Beautiful beautiful water at Wadi Al-Dharbat. I think none of us had realized how much we missed seeing green. It was a bit hard to come back to the color scheme in Muscat. Tan to beige is about the width of the spectrum.
The photo of the rubble in front of the house is from the town of Maraq, heavily damaged during the war, though if you ask anyone about this they tell you that it is onl weather damage, (and some of it is, as the Dhofar region gets the summer monsoon). Supposedly the house behind me is one of the top places in the country for "jinn", i.e. it is extremely haunted. "Jinn", the source of the English word "genie", is a spirit identified b the Quran as neither human nor angel. Jinn are believed to be sometimes malicious, sometimes helpful, always powerful spirits. Oman actually has an extensive set of cultural beliefs about witches, zombies, ("mughayeb"), spirit possession ("zar"), and magicians or sorcerors. We had a lecture regarding the phenomenon of the mughayeb, in which a dead person is believed to have been only made to appear dead by a magician, and then stolen from the grave. This seems to generally correspond to unexpected deaths of individuals who were young or played an important role in society or their family. The lecturer touched on the fact that overly zealous mourning is not condoned by Islam, since, like Christianity, the soul is supposed to be residing happily in heaven ("jenna"). Therefore calling someone a "mughayeb" (subconsicously) allows the aggrieved a longer period in which to mourn, remember, look for the dead.
"Zar", or possession is apparently very common, (the first night with my family Tumathr told me that the man across the street performs exorcisms. I was almost asleep and wasn't sure if i had heard correctly). It has been recorded as occuring among all populations, despite some scholarly hypotheses that it would be more common among disempowered individuals manifesting stress in a socially-acceptable way, such as women in unhappy marriages.
Anyway, the house was quite creepy. The doorway is from an adjacent building. Assume jinn.
We are almost through with Ramadhan. Well, not quite. Am very much looking forward to "Eid Al-Iftar" (Celebration/Festival of Breaking Fast) that will come at the new moon.
Note (from a question about Ramadhan being in January): The Hijri (Islamic) calendar is based on a lunar system, which does not always match up with the solar pattern. Therefore, the first day of Ramadhan could have been one of two days. And therefore the end of Ramadhan can be one of two days. Insha'allah it will be the first day.
The food during Ramadhan has been pretty delicious though. Lots of sweets, lots of friend things. Luckily for me my family still keeps vegetables in the house during Ramadhan, (apparently some families don't), so I can chomp on a carrot if the oil and sugar gets too heavy.
Have I described what happens at iftar? We all sit on the floor, (note, in Oman it is traditional to eat on the floor, and with one's right hand. Soups are sipped from the bowl. During Ramadhan many families try to do these more traditional activities while they might usually sit at a table and use silverware. In my family we eat with ou hands anyway, which is awesome, but trickier than I would have thought). After we hear the Aden, the call from the mosque, everyone eats a few dates. Omani dates are world famous and fantastic. I had never liked dates before and now they are my favorite part of the whole meal.
Then we usually eat watermelon, sweet fried doughballs (loquimat), sambusas, (like Argentine empanadas, sort of),
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