See, There IS an Omani Christmas

Some of our well-meaning but more neurotic friends get extra neurotic at this time of year because it is Christmas and, well, this is not considered by many as a Christmas kind of place. And, although we do have Christmas church services and masses that run through the season at the Church of Oman, it seemingly does not exactly meet the Christmas criteria laid out by Bing Crosby et al. many a moon ago. We are missing the snow, the mistletoe, folks wrapped up like Eskimos, blazing fireplaces, the pink cheeks, and the fresh pine trees that shed needles all over the living room.

However, take heart! What we do have is the other stuff that goes with Christmas.

We have the Christmas displays in the hyper malls which feature an international assortment of chocolates, advent calendars, made-in-China ornaments, plastic Christmas trees, and tinsel galore.

Okay, so the color scheme is a bit off--pink Christmas anyone?--and last I checked, Frosted Flakes were not really considered Christmas fare, but we must fill in the gaps with something, and why shouldn't that be a tooth-rotter?

What the stores do very well is start up with this Christmas thing well ahead of the event. Tony was outraged this year when the Christmas stuff came rolling out before the Thanksgiving turkeys even had finished flying out of the Al Fair deep freezers. “What is the world coming to?” he complained, “When Christmas starts before Thanksgiving is over?” 

Really? What is the world coming to when people thousands of miles from the US and not even of the US know that Thanksgiving is even happening?

I swear.

We have the pop-up Christmas bazaars that have been surfacing with increasing frequency in the expat enclaves of Muscat. This year, Tehva’s Girl Guides troop swore to honor and protect the Queen even at Christmas and then carted their loads of crafts to sell poolside in a bazaar at a gated community which houses primarily British military families. The Brownies walked away with nearly 160 Omani riyal (about $400 US), all grossed through the sale of clothes pin reindeer ornaments and flip notebooks.   

Durn.

The church cranked the A/C to the max this year, putting everyone in the Christmas spirit, and  threw their own bazaar complete with choral music, orchestral pieces, overpriced coffee and snacks, and a stunning raffle away from which we walked with...nothing. 

The church bazaar

Christmas concerting for the church bazaar. None of these belong to me. As a matter of fact I have no pictures of my children performing that day because this seems to be my lot in life. Missing the big stuff is the name of my game lately.

We also know it is Christmas because every organization and high-end hotel here on God’s brown earth hosts a Christmas dinner, Christmas party, Christmas concert, Christmas play, or Christmas event of some sort.

Check this out and keep in mind that the exchange rate is $2.50 = 1 OR. Don't let the sticker shock bowl you over.

Even our own three children have been swept away in the Christmas madness, participating in Christmas caroling, Jesus birthday parties, Advent-themed beach barbecues, Christmas movies, and gift swaps.

Because we are too poor to attend those Christmas dinners at the swank hotels (and because we spent all of our money on that church bazaar raffle), we instead threw our annual cookie exchange, which was much more fun than hanging at the Hyatt. Except at the Hyatt they have a chocolate fountain, which is pretty fun.

 Nancy, Katrina, Claude, Lasandika, and Heather, clearly swept away by Christmas!

And we also know it is Christmas because it is the season in which we trek out into the desert with 70 of our closest friends and attend the Hash House Harriers Christmas feast, which includes a table decorating contest, a festive Ho-Ho run, and meal complete with a Yule log, professionally catered by Oman Air.

No, this is not our table, although that might be our car in the background

This is not our table, either...we actually forgot to bring a table this year and so had a very Bedouin Christmas by sitting on a borrowed mat adorned with a half dozen also-borrowed votive candles

So see, we do have Christmas in the desert! Be not afraid.

       

Single Women...How Do You Do It?

I don't like to complain but I certainly am not so opposed to it that I will not do it now and again. Buckle yourself in for a mad rant because here I go!

So last year I confidently launched myself willy-nilly into the world of smartphones with this lovely right here

Thankfully I was given only one of these monsters and not two

and then heralded the milestone with an enthusiastic announcement on my Facebook page--"For my ivory anniversary my true love gave to me, an ivory colored smart phone. How is that for romantic?"

