The Effect of the Departure of S

This morning the horizon looked so dusky and grey that I convinced myself that it was not going to wait for tomorrow to rain. Then I opened the window to a blue sky. I think I need to wipe down the windows. I also need to scrub the toilets, sweep and mop the floor, remove the rubbish from the drive, fix the leaky faucet, hug the kids and hand them their breakfast with a smile, dust, vacuum, and make supper and the beds--EVERY DAY.

We are very much missing S the Wondermaid. She started asking us in September if we would be okay without her for six weeks as she was planning a trip to Sri Lanka to happen later in the fall. I scoffed and told her that of course we would be okay—not to be silly. However, now that we are actually living through those six weeks, I am eating my words—or I would be eating them if I could find the time and energy to cook them.

Having to come home on those two busy days during the week to a dirty house and another night of sandwiches? How did I do this for all those years of my adult life before I moved to the Gulf and became convinced that I needed domestic help? And how do I go back to managing my life independently now that S is gone?

In light of the window incident, I decided that I would begin to pick up the pieces of my grimy household at that moment by cleaning the driveway. Six a.m. seems an ideal time for such tasks and besides, the windows simply looked too daunting. And so, with cats in tow and brooms in hand, I headed out to the driveway.

November is the best time to come to Oman, I thought, trying to cheer myself to the fact that I had just swept up a half-chewed gecko carcass. “The breezes blow off the ocean and the air is clear and clean,” I muttered to myself as I scooped up a gigantic pile of dust, fig leaves, shriveled fruit peelings, cat poo, toilet paper clumps, and hair balls. When I found the two dead dragonflies at the base of a palm frond-pomegranate branch structure in the middle of whale rib bones, and the cats began snacking, I decided I was done with the driveway.

This is the point at which I decided I had had enough of driveway detritus

It rained last week which meant that our house flooded, but Tony and Tian were out when it happened and so we were down on manpower to sop up the flood waters and hang out the soggy towels. I rationalized this oversight by telling myself that in this environment the towels would dry just as fast on the floor as anywhere else. In addition, wet tiles make for excellent skating and damp towels are ideal for use as a door mat. Now, though, I picked them up and set them to dry on top of the clean clothes on the back porch.

This brought me to the tissue party on the floor, off in a corner where someone or something had emptied the contents of a box of Palace Tissues. The box itself had been turned into a wooden ship with straw cannons and its adversary, an old cereal box with iron (aluminum foil) sides and a turret, lay in the tissue detritus. Scooping up the remains of the battle brought me face-to-face with a smear of…what was that on the wall? Hoping that it was chocolate, I wet a towel and began to sponge the questionable mark only to discover a furtive message scribbled on one of the columns in pencil—I love…and then some indecipherable name—large print has led me to conclude that Tehva is the author, meaning that the name is either Louis or Zain. Totally 1D. I took grotesque pleasure in scrubbing away the spastic pencil marks.

And at the base of that same column? A collection of candy wrappers. That reminded me that I needed to get into the kitchen and trash the last of the Halloween candy since I have very bitchily put Tehva on a no-sugar diet in a desperate, last-ditch effort to salvage my sanity. The diet has been wildly successful in that instead of 15 temper tantrums a day she only has one, and she tries to slaughter one of her siblings only once every other day. This is progress.

Damp and slightly mildewy swimsuits hung, stale cat food swept from under the fridge, ant hills along the base of the stairs destroyed, carpets swept, rotten bananas stuck in the freezer, and counters wiped for the first time since S’s departure, I make a cup of tea and ponder the reality of the American life that will be ours again starting next year if all goes as planned.

Removed from this equation will probably be the mildewy swimsuits and, quite likely, the ant hills that form thrice weekly at the base of the steps, and I suspect I will no longer have to deal with a driveway filled with bizarre bits of other people’s lives. However, everything else that S deals with on a twice-weekly basis will once again be part of my collection of responsibilities.

And, like every other Gulf expat I know here who is looking at the possibility of returning to the home country, I ask myself frequently, Can I stand to return to “real life” and the losses it entails? No more annual air ticket, summer holiday time in Europe, domestic help, tax-free living, huge international community, nice salary, or cheap petrol. I can do it, but can I stand it?   

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.

French Lessons

Now that S the Wunder Domestic has the house well in hand as evidenced here both by her salad,

as well as here by my newfound ability to lay in one place and enjoy bonbons and National Geographic,












we have become a stop on the Europe-Dubai-Muscat-India-Muscat-Dubai-Europe trail. As matter of fact, if things carry on in the same way that they are headed now, we will soon have our own entry in Lonely Planet.

 

We have joined couchsurfing.org, the website that matches travellers up with potential hosts all over the globe. And right now everyone in chilly Europe (more specifically, Germany) wants to come to Muscat, and they all seem to be seeking space on our third floor.  Frankly, it seems to be the cat that is attracting everyone to stay with us as, more often that not, people's request to crash at our place begins with, "Nice cat".

