On Thursday, this message made its way through the cell phone/email grapevine:
Demonstrations have begun in front of the U.S. Embassy in Muscat. It is possible that the demonstrations could grow in size. U.S. Embassy personnel have been instructed to avoid the area of the Embassy. There may also be additional protests in the coming days. In light of recent attacks against U.S. missions in Cairo, Benghazi, and Sanaa, U.S. Embassy Muscat is carefully monitoring the current security situation in Muscat and throughout the country.
We remind U.S. Citizens to avoid areas where demonstrations are occurring, and recommend that you avoid the Embassy area. Even protests that are intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. As always, please be aware of your surroundings and monitor local media.
The Embassy advises U.S. citizens to maintain valid travel documents and enroll with the Department of State through the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy to contact them in case of emergency.
And with that, a flurry of forwarded messages commenced, finally resolving in a repetition of the same message upon everyone's phones until we were all whipped into a frothing frenzy.
Then the frightening thought arose:
Where do we go if we have to get out fast? And what do we take? What would happen to our house? Our cat? Our cars? Our stuff? Crap, where are the passports?
Rational thought counters:
Come on, this has happened in every foreign country in which I have lived. It happened in Korea after an American army tank accidentally plowed two little girls walking home from school.
It happened in China in the early 1990s as the Taiwan issue arose again. An American aircraft carrier positioned itself in the wrong place in relation to Taiwan, and for a week solid there were air force jets doing low fly-bys over our little town. We had black out practices nightly. Students anonymously left disturbingly ungrammatical and what I construed as possibly threatening letters on my podium: "Okay, teacher. I sorry. American home. Good bye. You!"
It happened last year when Da Boys started using their local grocery stores as torches.
But it all blew over.
But then another frightening thought arose:
Where will we go if we have to leave? Do we bag it and just head back to the home country? Where can we drive that would offer some sort of safe harbor--not Yemen. Duh. Do we go and bunk up with friends in India--but what about the visa? Maybe we could jump the border to the UAE--no visa required there but will they have protests, too?
Rational thought counters again:
Get the lowdown of what's happening on the streets.
We did what many did and visited this link:
http://www.muscatmutterings.com/
which is generally a good source for the gossip going on in Muscat. Then we visited this site, which does the same for Salalah:
http://dhofarigucci.blogspot.com/2012/09/protests.html
and began to decompress.
Since Thursday, I have kept an extra ear out for news of protest activity here. The radio news stations are closely monitored and tightly controlled so there has been no news from the traditional media outlets. Instead, everything here spreads via word of mouth--or cellphone or blog posts.
So the news is that there is very little news to report regarding protests in Muscat. The Kiwis report that their government's perceived threat level within Oman has remained at moderate. The Canadian government reports no travel warnings for Oman. And the Australians advise travelers to take nothing more than the regular travel precautions.
And so from now on, when I go out I will wear my Canadian flag on Saturday/Sunday, my Australian flag on Monday/Tuesday, and my Kiwi flag on Wednesday/Thursday. And on Friday I will have a nap to recover from the stress of posing throughout the week.
Demonstrations have begun in front of the U.S. Embassy in Muscat. It is possible that the demonstrations could grow in size. U.S. Embassy personnel have been instructed to avoid the area of the Embassy. There may also be additional protests in the coming days. In light of recent attacks against U.S. missions in Cairo, Benghazi, and Sanaa, U.S. Embassy Muscat is carefully monitoring the current security situation in Muscat and throughout the country.
We remind U.S. Citizens to avoid areas where demonstrations are occurring, and recommend that you avoid the Embassy area. Even protests that are intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. As always, please be aware of your surroundings and monitor local media.
The Embassy advises U.S. citizens to maintain valid travel documents and enroll with the Department of State through the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the Embassy to contact them in case of emergency.
And with that, a flurry of forwarded messages commenced, finally resolving in a repetition of the same message upon everyone's phones until we were all whipped into a frothing frenzy.
Then the frightening thought arose:
Where do we go if we have to get out fast? And what do we take? What would happen to our house? Our cat? Our cars? Our stuff? Crap, where are the passports?
Rational thought counters:
Come on, this has happened in every foreign country in which I have lived. It happened in Korea after an American army tank accidentally plowed two little girls walking home from school.
It happened in China in the early 1990s as the Taiwan issue arose again. An American aircraft carrier positioned itself in the wrong place in relation to Taiwan, and for a week solid there were air force jets doing low fly-bys over our little town. We had black out practices nightly. Students anonymously left disturbingly ungrammatical and what I construed as possibly threatening letters on my podium: "Okay, teacher. I sorry. American home. Good bye. You!"
It happened last year when Da Boys started using their local grocery stores as torches.
But it all blew over.
But then another frightening thought arose:
Where will we go if we have to leave? Do we bag it and just head back to the home country? Where can we drive that would offer some sort of safe harbor--not Yemen. Duh. Do we go and bunk up with friends in India--but what about the visa? Maybe we could jump the border to the UAE--no visa required there but will they have protests, too?
Rational thought counters again:
Get the lowdown of what's happening on the streets.
We did what many did and visited this link:
http://www.muscatmutterings.com/
which is generally a good source for the gossip going on in Muscat. Then we visited this site, which does the same for Salalah:
http://dhofarigucci.blogspot.com/2012/09/protests.html
and began to decompress.
Since Thursday, I have kept an extra ear out for news of protest activity here. The radio news stations are closely monitored and tightly controlled so there has been no news from the traditional media outlets. Instead, everything here spreads via word of mouth--or cellphone or blog posts.
So the news is that there is very little news to report regarding protests in Muscat. The Kiwis report that their government's perceived threat level within Oman has remained at moderate. The Canadian government reports no travel warnings for Oman. And the Australians advise travelers to take nothing more than the regular travel precautions.
And so from now on, when I go out I will wear my Canadian flag on Saturday/Sunday, my Australian flag on Monday/Tuesday, and my Kiwi flag on Wednesday/Thursday. And on Friday I will have a nap to recover from the stress of posing throughout the week.
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