Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
India, the Acronym
I am sitting at my desk in school on our first day back from Christmas break. The goats are prancing around outside in the dusty lot across the street from my classroom window. The sky is a deep blue and visibility is near perfect… so different from smoggy New Delhi! In some ways, it feels very good to be back in RAK. My goal was to write about India by the weekend. I find myself with an unexpected bit of time… or should I say CHUNK of time. My ONE student, Sammy, is in New York with his mother and ailing grandmother, and will not be back until January 18. January 18??? I have 12 days to plan the rest of the year’s curriculum, but today I am sneaking in a little blog writing.
India… Rachel, Sam’s teacher, told me there is an acronym; “I’ll Never Do It Again (India).” I laughed when I heard that, and there is a part of me that understands. The wretched poverty is hard, hard to look at, and so much harder to live, I am sure. The tourist traveler to India feels guilty about the inequity. You’d have to be made of stone not to… The smells are strong, trash is everywhere, and in a country of a billion people, it is very hard to find a corner of the sidewalk to call your own. So many people, so many beggars, and a seething mass of humanity that made me wish, at times, that I was on a very long walk in the mountains instead.
That said, Ryer called India (arguably), “the most spiritual place on earth.” And it seemed to be, especially in the last few days, when we stayed in Neemrana at the Neemrana Fort Hotel. I began to finally see what it is that makes India such a unique place, especially from an American perspective. The November Mumbai attacks would cast a shadow on our trip, and many western visitors backed out of India travel plans, but I never felt unsafe, beyond the usual third world travel fears of pick pocketing and illness.
Ryer, Sam and I would have had a much, much less interesting time without the careful planning of Clayton, his staff at the travel office, and Ted. Ted initially outlined our visit on a scrap of paper while the uncles visited us in the UAE in October. I turned that paper into an agenda and a direct email request to Clayton’s staff to help us plan our visit. Clayton oversaw the whole process, and monitored the endless correspondences I had with Varun at the embassy. The final product was about a week in New Delhi, two days in Agra and Jaipur, three in the hill station Shimla, and four days in Neemrana with the whole gang: Ryer, Sam, Clayton and Ted - this last trip courtesy of Ted and Clayton, an extremely generous and memorable New Year’s gift, and my favorite part of the trip.
Visitors to India invariably go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We spent a day touring the Taj. It was just as spectacular as the pictures. Our guide talked to us for hours, pointing out many of the unique elements of the building, which was designed by a Turk. I think of Melanie Harquail talking about her mother droning on in Greece. “The only thing I hate more than Greek ruins is listening to my mom read out of the guide book about Greek ruins,” said Melanie, 30 years ago, when our two families backpacked together to Greece for the month of July. I still share her sentiments, though I should have grown out of that.
Put it this way. I remember approximately a dozen things our guide told us about the Taj, but the most interesting facts are as follows. The man who built the Taj did so in memory of his third and favorite wife, who bore him 12 children and probably died from that. His son imprisoned him so he would not build a second Taj Mahal, exactly like the first, but black, the foundation of which you can still see, but that was never built. A second Taj would have drained the coffers, so the son put his father under house arrest rather than let this happen. Next, the carvings in the walls, done with semiprecious stones like onyx and jasper, are unbelievably detailed. It must have taken so many craftsmen so long to produce that work. Last, all four guard towers that surround the Taj tilt outward, so that if there were an earthquake, the towers would fall away from rather than toward the Taj. There were zillions of people visiting the day we were there. There was no time for quiet contemplation, but I felt lucky to see it with my own eyes.
I remember when my sister Alison went to Jerusalem two decades ago. When we first got there, she looked around and said, “Hey! I really LIKE this town!” Of course I jeered endlessly - it’s only the holiest city in the world, blah, blah, blah. I lectured her about her irreverence. Well, it’s my turn now. I really LIKED that building!
Jaipur was the next day’s stop. We stayed in a lovely hotel, and did some shopping and touring around. The city has a fortress wall around it. Sam asked if it was the Great Wall of China, and it did look like a miniature version. Ryer was impressed by the opulence of our two hotels in Agra and Jaipur, not our usual Colorado bum fare, but a treat on ANY budget, and certainly for us.
