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.


 

I'm Gonna Lay Down My Loose Ways

Yes, that's right...I have officially parted ways with my loose and disrespectful ways after an encounter at the beach recently. It was the first of its kind that I have had in Oman, which makes it blog-worthy, and it highlights what some long-timers here are whispering is a harbinger of the increasing conservatism that seems to just be creeping in around the edges of life here.

Surely you are all familiar with the old spiritual hymn that goes slowly and rather morosely like this:

I'm gonna lay down my loose Western ways,
Down by the riverside, 
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.

I'm gonna lay down my loose Western ways
Down by the riverside, 
Study those loose ways no more...

Anyhow, it goes something like that. And now that I have been accused of being full of evil and lasciviousness, I can officially belt out that hymn with other women who do things like breastfeed in public, wear shorts that don't quite come to the knee, and refuse to shave their armpits. We are an unholy lot, we are, aren't we girls?

But first, can I point out that not only have I reformed and laid down my loose ways, I also have begun sailing. You may think that this is a non sequitor but I will single handedly prove to you that in fact this is not the case.

But really first this time, a picture of the skull table for my brother.

And that was a non sequitor. And so, returning to topic...I went for the weekly Friday swim a few weeks back and after a kilometer in moderately rough seas I decided that I would fold to peer pressure and get out. After all, the other girl-swimmers had already bailed and were walking back toward the cars and on this Friday, the boy-swimmers were not there to make us feel guilty for getting out and so we just went ahead and did the outrageous--we exited the ocean.

I justified this move of mine by reasoning that I felt like I was going to barf and perhaps simultaneously drown, just for good measure, and so I exited the water in my swimsuit that covers all my girl parts, my hips, my boobs, my stomach, but does not cover my arms nor my legs in total. Wearing the suit was my first mistake. Getting out of the water was my second. My third is coming.

So after the girl-swimmers and I hightailed it back to the cars and wrapped ourselves in towels, a man in a wife beater and swim trunks approached very huffily and asked if I lived in Oman. I nodded, fairly sure that I knew where this was going since

1.) I was, for any other Middle Eastern country, pretty scantily clad,

2.) the man looked outraged,

3.) an older man was standing meters away, stroking his long grey beard with one hand while holding the other over his heart,

4.) and a gaggle of women in head to toe cover stood off to the side as well.

I stood and listened to the huffy one's spitting, foaming explanation of his purpose in approaching us--we all had loose morals (his English was really excellent and his word choice was admirable) and were disrespectful. He informed us that he had been to our country (never mind that this group is from three different countries) and he knows what women are like there. He went on to scream that this was a family beach and we were traumatizing his women. Then he spat on the ground and walked away.

After that it was goodbye loose ways for me--no more swimsuit at the beach. Now it is full body cover which actually works out well as the weather cools down because that is when the jellyfish come out and who knew that going local with the swim costume would actually stop those little suckers' stings from being felt!

And of course, when we go sailing I go with full cover as well since you never know when a boat full of fishermen is going to cross your path...or you are going to capsize your boat in front of a boat full of fishermen. Or you are going to capsize your boat into waters full of little zippy jellyfish.

The Pico when we haven't tipped it over

Another great trade-off for losing my loose ways is that when we go to the beach and see fishermen bringing in their nets, I can get in there with my fully clad body and glean sardines just like the local ladies without having to worry about such things as sunburn, windburn, netburn, or, well, jellyfish stings.

I am trying really hard to be psyched about this new leaf I have turned over but am afraid I am acting like something of a sot who has been forced off the bottle by the medical institution. Oops. There I go again with my loose Western ways.

I will really try to work on that over the next week.
    

The Return

I am back.

Every now and then a blog needs a year off and so I indulged myself and took the time to indulge myself. But now with life in Muscat beginning to churn again after a long summer away, I NEED to write. Or at least I tell myself that I need to write, since I am being pressured from left and right to pen something.

What I want to create is a top ten list of all of the things that have changed over the last year. I like top ten lists for the very obvious call out to David Letterman, but I also like them for the neatness and structure that they impart. As a writer I know where I can stop writing. As a reader you know exactly how long you have to out up with my blog.

