Missives from Muscat: The Simple Things

 During a video chat with my best friend recently, I realized I haven't posted any pictures of the interior where I've been living. It's not much to look at, truthfully. The hard part is actually the gadgetry. There are switches to open the flow of electricity (which makes sense and is environmentally savvy), but you have to figure out which one is which. And which one turns on the A/C, or the individual water heater in your bathroom so you have warm water to shower or wash dishes (or your clothes) in.
Above, you can see my A/C remote/control, located on a different wall from the switch that turns on the electricity to the A/C. The middle switch, with the red light, turns on the water heater in the bathroom (this switch is not located in said bathroom). The three switches on the end are the bathroom light and fans.

 On the other side of the door, you have two more switches, the right one opens the electricity for the fan, which is controlled by the knob above it.

 And on a third wall, just inside the room, there is the A/C electricity, and the two lights for the room.  These handy little electricity opener switches are also installed on every outlet, so if you accidentally plug in your phone to charge it overnight, but forget to turn on the flow of electricity...ahem.

And finally, just to clarify, since Berna was confused when I said water went all over the bathroom and got the toilet paper wet. Here's why. As you can see, the bathroom IS the shower (this also happened in Syria and in SE Asia, so I'm not new to this method). In my opinion, it's also very energy efficient, because every time you take a shower, you clean the bathroom. Just make sure you leave the toilet paper, and hang your towel, outside the door (next to the 15 switches).

 Today, at a similar hotel apartment in Sohar, we were treated to this delight (see below), and immediately all five of us each took a refreshing shower just cause we could.

 And the creme de la creme:

I've never been more excited to see a washing machine in my life. The website said the hotel would have one, so we all brought our laundry. Yup. The trunk of our rental car is filled up with clean laundry that we washed ourselves. If nothing else, our trip has been a success for that. Maybe I just need to stay in a hotel flat with a washing machine every two weeks...

More on Sohar, to come.

Missives from Muscat: Mosques and Matches

 Tuesday we visited the Grand Mosque of Muscat. It's a massive complex, which was constructed in 1995. After all us girls had to fully cover, including pinning my skirt together. It had a slit up to two inches above my ankle on the inner fold of the skirt, which no one could see unless the wind blew hard, but this was deemed unacceptable by the modesty cops who refused to let me in unless I pinned the skirt together at the shoe level. It was really completely mortifying, especially because they allowed in women wearing skinny jeans or transparent veils. Modesty is understood as covered, regardless of whether it's tight or revealing, a construction of modesty pretty different from the one I come from. It was a pretty embarrassing moment, even though I hadn't done anything - and it made it hard to appreciate the mosque even though it was beautiful.

 We toured the women's prayer hall before visiting the men's.

The main/men's prayer hall

 Our guide described in detail where all the pieces of the mosque came from: Turkish carpets, mosaics from Iran, chandelier from Germany, wood from America...the list went on & on. It is a massive space - you can see people in the photo above, at the end of the blue carpet.

Chandelier from Germany

After the visit was over, we visited with a sheikh and a da'iya who talked to us about Islam - I think they were disappointed that none of us converted. We headed back to school and finished out the day.

 Tuesday evening was the 2014 FIFA Qualifier Match between Oman & Iraq. Pretty much everyone in the program went, and us ladies were able to get us all into the "Ladies & Family" section. You're welcome, dudes.

 The crowd went CRAZY when Oman won. There were Omani flags everywhere, and people were climbing all over the bleachers and singing. And that was nothing compared to the street racing that happened later - we saw a guy actually standing on the roof of a moving car, waving an Omani flag and chanting.

 It was all capped off with a beautiful Omani sunset and the view of the Grand Mosque illuminated at night.

Missives from Muscat: You Win Some, You Lose Some

Given how successful Friday's outing to Nizwa and Misfat al 'Abreyyin was, it was kind of inevitable that we'd have some ...not outright failures, but...ok, outright failures. Some days you love being abroad, because it's beautiful and exciting and stimulating. Other days, you just want to go home.

Yesterday my roommates and I woke up and our internet wasn't working - our password had expired, so I didn't get either of my video-chat dates that I had planned. That made me already kind of grumpy (a lot grumpy). We decided to go into Muscat, rather than stay out in the Seeburbs (our suburb is named Seeb, get it?). We picked out a place to visit in Muscat - Shari'at al-Hub, which runs along the beach and leads into al-Qurm shopping area. On the map this looked simple, and we thought, hey we're up early (ready to go by 9a) so let's go into town now, stroll around, have lunch and come back during the siesta. Everything here, except lunch restaurants, closes between 1-4pm, during the hottest part of the day.