Christmas morning came next, with a lovely tree, decorated by all in the household. While we all enjoyed the lovely gifts sent to us from afar, Sam was the clear victor in the best loot competition. Thanks to all for your generosity. Sam is a lucky little boy, and it was never more apparent than on Christmas day in India. I opened one ornament from Mom. The tag said, Made in India. This meant that the ornament had been sent to the states from India, where mom bought it. She then wrapped it and sent it back to me in India. Mind-boggling, when you think about it.
Our next journey was to the mountains, and we traveled there in a tiny toy train. The train consisted of one car, 15 seats and three passengers: Ryer, Sam and me, as well as the driver and a monosyllabic Sikh guard. The train ride took seven hours. We chugged along the single track at about 20 mph, and passed through 103 underground tunnels and over many trestles in the course of our journey. Shimla is a beautiful mountain town, mist-enshrouded at this time of year, and quite chilly. I was sick there, haunted by the remnants of a Christmas day case of Delhi Belly, possibly contracted at the French Embassy during a seven-course repast on Christmas Eve. The meal was among the finest I have ever tasted, and Ted reminds me that Delhi Belly can be picked up anywhere, and can linger in your poor belly for several days before striking, ruining your life, and causing “shuking,” which is a combination of words and actions that, with a bit of deciphering, is part of this process.
Ryer made a healthier show, and escorted Sam about town while I languished in the room. There were many things that made this three-day journey memorable, from the strangely stentorian breathing of our nightly Indian waiter at the hotel restaurant, to the “Newborn Hotel” and “Shimla Toilet Complex” signs we saw posted up around town. The flight back to Delhi on Kingfisher Airlines was much delayed, and we barely made last call when we finally set off in our rickety plane on the tiny mountain runway at dusk; these planes can’t fly out of the Shimla airport at night.
Whenever we were back in Delhi, Ryer and I felt a tremendous sense of relief. We would relax, read, venture out in an auto rickshaw with Sam, and tour the sights a bit. The uncles’ compound is so spacious and the house so elegantly furnished, and we were so comfortable, that it was often hard to make ourselves leave for the next mini-trip. There are several servants in Ted and Clayton’s home, and all of the servants’ careful ministrations lent to Sam’s sense of grandiosity. Sam spent many hours playing with Sam the dog, and with Vippin, the security guard. Vippin is an attractive Indian in his mid-twenties, with a sweet and patient manner, and Sam idolized him. Sam also borrowed Vippin’s security guard hat, and his whistle, radio, and night stick. Plus Sam patrolled the walls in the stiff manner of Buckingham Palace guards, whom we saw in London last August. Additionally, Sam created a sign-in log and checked all undercarriages for bombs. Poor Vippin. He was tremendously patient with Sam’s nonstop antics. I tipped him out when we left, but probably no amount was enough to pay him back for all of that nonsense. Sam did get Mrs. Rai to wash Vippin’s uniform, which Vippin informed Sam, “had not been washed in two years.” We are hoping something was lost in translation.
Our final leg of the journey involved the whole gang, driven by Mr. Samuel, the Bond/Osius chauffer. Originally, I thought I would just write about Neemrana and skip the rest of the trip. That was how great Neemrana was, and it was here that I decided that India stood not for the previously mentioned insulting acronym, but instead, “I Need Daily Indian Affirmations (India),” like Mahatma Gandhi’s, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Or, “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.” Or, “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry and anyone who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” Or, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” All wise words spoken by a venerated national leader.
Back to Neemrana. Ted and Clayton knew we would love the Neemrana Fort Hotel, and of course we did. This hotel is one of the most unique places I have ever seen, much less slept in. The hotel is a reconstructed/refurbished military fort perched up on a hillside above the village, which is two hours from Delhi by car. We had four glorious, relaxing days and nights there. The hotel consists of 80 rooms, each entirely different in size, shape, decoration and functionality. Our room had a rock wall in the bathroom and looked out over a haunted, gloomy moat, which echoed with the sounds of pigeons cooing and parrots babbling. It also carried eerie strains of Indian music issuing from the town at night (or from centuries ago, as my spooked, middle-of-the-night imagination conjured it up to be). Ryer slept in what I referred to as his aerie bower. He was way at the top of the nine levels of fort and had two old stone decks. Ted and Clayton had a slightly less interesting room, but with fabulous furnishings and a very high bed. Because Sam “worked” the staff so very hard during our four days and made many friends, as he is wont to do when he is in the vicinity of a 5 star hotel, we were all upgraded to the “Deva Majal” presidential suite for our last night. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two enormous stone decks, and a round room decorated with the busts of old rajahs.