The romance lasted less than a week. I won't go into the gory, phone-fail details, because really the details are not pertinent to my rant. What is pertinent? I lack a penis.

But first a bit more background. So finally having decided that I had had enough of the Duos's free fun features--dropped calls, stalled processing, inadvertent/unplanned shutdowns, delayed response to repeated button pushing, and daily phone freezes--I checked out customer reviews (I know, I know, I should have done that a year ago) only to find that the Samsung Duos is famous for all of the above.

Crap. Now what?

Having been married for a good long time, I know that the best way to get a new anything is to complain loudly and often and so I channeled my inner five-year-old and--voila--a new phone materialized on my pillow on the morning of my birthday. This time it was the Samsung Fame.

The Samsung Fame. Spoiler alert--also a fail.

I

Being uncharacteristically on the ball, I read its customer reviews right there in bed on the morning of my birthday only to find that the Fame, to summarize all 135 reviews I read that morning, "Is a piece of doodoo." Tony had opened the box and charged it the night before but I sure as heck wasn't going to touch that thing, so I didn't. I just slipped it, box and all, back into its bag with its receipt.

Okay, now the penis part for those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats. Fast forward about a week and Tehva and I traipse over to the mall behind our house in order to return the Fame to the Samsung store. I also am planning on requesting store credit so that I can buy something that won't make me bald with frustration. I swagger up to the register only to encounter a heavyset, pasty, salesman with an embroidered dishdasha and an unnerving giggle.

**Snicker giggle** "Oh, you opened the package a week ago? No, no, we cannot take that phone back. Maybe if it was one or two days after, but you opened it a long time ago!"

"A week is a long time?"

"Yes."

"And I could have opened it and returned it two days afterward but not now?"

"Yes...No...Yes."

"Can I speak to your manager?"

Now the woman next to him chimes in, moving her mouth carefully so as not to disengage the cake makeup from her face. "We cannot take that phone back. It is yours. No manager."

I don't move. PastyMan adds to CakeWoman's suggestion by pointing out that maybe the store in Ruwi would be able to help me. (Ruwi, for the uninitiated, is a durn long way from our Muscat burb).

"But my husband bought it here at this store. The salesman is here."

"You can go to Ruwi."

"Can I talk to your manager?"

"You should go to Ruwi."

This is the point at which I feel like foaming at the mouth but I cannot because Oman's is a non-confrontational culture and so I make the big but docile move: "I don't know where your shop is in Ruwi. I will just send my husband over to talk to you and get directions when he is finished with work." I smile my best wifely smile, which I have been refining throughout our time here. I didn't used to have one of those but I have a killer one now.

"No husband."

"Yes, it's okay, he will come and chat with you later...your name is...Fred (name changed to protect the quasi-innocent)...? I will tell him to look for you."

Fred makes a quick swipe to try to cover his name tag to no avail, mutters, "It will be okay", and I creep out of the store, cursing my lack of dangling anatomy.

Tony heads to the Samsung store two hours later. Within ten seconds of his arrival there he texts and asks which phone I would like in place of the Fame. I bury my head in my hands, picturing Tony and Fred exchanging high fives and chest bumps, and wonder how single women get anything done here.

Single women, how do you do it? If it weren't for the spousal thing, I am sure I would be visa-less and license-less, without electric power or running water, talking on a crappy cell phone in an unregistered motor vehicle.

What is your secret?

Birthday Season Begins

THE SEASON is upon us and our six-week succession of birthdays, major holidays, and anniversaries has pushed us into the annual frenzy of parties and celebrations. So this week, the story around here is birthdays and what to do for them.

The birthday scene in Muscat is pretty grueling. As the magical day draws nearer, expat and Omani parents alike struggle with the annual festivity. Should it be an indoor arcade and junk food combination? Muscat suffers from a small handful of these indoor arcades which are generally festooned with grossly enlarged, happy photographs of content children riding rides and playing innocuous video games but are frequented by children who scream, pull their nannies from ride to ride, and shoot passers-by with the video game guns. They are always nestled in a cocoon of fast food restaurants: McDonald’s, Hardee’s, KFC…they are all faves.

Tehva, predictably enough, thinks these indoor arcades would make the ideal birthday party location but I disagree and, since I hold the purse strings, we have yet to suffer through such a party.