Our hotel manager, Haitham, was at the front desk when we came down and asked how to get a cab. In the morning in Souq al-Khoudh, it's completely empty, so flagging a cab on the street would be impossible. In addition, we were a little nervous about haggling; there are no metered cabs here, so you negotiate a price before you get into the cab. We'd heard everything from 1.5 rials (~$4) to 5 rials (~$13) to get into town. Ever so generously, Haitham drove us to Shari'at al-Hub, showing us a few other places along the way. He dropped us off at the Starbucks with the most incredible view.

We then walked along the beach, which was strewn with with unbroken seashells. We then walked up to al-Qurm shopping center, about 2 kms south. We were the only people on the sidewalk. It was boiling hot - over 100 degrees and 70% humidity. We didn't want to take a cab, because we knew as soon as we gave up and got in a cab, the shopping center would be around the corner. Cars and cabs kept honking at us - the three crazy foreigners walking in that intense heat. By the time we made it to Al Qurm, we were drenched and drained. We sat on a bench in the mall for a good ten minutes, in the A/C, just to cool off before going into any stores. Defeated, we ate a (relatively) expensive lunch and caught a cab back to Souq Al Khoudh.

After a nap, we thought we'd do some grocery shopping and laundry. Trying to be efficient, we gathered up our laundry and went to the laundry place across the street to put our clothes in the washer...only to discover that they only have dry cleaning here. For everything. And you pay per item of clothing. So, per pair of underwear, per sock...

I'm sure that most people have washing machines in their houses, so it's only crazy foreigners that need laundromats. But it was the straw that broke the camel's back - not only had our attempt to get to know Muscat failed, but it made us feel like the city was entirely inaccessible without a car (to get into the city from the 'burbs, and to get around the city itself). It's like LA. You just need a car. And then on top of that, we had no choice but to do laundry by hand in the bathroom (we bought a bucket for this purpose during our later grocery outing). Handwashing is fine for a hot minute, but for six weeks - it's a lot to put up with. Nothing ever feels fully clean, and my room is strewn with clothes at the moment, in various stages of drying.

It is hard not to be sidetracked by these defeats, little as they seem - they add up to a lot of discomfort, and make it difficult to feel physically comfortable to take on the big emotional discomfort of being away from home and out of your comfort zone (24/7, for months at a time). I can only hope to weather these frustrations gracefully, and learn to expect less and be content with the simple. And I can express my gratitude for the things that keep me going: for the sweet emails, texts and video chats from friends and family, functioning a/c & internet (when they function), lemon-mint juice, and for the wonderful, brilliant and exceedingly compassionate man I have somehow convinced to be my boyfriend, who talks me back off the ledge more often than I think he realizes. At the end of the dirty laundry, weird food, the fridge that freezes everything no matter what temperature it's set at, the bathroom that is always soaking wet from the overzealous showerhead, speaking like a 1st grader in Arabic (on a good day), and weathering through the crazy heat...I am thankful to be here. Tomorrow is another day...inshallah.

Missives from Muscat: On gluttony, estranged English & PFs

Arabs always tell me I will lose weight when I go to the Middle East. What they fail to understand is that I love Middle Eastern food so much that I inevitably consume 3x what I usually do, because it tastes so good - little matter that it is healthy food, in these quantities! Tonight, I had moutabel to die for. And lemon with fresh mint, again. I maybe have had it every day since I've been here...

 Unfortunately there are other dining options in my neighborhood, including a "Baba Johnz" (see above). I will not be eating here, partly because I don't really like Papa Johns anyways, but also because I learned in Thailand, the hard way, never to eat food that the local people don't know how to make (ie, don't eat hamburgers in Thailand or you'll get the runs. Just order some more pad thai & tom yum soup).

