I Swear...It Was an Accident

Tehva is trying really hard these days to figure out how far she can take the word, "accident". She will clock her brother and swear it was an accident...drive her sister batty by making off with her pencil during school and claim, "Oops...accident." She will pick the cat up by the collar and claim ignorance of the fact that the cat was slowly asphyxiating because, "It was an accident."

Just the usual violent tendencies that every first grader has, right?

Perhaps there is something in the water here...desalination does carry its risks, doesn't it?...but I think Tony and our lovely big blue Hyundai Santa Fe met Tehva's behavior doppelganger last night. Don't worry, though, it was an accident.

Road rules are a bit fuzzy here, but only after you have taken your driving test. While you are taking your driving test (which costs $60 a pop payable directly to the instructor) the rules are strict and unbending. As a matter of fact, statistically speaking, you have a 99% chance of failing the test the first seven times you take it, unless you are a leggy Russian blonde...that segment of the population passes on the first try 100% of the time, or so I hear. Being neither blonde nor leggy...nor Russian now that I think of it...I know about the Russian pass rate only based upon gossip, which, you probably know by now, is the main source of reliable info in Muscat.

But I digress. As I had begun, road rules are a bit fuzzy here once you hold your license. As soon as that card is in your hand, speeding maniacally while flashing your headlights and nearly rear-ending someone to get them to move out of the passing lane becomes legal. Actually, speeding for any reason becomes legal. Changing lanes without signaling? Legal. Drag racing down public thoroughfares? Legal. Passing in no passing zones? Totally legal.

And overtaking on the left while the person in front of you is making a left hand turn also is legal. Especially when you have had six previous accidents, drive a Mercedes-Benz, and rolled the Lexus you had owned previously.

Let me pull my tongue out of my cheek in order to inform you that Tony, Silas, Tian, and the Santa Fe were on the receiving end of the "legal" left turn, while I was at home with Tehva trying to get dinner finished like the responsible housewife that I am. Thus, I was only allowed to bear witness to the aftermath of the accident. However, when we pulled up in the plastic Kia Rio I was hardly prepared to see the front end of my car laying in the middle of the road, the left bearing jutting out from the left wheel well, and the headlamps dangling like disconnected eye sockets.

"It was an accident," shrugged Tony, as a figure in a black abaya skittered away from the wreck and climbed into a fancy saloon car off to the side. The other victim, the aforementioned  Mercedes, appeared largely unscathed, although it seemed to be haemorhaging oil the longer I stared at it. And the longer I stared, the more I noticed that there was an inordinate amount of traffic on this dead end road, and that the men driving those cars were attracted like moths to flames by the spectacle of five whities standing in the middle of the road staring dumbly with, "Whadda we do now" expressions on their faces.

It occurred to us as we stood there that we really had no clue how to proceed with an accident report in Oman. What's more, aside from the words, sierra, tissa riyal, haram, mobile, and maktab, I could understand almost nothing of what was being discussed between the men who had shown up on the scene. The growing cast of characters gradually, and very kindly, introduced themselves like a misplaced wedding party--"I am the Husband. I am sorry for my wife's behavior." "I am the Brother. This is not my sister's first accident." "I am the Random Stranger who speaks English. I have come to watch the show." "I am the Towtruck Driver. I sweat a lot."

We did an inordinate amount of standing around, just the nine of us. Strangely, the perpitrator who had slunk off after the crash never did turn up on the scene again...she just sort of disappeared and left the boys to work things out. We negotiated who was to blame--the men decided that the woman was definitely to blame. We chatted with the police, who did nothing more than examine Tony's license. And then we were told who would pay. 

We would.

We were told our insurance would pay because in Oman that is what we do. No, no, that is not called insurance fraud...that is called taking care of one another. Not having been aware that I was inadvertently living in a communist state, I was confused, and even now the logic continues to baffle and amaze me. I guarantee there is more to it than that, but that is the essence of the reason that we were given for our insurance paying.

As we gathered up the last miscellaneous bits and pieces of our car, the Husband philosophically intoned, "It was an accident but no one was hurt, hamdulillah. And money comes and goes, but life is precious, hamdulillah." And then he shook Tony's hand and walked off.

Like I said, nothing to worry about. It was just an accident.













 

Protests...Or Not

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.

Oman's Omens

 

At the outset, the plan sounded fool-proof.

