Of course

...as soon as I sent out an email containing these posts, due to frustration at the blog's apparent inability to open, it opens.
Of course.

I am sorry that I have not kept the blog updated! Since the independent study project period began and regular classes ended, i have only been able to go online about once a week!
Insha, i will be soon able to post about THanksgiving, etc, but for now these are mostly thoughts from today and the 24th...

From November 24
Walking home from the nearest internet café after a fairly frustrating attempt at communication (faulty keyboard, blog would not load), I thought of my hurried and harried emails to people, (“Sorry! This must be quick, I have to get home, it’s after dark!”) I planned out this message that I would write in the comfort of home, and insha’allah, post later. What I wanted to communicate to everyone was how much I was thinking of them, even if I did not have the time or ability to tell them so.
This was on my mind as I walked back through the dust, black abaya billowing--I walk too quickly to be mistaken for an Omani, though if I slow down sometimes people won’t notice that I’m not. Finally getting a knack for wrapping my headscarf has helped—before it simply covered my head, now it looks artful. Or at least intentional. I am nowhere near the skill level of most women, who sport “camel heads” (piles of hair or hairclips that hold out the back of the scarf.They look like duchesses. Or dinosaurs. Passing the local Pakistani men wandering away from late prayers at the little mosque next to our house, or hanging around outside the few stores by the internet café. I recently found out that our neighborhood is known as “Pakistan” because of the number of foreign workers here. It is funny; before I sometimes felt nervous to be out walking because there were so many menand no women. But for some reason the knowledge that the area is recognized as a “dubious” neighborhood makes me feel more confident in it. Simply knowing that others acknowledge it as such. Does that make any sense?
A cat scoots across the road ahead of a car. Cats are numerous here, though perhaps not quite as numerous as in Cyprus. However, in Cyprus they were featured on postcards, whereas here no one pays any attention to them. Perhaps there are actually more here but I simply don’t notice them. More cars pass—if people complain about anything, (and Omanis do not generally complain much), it is usually about traffic. Muscat, stretched out along a jagged and mountainous coast, does not allow for much flexibility in city planning or traffic minimalization. Until they build a mass transit system, (and who knows if that will ever happen), the traffic is just going to get worse and worse. I am thankful that no one honks at me on the way home…usually this happens, though a night it is harder to tell than I am a foreigner. Men here honestly seem to believe that if they honk at a white woman, she will jump into his car ready for sex; thank you Hollywood and MTV.
I return home, pull the large gate shut behind me, ( by law all houses in Muscat have exterior walls and gates and are painted white or some other shade of pale). The house is locked, there is only one key, since usually someone is home and the only time it is locked is from the inside, at night, so I call through a window to my brother to open the kitchen door. My sisters are inside studying, the maid is praying in the majlis (sitting room—she is an elderly Christian lady from India. She adores the youngest boy and favors him above the other kids. Her voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard, and used to have a similar effect on me, but I like her. She works very hard…I feel that I have written about her already, and I probably have. I have felt strange at times for not particularly liking her, and berating myself because she works so hard, her life is hard, she is far from home, etc etc. But then again, if I were to tie her up with the neat little ribbons of victimhood and subsquently feel only pity towards her as such, I would deny who she is, her personhood. She is more valid and human as a grouchy old woman with a voice to skin sheep than as a victim. Then again, she is both. In any case, I like her better now. I think before I was afraid of her.

From November 28Just in time to catch the sun’s entirety, poised above the edge of the stage, preparing for a lengethning exit. It is only 5pm—during ramadhan we had to wait until 6:30 for the sun to finally give in. The air is cool and fresh, an Indian couple walks along the dusty road, the sound of hammers and the occasional shout, carhorn, or babycry are melted by the ongoing ignorable rush of the distant highway. It has been a long time since Ramadhan irritability and my siblings’ drove me onto the roof for maghreb (sunset prayer/”evening”). Now the evening’s natural nostalgia has a different quality, no longer that of an unsure swimmer in a torrent, taking a moment to grab a boulder before taking a deep breath and diving back into the flow of an unfamiliar routine. Now the river, unchanged, seems a trickle… I wait here in an eddy, waiting for the rush of new travel to make me struggle again.

The family is at the beach…having interviewed my health into the ground last week, am recovering and preparing to begin analysis. If anyone was patient enough to read the research project I prepared on psychological empowerment in Cyprus, this project invovled twice the participants with even more extensive questions. Wish me luck on writing the paper. This time the subject has more to do with nation-studies: talking to Omanis, mostly college students from all over the country enrolled at Sultan Qaboos University, (the first of three in the country, established 1986), about Omani history, their hopes for the future, and “characterizations” of Oman, the meaning of the colors in the flag and the khanjar, Oman’s national symbol. I also asked them to choose from a list of images and words the three that in their opinion best represented Oman. The research tries to gauge the extent to which the students’ responses mirrored the official rhetoric put forth by the government, (i.e. Sultan Qaboos, who holds almost every possible rein of power), regarding Omani history, characterizations of Oman, etc. Although, not unexpectedly, peoples’ responses closely match the official spiel, I focus on aspects of the narrated Omani identity that relate to peace. The Sultan won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, (have not yet verified this, but have heard it from various sources), and Oman’s foreign policy reflects careful neutrality. I was interested to see whether people would articulate this when speaking about Oman in general, and many do. It is hard to know, however, how closely people’s behavior or thinking would match this official non-aggressiveness, when not being asked questions by an American student.

The adan echoes out; young men stream out of the brush across the street as they do every evening, preparing to change into dishdasha from their sweaty soccer jerseys.
I used to feel embarrassed if someone looked up and noticed me, perched next to the water tower. Now I stare down any boy impudent enough to keep looking. Roof culture is popular, though luckily for me our neighbors do not venture out very often. Our cat, Sandy, has wandered onto the roof and is staring admiringly at the neighbor’s chickens, roosting in a nearby tree. Sandy tends to bite if you pet her, but I am still glad to have a pet around, most houses don’t.

The mosquitos are coming out, (a huge pesticide campaign in the 70’s nearly eradicated malarial mosquito populations, although there are still enough of the buggers to earn Oman a malaria precaution)—I will go now to buy a phone card and to the internet café. Insha’allah the blog will load and I will be able to post this.
I miss everyone, am feeling ready to return home, though not before what I hope will be a fantastic trip to Yemen and Egypt. Thanks as always for patience with delayed communication…I really hope the blog works today!