In fact, I took a four-hour audio tour, and I could not find a single boring thing to look at, anywhere. There were twisting steps, turrets, balconies, artwork, cannons, dizzying drops, myriad lights, pools, hanging gardens, twisting walkways, latticework, and even a “loo with a view” near the reception, with windows in its vast circular space that looked out on miles of countryside. I will never, ever forget the elegance, the spookiness, the beauty, the delectability (of the food) and the hospitality of the staff. If you are not married, or want to remarry your sweetie, or renew vows, or get away from kids, this is the place to do it.
I have been happily clacking away at my keyboard all morning, luxuriating in my extra time, but I have just promised the librarian that I would stamp books this afternoon with our school label. Besides, I can’t even imagine who would read THIS far in a travelogue. If you did, thanks for bearing with me.
I hope and trust all will be well in 2009. Fourteen days till Wash D.C. gets all kinds of shook up, but who is counting, right Ted?
India… Rachel, Sam’s teacher, told me there is an acronym; “I’ll Never Do It Again (India).” I laughed when I heard that, and there is a part of me that understands. The wretched poverty is hard, hard to look at, and so much harder to live, I am sure. The tourist traveler to India feels guilty about the inequity. You’d have to be made of stone not to… The smells are strong, trash is everywhere, and in a country of a billion people, it is very hard to find a corner of the sidewalk to call your own. So many people, so many beggars, and a seething mass of humanity that made me wish, at times, that I was on a very long walk in the mountains instead.
That said, Ryer called India (arguably), “the most spiritual place on earth.” And it seemed to be, especially in the last few days, when we stayed in Neemrana at the Neemrana Fort Hotel. I began to finally see what it is that makes India such a unique place, especially from an American perspective. The November Mumbai attacks would cast a shadow on our trip, and many western visitors backed out of India travel plans, but I never felt unsafe, beyond the usual third world travel fears of pick pocketing and illness.
Ryer, Sam and I would have had a much, much less interesting time without the careful planning of Clayton, his staff at the travel office, and Ted. Ted initially outlined our visit on a scrap of paper while the uncles visited us in the UAE in October. I turned that paper into an agenda and a direct email request to Clayton’s staff to help us plan our visit. Clayton oversaw the whole process, and monitored the endless correspondences I had with Varun at the embassy. The final product was about a week in New Delhi, two days in Agra and Jaipur, three in the hill station Shimla, and four days in Neemrana with the whole gang: Ryer, Sam, Clayton and Ted - this last trip courtesy of Ted and Clayton, an extremely generous and memorable New Year’s gift, and my favorite part of the trip.
Visitors to India invariably go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We spent a day touring the Taj. It was just as spectacular as the pictures. Our guide talked to us for hours, pointing out many of the unique elements of the building, which was designed by a Turk. I think of Melanie Harquail talking about her mother droning on in Greece. “The only thing I hate more than Greek ruins is listening to my mom read out of the guide book about Greek ruins,” said Melanie, 30 years ago, when our two families backpacked together to Greece for the month of July. I still share her sentiments, though I should have grown out of that.
Put it this way. I remember approximately a dozen things our guide told us about the Taj, but the most interesting facts are as follows. The man who built the Taj did so in memory of his third and favorite wife, who bore him 12 children and probably died from that. His son imprisoned him so he would not build a second Taj Mahal, exactly like the first, but black, the foundation of which you can still see, but that was never built. A second Taj would have drained the coffers, so the son put his father under house arrest rather than let this happen. Next, the carvings in the walls, done with semiprecious stones like onyx and jasper, are unbelievably detailed. It must have taken so many craftsmen so long to produce that work. Last, all four guard towers that surround the Taj tilt outward, so that if there were an earthquake, the towers would fall away from rather than toward the Taj. There were zillions of people visiting the day we were there. There was no time for quiet contemplation, but I felt lucky to see it with my own eyes.
