Culture Crash

It seems as if the vibes in the universe that modulate weirdness have bent just enough that the bizarre is coming through loud and clear. Back in my politically correct grad school days, the bizarre and incomprehensible encountered in a foreign culture was labeled with the very benign term, "culture bump". Alrighty, then, we can go with that if it makes some of you more comfortable.

In just one week I have tripped across so many weird culture bumps that they are starting to more accurately resemble culture pot holes. Great big deep pot holes.

Be careful! Oh, no, wait...you're driving an automatic. Well done, ladies!

As I drive Tony to work in the morning in our manual Kia Rio I am supposedly breaking the law. Women here are not supposed to drive stick shifts because, errrr, they're suggestive? Tony speculates that someone in the Omani lawmaking body heard that urban legend about the girl who took Spanish fly and, well, you know. Not sure the whys really, but when the driving test is administered here, women are to take the test on the much less erotic automatic transmission, while men must fondle the stick of a manual in order to pass the same test.

Girlfriends are for wusses. Manly men ice skate with other manly men. Period.

Muscat has a new skating rink in the very swank section of town called Qurm (no need for a vowel between the r and m in case you were thinking, "TYPO!") Qurm is where we lowlings (mostly teachers) can go to stare greedily at the other half (mostly petroleum engineers) who have lots of money to spend on niceties such as furniture, Land Rovers, Hummers, and organic products imported from the more cultured parts of the world.

Needless to say, we don't spend much time in Qurm since it makes us feel like peasants.

Anyhow, today we did venture into Qurm for a birthday party at the new skating rink. Tehva wore her very ugliest fur-lined shirt and clashing paisley flowered pants for the occasion, while Silas wore his cleanest pair of floods, and Tian, in her carefully matched duds, rolled her eyes at both of them.

As we made our entrance there was nary a soul to be seen--just one abaya-clad woman sitting behind the cash desk looking thoroughly put out at having to be there at all, and a tiny collection of ten-year-old girls ready for a birthday party. The ice was empty with the exception of a clutch of boys scooting tentatively across the ice.

Fast forward two hours and the ice rink is awash in boys and men dressed in the most stylish fashions that Oman has to offer--Michael Jackson gloves; tight black jeans made all the more attractive by a white belt full of holes--think spiked belt with the spikes pulled out but the holes left behind; t-shirts printed with English phrases such as "I Hate Girls" and "No girlfriend! No problem!" (I am NOT making this up); and to top off the ensemble, a net baseball cap like was popular in the US in the 70s, with the plastic doohicky in the back that you can use to adjust the size of the cap. The cap is the most important part of the fashion statement as the plastic doohicky must be adjusted to the very smallest size and the cap must rest upon the head in such a manner that it makes the wearer look like he has an itty-bitty pinhead.

The horde of 20, who range in age from 9 to about 23, skate around and then perform a showy move for one another--some throw their bodies in the air and slam onto the ice, their momentum carrying their bodies through the trajectory of other skaters. Others do breakdance moves, digging the toes of their skates into the ice and then, for good measure, eating the flakes of ice that result. Then suddenly and without warning the boys begin whistling, making what sound like camel calls, and skating while holding hands, careening back and forth across the rink at top speed. And just as quickly they converge in the center, still holding hands, and spin one another around as fast as possible.

My first thought, being a red-blooded American, is that they are doing this to show off for the girls in the rink but silly me there are only about three girls in the rink and they are tending to a friend who has fallen and hit her head on the ice. The girls have no time for the boys, which isn't a concern anyhow as the boys are in fact NOT doing this for the girls. They are doing it for each other. And those t-shirts seem to be a statement of fact.

The new Muscat Opera House is haram so STAY AWAY!

Religiously speaking, Oman is still a bit of a head-scratcher. Yes, the predominance of the population is Muslim, but the sect of Islam that they follow, Ibadi, is one based on a more liberal interpretation of the Koran. The word haram, which means "forbidden" in Arabic has worked its way into our vocabularies, but we don't have to talk about haram very seriously very often because followers of Ibadi say it's all good. We don't worry too much about haram in Oman. Until now.

One of Oman's top emirs has announced that the new Opera House, which cost about a bazillion riyals to build and dominates swanky Qurm's skyline and its social scene, is haram. Strict Muslims regard music as haram and guess what they have been doing at the Opera House. Yes, making music. Naughty naughty.

He could have raised this issue a couple years ago when they started building this collosus.

Ladies! Get away from the pool! And stay off of that exercise bike! And no treadmill for you! Away! Away!

This week I overheard an interesting statistic--the average Omani woman's resting heart rate (while in her twenties) is 80-100 beats per minute.

And that, apparently, is okay, because maintaining a healthy heart rate would require some sort of exercise, which might involve displaying some flesh, and that would be unacceptable, even in facilities designed for exercise.

The Staff Club, to which we belong here, is a cross between social outlet and exercise center. Think YMCA crossed with Parks and Rec with a Shoney's stuck to it. If you are affiliated with Sultan Qaboos University, it is the place to be for dinner, swimming, jogging, soccer, basketball, tennis, playground, and hanging out around the pool. While the kids enjoy a dip, the adults can have a cup of tea, served at poolside by nice men wearing crisp uniforms carrying silver trays. The tennis court is the only place on the campus that women can comfortably wear shorts, and the club is the only place on campus that Muslim women can uncover their heads and go for a dip (but only on Sunday and Tuesday evenings).

This is a bit much, though. A gentleman stood up at the last Staff Club general meeting and suggested the Staff Club become a "Gents' Only" facility. The facilitator, whose name sounds an awful lot like Ghengis Khan, startled at the suggestion (much to his credit) and then asked the man to repeat it for good measure. "Yes, how about we make the staff club 'Gents Only'--I put it to the members." The members stared back. End of discussion.

Usury is bad, but I hadn't realized that until now. That's what the US banks must be doing for us! Saving us from eternal damnation!

The Staff Club, for a little bitty facility, has quite the budget and pulls in a tidy sum of money each year, which is placed into an account where it bears a bit of interest. It is not a lot of interest but it is enough to allow members to afford niceties like a crisply uniformed staff that will serve tea by the pool.

During the meeting, when the Mongol Conqueror announced the year's income and outflow, a hand shot into the air. "Can we place the money in a non-interest bearing account?" I dredged my ears clean. Huh? No one else reacted with the least bit of shock or surprise. As a matter of fact, many rolled their eyes. The woman next to me sunk in her chair--"Typical. Happens every time."

"What is going on? Why would she say no to free money?"

"An interest-bearing account is usury. Haram."

Oh. Just when you think the culture bumps are no more and that a place is so familiar it again becomes unfamiliar, confusing, and surprising.

How exciting!

Faux Wheel Drive

Theoretically blogging, Kia Rios are not made for off-roading. Apparently they simultaneously lack the clearance and the cubic litres to power them through such off-road hazards as sand dunes and mucky wadis. However, we find that our Rio, when fully loaded with a weekend worth of camping equipment, three car sick children, and two crabby adults positively hugs the rough, unpaved roads that scream "ADVENTURE".

Chanting the mantra "The Rio loves off-roading...The Rio is a four wheel drive...The Rio loves off-roading..." we set off in the middle of a group of rugged looking Land Rovers up a wadi into an area called the Gubra Bowl.

The Land Rover owners scoffed just a little when they saw our ride. After all, their vehicles were pimped--ladders, racks, four wheel drive, spare petrol in square metallic containers strapped like a badge to the rear spare tire...oh, did I mention our spare tire is in shreds in the trunk thanks to an unfortunate encounter with a curb a year ago? A view looking over the Gubra Bowl One of these days we'll have to get that repaired.

But no matter, with a flick of the eyes, the Land Roverers silently agreed amongst themselves to set us in the middle of the caravan, a bit like elephants set their sick and infantile in the middle of the herd for protection.

An hour into the Bowl over violently graded dirt roads, the Land Rovers shot up and over a rise to claim our camping spot, right in the middle of a group of three camels. To honor our arrival one spread its back legs and created a sizable pond of camel pee. Charming.

The camel handlers came and stood for a series of photos and a litany of questions regarding their camels' ages, diet, and well-being. One of the camel farmers came and threw his ten-year-old son up and behind the camel's hump. Another camel became very upset at its friend's plight and started doing a camel dance around our campsite. The questions and comments continued. Many "humdill-allah"s and "inshallah"s were exchanged before the word of the winter began to be bandied about--"muttera" and "shittah". Rain.

Earlier in the day another front had moved off of the Indian Ocean and was in the process of breaking up over northern Oman, dumping rain on select locations. Of course rain is good. However, as you may have gathered from earlier posts, rain, while appreciated, is not always desired due to the flooding that invariably ensues after even the smallest amount of precipitation hits the ground. And rain is especially unwelcome during a camping trip in a Kia Rio in the middle of a place with the word "bowl" in its name.

The afternoon melted into an evening that stewed in cold, black clouds. While the kids, all dressed in two and three layers, climbed and ran along rocky rises all around us, the winds grew stronger and chillier, finally blowing away the clouds. The astronomers among us brought out their telescopes and trained them on the moon, Jupiter, and Orion's Nebula. We added more layers and hunkered down in camp chairs between long spells staring through the lenses at the bright, crater-ridden moon, clusters of stars, and the bands of color on Jupiter.