Leave less than an hour before sundown, explore a site in order to lay a Hash run later in the week, and then return home to prepare dinner. In order to make the plan even more viable, it was decided that Silas would accompany me and that we would ride to and explore the proposed site with Heather, who has issues with depth perception when it gets dark and the terrain gets rough. Can you see where this is headed?

Heather had chosen the Hash site based on the fact that it is right off of the Lollipop Roundabout (aka The- Roundabout-to-Nowhere), which has a certain romantic appeal, especially as the sun is setting over this cement circle in the middle of a road that truly leads to nowhere. We headed off-road and plunged down the ungraded dirt path, severely testing the shocks on her Pajero, and rounded a bend to reveal a looming support wall for the new highway. This, we decided, would be the best location from which to start exploring.

Exciting stuff.

"That wadi," I pronounced, "is the best wadi. Let's look at that one first." I really had no idea where we were going but the wadi looked so inviting. I know, I know, you are thinking wadi like this, aren't you?



And it kind of was like this, minus the water. And the trees. And the cooling shade. And those plants on the left. Now throw in an uneven floor strewn with knee-deep sandy gravel and rocks that are slippery even when dry, and that was our wadi. It wasn't long before things started to look ominous.

Ominous sign #1: A giant grey and blue scorpion went shooting across our path and skittered under a rock. Or maybe it was a blue desert lizard. Ah, scorpion looks more ominous, doesn't it?



Ominous sign #2: A racer snake slithered under my boot, timing its plunge just right to make Heather shriek.

                           

Ominous sign #3: Somewhere someone began artillery practice, positioning the practice shots in such a manner that it sounded like they were taking potshots at us three idiots.

Ominous sign #4: The sun went down and we were a thirty minute walk up a wadi looking at The Old Man of Muscat aka Cock Rock before we noticed the sudden absence of light.

Ominous sign #5: Silas, the human GPS, began to advise us in the most grating, whining, cry-ridden voice that we were nowhere near where we thought we were.

I know, with the scorpion-lizard we should have packed it in for the day, but the Hash must go on. So on we  went.

"Not to worry!" I told Silas. "Just over that rise is the Lollipop Roundabout. We will just scale this massive, scree-ridden rock face and BOOM, we will be on the road and can walk back down to the car." Silas grabbed his crotch and jumped up and down, looking doubtful, shaking his head and protesting: "No! It's the other way! We are in the wrong place! This is all wrong!"

And sure enough he was right.

Just as full darkness fell, we were feeling fairly confident that we were back in the wadi we had originally wandered up, but the walk out was still fraught with stressful hyperventilation, silent thoughts of the feasibility of building a makeshift tent from four boot laces and a sweat-soaked t-shirt, and a curiosity regarding how long a quart of water and two shriveled dates might last three mildly-dehydrated individuals before we would be forced to eat one another.

I would like to use some colorful verb to describe the way we walked out of the wadi in the darkness. I was thinking "skipped" or "strode"--you know, something that would suggest we were full of confidence and overcoming the elements around us, but truthfully the best one I can come up with is that we "minced" out. As a matter of fact, I minced so carefully that I ended up mincing so very gracefully onto a snake.

The snake, not enjoying the mincing, began to flail--I could feel it knocking against my boot, and I could see its body in the dull light of the highway next to which we had parked. As an extra bonus, I could hear it hissing madly. At that point, well, I'll admit it--I screamed. This in turn caused Silas to scream continuously until Heather was ready to clock him and feed him to the wildlife. I jumped two and a half meters into the air, releasing the snake and calming Silas somewhat. Once the adrenalin levels had leveled off slightly, we set off again for the car, which we could now see under those lights, shining beacon-like. A Pajero never looked so inviting.

Thinking a goat path might be more snake-free than the rocks that we had been on, I carefully led Silas
toward the hard-packed dirt just visible 20 meters away, only to nearly step on another snake. Silas again started to scream, frozen into place, wailing, "A snake! A snake! A snake!" My suspicion is that Heather used some secret magic power to levitate him off the path and over this latest road block because from where I was standing it looked like there was no moving him.

The remaining three minutes' walk was punctuated by residual screams until we finally were safe again in the Pajero. However, it wasn't until we had climbed up the dirt road to the Lollipop Roundabout that we felt we had arrived back in civilization. And that roundabout? That is obviously not the Roundabout-to-Nowhere--it is the Snake Wadi Roundabout. And I do not recommend a nighttime visit. Especially with Silas.

Legally Yours...

It is time to unburden my soul and divulge that until last week I had been driving illegally here. For two years.