I remember when my sister Alison went to Jerusalem two decades ago. When we first got there, she looked around and said, “Hey! I really LIKE this town!” Of course I jeered endlessly - it’s only the holiest city in the world, blah, blah, blah. I lectured her about her irreverence. Well, it’s my turn now. I really LIKED that building!
Jaipur was the next day’s stop. We stayed in a lovely hotel, and did some shopping and touring around. The city has a fortress wall around it. Sam asked if it was the Great Wall of China, and it did look like a miniature version. Ryer was impressed by the opulence of our two hotels in Agra and Jaipur, not our usual Colorado bum fare, but a treat on ANY budget, and certainly for us.
Christmas morning came next, with a lovely tree, decorated by all in the household. While we all enjoyed the lovely gifts sent to us from afar, Sam was the clear victor in the best loot competition. Thanks to all for your generosity. Sam is a lucky little boy, and it was never more apparent than on Christmas day in India. I opened one ornament from Mom. The tag said, Made in India. This meant that the ornament had been sent to the states from India, where mom bought it. She then wrapped it and sent it back to me in India. Mind-boggling, when you think about it.
Our next journey was to the mountains, and we traveled there in a tiny toy train. The train consisted of one car, 15 seats and three passengers: Ryer, Sam and me, as well as the driver and a monosyllabic Sikh guard. The train ride took seven hours. We chugged along the single track at about 20 mph, and passed through 103 underground tunnels and over many trestles in the course of our journey. Shimla is a beautiful mountain town, mist-enshrouded at this time of year, and quite chilly. I was sick there, haunted by the remnants of a Christmas day case of Delhi Belly, possibly contracted at the French Embassy during a seven-course repast on Christmas Eve. The meal was among the finest I have ever tasted, and Ted reminds me that Delhi Belly can be picked up anywhere, and can linger in your poor belly for several days before striking, ruining your life, and causing “shuking,” which is a combination of words and actions that, with a bit of deciphering, is part of this process.
Ryer made a healthier show, and escorted Sam about town while I languished in the room. There were many things that made this three-day journey memorable, from the strangely stentorian breathing of our nightly Indian waiter at the hotel restaurant, to the “Newborn Hotel” and “Shimla Toilet Complex” signs we saw posted up around town. The flight back to Delhi on Kingfisher Airlines was much delayed, and we barely made last call when we finally set off in our rickety plane on the tiny mountain runway at dusk; these planes can’t fly out of the Shimla airport at night.
Whenever we were back in Delhi, Ryer and I felt a tremendous sense of relief. We would relax, read, venture out in an auto rickshaw with Sam, and tour the sights a bit. The uncles’ compound is so spacious and the house so elegantly furnished, and we were so comfortable, that it was often hard to make ourselves leave for the next mini-trip. There are several servants in Ted and Clayton’s home, and all of the servants’ careful ministrations lent to Sam’s sense of grandiosity. Sam spent many hours playing with Sam the dog, and with Vippin, the security guard. Vippin is an attractive Indian in his mid-twenties, with a sweet and patient manner, and Sam idolized him. Sam also borrowed Vippin’s security guard hat, and his whistle, radio, and night stick. Plus Sam patrolled the walls in the stiff manner of Buckingham Palace guards, whom we saw in London last August. Additionally, Sam created a sign-in log and checked all undercarriages for bombs. Poor Vippin. He was tremendously patient with Sam’s nonstop antics. I tipped him out when we left, but probably no amount was enough to pay him back for all of that nonsense. Sam did get Mrs. Rai to wash Vippin’s uniform, which Vippin informed Sam, “had not been washed in two years.” We are hoping something was lost in translation.
Our final leg of the journey involved the whole gang, driven by Mr. Samuel, the Bond/Osius chauffer. Originally, I thought I would just write about Neemrana and skip the rest of the trip. That was how great Neemrana was, and it was here that I decided that India stood not for the previously mentioned insulting acronym, but instead, “I Need Daily Indian Affirmations (India),” like Mahatma Gandhi’s, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Or, “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.” Or, “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry and anyone who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” Or, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” All wise words spoken by a venerated national leader.