And it never rained. And the Kia Rio made it out of the Bowl. And all was well with the world.

Another successful camping trip thanks to our faux wheel drive.

Whatever You Do, Don't Touch That Door.

The Butterball turkey had sat in our freezer, dare I say expectantly, for two weeks, solidly frozen in anticipation of the big day. Or so we thought. When we removed said turkey three days before Thanksgiving only to find it half-way frozen we were perplexed. "Turkeys in freezers do NOT spontaneously defrost," Tony and I insisted to one another. "I mean, it's a freezer, right? It's supposed to freeze the bird, right?"

And then the question we did not want to face arose. It is the question you do not want to consider when there is a massive, half frozen, imported, precious as gold, $60 bird sitting between you and your spouse mere days before the annual pig out. "How long do you think it has been like this? Do you think it's gone bad?"

We have been without turkey for foreign Thanksgivings in previous years. In China, although there is a word for turkey (literally, "fire chicken") there was no way to actually get one in the years I was there. The best we could do were freshly-slaughtered-before-your-eyes chickens.

In Korea one year, a friend's mother smuggled one into the country from the USA under her dress or something, and it miraculously ended up in our oven. In seven years, that was the only time we ate turkey for Thanksgiving. Of course, there were always rumors that one could acquire turkeys in various markets around the country, but in reality, we never managed to get anywhere fast enough to get one of those precious black market turkeys.

But here in Oman, turkeys can be had--rock solid frozen, factory grown, yellow-net-wrapped, Butterball turkeys. The things do everything besides wave an American flag and shoot off fireworks. The Al Fair chain, famous for its porn...I mean pork section, fresh baked bread, and packaged foods also carries turkeys through November and December especially for little flag wavers like us.

So back to the here and now, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a plastic wrapped turkey threateningly half-thawed on the tile floor between us, Tony and I must have looked like we were in the middle of a comedy sketch. We poked and prodded, and hemmed and hawed as to whether this turkey could have been the source of the odd smell in our freezer. "It reeks in there."

"Yeah, but it smells like rotten milk. Do you think it's the turkey?"

"Crap, if it's not the turkey then that means we will have to empty the freezer to find what else has gone bad."

We sniffed and pinched the plastic wrapping around the turkey. And in the end we decided to risk it, threw the sucker into the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, crossed our fingers, and started to prepare for Thanksgiving Day.

Tony went out and got a new food processor for the event, and then set to work modifying the menu to maximize the use of his new toy.

We pickled beets, baked pies, and experimented with pumpkin cheesecake. We drew criticism from Tian for baking pan after pan of casseroles. "Mom," she insisted, eyes rolling tweenishly. "Nobody (nobody being Tian) eats casseroles. Why are you making so many. They're disgusting." We peeled potatoes, snapped beans, chopped an enormous bag of onions, sliced apples, and boiled things to make them mushy, which is what we do on Thanksgiving.

And on the day of Thanksgiving, we unwrapped the bird to find...it was perfectly defrosted with just a touch of ice left under the wings and in the cavity. Now all of you who were actually there can breathe a sigh of relief--the bird was untainted. Did you really think we would serve you a rotten turkey? Really?

Just be thankful we didn't open the freezer during dinner.

What I Learned Over Eid Vacation

While the rest of Gulf States had to suffer the injustice of a truncated Eid this year, Oman is still on holiday, finishing up an epic 10-day country wide haitus from work, school, and other responsible activities. While truly faithful, wealthy, and/or forward thinking Muslims went and did the required hajj, and truly wealthy, childless, and/or forward thinking expats left the country for Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, the rest of the infidels/poor folk stayed here.

As we are infidel, rather short sighted, comparatively poor, and a long way from childless, we also stayed in Oman. And we learned a surprising amount during that time. Reflecting back upon the experience, I can safely say that our learnings fit neatly under a variety of school subject headings, delineated below for your reading pleasure:


Math
1 inch of rain in Oman=2 feet of snow in Virginia
Recall the chaos that ensued in Virginia last winter...and the winter before...and the winter before (?) when the snow just kept falling. That one snow storm knocked out all services and roads and generally acted as a kind of glue, uniting people in a common bond of natural disaster. Now imagine the snow as rain--not heavy rain, just nice gentle rain. Now imagine people reacting in the same panicked manner, running their cars into curbs, cautioning one another against going out, and stocking up in toilet paper. It has been a bit surreal.


Biology
Animals, once dead, decompose and do NOT readily float.
On Monday morning we got a respite from the rain. On Monday morning I also discovered a dead dog laying next to the dumpster across the street. It was a wadi dog, which means that it was a wild, pack-oriented, large-ish animal that enjoyed barking at 3 a.m. And it was very dead, laying on its side next to the dumpster with no indication as to how it had died, aside from a thin gray cord tied around its right rear foot. When I went to dump the morning's load of dust and debris from the daily driveway sweeping, the sun was already beating down and the dog was bloating up.


I idly wondered whether it would eventually split and burst, if the trash truck guys would be willing to pick it up and toss it into the truck, and whether or not the additional coming rains would be heavy enough to float it away through the night.

The answer--no bursting; yes, they were willing; and no, the rains did not float it away.


Language Arts
New word: faffing.

When friends showed up late for our party, they excused themselves by remarking that they had been faffing. This seemed highly inappropriate to share with a room full of people, some of whom were complete strangers to them and so a language lesson ensued.

Examples of usage: "Stop faffing around and do the dishes already!"
"If it weren't for all of your faffing, we would be at the party already!"

Definition: wasting time by mucking about


Home Economics
Lamingtons are a topic of hot debate, are most readily consumed at one's grandmother's house, and are delicious.
http://australianfood.about.com/od/bakingdesserts/r/Lamingtons.htm
"Lamingtons are a quintessential part of every Australian's childhood. The little sponge cake is dipped in chocolate icing and then rolled in desiccated coconut."

We have yet to actually taste or attempt to create our own lamingtons. However, we were made to endure quite a lengthy discussion/argument as to whether or not lamingtons are a originally a product of Australia or New Zealand, and whether lamingtons must be dipped in chocolate in order to truly be a lamington. Heavy stuff we contemplate herebouts.


Social Studies
We would all love to drive. I think.
Even though Eid was long over as of Wednesday, people were still out in droves enjoying the cool weather, cloudy skies, and their families. Invariably througout that day we would find a clutch of men, women and children with their cars parked on the beach in a chuckwagon style formation. The patriarch would be ensconced upon his beach chair throne, quietly observing his grandchildren, fully clothed, frolicking in the waves.


One woman broke away from her gaggle of family members to walk briefly up the beach with the kids and me. She bemoaned the fact that she had only two teenaged daughters and no son, admired Silas in all his maleness, and asked where Tony was. When I told her that he was at home she was shocked. "What?!? You are drive?" When I told her that women in America had to learn how to drive, she shook her head in wonder. "Some things change and are very different from old Oman. Some things must change for good. Some things are change and are bad. But you are drive!"


I think she thought that women driving is a good thing. I think. At any rate, it was nice that she was so easily impressed by something as mundane as me driving the kids to the beach.


We are back to school starting Saturday. I am afraid the week ahead will be fairly dull in comparison.

Low Pressure Systems and the Five Year Old Brain

It often takes a natural disaster to show people's true colors and the media tells us that when our mettle is tested, our American character shines through. I am confident enough now to state that I truly know my children and I can blame it on the rain.

Rumors began to circulate at the beginning of the work week. "Rain is coming...It's going to rain on Monday..." and with each retelling the fabled storm grew bigger and stronger. "I heard it will stay for three days and dump a foot of rain!" until it had evolved into a storm to rival the legendary Gonu of a few years back. Gonu wiped out villages, killed hundreds (by unofficial reports), and turned the town upside down. This storm does not even have a name, but it still holds the power to make folks trippy, as rain will in a country where so little of it is ever seen.

So we all sat on our hands and waited nervously for the enormous storm to hit. For many days it lurked off the coast, spinning in the Indian Ocean, while those of us in this parched land continued to speculate as to whether or not it would hit and we would actually get to see rain. And then it happened--the rain began.

One moment we could see the mountains out the school room, beige, dusty, and comforting in their arid regularity, and the next they were gone, buried in deep purple clouds with wispy bottoms. Having been coerced by my triathlon team, The Turkey Basters, I ventured out in the evening for a run in the rain. Tian, Silas, and Tehva ran like lunatics through the drizzle that dampened the dust trapped in the air, and Tony went for a swim. The rain was soft and happy and everyone smiled.

This morning dawned with blue skies, but by 3 p.m. the rain had begun, this time with a flash of lightning from the clouds that were now brown and black. The rain fell in an enormous torrent and within an hour the wadis were so full that driving on any road in our area became an amphibious experience. By my count, three out of every five vehicles on the road either hit a curb, skidded off the road, dinged another auto, or skidded in the slick of oil-tinged rain water. Driving the ten kilometers to the university to pick up Tony took 30 minutes, and the return 45 minutes.

And when we returned?