Of course there is always the pizza party option, the movie theater option, and the hire-the-magician-who-always-says-“YES BO!” option. There is the pool party option, the party in a park option, the rent-a-restaurant option, the DJ dance hall option, and the party tents in the front of the house option.

We are swimming in options here in Muscat and yet I live in mortal terror of most of them because they all seem to be colossal energy suckers; frankly, my energy banks are almost depleted just with day-to-day life here. And here is a brutal (and, possibly, revolting if you are an über parent) confession--I have, through overt manipulation, managed to avoid throwing birthday parties for my own children each year by forcing them to choose between having a birthday party in Muscat or doing something fun and moderately expensive in Dubai each January. They always choose Dubai. **SCORE**

This year, though, Tian decided she was going to have a birthday party. As she laid it out, it promised to be a low-energy affair so I agreed but with hesitation. After all, her judgment remains teenage-ish and her fantasy birthdays seem too out of the box for a crowd more accustomed to malls and pizza parlors than nature. Her party last year (an epic trek up a wadi about an hour and a half away) was rained out against all odds TWICE, much to most of her friends’ relief. Based on that experience, I decided to, well, I don’t want to say manipulate, but as the mother of a now- teenager I am seeing that I have to subtly encourage the shaping of certain situations in order to make them feasible. You can read feasible there as acceptable to and convenient for me if you like.

So here is how Tian managed to have the best birthday party ever, in spite of her history of party fails.

      1.) Party guests--I kind of accidentally booked three Couchsurfers in to our place for the weekend which meant that we had a French author-illustrator of children’s books staying on the third floor, an Argentinian biker sleeping on the futon in the school room, and a South Korean university student sleeping on the spare mattress. Bringing those three to the party with us provided immense entertainment. Once we got to the beach, the author-illustrator set to work carving the cartilaginous inside of a squid into a Maori-like mask and presented it to Tian as a gift. The biker juggled tennis balls much to Tehva’s delight. And the student dragged the kids around the tide pools fishing out creatures great and small for observation and possible consumption. 

Their presence also added a quirky, bizarre twist to the general ambiance, firmly maintaining our status as “that weird family that carts perfect strangers around on weekends”.

      2.) Party food redefined--We convinced Tian that shwarma wraps, pigs in a blanket, and finger food requiring advance preparation are not acceptable party foods (due to the fact that I would have to trek out and buy them/make them the night before, during which time I wanted to be out enjoying a Christmas party on someone’s roof instead of chasing down birthday snacks). Tian now believes that French stick and lunch meat straight from the package make better eats and, more importantly, so do her friends.

     3.) Sun-proof party tent--In order to avoid carting along more than the basics, we took along a huge tube of sunscreen instead of that sun blocking party tent we had considered. Okay, honestly the only party tent we considered was in passing: “Do you think anyone will get sunburned at the beach? I guess some people hire tents to address this possibility. Do we have another tube of sunscreen?”

     4.) Birthday bonding--We provided snorkeling equipment to teens, some of whom had never really been in the ocean before, timed the party so that it was almost low tide, and forgot to warn them about the sea urchins. No worries. Only one ended up with spikes in her hand, feet, and stomach, which provided a sort of bonding moment among the kids in attendance.

     5.)  Instant party favors--We also inadvertently timed our visit with that of a spear fisherman who impressively skewered four enormous squids and then decided to clean them on the beach. He tore out the “backbones”, ink sacs, and guts, and left everything on the rocks while explaining his vivisection. That was worth every cent we spent on his time which was, oh yeah, nothing.

     6.) Face painting--The kids squeezed the squids’ discarded ink sacs, smeared their faces with the black oily stuff and then ran around the beach screaming, “War paint, war paint!”

      7.) Birthday cake--We forgot to bake a cake so we gave the kids Dixie cups full of fruit salad instead. We also forgot the spoons so they drank the fruit and claimed it a great adventure. Tony reckons that only a group of homeschooled teens would happily finish off a gallon of fruit salad and not complain about the absence of a cake.