Back to Neemrana. Ted and Clayton knew we would love the Neemrana Fort Hotel, and of course we did. This hotel is one of the most unique places I have ever seen, much less slept in. The hotel is a reconstructed/refurbished military fort perched up on a hillside above the village, which is two hours from Delhi by car. We had four glorious, relaxing days and nights there. The hotel consists of 80 rooms, each entirely different in size, shape, decoration and functionality. Our room had a rock wall in the bathroom and looked out over a haunted, gloomy moat, which echoed with the sounds of pigeons cooing and parrots babbling. It also carried eerie strains of Indian music issuing from the town at night (or from centuries ago, as my spooked, middle-of-the-night imagination conjured it up to be). Ryer slept in what I referred to as his aerie bower. He was way at the top of the nine levels of fort and had two old stone decks. Ted and Clayton had a slightly less interesting room, but with fabulous furnishings and a very high bed. Because Sam “worked” the staff so very hard during our four days and made many friends, as he is wont to do when he is in the vicinity of a 5 star hotel, we were all upgraded to the “Deva Majal” presidential suite for our last night. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two enormous stone decks, and a round room decorated with the busts of old rajahs.
In fact, I took a four-hour audio tour, and I could not find a single boring thing to look at, anywhere. There were twisting steps, turrets, balconies, artwork, cannons, dizzying drops, myriad lights, pools, hanging gardens, twisting walkways, latticework, and even a “loo with a view” near the reception, with windows in its vast circular space that looked out on miles of countryside. I will never, ever forget the elegance, the spookiness, the beauty, the delectability (of the food) and the hospitality of the staff. If you are not married, or want to remarry your sweetie, or renew vows, or get away from kids, this is the place to do it.
I have been happily clacking away at my keyboard all morning, luxuriating in my extra time, but I have just promised the librarian that I would stamp books this afternoon with our school label. Besides, I can’t even imagine who would read THIS far in a travelogue. If you did, thanks for bearing with me.
I hope and trust all will be well in 2009. Fourteen days till Wash D.C. gets all kinds of shook up, but who is counting, right Ted?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
When Possible, Make a U-Turn
Road Tripping to Oman
What four women and one eight year old thought would be a casual drive to Turtle Bay in Oman turned into a fourteen hour nightmare. Sure, we knew the trip was sort of ill-planned. Rachel had gotten a hold of someone at this desert camp, and we were signed up to sleep there for four nights. If the camp was two hours south of Muscat, how far could it be? When you look at a map, the UAE and Oman are both smooshed up there in the top of the Arabian Peninsula. There was a mountain range between us and the east coast of Oman, but nothing that looked too hairy to navigate. Plus, in our two cars, we would have the supreme navigation skills of Sylvia, Bethany and Neena’s GPS, who delivered directions in a clipped, toneless, British fashion and my more emotional Gert, a hot pink GPS set to American English, who made her directional pronouncements in a voice alternating from one of maternal pride, when I was on track, to chiding annoyance, if I inadvertently took the wrong route.
Our first mistake was a late start. I had emphatically insisted on an 8:45 a.m. start for our car, which would contain Neena, Sam, all our gear, and me. Bethany and Rachel were to go in the other car, and they were ready at the appointed hour. Neena was not. She had another Master’s degree online course paper due, and its spectral presence was to haunt us on this trip. Having worked on it late the night before, Neena overslept, so by the time she got herself and her computer with the half-written paper sorted out, it was close to 10 a.m.
We still weren’t worried. The trip looked to be about eight hours long, so without turning on our GPS’s, we made our way to the border. We’d already been there three times to have our visitor visas renewed. The border is an hour away, and the check-through usually takes about 45 minutes. We were finally on the Omani side when Bethany had a spirited discussion with an Omani guard.
“He seems to be saying we can’t get to Muscat from this border,” she said, puzzled. Was there a language barrier? “He says we need to go back to Fujairah and drive to the border that way.”
“No. I am not doing that,” I said, in disbelief. We were in the country already, couldn’t we just start heading right, over to the eastern coast?
“Well, yes,” said the guard in Arabic, “but it is a four wheel drive road and your Yaris’s will never make it!”