Tian and Tehva, whom I had irresponsibly left at home, greeted us at the door, wading through standing water in the foyer. "Oh my gosh! Where were you? I thought you had been in a car wreck!" Tian's had very attractively rolled her pants nearly to her thighs and she wrung her hands like the mother of a teenager. "You have been gone for like THREE HOURS!"

I didn't have a chance to point out that we had been gone less than two hours as she plowed right along with her story. "I was upstairs with Tehva and came downstairs because I thought I heard something and THERE WAS WATER EVERYWHERE!" True enough, the grit, dust, and dirt with which we live in its dry form had been carried by rain water into the house and now, in the form of a silty mud, coated the entire first floor.

"The landlord told me to unplug the drains in the floors, so I did, and then the water all flowed away. Well. mostly. But I ran around the neighborhood and asked lots of people to use their phones so I could call you, but the phones were down." I must have been looking concerned, imagining Tian skipping through flood waters in the dark. She added, almost as an after thought, "Oh, but don't worry, I left Tehva here alone. She was fine."

I look over at Tehva and she is uncharacteristically quiet, flipping through a book. "You stayed by yourself, Tehva?" (Wait til the Royal Omani Police hear about this one). She nods and turns the page without making eye contact.

The cat, who is in a panic to get up off of the wet floor, climbs onto my head and perches as far away from the standing sludge as possible. Or maybe she endeavors to escape the girls, who are positively creeping me out.

"Tehva was really freaked about you guys because she thought you had died and was concerned that we wouldn't have any money to live on. But then I told her not to worry and that I know the PIN number at the bank. Then she told me she hoped you wouldn't come back because then we could have all your money and buy whatever we want."

Ah-hah.

After the clean up I hid the bank cards. Then we walked over to the mall to pick up some take away for dinner, only to find that rumors of a crippling power outage there were false. Consumerism was proceeding at its usual frantic pace and nary a dishdasha was besmirched by rain or mud.

The rain has been forcast to continue through the weekend.

If reports filter through of a five year old who has offed her parents and absconded with the bank cards, please check on us.

Between the way our house is situated off the road and the pounding of the rain, no one would ever hear us scream.

Social Opps

I know, it seems as though our existence here has lately been peppered with hazards left and right--the police, the snakes, the scary Egyptian men on the beach. Things continued somewhat along that vein this week, although not enough to make a blog entry.

However, thanks to the fact that Muscat absolutely crawls with expats desperate for SOMETHING to do with their every waking moment, compounded by the fact that liquor is, in comparison to, say, EVERY OTHER COUNTRY I HAVE EVER LIVED IN, very difficult to come by, Greater Muscat seems to have more than its fair share of things to do for expats.

To preface this entry, I must admit that I find it very touching that so many friends and family firmly believe that we are suffering here. During our time in the States this summer, I even bore witness to one woman who was nearly moved to tears by her supposition that we are doing mission work in the Middle East and that I make great sacrifices in regards to my personal safety and appearence in order to carry on said work. This particular blog will reassure you that we are not suffering at all. Part of me is sorry to prove these assumptions false but my consceince will be lighter having unburdened my soul.

As the days of the week roll past here, one generally finds the social calendar filling until Wednesday hits and the tidal wave that is Muscat Expat Society comes crashing down. Things creep along for us as the week begins. Saturday is the Hash, which ordinarily spawns a second activity--perhaps a playdate or dinner. This week, the Hash turned into a dinner party as a couple of folks pulled grills, dogs, burgers, and fried onions from their cars at the end of the run. The desert was a solid mass of black, punctuated by two trays of glowing coals and dozens of hungry hashers guzzling beers and scarfing down processed meats.

Sunday is the Mountain Walk, which attracts such an eclectic mix that the social opportunities that grow from this can be as varied as a longer walk on the weekend, a boat trip, or a date to go to a show at Muscat's new opera house. This week the Walk ended with discussions of water management in arid climates, climate change in Oman, who would be attending the Friday opera house performance of Don Quixote, and strategies that work best when teaching English to Arabic-speaking boys aged 13-14. One of the regular walkers approached me about having the kids act as flower-givers at the end of November's classical music concert at the university. Add another to the social calendar.

Monday normally is the day that we pack ourselves off to the American School for a game of ultimate frisbee with the under-30s of Muscat. However, this week we elected to stay home and watch a movie, which we had acquired semi-legally. And we never divulge our sources so don't ask.

Tian has a piano lesson on Tuesdays from her Japanese piano teacher who lives down the street in a true marble mansion. Our Tuesday afternoons used to be fairly monochromatic but now we are afforded options. There is a running club in Muscat that meets on Tuesdays and runs distances that vary, spanning lengths which begin at sane-and-totally-manageable and end at whoa-that's-really-far. There is also a group that explores the wadis in and around Muscat, and a third group that explores the ridges of those wadis.

Tuesday's ridge walking group is not a chatty group and so social opps rarely arise on Tuesday walks. We merely walk up and then come down, huffing and puffing as we traverse the ridges. If I watch carefully as I walk, I can see where the people in front of me have left drips of sweat on the dusty beige rocks. The quiet, chatterless afternoon segues into evening and then sundown. Tuesday walks get my head set for the weekend.

Wednesdays we go to Irish dance in order to bounce around in synch with a dozen others, and then the weekend truly begins. This Wednesday evening we attended a potluck during which we met the new minister for Muscat's Protestant church and his wife. The hostess very graciously opened her home and wedged fifty people into a space designed to fit eight comfortably but in spite of that, introductions were jovial. "I am from Ghana...I have been here 22 years...my husband and I are here from Taiwan...I teach mathematics...I am from Germany...I am in Oman for two months...we are from the Philippines...my daughter is here from India; she is a software engineer..." Tehva decided the men from Ghana must be kings due to the beautiful embroidery on their shirts, and told them so. Tian and Silas floated around the room offering snacks to people while they made introductions.

Thursday began with a 7 a.m. biathlon during which blue and purple jellyfish tried to eat the participants. I survived, did NOT finish last, and was treated to an English breakfast of eggs, beans, sausage, and toast, enjoyed outdoors under a thatched roof restaurant on the beach. The biathlon spawned talk of competing in the triathlon next month. Yet another social opp to place on the calendar. The biathlon was followed by a playdate for the kids, a book club meeting (add another date to the calendar for next week's meeting), and a baby shower, plus poker with the boys for Tony in the evening.

As we discussed the weekend, Tony said, "You know, I have come to the point where I no longer hear people's accents--I only hear what they are saying." I thought about this in reference to the week behind us and the week ahead which is, admittedly, not promising to be anywhere near as busy as this one was, and had to agree. Initially I protested: "No, no, I ALWAYS hear the accents." But that is not true, and nationality is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the people with whom we share social opps here.

We spent our week, as we always do, in the company of people from Russia, Ghana, Egypt, England, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Armenia, America, Lebannon, Oman, Ireland, India, Pakistan, and the list goes on. Our lives here are full of social opps of the type that are difficult to explain to someone who is not living the expat lifestyle. Our interactions are those of ordinary everyday events, not generally colored by political tensions, but supported and developed in part by the commonality of living in a foreign country. These types of interactions have become so ordinary that it no longer seems notable to socialize with a Cambodian woman who grew up in absolute poverty or a man who spent his childhood memorizing the Quaran and now travels throughout the world as an engineering consultant.

We share much here with people from all over the world, including the commonality of being exhausted at the end of a week full of social opps.

Danger! Danger!

The new in thing here in the Muscat Mansion is the Thursday morning swim. All the cool kids in Muscat, apparently, are going in on the biathlon/triathlon scene and, well, I just hate to get left behind, so I have signed up for a biathlon. However, before one can actually attempt such a rigorous event, one must train, so train I will.

In actuality, training began last month with a 2 kilometer sea swim outside a much-too-Western compoundy area called "The Wave". You drive into The Wave and enter a state of cultural confusion, beginning with the enormous billboard of Greg Norman, which greets you at the front gates, and not ending until one has completed a circuit of the cobble stoned streets lined with grass, trees, immaculate homes, and Western shops.

Fortunately I am not required to drive through The Wave to get to the training venue. Instead, we meet at a car park just next to The Wave, where a clutch of Indians play cricket every Thursday next to an enormous family of Omanis who visit the beach without fail at the start of each weekend. Although our group of "trainees" meet, zombie-like, at 7 a.m., this family looks perky and bushy-tailed at 7, as if they have been frolicking on the beach since 5:30 a.m. and are ready to get on with lunch by the time we show up.

The water at the beach is clear, and calm enough to observe our toes as we wade in to our waists; the salinity of the Arabian Sea wants to pick me up and float me. The visibility is convenient for doing a critter check. The first time we did this swim, a black and yellow sea snake slithered past along the sandy bottom (DANGER--but only if they bite, which it didn't). Another time a ray glided past (DANGER--but only if you step on them, which I didn't do). Last week a school of fish flew out of the water (DANGER possibly, but only if you hear music). Today I see a starfish. Hardly the dangerous creature to which I have grown accustomed.

