Eid!

Photos:
After a later night filled with last minute preparations of perfuming dresses with "bhuhoor", the sweet and smoky incense that keeps houses and people from ever smelling of dust for the former, B.O. for the latter, we awoke early on the first of Eid. The usual flurry of activity was feverish, though I took a moment to enjoy my first cup of morning tea in a month. Khaled arrived to wrap the little boys' turbans, (which Amran of course took off within moments, though Lokhman managed to keep his on all day). Lakshmi, our housekeeper, looks on. She dotes on Amran, though he could care less; she later asked me to take a photo with both little boys which I wil try to print out and give to her.
Huda, one of my favorite cousins, stands in front of the piles of shoes at the doorway of one of the family houses in Al-Amrat, (a town about thirty minutes south of Muscat). This was our first stop of the day, where we had boko-boko, the Swahili word for Omani harees, or rice paste with sweet meat sauce and ghee. And of course lots of sweets, coffee, fruit. After that we "salim-salim"ed (went visiting) for the rest of the day, hitting five other houses before having lunch and a break at Hobo's house, Khaled's mother, where SIT student Heather lives. (photo of me, Heather, and Charlie taken outside Hobo's door; Charlie lives with Khaled's sister's family).
After lunch I lost count of how many houses we visited, me and my five siblings and Mama Naila piling in and out of the van, removing our shoes at the door, coming and greeting everyone, sitting down, being offered sweets and coffee, which must be accepted. We met up with Heather and Charlie's families and traveled in a caravan, taking each house by storm. We weren't home till 2am.
The photos of the little girls was taken on the street--like Halloween, little kids get dressed up and go from house to house. Though as Lokhman shows in the photo, they get 100 or 200 beza, (100 beza=1 Rial, so around fifty cents to a dollar). The kids make a killing. Teenagers or nonmarrieds sometimes get money too, I got about 2Rials.