The two hours of beach time passed in a flash and before we knew it, it was time to pack everyone up and head home. It was the best birthday party ever and I would guess that if anyone wanted to make one of those credit card commercials about it, it would go something like

A collection of dead squids and their innards--$0

Three entertaining gentlemen from various parts of the world--$0

Beach front party location--$0

Who needs Visa?

Rumors

I am not going to name any names here, but if you know my Six Schoolers then you will know exactly who said what in this exchange:

"My mom says that Omanis are all horrible drivers. And it is because of the way they learn. They learn to follow like THIS CLOSE (indicating about 10 centimeters of space with hands) and so of course they have lots of accidents and they are just, well, bad drivers."

"What?!?!" This is said in an outraged voice, just in case you didn't get that with the punctuation. "My mom learned to drive in America but a lot of my family learned to drive here. And my family members who learned to drive here are no different with their driving than my mom."

Both students look near tears but, as this is no different from any other day in the life here, we move on with things. However, this has put me in mind of the many, many rumors that circulate here. Perhaps because of the limitations of the media here, an awful lot of news gets spread via word of mouth.

I have been nosing around for the juiciest rumors and have come to the conclusion that I run with the wrong crowd here. We are just not gossip mongers, although I have run across a few unsubstantiated rumors over the previous week. Here they are in no particular order, although it seems the rumors I hear are mostly centered around traffic, money, schools, and entertainment. It is what makes the expat world go round.

1.) Expats cannot buy pickup trucks here.

This one tops the list because, while it seems unlikely, it also seems to hold some truth. After all, I cannot say that I have EVER seen a non-Omani driving a pickup of any sort. Perhaps this is because we don't own camels and so why would anyone ever need a pickup without a camel?

Thank you to gettyimages for the photo I have tried to capture so many times but have failed

2.) The majority of freight-carrying trucks here, including those hauling petrol products, are driving with brakes so minimal that they cannot stop without serious lead time. 

The statistic I heard is that only 2% of trucks meet the country's safety requirements (which are obviously, if this is true, not that strictly enforced).

But who needs brakes when you have these! 

Thanks to wildcardtravels.blogspot.com for the photo I have always been too lazy to get!

3.) Women are not allowed to test for a driver's license here on a car with a manual transmission.

I know, I know. I have blogged about this before, but it bears repeating just because it is so unbelievable. Does anyone know if this is really true?

Tempting? Immoral? Or just too hard to deal with? Not sure.

4.)  A pay raise of ___% is just around the corner! (You can fill in any number between 20 and 50 in the blank)

This one circulates about twice a year but, thus far, no gigantic pay raise has graced our banking account. The latest rumor on this is 40%! If only.

5.) School fees are going up __% next year! (insert a number between 5 and 12 in the blank).

With the strangle hold that the five well-respected English-medium schools have here, they seem to have free reign to raise their fees. After all, everyone pays a non-refundable fee/tax to put their children in any one of these schools, and withdrawing said child from the school results in a forfeit of that tax. As a result, if a child is enrolled in one of those schools there is little choice but to leave them where they are and ride out the rise in fees.

6.) Skype will soon be unblocked. 

Oman is anti-VOIP and so I am back to paying a premium price for international phone service (as opposed to paying next to nothing when I lived in Korea and not paying anything at all while in Mexico, China, and England since calling was either impossible when I lived in those places, or exorbitant). I guess I need to be grateful for the ability to call at all, even if it does cost more than Skype.

7.) Ministry officials are closing the ______________ because they want to take it over as their personal playground (insert any of the numerous Muscat clubs' names here).  

This is one of the difficulties of living in a place like Oman. Without a group of members with the right wasta (roughly translated as 'influence'), any club, structure, or organization can be closed, removed, reshuffled, or restructured at the drop of a hat. It's enough to make a wasta-less individual like me a bit jumpy to tell the truth. There is a certain level of corruption present as well, making us little guys all a bit edgier still.

Capital Yacht Club Closing...okay, so this is an old article, but it is a good picture of the forces at work.   

And this one from Muscat Mutterings is an interesting read about local corruption.

8.) Ikea is coming!

I will believe it when I see it.

Like I said, I run with a pretty dull crowd...or possibly one that has better things to do than worry about gossip.