We swim a kilometer down the beach and then turn around to come back to our starting point and I find (DANGER) that my swimming partner, Greta, has disappeared. Finally I spy her sitting way down the beach, near Tian, who has been babysitting Greta's two year old. Bizarre. Greta is hard core when it comes to swimming. As a matter of fact, after her stroke revelation last week she has become a torpedo in the water, burying the rest of us inferiors with wake that issues behind her like a speed boat. However, she is not bionic and there is no way she could have already finished the swim.

"Sorry," she says matter of factly when I reach her. "The police came and got me out of the water."

Apparently two Egyptian beach goers had had a bit of a fright when they saw Tian and Hux playing on the beach. They had misinterpreted Tian as an abandoned four year old who had been left in charge of her younger sibling. (DANGER) They then made a further jump and presumed that Greta and I had either A.) drowned or B.) gone on a luxury cruise, leaving the two alone for good. Then they called the Royal Omani Police, reported that these two ruffians, aged 4 and 2, had been playing on the beach, alone, for several hours, and needed to be taken somewhere in the company of responsible adults, possibly to an orphanage.

When the police came, they were very apologetic at dragging Greta out of the water and left just after the Egyptians, who, realizing their error, exited the beach scene rather quickly.

So now you see why it has been nearly six weeks since I have last blogged. I have been so busy training for the biathlon (no, really, I have...kind of...okay, not really too much but sometimes!), endangering my four-year-old child (okay, really she is ten, nearly eleven, but four year old sounds more dramatic), and recreating myself as an irresponsible beach bum that I have not had time for blogs!

But I promise to try harder from now on, rather than living on the dangerous side of life, to toe the line and get some serious writing done. Seriously.

Butt Sprayers

As our shuttle bus rolled lazily through the heat to the arrivals gate, Tony rubbed his hands together. It was an anticipatory move and I thought he was going to start in again about olives. "Oh, man," he had been lisping through a mouthful of drool for the week before we returned to Oman. "Olives. I can't wait!" And sure enough he couldn't wait. Buying olives was his first official act once we had set our bags down in the Marble Mansion.




But no, it turned out that his hand rubbing this time was about something entirely different. "Butt sprayers!" he announced, in this shuttle full of jet lagged Brits who, it appeared, were being drawn back to Oman against their individual wills. "We are back in the land of butt sprayers!" Tian gave an excited little yelp and then a squeal,. "Yay! Butt sprayers!"


Each of our five bathrooms is equipped with a little spray nozzle, somewhat similar to the spray nozzles you find on most North Americans' kitchen sinks, which is nestled in there right next to the toilet. After, well, you know, you have two options for clean up--the conventional toilet paper, or that little, high-powered butt sprayer. I suppose you can guess the road that some of us head down when clean up is required.


What's more, public facilities are always equipped with butt sprayers, which rids one of the need to shower at home. If required, one can always shower in any toilet, as we recently discovered thanks to Tony.

We are currently struggling with being a one car family in a spoiled American sort of way. That is, we don't really need a second car here. After all, we have already survived one whole year with nothing more than one little Kia Rio to get us across hill and dale. As a matter of fact we have taken to calling it the Kia Rio 4x4 in the hopes that it will never realize it is just an itty bitty sedan and NOT the Ford Expediton we treat it like (and wish we had).

As we struggle with our thoroughly Yankee longings, Tony has been musing upon other transportation options in which he could invest in order to stave off his burning desire for nothing less than a big, fiery 4x4. Motorcycle has crossed his mind but, as it is 1117 degrees at noonday, and the heat would probably erode the tires in three hours, I am saying no to that one. A second itty bitty car would be so redundant. That leaves us with a bike, which is like slapping a big sign on your back that says, "Kill me now, but if I make it to work in one piece, just fire me for being so sweaty and stinky." (As if you could fit that all on one sheet of A4).


When I pointed this out, Tony said, "Oh. no, I could shower with the butt sprayer. All the guys do it before prayer time. Haven't you ever noticed how the floors are covered in an inch of water after prayer time?"


The women, I think, tend to be a bit more conservative with the pre-prayer water use than the boys. "Is this cause they're showering after their bike rides?"


"No, because they are washing for prayers. But the boys do more than wash. I think they are showering in there. I could do that--just get to work and use the butt sprayer. I would just have to be careful with the nozzle. You know..." And here Tony trailed off without explaining what I know, thanks to a graphic friend, but Silas had to ask.


"Why do you have to be careful?"

"Because what do butt sprayers spray, Silas?"


Okay, I will stop here to say that, in spite of my best efforts over the last year, Silas fails to notice the obvious 9.9 times out of ten. "I don't know, Dad," he replied. "What?"


At this, Tony launched into a very detailed verbal illustration of how one uses a butt sprayer and where one should aim it to make it work most effectively. He went on to discuss angles, measurements, possible contaminents and to generally educate all of us on butt sprayer use and etiquette. I was enlightened. Silas remained perplexed. Tian and Tehva nearly gave Tony a standing ovation right there in the back seat of the Rio 4x4.

So that conversation left us no closer to investing in a second vehicle, as was the original intent, but I think it placed us all a little closer to wondering why Tony knows what he does about the ins and outs of butt sprayers.

Flight

By the time Tian and Silas were young toddlers they were experienced flyers, having racked up enough miles to pay for trans-Pacific flights. Then there is Tehva. When we first took her on a plane at four weeks old, she spent her time gagging on breast milk and creating unpleasant odors. This is, of course, to be expected of an infant on a long haul flight, but she has rarely had a chance to undo this unfortunate beginning and has grown up more suited to situations like mud bogs and Nascar races.

Not there is anything wrong with Nascar. Or mud bogs. Really. But they are loud and dramatic events and Tehva is loud, dramatic, and exactly the type of child that makes business executives cringe when she boards a 777 for a trans-Atlantic flight. While Tian prances down the aisle, whisking her new, stylish haircut from her eyes, and Silas harrumphs through the plane toting his fifteen stuffed animals and a Matchbox vehicle, Tehva spins, collides, and ricochets, dropping toys, clothing, and hair accessories on the way.

Fellow passengers cringe, flight attendants stare in wide-eyed horror, and her siblings are mortified. Tehva has the world right where she likes it and the rest of us are helpless to do little more than watch.

"Oh," I can hear you thinking. "That is a bit harsh coming from the child's own mother, don't you think?" You were so obviously not travelling with us on the 31st of August; the proof is in the pudding, which follows:

Pudding Proof #1

"Do you have to go to pee?"

"No."

"Are you sure because the pilot has just said that we all have to stay seated now that they are pushing off from the gate and it will be a long time until the plane is in the air and seat belt sign is off."

I am sure you can see where this is going.

"Mom," Tian pleads tweenishly. "Tehva just peed before we got on the plane, remember?"

I foolishly relax, read a magazine, and feel the acceleration of the plane coursing down the runway when, over the whine of the engines I hear, "Mommy I have to go pee pee really bad."

During the course of our latest trip I counted seven eye rolls from fight attendants who would invariably bustle over to us to point out that the fasten seat belt was illuminated, only to be set straight by Tehva's, "But I have to go pee pee really bad!"

Pudding Proof #2

Everyone knows that domestic flights no longer give you anything--no checked luggage unless you pay for it, no little wings for the kids, and definitely no little salty snacks in bags anymore, which is a shame because I maintain that those snackies served multiple purposes back in the day.

What the airlines do still give out, although grudgingly, is a beverage and, being highly deprived of sugary soda on a regular basis, Tian, Silas, and Tehva LIVE for that beverage cart. Tian always orders ginger ale or cranberry juice, Silas always asks for water (but is excited about it anyway because he likes the plastic embossed cups that it comes in), and Tehva always asks for whatever will make her pee the most.

"Does cranberry juice make you pee pee a lot?"

"Yes."

"Then I want that. And when I am done with that I want some of Tian's ginger ale. And then I will drink some of what you are having. What are you having?"

"Tomato juice." (Because I am an adult and adults drink weird things like that when they fly.)

"Yum."

So here is where the snacks come in. If the airlines still were to hand out snacks, the snacks would absorb some of the liquid in five-year-olds' systems. Then they would not have said leaky five year olds using the toilet so much while the seat belt light is illuminated. And then the leaky five year olds would not have so many opportunities to climb in and out of their seats and invariably spill that purloined tomato juice on themselves while the responsible parent is in the toilet. I'm a big proponent of bringing back airplane snacks on domestic flights, even if it tags a few more bucks on my ticket.

Proof #3

International carriers have obviously decided that feeding us while over the world's oceans is wiser than throwing our starved bodies out the plane and so we receive a meal while over the Atlantic. However, this brings upon us a new, unique challenge. "I don't need any help!" Tehva roars from her seat, which is, conveniently, three over from my own.

"Tehva, that is hot food and you have to let me help you open it." Tian and Silas very helpfully pretend to burn themselves on their own entrees, and then Silas pretends that the steam escaping from his mashed potatoes and beef chunks has scalded him permanently, much to the chagrin of the passengers in front of us.

Tehva acquiesces but makes it very clear that that is the only help I am allowed to give her during meal time. There will be no mother-guided opening of anything else and so, entree opened, I sit back to enjoy my own meal to the steady whoosh of flushing toilets (they put us right next to the toilets for ALL legs of our trip this time. I think Tehva's reputation precedes her.)

