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.