One of my favorite things is Menu English. I'm not sure what cheese paste is, but I'll be honest, I'd probably eat it. After all, it has cheese in it. I'd also eat 'pizaa', assuming that's just pizza with a little less pizazz.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a flying-high day. I placed into the most advanced level of Arabic the Center offers, and I was feeling rather invincible (a sentiment that was deflated by today's classes, proving unfortunately short-lived). We had a half day of classes after the placement test, and then we met with our "peer facilitators" or what the staff insist on referring to as "PFs." PFs are Omani college grads or current students who meet with us for two hours every afternoon and make us talk to them. It's terrifying. My PF, Ayman, is really sweet and (alhamdulileh) very patient; she wears a long black abaya with embroidery around the wrists and neckline layered over her jeans, which peek out underneath when she walks. She wears a big black gauzy veil in what I call the "beehive style," which is very common here - women put their hair up into big buns or ponytails to create a kind of beehive do over which they tie their hijab, with none of their hair visible. Ayman also wears colored contacts. Yesterday, she and her friend, Adra, who is my roommate Julia's PF, took us to "Seetee Sender" (City Center) mall. As we walked around the mall, she had me tell her about the things we saw. It was a really good idea - after all, we are complete strangers. Starting a conversation with, "So what do you want to talk about?" doesn't give you a lot of traction. But touring the mall, and talking about the objects and people we saw, gave us ground to start from. Today Ayman and I talked about weddings in Oman: she told me that they are three day affairs, that the bride's dowry is a matter of public gossip and status-making, and most Omani women get married after high school, at age 17, to men usually 10 years or so their senior. I asked her what was the most important characteristic of a potential groom, and she answered immediately, "Whether he is a good man and comes from a nice family." Then she confided, "And after their parents agree on the match, they are allowed to talk to each other on their cell phones and even meet each other." Sometimes you have these moments where you are shocked at how different your life is from another person's, and all your choices and theirs fall into relief and you realize a) how your beliefs, expectations and lifestyle is in no way natural or inevitable, but that you have been socialized to find some things normal and others odd, which means that b) you realize how important anthropology is! Yep, I'm closing with that shameless plug.

Missives from Muscat - Introducing the city by the sea

I still have work to do, the quarter isn't over, but being here in Muscat, I feel like I am breathing again - for the first time since I started my program in September. I love living in new places, working to understand the cities, the streets, what places are considered important, how to stand in line (or not) at the coffee shop, what to order for breakfast.

I wasn't at all prepared for how beautiful this place is. Muscat is on the Indian Ocean, and the city has mountains that basically run along the coastline. Muscat began in a small valley, and has since expanded - geography permitting - in a long skinny line between the mountains and the ocean. The city is now approximately 50 km long, a series of valley enclaves connecting by a winding road along the sea. I love the mountains, and I love the sea - I am happiest when I am near both, which is part of why I fell for Los Angeles so hard...I can see how Muscat will easily and quickly become one of my favorite cities.

On Friday night, Judi, the program director, gave us a "starter kit" for our kitchens in our flats. Ours consisted of bread, sugar, creamer, and eggs...but on Saturday, we woke up and realized we had no coffee or tea in which to put the creamer and sugar, no oil with which to cook the eggs (or salt!), or a toaster or butter to sexy up the bread. Rather than choke down more food without flavor, after two days of airplane food, we went to try out a place across the street called Tea Corner. I got a Nescafe - instant coffee is the thing here, or else Turkish coffee (which is too strong even for me), and a raqaq b'il-labneh. It turned out to be basically a crepe, with labneh on it; the labneh I expected, and was part of why I ordered it. I had no clue what raqaq bread was, so I thought I'd give it a shot, figuring that at $1, I could always order something else if it turned out to be inedible. It was delicious. Then all of us packed into the bus with our driver Ma'foud, who drives better - and slower - when Judi is in the bus with us. When it's just the students, he takes the curves a bit quicker and is more aggressive with the merges.

Our orientation included some information about Oman that I mostly knew already, from reading Mandana Limbert's In the Time of Oil. It is interesting to be around non-anthros, for the first time in a while. The story of Oman's past 40 years is very different as presented by Limbert than was presented to our group. Sultan Qaboos came into power in the early 70s, and pushed for rapid modernization with oil wealth. So roads were built; water systems constructed on a Western style grid, instead of using wells and qanat, local irrigation systems; the country got on the electricity grid too. The Sultan opened colleges for women, and pushed mandatory education for women. This process was described as bringing Oman from "the medieval to the modern" in a mere 40 years.
As an anthropologist, of course, I must ask: what is modernization? What does that mean? In which contexts? What gets lost or erased with these changes, and how are they inhabited in people's everyday lives? If modernization is framed universally as positive progress, how does this frame the ways Omanis understand themselves, and how the West becomes situated as the paragon of progress/development? I have become habituated to being around brilliant people who think about these processes, and the ways that they can perform violence on communities, and I am profoundly thankful for them.

