Footie With the Girlies

Evenings here as of late are cool, bordering on downright chilly when the breezes whip just right off the ocean. It is just the right sort of weather for a sweaty game of soccer. The problem up until a few weeks ago, though, was that I did not have anyone to play with. The only ones ever on the pitch have too much equipment (if you catch my drift) and women just do NOT play with men here. Even the thought of such a proposition would give men the willies to such an extent that they would trip over their soccer cleats and that would be the end of the game.

However, a few weeks ago one enterprising woman decided that she would try and see just how many women were interested in a girls-only round of soccer, and it turned out that a lot were. So, on Sunday and Friday evenings the soccer pitch is strictly NO BOYS ALLOWED, and thus has begun my education on Arabic women and "football".

Learning Point #1: Abaya-clad women make really good goalies. Most of Da Girls get to the pitch and throw off their head scarves, shed their abayas, and jump onto the pitch ready to roll. However, there is a tiny minority that insists on playing covered and NOTHING gets past them when they are in the goal. As an additional bonus, it is easy to discriminate between fielders and goalies when the goalie is wrapped in black.

Learning Point #2: Everything is negotiable in soccer, even the ref's calls. These women do not argue calls...they negotiate them, asking the ref for some give, then asking the other team for some give, and then, after everyone has had a chance to catch their breath, play resumes without a change in the original call.

Learning Point #3: "Hustle your butt" sounds the same in Arabic as it does in English. That's not to say it is a cognate, but when Soccer Momma is screaming, "Eem-shee! Eem-shee!" you know what she is saying.

Learning Point #4: When a player comes late to the field, all play must stop so that she can go around and kiss everyone hello, check in (Sa-va?), and adjust her headscarf. This routine must be immeasurably important because everyone comes late, everyone goes through it, and everyone is willing to wait through it for every single woman who enters the field.

Learning Point #5: Goals or exceptional plays call for field-wide celebrations. The opposing team gets just as goofy, giggly, and clappy over a goal as the team that scored it.

Learning Point #6: In spite of the way this sounds in the points above, these women play for blood. Thus far I have suffered violent bruises and scratched arms, Tian has been run over and tripped, and another woman recently broke her foot during a game. Funnily enough, fouls are rarely called as there seems to be a concensus that a little violence makes for an interesting game.

Footie with women--what better way to spend your evenings in Oman?

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!

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.