Cue blood-curdling scream. I look in front of us for the infant that has been screaming on and off for the last hour. Hmmm...that baby is sleeping. Weird. Surprisingly the scream is coming from Tehva, whose face is covered in what looks like mashed potatoes and, less surprising is the fact that I am pinned into my seat by the beverage cart on one side, Silas on the other, and an airplane meal on a tray that is so close into my body that I am nearly wearing it as a cravat.

By some super-human feat of flexibility and strength, I extract myself from my seat, launch myself over Silas and Tian, and reach Tehva who is, it turns out, covered in pepper parmesan ranch salad dressing. It turns out she (surprise!) did need help opening other things on her tray, evidenced by the fact that she doused her face with what was supposed to go on her food.

I take her into the bathroom as she raises the dead with her shrieks, only to discover that her right eye is full of both peppercorns and parmesan chunks. As a matter of fact she sheds salad dressing from her eyes all the way through London.

So that is the pudding of which I speak. My point is proven, evidenced by the image you no doubt are now holding of Tehva at a Nascar race, Bud in hand, hooting at the drivers to "Stop! Just for a second! I have to go pee really bad!"

Trauma-Drama

This morning my nephew, Levi, threw up at the breakfast table, just moments before I made my morning debut in the dining room. His good-natured vomit session, one in which he puked twice but never whined loudly enough to wake us in the next room, seems characteristic of the wee lad. Nothing much phases him--not even early morning puking.

Levi's joyful acceptance of all things contrasts sharply to attitudes around us here sometimes as we go through what used to be our daily life here in Vermont--Brattleboro Co-op visits, downtown rambles, bike rides, swim hole adventures, cooking, and runs up and down country roads. If it weren't for the fact that there are so few jobs to be had here, and so many taxes to pay, we would move back in a heartbeat. If only.

Yesterday we terminated an epic bike ride at a swim hole, right where the tinier Rock River's flow joins with the warmer waters of the West River. It is a river that Tony and I, in our childless days, used to strip down and visit often during the late spring and summer months, and one that now seems much more popular with families than it once was. We used to be hard-pressed to see children there but now they are everywhere, and they are ALL WEARING SWIMSUITS! AS ARE THEIR PARENTS! AGH!

Apparently further up the shaded, chilly Rock River there are holes that are still naked friendly, but the spot we happened to choose yesterday was peopled with a group of loud, swimsuit-clad tweens who were less than impressed with our failure to bring along swim togs. Levi, with his sleek, nude, two-year-old physique, elicited no comment at all--just embarrassed, averted glances, as did Tehva. Silas, who is the very essence of modesty, brings his swimsuit along at all times, just in case, so he was set. And Tian, who has decided that, because she is nearly eleven, she must be close enough to physical development to be construed physically developed, also manages to bring her swimsuit and have it present at all times. Those of us over the age of ten, however, do not travel well-prepared and so we were dropping various items of clothing.

And that elicited the trauma-drama from the group of tweens already in the water.

"Ewww, Lady! Ewwww....I can see her bra! Ewwww! Ew, Lady! Oh, and That Guy! He is swimming in his underwear. Ew! And that Lady, Ew!" Out of respect for their potential trauma, I stripped no further than the skivvies. After all, every child blanched, balked, and squirmed uncomfortably when I offered to take it all off.

Either I am old and flabby or that was a group of children who need to work on their respectful voices, even when they are around old and flabby adults at what was once a naked swim hole. As I am old and flabby I was quick to comfort myself by recognizing the hypocritical nature of their comments: their mothers were robed in nothing more than skimpy black bikinis and the girls in said party were wearing bathing suits that barely stretched over their baby fat.

Yes, that did make me feel a little bit better as I paddled around the cool, clear waters in my bra and skivvies, feeling the sweat melt away and wash downstream.

The Value of Full Body Scans

"Tehva swallowed a marble." My mother's voice is shakey and hesitant as she announces this over the phone. Her voice sounds like what I would imagine a first confession would sound like...reluctant, tripping, frightened.

After she comes out with this, I can't believe my mother is calling me about a marble. For starters, there is nothing I can do about it, as I am off doing a good deed and am a 30-minute drive away. But really my disbelief stems from this: my mother is the woman who raised three children of her own without ever panicking once, not even that one time when my brother set the toilet on fire while cleaning his bike with gasoline. Swallowed marbles are small game compared to combustibles in the plumbing.

Thinking there must be more to this than just a marble, I search for clarification. "She swallowed a marble? Is she still breathing?"

She pauses, perhaps to check, and then returns to our conversation and, I suspect, tries to justify the call. "Yes. Well, I had seen her playing with this BIG marble earlier, putting it in and out of her mouth. Anyhow, I THINK it was a metal marble. And I THINK it was BIG." The marble in my imagination goes from being an innocuous round glass thingy to a gigantic elephant marble. "Actually, it may have been one of the small ones. I'm not sure. Anyhow, Tehva told me it was big." The elephant marble shrinks back down to a little glass marble. "And she thinks it was metal. She said it didn't feel good as it went down so it must have been big." I didn't remind my mother at this point about Tehva's penchant toward high drama, but I should have. "Well, what should I do? Should I take her to the emergency room?"

Take her to the emergency room? I am fairly certain that our catastrophic health insurance does not cover removal of swallowed marbles. What's more, I am POSTIVE that marble extraction is NOT a cheap venture if placed in the hands of doctors. Treatment quite likely entails an x-ray, a laxative, a warning to keep marbles out of our mouths in the future, and a bill for $950. Really, this sounds like a job for Dr. Internet.

I consult with Dr. Internet as soon as I get home. Basically, Dr. Internet advises a disgusting course of treatment with two equally distasteful options.

• Option 1: Feed swallower a high-fiber diet and wait. Ensure the marble has been passed by collecting the swallower's stools in a collander and then rinsing with warm water to eventually reveal the marble. You may have to repeat this process over the course of UP TO FOUR DAYS.


• Option 2: Once again, feed swallower a high-fiber diet and wait. Ensure the marble has been passed by collecting the swallower's stools in a bowl and then, while wearing a plastic bag on your hand, squish up the stuff until you find the marble. As before, you may have to repeat this process over the course of UP TO FOUR DAYS.

And then there is this caveat at the bottom of one of the pages: If the marble is made of metal, or is larger than a small marble, be sure to contact your family health practitioner immediately. There is some confusing explanation afterward about small electrical charges and blocked intestines.

I consider this carefully and wonder how much wiggle room I have on this one. Okay, so the marble in question was probably metal AND was perhaps larger than a small marble. Tehva is not, as far as I can tell, emitting electrical charges. Nor is she complaining of stomach pains, making odd wheezing sounds, or refusing food and water so I decide to play the odds on this one and write her off as okay.

My mom advises her that she should wait 24 hours and, after that amount of time, the marble will come out in her poo. She is fascinated and begins to count the hours immediately.

The next morning Tehva comes out of the bathroom looking relieved. "I pooped," she announces. "And I remembered to flush!"

"Oh, good." So much for poo checking. "Did your marble come out?"

"Yes, it was very clean. It came out. It made a big splash. It was 24 hours."

"Really, did you see it?"

"No, I didn't," Tehva looks at me like I have lost my mind. "I said it was 24 hours. Murmur said it would come out in 24 hours and it has been 24 hours. I know that it came out though because it has been 24 hours."

While I lamented the fact that we may never know whether the marble made it through, Tony pointed out that we will know for sure in six weeks. "We can just put her through the full body scan at the airport. If she sets of the alarms, then we will know that it is still there." I knew those body scans would eventually come in handy for something.

Nothing Says Summer Like...

Nothing says summer in the USA like the smell of skunk, freshly discharged, wafting on the warm breeze. In Oman, we occasionally enjoyed the musk of fox, but it was always faint and could only be enjoyed while hiking in the mountains. To experience it required an intentional jaunt out into the hills. In the USA, though, skunkiness requires no effort. It simply comes, lingers, and moves on...most times.

My parents have an unloved black and white cat who is so despised that she has never even been given a proper name; she is just LK, short for Little Kitty. She drools, cries, eats, and poops--that is the grand sum of her existence, or was until tonight when she ran into the house, having recently angered a skunk enough to cause it to spray. Her. Directly. Unfortunately, the awareness that she had been sprayed didn't come until the cat had not only entered the house and run upstairs, but had also enjoyed a brief cuddle at the hands of my mother who is, as all know, a soft touch (and now a smelly one as well).

Between the cat and my mother (who was now covered in skunk goo, too) the house is eye-wateringly acrid. We put a pan of vinegar and cinamon on the stove to boil, which made the house smell of rotten Easter eggs, tried a boiling a pot of coffee, which merely added to the spoiled Easter breakfast effect, and then gave up, turning our collective attention on the cat.

Looking on the internet at http://www.ohmygodmycatstinks.com/ revealed that this sprayed cat phenomenon is fairly rare, since most cats are smart enough to avoid being sprayed, but when it does happen to the rare idiot you should douse your cat in something acidic, let it soak for five minutes, rinse, and repeat as necessary. We mixed a paste of baking soda, vinegar, and dish soap and smeared it on the cat, let her soak and--she still stank. Attempt number two: tomato juice.

