Long Day

I am exhausted after the longest and most physical day yet here in Oman. First off, we woke up at 7 after staying up till 1am at an American English teacher’s house watching Die Hard and eating ice cream and popcorn for dinner. No subtitles, no Arabic- it was the perfect cultural reliever. Then we had a huge tasty breakfast (I consider eating a large, tasty meal exercise) of Indian bread, cooked mixed vegetables, a salad, and a rolex. (I’m calling it that because I made the same thing they have in Uganda- an egg omelet wrapped in chapatti bread with plenty of ketchup.) WE then got a ride with Wendy, that same English teacher, to the base of one of the many mountains in the area. The plan was to hike for 6 hours- Doug, Saleh, Da’oud, and I- and then catch a ride back to our flat from the highway we would reach at the end of the hike. However it became clear after 1.5 hours of hiking, scrambling, and bouldering that we had taken the wrong wadi! Another clue was that at one point I had gone ahead to look for the trail and literally had to use all my rock climbing skills (dutifully learned during my Chadwick years) to negotiate this one massive rockface! The size and quantity of these boulders was mind boggling.
So we had our picnic lunch and walked back to where we started- where after washing off in the aflaj, we were picked up by Saleh’s friends from Izki. After experiencing the full extent of Omani coffee hospitality in their home- more on this later- we drove to a local petting zoo where the story goes that they have the one monkey in Oman. Unfortunately it was closed, but the upside is that we then walked around and I learned about Date palm trees, and we visited, actually the same wadi from hiking, just farther down. There we saw some surprisingly bright red and green rock, along with a cave. Next we drove to where the daily football game is played. It didn’t take too many invites to convince us to play, so Da’oud and I joined one team, and Doug and Saleh the other. It was this game that really tired me out. I think we played uninterrupted for an hour, on a dusty dirt regulation size field. It was really a highlight of my day- they were happy to play with us, and some were really pretty good. (Oh, my team lost 4-3) Afterwards, the 4 of us, and Saleh’s two friends walked over to their uncle’s farm to the well. There they set up the aflaj; started one of the three water pumps, and walah! Water! I should have taken a picture, but I’ll try my best here: 1) really deep well (possibly 500 ft.) 2) long pipe with water pump connected to a generator by a 10ft belt 3) Water flows to into a head-high square pool with a drain that flows into the flaj. Oh, and the water from the flaj sends water to the date palm trees. To wash we jumped up on the edge of the wall, and put our heads under the pipe feeding the cistern. The water was warm like the earth is! Then it was prayer time, so the 4 of them got out their prayer mats and prayed right there in the field- it was beautiful.
Now, our final adventure. The same two friends, after already picking us up, taking all of us around the whole afternoon, waiting and happily watching us play football, starting up their uncle’s well (and later that night taking us back home), had invited us to dinner earlier in the day. The custom (I see it as similar to our attempts at modesty by deflecting compliments) is to not accept invitations right away and allow the host to insist! Anyway, we entered the house compound (all houses have walls around them here) and were shown into the men’s sitting room, or majilis. I think it was even a separate building from the house, and self contained. The objective of course is to prevent male guests from interacting with the wife and any daughters, and it worked very well. For exactly this reason, outside of perhaps a professional context, even asking about someone’s wife is not polite.
So I think Doug and I used every speck of Arabic to talk to the father of the house, as well as the 3 words I know in Swahili. It worked of course, not because we knew what we were doing, but because Omanis are so friendly that they’ll easily forgive any mistakes. So we all had dinner: no table, chairs, plates or silverware- a delicious spread of lamb kebabs, salad and a lentil (not spicy) curry. Doug has been a guest more than I and knew how to act the part better of beginning to stop eating and let the host encourage you along by putting more food in front of you. Its their way of making sure you eat enough, because if you’re not its not that you are not hungry, but just being shy. Again, this meal was exercise.