It started innocently enough. Upon arrival in Oman two years ago, I heard the rumor that it was okay to drive on an American driver's license for two months before getting one's Omani license. However, if one were unfortunate enough to hold an Indian license or an Armenian license, or a license from any one of countless and seemingly arbitrary countries, one would not be able to drive on one's home country's license. But being American does have its advantages and so away I drove.

Two months passed, and it just seemed so inconvenient to go down the road and obtain that Omani driver's license. And so the months dribbled by and before I knew it, a whole year had passed. Then in our second year, the ROP went through a stage where it was pulling people over and checking for licenses. Friends of mine got pulled over while still holding their British or Canadian licenses and the cops simply waved them on, reminding them very kindly to go down and get their Omani licenses.

I heard these stories and very quickly rationalized that if the only punishment I would receive was a kind smile and a badly constructed, grammatically incorrect reminder to get my Omani license, then I would just continue to drive illegally.

But then my husband started to hound me and so, in a moment of absolute obsequiousness, I agreed to be dragged down to the licensing center for the grand event, along with three whining children, two passport photos, one crabby husband, and a slew of documents, photos, and payment options. This promised to be an event.

At first blush, the office itself rivaled any Department of Motor Vehicles in the US. It was populated by disgruntled workers dressed in uncomfortable-looking clothing who were being stared down by a room full of individuals whose behinds looked like they had become fused to the seats upon which they had been sitting for quite possibly three to four hours. And of course there was the universal "PING" of numbers changing to call up the next individual.

And right smack in the middle of the entrance way, positioned in such a way that there was no way to skirt around it, was the Number Desk, run by the Number Desk Dude. His job was to scrutinize anyone who walked through the door and then thrust a number at them. He took his job very seriously, scrutinizing everyone carefully before blessing them with a number. And I should know, because he scrutinized me four times while I was there, beginning with the moment we walked through the door.

 The Number Dude did not speak. He simply arched an eyebrow as if wondering why I had walked into the licensing issuing center. So I did not speak either. I simply thrust my American license at him. He scrutinized and then thrust a number at me and waved me toward the Ladies Only seating area. Because I am a lady. Shocking, I know.

My number came up almost immediately which was disconcerting because my support crew (i.e. Tony) had stepped out to take the leaky Churtle to the toilet and I was left to forge this first interaction alone, armed with nothing but two photocopies of my license, my residency card, and the original of my American license. I dragged my heals over to window 2. "Lessons?" murmured the Licensing Lady.

"Yes." I had had lessons in driving long ago. Yes seemed the right answer to this.

"No. Lessons?"

"Um..." Where was Tony? "American license?"

"Yes!" She smiled and took my license. Duh. License, not lessons. Next question. "Coffee?"

"Yes?" Wow. Omani DMVs offer coffee? Sweet!

"Yes." And with that she grabbed the two photocopies from my hand. Copy, not coffee. 0 for 2.

The Licensing Lady then requested money: "200 baisa."

200 baisa. That's 50 cents US, or therebouts. Hmmm...what could this be for? I sat and pondered a bit too long because she again demanded 200 baisa. Was this a low-level bribe? A coffee fee? Copy fee? I lamely started, "My husband took my daughter to the toilet and he has all the money so..." She glared and then made her request, "200 baisa," and then shooed me away.

When Tony returned from the toilet he tucked 200 baisa in my hand, which I handed over to the License Lady in exchange for a blue and white form in Arabic. "Great. Arabic?" She nodded. My bureaucratic Arabic is about as fluent as my Sanskrit. She waved me off again to negotiate a translation from an unsuspecting bystander, which Tony managed to do within two and a half minutes.

Form filled in, I took it for another scrutinization from the Number Desk Dude. The Arabic must have been arresting because the Number Desk Dude smiled slightly as he punched up another number for me and waved me again toward the Ladies Seating. Once again, my number pinged up quickly and it was back to the Licensing Lady.

She read the form with great interest until her friend Licensing Man came through the side door. He had a quick chat with her, which sent her into gales of laughter and caused her to lose her place on my application so she had to start all over again reading all the intimate details that the nice Bystander had written. When she flipped the application over, though, she grimaced, pointed at a flimsy door, and said, "Go."

So I went. Inside the door were two ROP cadets clad in tan and sitting at a heavy, metal, government-issue desk with hands crossed, staring at the door through which I had just walked. As I walked in, one clapped and jumped to his feet. He handed me an eye cover and went over to an eye chart, pointing eagerly with his pen. He pointed. I read. He pointed again. I misread. He pointed again. I misread again. I must be getting old, but that's okay because he must be getting deaf; he made a note on my chart indicating that my eyesight is perfect...a seven out of seven!