VIDEO SOON TO FOLLOW HERE

This also required a soak, but the reality of inflicting this upon a cat does not allow for a soak cycle and so she went right to the rinse cycle. Really tomato juice wasn't too successful either.

OTHER VIDEO SOON TO FOLLOW HERE AS WELL

If you happen to run into us within the next week, please be kind, especially to my poor mother who must cook a church supper, supervise entering teachers, be seen at soccer camp with the kids, and attend a professional conference within the next week, all while smelling strongly of skunk. Yes, she would be the one who is covered in a dusting of perfumed powder with a strong overlay of skunky. She is already a little bit sensitive about the odor issue so just smile, nod, tell her you didn't notice anything at all and then move on.

And would anyone like a black and white cat?

Travel Layers and the Loss Thereof

Travellers journey with layers of protection, undetectable to the naked eye, but there nonetheless. They are there to protect from the unknown and unpredictable and, like hair, they thin and recede with age. My layers used to be so thick that I could ride for 14 hours on a frigid bus, and then sleep in a 50 cent hotel on a straw mattress. I would happily awake the next morning, drink a cup of bitter tea for breakfast, and, not even changing my underwear, hike out of town to a remote location, thumb a ride, and carry on with my journey in the back of a truck piled high with freshly slaughtered pigs.

Then I had children and my layers thinned and sluffed away until I now question my ability to tolerate a lumpy mattress or a hotel without a pool. I have begun to suspect that I am one of THOSE travellers.

We left the steamy Middle East on a Thursday, steadily swimming our way through the humidity and heat of a 125 degree night, and boarded a British Airways Boeing 777 in the midst of a lecture from Silas on the assembly of this particular fleet member. "They drop the middle piece between the front and rear pieces and then glue them together!" Glue? Honestly, I could hardly hear what he was saying for the muddle-headedness that comes with the combination of high temperatures and lack of sleep. As we stumbled to the departure hall in Muscat, I also realized quite suddenly that I was grossly outnumbered, three to one. Good-bye travel layer one.

In spite of the staggering odds stacked against me, we not only made it onto British Air Flight 72, we also disembarked the plane in London without excessive whining, wet pants, or lost or misplaced items. Before exiting Heathrow Airport, I had acquired a map of the Tube, one of London bus routes, a pre-paid mass transit card, and NO extra children. Man, I was on a roll.

Here is where the travel layers really begin to crumble away in quick succession.

Travel layer two went when we encountered the Arctic air mass that surrounds England. Silas swore he was about to lose a limb to the chill the minute we stepped out of the warm confines of Heathrow. Tian unpredictably kicked off her sandals and began to prance about the sidewalk in front of the airport, shrieking, "Brrrr! Oh my gosh! It's freezing here!" Tehva saw this as her cue to also peel off her sneakers and try it out. I mostly just stood and stared off into the distance, pretending I did not know my own children while Silas tried to reenter the womb in an attempt to warm himself.

Travel layer three succumbed to our hotel situation. We had three small people, four enormous bags, and a hotel purported to be "a good bit of a distance away". The nice man at the airport information desk recommended using the 150 bus since not only is it free but "it will drop you right in front of the hotel." I lugged all four bags onboard and, in the calm of the Heathrow Station, marveled at the efficiency and convenience of public transport. The bus ride was pleasant, we enjoyed a private coach, and, just as the nice man had said, we were dropped right in front of the Sheraton Hotel. Unfortunately it was the wrong Sheraton Hotel.

As I digested this wrong hotel news, Tian pampered her bears, Tehva grabbed her crotch and danced, and Silas hung on my sleeve, looking frantic at this unexpected turn of events. The concierge eyed our four enormous bags and three relatively small children with an ill-concealed smile, and then commented, "I could call you cab but it will be quite expensive." He paused and then added, disbelievingly, "Did you really make it all the way to the hotel from the bus stop all by yourselves?" All that had required was crossing a car park, but he seemed impressed by this, so I nodded enthusiastically, hoping that feat would impress him enough that he would bundle us into his personal vehicle and transport us the unknown distance to our real hotel. This did not come to fruition and, instead, we found ourselves back out at the bus stop, waiting for a different bus.

Real hotel reached, travel layer four began to disintegrate as I received the surprising news that we would not be able to check in until much later in the day. However, the hotel magnanimously offered use of their public toilets so that we could "freshen up". Not so surprisingly, I could not find my tooth brush or deodorant to freshen up, Silas got frantically lost on the way to the toilet, and Tehva came rushing over to tell me, "I just peed in my pants a little."

Travel layer five, I am pleased to write, never left me because, after this, events took a turn for the better. My ability to navigate the Tube came back quicker than you can say, "Steak and kidney pie" and we were in Central London by mid-morning. We fought the crowds to see the changing of guard, the climbed on the lions in Trafalgar Square, played in St. James and Green Parks, walked down Pall Mall, heard Big Ben ring, and rode a "double checker bus" (thank you, Tehva).

We visited King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, ate pub food, tested the temperature in the Thames, looked the wrong way when crossing the road, and ate Pringles and bread and butter sandwiches in front of the hotel TV. We got caught in a frigid rain, ate bad Indian food, visited the British Museum, removed Tehva from the British Museum when she threw a tantrum, visited the Tower of London, chatted with a costumed interpreter for an hour, threatened to lock Tehva in the Tower of London, and learned that London Bridge and Tower Bridge are NOT the same thing.

We oggled the Globe Theater, tried to sneak into a performance at the Globe Theater, hit too many gift shops, desperately searched for a toilet near Westminster Station, peed at the base of Big Ben, and fell asleep on the Tube. The kids petted every dog that happened across their path in the five days we were there and, had I taken a photo of every dog petting incident as Silas had wanted me to, I would have filled our digital camera's card on the first day.

That trip done, I am happy to say that I retain one travel layer which I am saving for next summer's outward jaunt. Care to join us anyone?

Hypermarketing

"Mom, what is a hypermarket?" asks Silas from the backseat of the car after our latest adventure at the Lulu. He has been gazing out the window at the garrishly lit front of the Lulu and probably noticed for the first time that it is not just "Lulu" up there in neon, but "Lulu Hypermarket".

What is a hypermarket? Do I tell him that it is a highly flammable, Indian-owned chain of stores found in the Middle East? No, the flammable thing would spawn a whole new set of questions. Do I tell him that it is just what it sounds like--a "hyper" market, like Tehva is a "hyper" child? No, no, best to go with honesty here.

"Silas, you have been in that store a million times since we moved here. You tell me what a hypermarket is. You've been there. You were just there." In response, Silas crumples into a whining heap since neither he nor I can very easily define hypermarket.

A hypermarket is, at all times, like a Super Wal-Mart on food stamp Friday, just before a massive hurricane is set to hit. Got that picture in your mind? Okay, now stack another Wal-Mart on top and put a stairless escalator in the middle of the store--that way you can get your cart (but at Lulu it's called a "trolley") up to the second floor. Done? Okay, now take away half of the registers and shrink all of the aisles so that only one and a half carts can fit. Finally, make it an absolute requirement that a gigantic motorized floor cleaner troll the aisles like a snow plow, rearranging the surge of humanity, especially during peak shopping hours.

That is a hypermarket, in a nutshell.

So yesterday, for some unknown reason, we decided we needed to go to Lulu Hypermarket on a weekend in the evening. This adds an extra element to the tranquil picture I have painted above--Omanis. Going to Lulu on a Friday means risking stepping on hems--both women's and men's, running down small Omani children who are playing catch between the shopping carts, and waiting at a register for a minimum of 20-30 minutes. It is like my above Wal-Mart scenario on crack cocaine. But we simply HAD to go, so off we went.

Tony and I decided to split up and attack the floors seperately. This means that the children naturally have to come with me since I am only half as mean as Tony, and all of them want to hold onto the sides of the cart, which defies the laws of physics since two items cannot occupy the same space at the same time. But they all jockey for the honor of holding onto the sides of the cart. We enter the spice aisle, Tehva and Silas kicking each other, which means that I have to search for spice satchets while all of the Indian subcontinent stares at the two of them.

Finally I seperate them, placing Tehva on one side of the cart and Silas on the other. However, I can no longer see Tehva for all of the people who have suddenly crowded in on my right (apparently everyone needs turmeric this week) and so I have to trust that she will behave properly during the five minutes I cannot see her. When the fray clears (thank goodness for the massive floor cleaner--whisked everybody out of my way) I see that Tehva has knocked over every box of dumpling mix and is working on slowly and methodically punching each box of Jello off the shelf as well.

Silas is, at this point, laying down in the middle of the aisle. I tell him to get up before he gets trampled. He responds that he is looking at the lights on the ceiling. The masses trip miraculously around him without harming him and, seemingly, without noticing him either. I kick Silas and he finally gets up, complaining that he is tired and hungry, and asking how much longer he will have to put up with this.

Tony appears and puts everyone in order. Tian asks why we are so crabby and harrumphs at the injustice of being grouped together with her siblings when it comes to misperceptions of behavior. Tehva is placed into the cart, and we head upstairs on the stairless escalator. This floor is the one that has the banks of televisions, electronics, appliances, clothing, toys, sports, and school supplies. A batallion of men stand in front of the TVs and oggle a commercial where a woman is showing her midriff and moving her hips like she has spiders in her panties. We find what we need and get in line, set for the long wait to be checked out.