We had unwittingly driven to the wrong border. There was no real road to Muscat from this border! This was a major setback. Now we needed to drive back to the UAE, across the country, and enter Oman from the west coast. Tempers frayed as we negotiated our way back through the border checkpoints. Whose damn fault was this? No one’s apparently. Just a wrong assumption, that if we drove to Oman, we could get to where we were going. At 1 p.m. we were headed back to the UAE and to Fujairah.
At this point we relaxed into knowing that it was going to be a very long trip. As we neared the second border crossing, we had the Arabian Sea to our left, and the imposing, dry, wrinkled and jutting Hajar Mountains to our right. At least the drive was picturesque. We were passing through a succession of small coastal towns, with fishing boats and center roundabouts, and the beautiful omnipresent mosques in every town.
The second border crossing was nearly painless, and with Sylvia and Gert bleating directions, we pressed on. At one point, many hours later, and after a quick meal at one of the ubiquitous, yet unnervingly friendly (our first exposure to sunny Omani personalities) McDonalds, Gert and Sylvia began to quarrel. The lead car had different directions. Sylvia barked repeatedly, “When possible, make a u-turn!” Gert sounded disappointed by our failure to follow her directions. In the pitch dark, Rachel was now driving my car, and Neena and Bethany were in the lead. We had gotten separated twice, so Rachel made the decision to turn our GPS off, and just follow their directions.
Once past Muscat, and with an almost full moon hanging overhead, we turned onto a brand new road, which headed up into the mountains to Sur, close to our final destination. This road was so new, that the tollbooths were unmanned, and they loomed ghostly, as we squeezed through one unblocked gate. Even more alarmingly, big thick white arrows painted on the tarmac pointed toward us on our side of the road, showing that the flow of traffic was coming towards us, yet we were one of several cars moving in our direction. We finally concluded that the road was so new, they were using it as a dual carriageway, and would later cut off traffic moving in our direction and reroute it onto a yet to be built road.
Soon after midnight the GPS (which I had sneakily turned on again) revealed the merrily waving black and white checked flag marking our final destination. Gert beamed, “You have reached your final destination!” Turtle Bay Beach Resort was eerily quiet. There were cars in the parking lot and the gates were open, but no one was around to check us in.
Finally, Bethany and Rachel decided to put up their tent in a strongly whipping wind. A late arriving Indian family helped them to secure the tent to the car. Neena originally planned to sleep in the car, but finally she settled on my choice. An old shipping boat had been reconstructed into an open-air restaurant by the beach. I tucked Sam into his sleeping bag on some cushions and stroked his wiry hair until he calmed down enough to sleep. Then Neena and I sat by the beach and enjoyed arrival cocktails while watching the millions of stars in the sky compete with the glitter of phosphorescent algae sparking in the waves by the beach. It was such a beautiful spot that Neena, a self-proclaimed “I’ll flirt with a fly” kind of girl, told me that because it was so beautiful out, with the wind and the waves and the stars, that she thought she might have to propose to me. I declined, much to her relief. But it was a special spot, with its thatched date frond huts on the beach, and gaily-strung Christmas lights. For those romantically inclined, and with the right person, mind you, I would highly recommend it.
The next morning, we awoke in the stern of the boat to the disapproving face of an Indian worker. “Where are your reservations,” he demanded prissily. “Poff? Rachel? Osius? Lanier? Engman?” I said helpfully. The long and short of it was we had crashed at the WRONG resort, and a significantly more expensive one at that. We hastily packed our sleeping bags, repacked the cars, and after misplaced key hunting for twenty minutes, (Neena, the other car) we beat a hasty retreat. We arrived at the second resort by 9 a.m. The Nazreeb camp, at first sight, was daunting. Where was the promised beach? The turtles?
Tiny, squat huts surrounded the perimeter, which was encompassed by barbed wire, to keep the goats out, we later learned. Tall, parched mountains ringed the camp. The sun beat down, the wind whipped through the camp, throwing sand up into our faces. The place looked deserted.