However, I can’t think of ten changes to share. I only can think of eight. And really they are not top…they just are changes. So here are eight changes, in no particular order, that have occurred here in the last year or so since I blogged.

     1.) Puberty

          That’s it. Just puberty.

     2.) Sailing

The sailboat that sat in our driveway for nearly two years? If you visited us at any point between 2010 and 2012, you remember that boat. It was the one you practically had to climb over to enter our house. Last year we donated it to a sailing club here in exchange for the occasional sail session on it, and replaced it in our drive with a table which we have covered with skulls. Muscat has contributed to the look of the skulls by covering them with dust. It gives the driveway a very white trash sort of feel. Homey.  

     3.) Chickenpox

The Varicella fairy visited us during October. In classic American style, instead of treating the Varicella, we spent a lot of our time trying to figure out who was to blame. And with each speculation as to the responsible party, another eruption of pox occurred until Silas was covered in spots (this is what we do in Muscat when we have chicken pox...we go out for Indian food, which is probably why the virus has gone around town twice already since August).

In the end we eliminated most of Muscat and narrowed the suspected Varicella transmitters down to two individuals. Suspect 1 was a friend who had had shingles many moons before, but was the most obvious suspect because she had had Varicella and was foolish enough to admit it. Suspect 2 was some random British child encountered at a birthday party two weeks before the breakout. I blame the British.

    4.) The Black and White Cat

Harry the Cat has never gotten a mention on the blog and so I mention him now. We found him under the new expressway, probably having been thrown from a vehicle, and took him in as a favor to a friend, who promised to take him off our hands within a few days. Did I mention that this friend is British?

Harry looks like a Jersey cow. He complains loudly, drinks from the toilet, and has inspired Silas to write an epic which intertwines all of the pets in Muscat. Visit it at www.sisstoryblog.blogspot.com

    5.) A Contract! A Real Contract!

For one month this summer, I taught real students at a real school for one whole month, and was contracted to do it! Having been out of the game in an institutional sense for three years, it was validating to work in a concrete box again. And that sense of validation made me question my sanity. Trying not to think too hard and moving along…

    6.) Reading

Tehva reads. Finally. 

Poser.

Each morning she reports on the number of chapters she conquered in the previous 24 hours. This morning it was 57 chapters. I was not aware that we had 57 chapters in easy chapter books available in our house and so, while it is exciting that she is finally reading, it is questionable as to exactly what she is reading. This may be contributing to her growing penchant for racy material, whether it is in an online or paper medium.

    7.) Muscat International Airport

The construction site, just minutes from our house.

After gaining and losing a number of friends who were associated with the new airport’s construction but ran screaming from the country in frustration over how the construction was proceeding, it is comforting to see that the airport is coming along. To celebrate, Muscat Municipality has been closing lanes and roads throughout the area to enlarge them, reroute them, redecorate them, or sometimes to just erect little wooden men who have orange flags taped to their hands next to them.

If you are smart you can infer why I have included this in the list—getting anywhere on this side of town anymore involves some major road wrangling, which leads to the next change...

  

    8.) Socialization Opportunities

Many a moon ago when I started homeschooling, I was followed by the specter of potential unsocialization. No one was worried about my children academically, physically, or nutritionally, but I was questioned constantly about socialization. “What do your children do for socialization? How are you teaching them to relate to other people? How will they learn to play with others if they don’t go to school?”

And so, folding to peer pressure, we spend a good amount of time in the afternoons carting the children to socialization opportunities and our week is shaped by rugby, Girl Guides, violin and piano lessons, homeschool co-op classes, tennis and swimming lessons, pottery class, playdates, the Family Hash, and kid-only mountain walks.

In spite of all of that socialization, they remain who they have always been.

It is an expensive lesson, both in time and resources. Ah well.

So that is as things stand now. If I am as consistent as before with keeping up with this, you just might get to read a new blog post again in the next year. If you are lucky.