Our cashier looks like a pastel-wrapped iceberg. If she were an American she would be cracking her gum. She is a mountain of a woman with gaudily painted nails, cakey make up, and a perennial sneer, who sits wrapped in yards of black abaya and an ungodly amount of colorful head scarf. She scowls at every single item that she has to scan as if it has been put in front of her namely to threaten her manicure. Her eyes scream her distaste for the latest Omanization Policy whereby all cashiering jobs must go to Omanis. I am completely entertained watching her work.

When we come to the front of the line and she begins to scan our purchases and we discover that somehow extra items have crept into our lot of groceries. Tony stops her and says, "That is not mine. I don't want that gum. It's not mine." She scowls at him and throws the gum toward the bagger. Whether or not we like it the gum is ours, as is the scarf we accidentally put in the cart. The risk of breaking a nail while pushing the "Void Item" button is too great for her to risk removing things from our order.

I think back on all of this after Silas asks again, "But what is a hypermarket?" It is an experience, especially on a Friday.

Jesus Likes It When...

If you have been following my blogs for years and years, you might remember the Sunday about five years ago when we told Silas to dress up for church. And you might remember that he came out of his bedroom wearing a tiger costume because, well, we told him to dress up. And you also might remember that that was the church where we met The Sunday School Teacher Who Channeled Jesus.

She was a wonderful person who knew all of Jesus's likes and dislikes: "Jesus likes it when we wear macaroni necklaces." And, "Don't peel that sticker off your shirt. Jesus likes it when we wear stickers with churches on them." Jesus also liked it when we finished our snack of Goldfish crackers, said "Excuse me" when we burped, and cleaned the paste off the chipped wooden tables. Outside of the New Testament, this woman was the most definitive authority on the persona of Jesus that I had ever met.

If The Sunday School Teacher can say with such authority that Jesus likes Goldfish, macaroni necklaces, and stickers, I can say without much doubt, that He must be a loose and easy kind of guy who also likes other things that make life worth living. Take, for example, pancit noodles. There is nothing finer than well-made pancit noodles. The Filipino community at the church here always serves pancit noodles after church on Fridays instead of donuts and cookies, and it is just GOOD, so I think it is pretty safe to assume that Jesus would like that.

The church here also runs with the idea that Jesus loves flag dances, as evidenced by the video at the bottom of this post.

And on Good Friday, we learned that Jesus also likes storytelling on the beach, followed by a good sail out into the Gulf of Oman. We broke from the approved Protestant Church here to attend a more informal gathering on a small beach. The church building was a series of three EZ Ups strung together with grey duct tape, and was carpeted underneath with plastic beach mats. A motivated set of moms laded an eight foot stretch of table with freshly cut fruit, finger sandwiches, sausages, and **GASP** sliced pork roast! People traded their Easter bonnets and sundresses for bathing suits and floppy beach hats.

An enterprising mother buried an Easter egg hunt--she nestled chocolate eggs in the sand, only to have them melt, and another put jelly beans in ziploc baggies and buried them, too. Unfortunately only a third of the bags was found, but those that were found were much appreciated. An older couple gathered the children together before they all set off aboard kayaks, boogey boards, and sail boats, and told them the story of Good Friday. They read a little scripture, gasped over the crown of thorns, half-heartedly looked for the missing candy bags, and then sent the kids down to the surf to spend the rest of the morning in the ocean.

Jesus likes it when we sail, lose candy in the sand, and eat watermelon on the beach. I think it reminds him of the good old days.

Roaches

The seasons have changed. Our once benign, even pleasant, climate has turned convection oven on us and life without aircon has become unthinkable. Until suddenly, last week, it did become a reality. Really, though, there was no drama in the situation. The aircon in the girls' room went from their best friend to their worst enemy as it began to blow hot air instead of cold. We placed a work order with the housing department at the university and voila, a work crew came and replaced the coolant. Fixed.

The drama came in the work crew--all three of them were Omani. I will type that again for those of you who missed it--the entire work crew was Omani. For those who are not appreciating the shock value of this situation, I will place it into perspective. Imagine having your heat pump go out in the States and calling Blahblah Cooling and Heating Services. They agree to send some guys to fix it and said guys show up stark naked. Well of course you would have to look again and again to make sure that those workers were really naked. You would smile, you would giggle, you would call your friends and tell them that the guys who fixed the heat pump were naked. It would be unbelievable.

That is what it is like to have an all-Omani work crew fix your air conditioning unit. We stared and giggled and called friends to let them know that we had had a whole group of three Omanis fix our air conditioner. We acted like such absolute imbeciles because, until two months ago, there was no such thing as an all-Omani work crew; as a matter of fact, the words Omani and work very rarely went together because Indians did all the work here. That little incident you may have heard about in Sohar changed all that: we have effectively learned that burning a Lulu will get you a job. Those 9% of Americans who are now unemployed may want to consider torching a Wal-Mart to see where that gets them.

So after the Omani work crew restored the girls' air conditioning, the children and I began to speculate on the likelihood of having an all-Omani pest control unit come to our house to do something about the insects that are currently in season here. We survived fly season, mosquito season, and ant season, and now it is roach season.

Our roaches come in two flavors--large and lovely caramel, and dark but tiny chocolate--and have staged a coup and overtaken a corner of the kitchen. The dark tiny chocolate variety blends in smartly with the dappling on the granite counter top and know that if they do not move we will not see them. They are clever and still and only make a break for the trash bin when they know we are not looking.

The large and lovely caramel have a higher mortality rate as they stick out like sore thumbs and are, frankly, not very smart. They do dumb things like drop out of cupboards into our food, and crawl across cutting boards while we are cooking, making them easy targets. Additionally, the caramel roaches have recently endeavored to expand their territory by sending out tiny parties on reconnaissance missions to other areas of the house.

Last night Silas and Tehva stood still as statues staring at the tiling near the sofa. "Mom," whispered Silas. "There is a huge roach over here." When I demanded he kill it, he paused. "No, I'm watching it." I smashed it with my house slipper. Silas looked like I had crushed his science experiment.

The night before that Tian found a caramel roach crawling up the wall outside her bedroom. She was not so reverent as she screamed and jumped up and down, swatting at it with a fuzzy pink slipper and shrieking, "A roach! A roach! Ewww! Ewww!" The roach just sat there on the wall and waited for Tony to come kill it.

The count down has begun and in a mere 25 days the kids and I will head back to the US for the summer, leaving Tony to wage a solitary, six-week war with the roaches until he, too, leaves for a vacation in North America. And where does that leave the roaches? In control of the entire house for a whole month and a half. Time to start checking around for an all-Omani pesticide control unit.

I Don't Really Speak Arabic

My daily Arabic lessons always happen over dinner and, unfortunately, come from a fairly unreliable source. Tehva is our resident Arabic expert, haphazardly dishing out phrases and single words nightly. The problem is, we cannot ask her how to say this, or how to say that as she cannot translate for us. We are simply prisoners to her linguistic whims and, thus, possess a command of the language that consists of the most convoluted vocabulary and phrases.

Last night, while Silas vomited in his plate over the eggplant he was being forced to eat (quite literally), and Tony and I sipped an amber beverage between us, Tehva held court at the table. "Walid means boy, like one little boy. But if you have a line of boys or a group of boys, that has a different word. That word is oglad. But a group of girls is banad, like when we go outside after Arabic class the teacher tells to us line up and says, 'Yalla, oglad.' And then all the boys line up. And then she says, 'Yalla, banad.'" With that, Tehva authoritatively jammed a spoonful of rice into her mouth, and that was the end of the day's lesson.

With such limited exposure to Arabic, my language development has, to put it mildly, been stunted this year. We all came with honest intentions to learn the language but have had such limited opportunities to learn any of it. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for Tehva and her nightly mini-lectures, we would still be working on, "Saalam Aleykum" and "Masaalama".

However, as I am sure all of you know who have suffered through five year olds, their information is not always accurate or terribly reliable, so two nights ago I called in an expert--Zamzam the Emirati. Zamzam has, by some horrible twist of fate, given up her life in Dubai for a more sedate and, shall we say, dull life here in Muscat. She is elegance itself in her embroidered abayas, tastefully executed makeup, and head scarves that show nearly HALF of the hair that she has on her head. Often her abaya gaps and I can see the designer jeans underneath and her tight, low-cut tops. She is shockingly trendy and sooooo out of place here.

On the nights when they close off the pool to men and boys, pulling the opaque club curtains and tucking the ends into the doors for good measure, Zamzam comes to swim with the ladies. The employees, who are all men, scurry about the pool just before 7 p.m., dimming the lights, delivering the last pots of tea from the restaurant, straightening chairs, and searching for boys and men who may be hiding in the dark recesses of the University Staff Club.

When the hands of the clock hit 7 p.m., the ladies peak to be sure the curtains are really closed and the workers are gone, and then smile, exhale, and remove their head scarves and abayas. Some put on risque one- piece bathing suits that show their arms and legs, their collar bones, and the split in their cleavage. Scandal! Others elect to wear more modest suits, with leggings, full arm coverage, and a matching bathing suit head scarf that wraps under their chins and around their necks.