At first, we joined couchsurfing in order to find a place to stay in Germany other than a hotel as staying in a hotel has become increasingly challenging as the children have become larger and noisier. For one thing, we can no longer hide them in pillow cases and sneak them into a double room which means we actually have to pay for them.

And for another, they make so much noise that the hotel guests around us increasingly have to resort to borrowing broom handles from housekeeping in order to bang on the ceiling and shut them up. Then there was the time that Tehva was discovered at 5:30 a.m. wandering around reception naked. And the time that Tian got a massive nosebleed and drenched a hotel's mattress, two pillows, and sheet set after a long flight.

Hotels have become a last resort.

Now that we have done our surfing, we have graduated to host status on couchsurfing which means that complete strangers write out of the blue and ask terribly nicely whether or not they can stay at our place, share our chow, and get pointers as to where to visit.

I am such a sucker that I almost always say yes and Tony, playing the part of the beleaguered spouse, says, "Whatever," and before we know it we are preparing the third floor for another visitor. Silas goes upstairs and puts clean sheets on the bed, arranges towels, and writes notes of welcome in the language of wherever the Surfers are from. Tian sweeps out all the corners and cleans like the obsessive soul that she is. Tehva mostly yells at the other two as they busybody about.

Our Surfers thus far have mainly come from Germany, although we have also hosted Americans and, more recently, someone from France--Nordine. Nordine made couchsurfing exactly what it is supposed to be--an exchange of ideas, an education on both sides, and a feeling of joy at being with and connecting to other people.

He determined that he would teach the children some French during his time with us and then devoted afternoons and evenings to getting them to at least listen to and understand some of the language. He sang them songs in French and filled the memory of one of the computers with programs and music for children. He brought cakes and treated all of us to shwarma. He took Silas and Tian up the waterfall inside the swim-through cave in Wadi Shaab and scared the crap out of them by jumping from high ledges.

Thanks to falafelfeast.blogspot.com!

 

In the car, as we drove here or there, he let Tehva play with his iPhone, wearing the battery down to nothing while using a geography app. We talked food, education, travel, culture, identity, the future, the past, and connected so strongly that on so many levels that Tony and I started to suspect that we were long lost family of some sort. You know, that French side of the family.

He not only surfed our couch...he made a huge positive impact on our family, and that is the kind of education I was hoping for for all of us when we came here.




 

Confession #1

Yes, yes, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Actually I have been writing this post in my head for ages, trying to find a way to throw this on the table. Its admission speaks tomes about shifts in our collective mentality as a family living in the Middle East.

We have hired a house maid.

There. It is now out in the open and thus allows an examination of its implications from all angles.

Yes, we have a house maid. How we came to employ a housemaid is pretty straightforward. We simply convinced ourselves that by employing this woman, whom I will call S, we would be doing her a world of good by supplying her with an extra bit of money. Naturally we would be doing her far more good than she would be doing us.

By convincing ourselves of the goodness of our deed, we handily steered past the need to consider the fact that we not only would be underpaying (by American standards, although not by Omani standards) this woman severely but would be doing so quite happily simply because "everyone else is doing it."

Done.

I found myself needing to unburden my soul to someone within minutes of this monumental decision and upon confessing to a friend was met with a snort of laughter and a sarcastic, "Oh, well, how civilized of you. And she's only coming in two days a week? Well that makes it all right then, doesn't it?"

Doesn't it?

Another friend, also an American, sat with a shocked expression on his face and finally managed a "Wow. That's very colonial of you."

It is? Yes, I suppose it is.

As an individual with almost no experience in employing and underpaying people for menial tasks, I realized I had a long way to go and a lot to learn when it comes to having domestic help. And what better person to guide me through the ins and outs of this than the housemaid herself. On our first meeting, I confessed that I was not sure how to have a housemaid and asked if she could help me know how to do things. "Yes, of course," S replied. "I have been a housemaid for 18 years. I know just what to do. I will teach you."

On her first day of whipping my house into shape, I got up early and cleaned so that S would not think us total slobs. I also made the kids get up early and do their chores so that S would not think our children lazy. Silas was hanging underwear on the back balcony when S arrived, which painted the picture of non-laziness that I was desiring.

S took a quick inventory of my cleaning supplies and a walking tour of the Marble Mansion and, I suspect, secretly divined that we were in fact total slobs. Not only that, but she quickly decided that we were completely lacking on the cleaning supply front and placed an order for all sorts of scrubby things and chemicals that I had never considered necessary purchases during my time here. Now, however, I own them all plus I have spares, just in case. Gotta keep S happy.