Now back for another number from the Number Desk Dude. At this point we were getting to be quite good friends and he hardly needed to scrutinize at all as I was a known quantity. He simply slid yet another number toward me after only a cursory glance at my application.

What luck, I got to visit with a different bureaucrat this time--Licensing Lady's friend Licensing Man! He took my photos, perused all of the information on my form once again, looked carefully at my American license, asked, "Coffee?" to which I responded, "Yes" without expecting a cup of joe this time, and swiped the credit card.

"Okay," he said, returning my credit card. "Sit." So I sat, but only after consulting Number Desk Dude once more. After a mere 45 minutes I was holding my brand new Omani license, still warm from the laminater, and with an expiration date exactly 12 years in the future.

While it did not come with coffee, and no lessons were required, acquisition of my license did force a new appreciation in me for being a member of the fairer sex. While I breezed through the process in just under an hour, the legion of men who were there when I came in were still there when I walked out. Perhaps they were just there to observe the amazing efficiency with which Number Desk Dude and his associates were working. Or perhaps they were there to catch a couple episodes of HGTV as it was being shown on the overhead screens. Whatever their reasons for their extended stay at the Licensing Department, I breezed by them very happily on the way out, excited to finally be legal.

I Don't Eat That

Silas has learned how to read labels and in that learning he has become, well, somewhat intolerable.

So we were starved creatures one day while we were in Virginia, having just finished an exhausting tramp through the local library. The cure is to get a snack, obviously. However, as quickly as I could put yummy snacks into the basket, Silas tore them out again.

"No, Mom, not this applesauce. I won't eat it."

"What? Okay. How bout some granola bars?"

"No."

"How about these nuts? Some juice? Crackers?"

"No, Mom. It all has high fructose corn syrup in it." He placed everything back on the shelf methodically but sternly, as if he were the newest Anti-Corn Syrup Enforcement unit. And finally, after nestling the last item--some lovely peaches in light syrup--back on the shelf, he gently sat down on the floor and buried his face in his hands. "I can't eat anything here!"

And he didn't. Somewhere along the way he blithely jumped onto the "I-don't-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup" wagon and waved at us as it pulled away. I, however, was too busy doing something...something...who knows what. I never saw him make that jump until it was too late.

Our entire summer was spent with Silas sneakily reading labels and refusing the sweet stuff. At one point as he went whizzing down a gigantic hill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he yelled, "I don't like the United States for eating but I love it for the bike rides! Yahooooooooo!"

So now we have returned to Oman, where finding much of anything that contains high fructose corn syrup is a challenge, and the boy is like a starved dog outside of a sausage factory. He sucks the air up in great greedy gulps, dissecting the odors that are all around us. "Oooo...I can smell curry. Oh, is that adobo? Mmmmm...I smell someone cooking rotis."

The air is thick right now with the heat and humidity of the end of summer, but the ocean breezes are starting to give us an occasional cooling puff and carry the smell of food far from the place it is cooked. This morning, in the quiet just after fajr...the dawn prayer...I was wrapped in a blanket of ocean air and then the breeze shifted and I was surrounded by the aromas of what smelled like Filipino food--garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, coconut oil. If Silas had been out with me, he would have left a trail of drool back to the house.

And it smelled like breakfast. But not the kind with corn syrup in it, for that would make the boy child cry.

German Lessons

Germany is closed on Sundays. This is what you learn when you fly with a six-year-old tyrant who has an earache and needs a strong infusion of ibuprofen. Or an attitude adjustment.

Germany is also a place that makes nine-year-old boys giggle because innocuous German words look like naughty English ones.

To go to Germany as a non-German-speaking-mother-turned-tour-guide was, as a good friend suggested, possibly one of the oddest things I have ever done. The internet was loathe to give up its secrets regarding what a family could do in Germany, aside from drink beer and eat sausages. While Tian was extremely eager to undertake the drinking of beer if only to secure bragging rights, I was not so enthusiastic about the proposition. Imagine.

So at first blush Germany did not promise much in the way of a good time for my accompanying minors, but the stopover was courtesy of the Sultan so stop we did, and learn I did. But I didn't run into Yoda.

Not surprising, my children had an agenda upon touch-down in Franfort. Item number one on their list was pork sausage acquisition. Within Frankfort Airport, aside from a small city's worth of pharmacies, grocery stores, and bookstores, is a sausage store that serves up grilled tubes of meat at all hours of the day.