View on the way to the old city

It took us about 40 minutes to drive into the city of Muscat - I hadn't realized how far west our center was. The roadways are lined with are date palms and mango trees, heavy with ripe fruit. It is beautiful and green and lovely here, despite the heat and humidity.

We started by visiting the Sultan's palace, Qasr Al-A'lim - it's in the oldest part of the city, and expansive and beautiful. The back overlooks the Indian Ocean, which is so incredibly blue. Judi told us that when the Omani flag is flying over the main palace (see below), it means the Sultan is in residence, so maybe Qaboos saw us straggly sweaty group of Westerners on his lawn - the only people crazy enough to walk around in the mid-day heat.

 The Sultan's residence! It looks like 70s architecture because it is...

 This curved sword is called a khanjar - more on this later.

This it the view from the Sultan's backyard - not a bad gig if you can get it! It was 100 degrees and humid, and of course us girls were covered head to toe - I wanted nothing more than to jump in that water and cool off.

Note: the fort in the upper right here, and in the first picture in this post, are Portuguese-constructed. It is worth remembering that Oman, as controller of the Strait of Hormuz, has a lengthy history of trading with other countries on the Indian Ocean and as such, has historically dealt with both Persian invaders and Portuguese colonial mariners.

We then headed to the Bait Al-Zubair museum, which houses a lot of artifacts and traditional clothing and objects. The museum is divided into sections, so the visitor can look at the khanjars (the curved swords, on the Sultan's shield), women's clothing from As-Sharqiyah and Muscat, jewelry, men's clothing and head coverings (kummahs are the "informal" caps), versus the turbans (formal). The way a man's turban is tied denotes his tribal affiliation, as does the style of his dishdash (the long men's dress), so Omanis can read where someone is from by what he is wearing. Omanis also read location and social placement by their last names - women don't change their names when they get married, as family lineage is more important than your married name.

This is a replica of a traditional Omani fishing boat.

A bunch of white people take pictures in the garden.

Myself included. It's hard not to fall for this place! The whitewashed buildings with their distinctive flat roofs, and the notched towers, stand out so magnificently against the trees, flowers, ocean and sky.

 From there, we drove back along the water to the Muttra neighborhood.

The road from Al Qasr Al-A'lim, the Sultan's palace, back to Muttra winds along the coast, flanked by mountains to your left and the Indian Ocean to your left.

The Muttrah souq is beautiful, especially the old part, where the wooden ceilings are painted, like below.This souq wasn't nearly as big as those in Aleppo, Cairo, or Istanbul - at least, not the historic part. The newer tentacles of the Muttrah souq have spread out across the neighborhood in recent years.

There was lots of jewelry to tempt our jet-lagged tired eyes!
The shopkeeper joked about the nesting dolls, "It's an Arab family: father, mother, daughter, son & camel." Sure enough, the smallest nesting doll was a camel!

Oman is also well known for producing frankincense, which you may remember from Sunday School as one of the gifts the three wise men brought to celebrate Jesus' birth, along with myrrh (no idea where myrrh is from...). There was a lot of frankincense for sale, as well as other perfumes & scents.

On the road back to Seeb, the suburb where our Center and flats are, the heat and the jet lag put everyone to sleep...

Last night (after our nap), my flatmates and I went out in the Souq Al-Khoud neighborhood, where we live, to get dinner and buy some groceries. We most definitely gorged ourselves at the Turkish restaurant across the street, where we were brought enough hummus, pita, salad and kebabs to last us three days. I also got my beloved limon bi-na'na, which is fresh lemonade with mint in it. It's incredibly refreshing, and was my favorite treat in Syria.

We have of course made some mistakes, like at the grocery store when we just put the produce in the cart. When we got to the checkout, we discovered that we were meant to weigh it on the machine - in the produce section - and put the sticker with the price and weight on it for the checkout guy to scan. So we had to run back and sticker all our "capsicum" (peppers) and plums. But the Omanis I have interacted with so far have been very generous with my attempts to communicate with them, and laughed gently with us at our little gaffes. In all, it seems a very safe place to learn, because mistakes are not fatal and the environment is supportive.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 5am with the call to prayer - another thing I have missed and that I loved during my time in Syria. Perhaps it's my childhood experience, but I am so happy living in places that have vastly different traditions than my own - places that force me to learn things, to make mistakes, to take leaps to try to understand the people I share this world with. There is something so profoundly rewarding in making connections with others, who had different childhoods and speak languages I don't understand (or do so poorly). It is these experiences that give me hope for the future of our world.

A room of her own - the view from my room in Muscat