Having gotten all of that nonsense sorted, she launched into a bi-weekly ritual that we now have down pat. S arrives at an ungodly hour two mornings a week, which is a challenge as it means that I have to get up even earlier to arrange the house into some semblance of order. She traumatizes the cats with the vacuum and then sets about mopping and scrubbing while I jump around the swishing mop and try to get breakfast made for the kids.

S hugs the children as they get up, encourages them with their studies. and generally plays the good patient mother-figure while I step on cats and slop tea on the floor in an attempt to stay out of her way while feeding the children. We then leave the house for the school's morning exercise routine, but not until I have plunked a bag of produce on the counter and asked S to work a miracle.

She asks, "Supper, ma'am?"

And I say, "Yes. Here is a bag of ____________" (fill in the blank...okra, eggplant, lentils, tomatoes, wilted green stuff, etc.)

S eyes the bag suspiciously and then says, "Ok, how bout ________________" (fill in the blank with some Sri Lankan word that I have not heard before).

I nod and then walk out the door.

We come home an hour later and S has taken that one bag of veggies and from it made an enormous pot of rice, a beautiful salad with colorful vegetables arranged in rings, a curry, and a cooked vegetable dish. I have come to suspect that Jesus may have been something of a Sri Lankan housemaid what with that loaves and fishes trick.

This is all well and good, but there is more to it than this. Having a housemaid means that we really live in the Gulf now. It is like putting pictures up on the wall, or planting annuals in a flower bed around your house. Having a housemaid says, "I have bought into this culture." In a sense, the housemaid thing is expected of residents of the Gulf, whether expat or local, and truthfully everyone here seems to have at least one housemaid. As a matter of fact, our landlord has two housemaids, plus a houseboy and a driver. Tony says that when he gets seven cars he too will employ an underpaid driver.

So that is our latest confession from Oman. Tune in next time for another stunning confession from the Middle East. I will leave you guessing...

I Think I Just Drooled on Myself

Aside from the fact that Oman is seriously lacking on the affordable English-medium school front, and I am doing a little something about that, this post has very little to do with Oman. For those of you who troll the blog in order to live vicariously through me, sorry, this one is a bit of a downer. I promise the next blog will deal with the new housemaid or the return of the Big Car, or something equally expatty.

No, this blog is about The School and the six children I pack into it every day.

That's right, my little school has grown again to six warm bodies, with two tweeny girls in to replace the two boys who left at the end of last year for greener pastures. Our school, which last year was pure insanity punctuated by small stretches of intense concentration, has become a place of surface calm. However, with the introduction of more girls, it is now also a sounding place for anxieties great ("My mom is so down today") and small ("I think my armpits stink. Do you have any deodorant I can borrow?")

Silas, who never enjoyed being part of the masculinity movement last year, has asked twice recently when we are going to get more boys. "Honestly, Silas? You didn't even like having boys here last year. They were too loud for you, remember?" And then he remembers and drifts off to bemoan the fact that he has to spend several hours every day bending to someone else's will, with that someone being me.

Ya' know, I just want to put this on the table right here...girls are a whole different ball of wax from boys. Perhaps my late realization of this fact is one of the reasons that the international schools here have been loathe to give me any consideration at all in their hiring over our two years here.

But boys...boys go for long stretches without noticing anything aside from their impulses--whether that is to jump on the nearest boy or spray water on the cat sauntering by. And then they will buckle down for fifteen to twenty minutes of glorious and intense concentration, pounding through an hour's worth or work in record time. They roll all over the floor, fiddle with tidbits, clap loudly, fart, scream, and generally raise the dead, but they get their stuff done without much more than loud noises.

Then there are girls. Girls want to discuss everything, intensely negotiating several facets of the assignment before anything has even begun. Then they will sometimes commence their work by commenting on their general inability to do what is in front of them. They comment on how stupid they are, or act the cheerleader, telling one another to be confident in their abilities. They hem and haw and chit and chat. Finally, in the end, they get on with it and finish their work very competently, usually with a flourish and an extra spritz of deodorant, just for good measure.

In my ongoing endeavor to console myself that this is all good, I have been cruising other home schoolers' blogs as well as teachers' blogs for the answer to the never-answerable query: Is this girl thing normal? And the thing is, I don't find much commentary on this phenomenon. I do find lots of talk about teaching boys but I don't find much on the girl thing.

Strangely enough, this negotiatory behavior seems normal for my five girls--it's beginning to feel like a compulsion, this rearranging their thinking and developing their communication abilities while they chatter amongst themselves. And their chatter is somewhat exhausting, full of language that suggests they are both doubting their abilities and supporting and encouraging one another--like a manic school day each and every day without the option for medication.

I am intrigued by these girly girls as I am not sure I ever was one. At any rate, by the end of each day I am fairly exhausted by the split-personality mood they set and, thus, I think I just drooled on myself. Don't worry, happens all the time.

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.