Having forgotten that much of the Western world thrives on astonishing serving sizes we each ordered a plate of sausages with french fries. We also forgot that pork takes some getting used to after 9 months away from the stuff. That is as far as Tian could get on her plate. Sad stuff, I know.

A train ride out of the airport propelled us into the countryside before we could say "Sparkasse", and landed us in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

This was the most German town we four tourists had ever seen (outside of Germany at Busch Gardens Williamsburg) and we learned that it is the only town in Germany that has a chemist who is open on a Sunday and willing to sell painkillers for a six-year-old tyrant. We also learned the value of brushing teeth at least once in 24 hours, as well as what it takes to make three children look abandoned within the town square of any given European city. 

There is great value in sleeping on a stranger's floor, especially when that stranger also has a boy who loves to make fart noises and can play a mean game of war.

  This may have been the most powerful lesson that we learned in Germany, and the one I most want my children to take away from these years of being able to travel the world. Strangers are not strangers after just a few hours spent together. Imagine what would happen if we would require soldiers and generals from opposing sides of  any battle to have a sleepover. One evening spent making fart noises, running around in town, and eating spaghetti does so much to allow one person to know another.

We learned so much in Germany in 72 hours that our heads still spin with the experience, and when the once-stranger's mother and I mentioned that this arrangement we had undertaken--an American family sleeping peacefully on the floor of a German family--would not have been possible not so many decades ago, the children were baffled. Inconceivable. How could this not have been possible at any point in time? We had such fun.

And Germany does have a lot to do. Especially for families. Anybody up for a German excursion next summer?

Did You See That? Never Mind.

Seals. They lay around on flat surfaces. They make funny noises. And they must eat a lot judging from their size.

Silas. He lays around on flat surfaces. He makes funny noises. And he eats a lot. Obviously my son gives all signs and indications of being a seal. And yet recently he has begun to move away from sealdom and toward what may be a promising future in...noticing things. Sometimes. Okay, rarely. Maybe.

A few days ago, Tehva poured herself a bowl of Heart-to-Heart Kashi cereal. You know, the kind that resembles little hearts in structure and sweetened cardboard in taste and texture. As Tehva poured on the organic whole milk, rejoicing in her new found ability to fill a bowl to the rim without spilling a drop, tiny black bugs floated to the top.

"Ewwwww!" Tehva whined. "There are bugs in my cereal!" I gave Tehva a Tupperware and showed her how to skim the bugs off the surface and into the Tupperware so that she could chow down on a bug-free breakfast. (Of course she ate it! That was organic milk and that stuff ain't cheap!) Silas silently looked on and then uttered a single syllable: "Ew." See? He noticed!

And then we visited Jamestown National Park, nestled along the James River. We were all peering intently at an archaeologist screening dirt in order to find tiny bits, heads bent in concentration, knotted tightly in a group of tourists, when suddenly Silas screamed, "Whoa! Mom! Look!" Everyone paused and did a collective readjustment, squinting or bowing heads to look more closely at the dirt in front of us. "Look! A cargo ship! On the river!" What an observant boy.

And then there was the top of the hour news stories that we were listening to on NPR the other day. After the five minutes of talk about Syria, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, and American troops, Silas sighed. "Why is this always about war?" Wow. He noticed and judging from his use of the word "always" he has noticed this trend before. I was nearly dancing in the driver's seat.

A Google search on "observation skills in boys" yields nearly one and a half million hits, so obviously someone other than Silas has issues with this. The first thought that comes to mind when I consider his inability to see any further in front of him than a video game at arm's length is to Google, "Ways to improve observational skills in boys." All of the solutions that surface are decidedly feminine and include sketching flowers, writing journals, and staring for long periods at photos of random individuals doing odd things like wearing umbrellas on their heads (my apologies to you men out there who enjoy such activities...I didn't say you were feminine...please keep your head. Er, heads?). And Silas is so not into any of those things.

My intention by doing this search, of course, was to find a way to incorporate observational skill development into this year's curriculum along with the thousand other things we all hope to incorporate in the school day. However, this past year I came to realize that in my little homeschool there is not enough time for everything I (or they) want to study, and that even if we really really want to study something, most days we are mentally finished by 2 p.m. And that's on a good day.

And so if anyone out there has any ideas about ways to develop observation skills in boys that don't involve flowers, sketching, writing long entries in journals, or bizarre photos, please let me know.