Zamzam, of course, elects to wear a "skimpy" one-piece with a frilly little skirt, and a black and white bathing cap that matches the design on her suit. On this night, as on other nights I see her at the pool, the other women seem to avoid her and, while the others conglomerate in knots of head to toe fabric, she bobs or sits alone, looking for someone to chat with. Our conversations, while in English, are peppered with the ubiquitous "Humdilallah" and "Yani", and she is always trying to teach me more Arabic, but tonight I want her to listen to Tehva and tell me what she is always saying as she wanders around the house.

Some of her blathering is easily understood:






But other things I cannot decipher and so I ask Zamzam to have a chat with her and tell me just how much of what she is saying makes sense. Tehva takes one look at the monumental task in front of her, maybe intimidated by Zamzam and her elegance, maybe frightened at finally being found out as a fraud, and she freezes. I try to play the part of the encouraging mother but before too long, I have to run out to the toilet so cannot stay and encourage for more than a moment.

When I return, my answer is waiting. Tehva is at the poolside, waving her arms in the air like an enthusiastic, bordering on rabid, aerobics instructor. She is counting, "Wahid, ithnain, thalaatha, arbaa..." while she rhythmically moves her arms and throws her hips side to side. Her r's roll off her tongue beautifully but I cannot admire those r's too long because I am distracted by the enormous bevy of women who are in the pool, staring at Tehva, mimicking her technique, flailing their arms and shaking their hips. They are counting in Arabic with her. Then she breaks off the counting and issues some sort of command, and they all start to jump up and down, the pool water churning and waving around as they resume counting. Tehva issues one last command and they smile and jog a little in the water. "I didn't know she could speak Arabic!" one of the women grins at me.

"Neither did I," I reply, as I scoop her up. Zamzam gives me a thumbs up. "Aamal jaeed," she says to me, which means that Tehva has done a good job...I think. Because although Tehva looks pleased with herself, when I ask her what Zamzam just said, she shrugs. "I only understand my teachers' Arabic. And I don't really speak Arabic."

Whatever.

Twenty Minutes

This morning I awoke at 7:20 to find the house empty. Of course the tacky press board furniture was still present, as were the ratty towels, the cheap bedding, the perennial smell that permiates the kitchen now that the weather has switched from bearable to hot, and the roaches that invade "that corner" of the kitchen every night. Those things were all there, but the children were all gone, as was Tony, to a playdate, to school, and to work (yes, in that order). Mine was a house momentarily devoid of noise or responsibility.

One year ago, this never happened. Every morning was a typhoon of screaming as I was enveloped in the insanity of dragging three kids out the door by 7:20 in order to be in the right place at the right time. They were mornings riddled with steaming cups of tea left atop the car, book bags misplaced at the last minute, forgotten lunches, and "oops-peed-my-pants-just-now" sorts of incidents.

This morning, with the novelty of an empty house and an early hour before me, I could think, and I found myself weighing up the pros and cons of sustaining our current lifestyle and situation, but quickly threw away this philosophical bent in exchange for getting a jump on the chores du jour.

We have an automatic gate that protects our driveway, and house, from unwanted invasion--the only way to open or close the heavy metal gate is through one tiny remote control. Unfortunately we currently also have construction going on right outside that gate, and the worker men somehow keep causing our electricity to short so that that heavy metal gate will not open or close at all. After the last incident, I disabled the gate opener and now do the opening and closing by hand, much to the amusement of the construction workers who all drop their picks and shovels to watch me open and close my own gate.

Because I do not enjoy acting as daily entertainment for a sweaty conglomeration of migrant workers, the gate sits open more than it is closed now, and we have all manner of debris blow into our driveway and up our front steps. To put it plainly, we have become a sort of catch net for balls of thick black hair, bits of styrofoam, dead insects, snack wrappers, plastic water bottles, store flyers, and endless drifts of fine sand. To compound the problem, the kids and their friends have adopted the Omani philosophy of trash disposal, which is the drop wherever (in their case, usually our driveway) and saunter away philosophy. To put it simply, our driveway is gross and requires a massive output of effort to keep it clean.

So this was my chore of choice this morning--cleaning the driveway. I was thorough. I squatted underneath the trampoline and used the hand brush; I swept into the corners of the marble steps; I picked up the animal skulls and whale ribs we have accumulated over the months and swept; I wiped down the plastic chair and table where no one ever sits. I worked in the relative quiet (except for the construction workers) of the morning, sweeping, brushing, and dumping, and appreciated this comma in my life. For the time-being, the days of tea flying from the roof of the car and children sobbing over forgotten items at home are gone.

I realized as I brushed that, in the United States, I was always consumed with the 20 minutes that lay directly in front of me. In the mornings the kids had twenty minutes to get up and dressed for school, and twenty more minutes to choke down their tea and toast before making the twenty minute dash to their respective schools. Then they had twenty minutes to chill in my classroom until school began. At the end of the school day, I liked to take twenty minutes to close up my classroom after the last of the students had left.

Then I had a bit less than twenty minutes to get to the Y in order to make the first of the evening's exercise classes. After that I had about twenty minutes to pick up Tehva and get home in order to get dinner (ideal if I could prepare it in twenty minutes or less), and listen to Silas read for the teacher-recommended twenty minutes, which really never ever happend (but I signed the paper anyhow, like dozens of other parents I knew), before slumping off exhausted to the usual slew of evening activities--homework, Scouts, baseball, church groups, soccer, PTO meetings, and so on.

Imagining the years ahead I could hardly see beyond a life segmented into twenty minute chunks. The kids would grow up rushed through the minutiae of daily life ("Come on! We're going to be late! What are you doing? Hurry up!") and I would continue to clip my greys and wonder at where the endless series of twenty-minute blocks had gone.

Sweeping the piles of rubble against the walls of our drive in order that they not once again become scattered victims of the hot desert winds, I appreciated my sweeping chore, for today at least. Sweeping my driveway means that I am able to see farther and closer than twenty minutes, even if it has done nothing for my greys.

Demonstrations of Love

We have been holding our breath here on and off according to the news and gossip that filters through the grapevine, our phones, and computers on any given day. At first tiny tendrils of protest news slipped out of Sohar--six dead...rubber bullets...live ammunition?...five dead...Lulu **GASP** burned to the ground...not the Lulu!...one dead...Sohar shut off from the world...none dead...more protests coming...

Stop, stop...More protests coming?!?!?! In Oman!?!?! This is the home of the ten hour work week! The afternoon nap! The smiling folk who always take the time to check on your well-being, even if you just spoke 1o minutes before. More protests?

Supposition and speculation began immediately, with blame naturally being placed squarely upon the shoulders of the neighboring Emiratis. It all made sense, people reasoned, with the UAE border being right there next to Sohar. Yes, yes, the Emiratis were definitely to blame. One long time resident said, "I am not sure what to make of this. This is certainly not Omani style to go out, burn something down, get someone killed, and then promise more of the same. I am guessing the Emiratis were involved."

On Sunday we received a panicked call from an American at Sultan Qaboos University. He was so distraught that even across the living room from Tony I could hear both sides of the conversation clearly. "Be careful!" he warned. "I have received word from a reliable source that there will be more protests on Tuesday right by your house. If things get too heated with these next rounds of protests I am leaving. I will catch the first flight out of here that will take me. It is just not worth it to me to risk my life staying here."

It was a fairly one-sided conversation filled with panicky catch-phrases usually heard only in movies where aliens suck out people's brains or spies attempt espionage.

Next came the continuous flow of text messages in Arabic and English which simultaneously drummed up support for more protests--"Meet at 4 p.m. on Tuesday near the airport!"; discouraged people from attending--"Stay away from Seeb on Tuesday. Save yourself! Save yourself!"; and reminded people to comport themselves like Omanis--"In Oman, we do not burn things. Please do not burn things on Tuesday. This is not Egypt."

Tuesday dawned, quiet except for the familiar prayer calls, and the skimpy traffic of those brave enough to disregard those pesky text messages and venture out onto the roads . Searches on the internet revealed very little additional information on Sohar. Finding no warnings on the US Embassy's website we decided to venture out toward Muscat proper and check out the science museum. The rest of Tuesday flowed by as usual, a collection of schoolwork, playdates, hiking, and driving back and forth between destinations througout Greater Muscat.

On Wednesday the stories and photos began to filter through the silence of the press, revealing what had happened near our house on Tuesday afternoon. A picture of a man in a pure white dishdasha, pushing a baby carriage down the street, draped with a signboard proclaiming his love of the Sultan. Another of a group of foreign nationals holding a huge Omani flag stretched between them, smiling as they walked down the street. A shot from above of thousands walking through the cool evening air, all gathered around an impossibly enormous poster of Sultan Qaboos. "We love the Sultan!" they had apparently chanted. "This is a demonstration of LOVE and SUPPORT!"

No hate and violence. No angry voices. Nothing. Just love and support. Now that is more like it. Okay, yes, we are still a bit confused. None of this went like we thought it would, or like it went in the other Gulf States. But for now things have settled back into the routine of the Oman that we know.

We'll keep you updated.