculously hard. I severely underestimated the difficulty. Its so frusterating for me because what I really want from these visits is to make a connection and a friendship with someone there, but instead my interactions more like that of a 3 year old in a awkward 25 year old body. I can barely speak. I can't do much except get in the way. After a "salaam alaykum" most people just ignore me, or maybe stare at me a little bit.
Oh well, maybe I've failed doing much in the way of making personal connections. Being an observer is still very cool.
I got to observe a small marriage cerimony. It was the signing of the marriage contract, not the wedding itself. Maybe 120 people attended. The men and women sat separated by 50 yards. We sat outside at night on a mat surrounded by date palms and ate a dinner of fruit and rice and tasty hunks of beef.
I got to see the daily routine. Always warm sweet chai in the morning along with some fried bread and other goodies. Meals are laid out on the floor on top of a plastic table cloth. Everybody shares the same plate and eats with their hands. A couple water glasses get passed around and shared. The food is always good and served on a humongous mound of rice. The baby, Harif, is always trying to get attention by knocking over water glasses or grabbing handfulls of food, and everyone helps deter him, and otherwise taking care of him. I'm really impressed by how good the kids are at helping out with babies and other household chores. I was never that good.
I got to see the comfortable afternoon routine of walking around and going for visits to the houses of neighbors and friends, where you are served your classic Omani "kahwa" and dates. And usually a big plate of bananas and oranges and mellons to go with it. Your host will sit and cut up oranges and feed you slices until you say "bas!", "enough!". I saw how every house I visit is filled with moms and grandmoms and daughters and aunts and kids of all ages. You are never lonely in these houses in Bahla.
I listened while Mubarak, Soleman's 18 year old son from his first wife, played a collection Eminem and other American rap as he drove me to the airport. It was full of lyrics concerning "taking sexy babes to the backseat of cars" and "telling white america to fuck off". I'm pretty sure he didn't understand the lyrics. And then it was a little bizzare to watch him piously pause this music when the evening call to prayer began.
I got to watch 15 year old Lubna, Shehar's neice, reciting the Qur'an while Shehar held the Qur'an and corrected her where she forgot a word, or said the word wrong. Shehar told me in watered down arabic that "Lubna is very good in school, she memorizes the Qur'an. These other two nieces are no good they don't memorize the Qur'an." Lubna told me shes still working on it, shes only got about 30 pages memorized so far.
I spent a whole lot of time watching Shehar. I wonder what her life is like. I wonder what goes on in her head. What makes her happy, what makes her sad. I wonder what she thinks about having a strange and scandalously dressed American dropped off at her house. I wish I could talk to her. She seems like the perfect Omani mom. She's about 5 years older than me, could be my older sister. Her life is sooo different from mine.
Let me make it clear, although this family is not too sure what to do with me, they are very kind to me. They give me the best bed, the best food, the front car seat. They take me to the salon where Huda spends an hour and a half drawing beautiful henna patterns on my hands. They take me for walks and visits to neighbors and always pour me lots of kahwa and chai. I wish I could figure out how to give something back.
Well... shukran my Omani family. Shukran.