“This place looks like a refugee camp!” a disappointed Rachel exploded. I sank down onto the rickety wooden platform behind my ugly hut. Bethany and Rachel and I looked around, disheartened. Suddenly I began to laugh, and laugh. “Wow. I’ve never seen you laugh like this,” said Bethany, slightly disconcerted. My laughter turned into tears. After hours of traveling and after seeing the beauty of the other resort ($135 a night), we were going to stay here? Rachel comforted me. We’ve all broken down at various times here. Apparently my time had come. “It’ll be alright, Lucy! You and Sam take a nap. This will seem better after you have rested.” I knew she was right, so I took Sam into the hut, read him a few bedtime stories at 11 in the morning, read my own book, and fell into a deep sleep to the relaxing sound of the date fronds, which made up our hut walls, swishing in the wind. It sounded like ocean waves crashing on a shore, when in reality, the shore was three or four kilometers away.
Four p.m., and we were all awake, if groggy. The desolate camp had been transformed during our nap. The light was softer. The camp bustled with activity. Now it seemed more like a United Nations gathering than a refugee camp. Families of all nationalities roamed around in colorful clothes. We all walked over to the central gathering area in the middle of the camp, which was split into two parts: two cement ledges, 25x25 feet each, covered with carpets and pillows and the fire pit area, and a second, open-air dining area. I walked into the dining room. There were several Bedouins lounging in plastic chairs. “I am Ali,” said one. He flashed me a blinding white smile, delivered with a quick wink. He would later tell us that the wink to Arabs is somewhat naughty, signifying dishonorable attentions. Dressed in a floor length kandora and with a turquoise blue patterned scarf wrapped jauntily around his head, the sight of dashing Ali brightened up the camp, and our spirits, enormously.
In the course of our two nights at the camp, Ali would become our ally, and Neena’s romantic interest. Ali was 27 years old, heart stoppingly handsome, with a contagious, devilish smile. He smelled heavenly, and we would later learn that he scented himself with two colognes, alternating between his favorite scent, “First Love,” and another, “Love in Tea City.” In fact, Ali was all about love, with his “sweetie” of a truck, rakishly decked out with red crushed velvet and tan fur, and his ceaseless flirting. Like Neena, I had the feeling that Ali could also “flirt with a fly.” They were well matched. Ali, who had worked at the camp for 6 years, attached himself to our little coterie. He would become our friend and bridge to the Omani/Bedouin culture, and he’d been around enough westerners, that even the worst faux pax (like Neena repeatedly asking him if she looked like a pig, while we tried to shush her, and he feigned a lack of understanding) left him unfazed. Handsome Ali had never been to school, yet he had traveled around Europe with a previous Austrian girlfriend, “who broke my heart,” he told us somberly. He had also never brushed his teeth with a toothbrush, ever. He used water and some type of metal pick, accompanied by chewing some native plant for fresh breath. I thought of the European mouths we’d seen on this trip, with their gnarled, greyish teeth. Ali of the strong white teeth might be onto something.
While Ali lent his own flair to our visit, so did many of the other guests, who hailed from Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and other far flung locales. Rachel named the cement block meeting spot “the Peace Couch,” because of all of the nationalities hanging together and talking peacefully. Sam played soccer, or “football” with kids from four or five different countries, while we talked to the parents. The food at dinner was surprisingly good, with chopped cucumber, carrot and tomato, hot Arab bread, Dahl and rice, and roasted lamb and chicken.
Later that night, we drove en caravan to the science center for turtle viewing. Because of the full moon, the turtles were scarce, but we saw a large mamma, who had ambled onto the beach to lay her eggs, and who was making her laborious way back to the sea, having found the sand an unsatisfactory texture and temperature for laying eggs. The beach was pockmarked with huge holes, where the turtles dug with enormous flippers and buried their eggs. The babies, buried a meter down, spend three to five days digging up to the surface, where they make their break for the sea. If they do make it (and only three in one thousand do), they swim for three days without stopping or eating.
Our guide, Saeed, was knowledgeable, but his English showed his Arab origins. The p and b are often confused. Please becomes Bleaze, and the g is often mispronounced. Saeed was a stern guide. “Ladies and Gentlemen! (Pronounced with a hard g) I have some important scientific information for you. Bleaze! Be quiet!” A particularly recalcitrant and annoyingly amorous group of dark skinned males continued to talk during his presentation, draped all over each other, giggling and interrupting.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. INDIANS!” roared Saed. We gasped and giggled at his very un-PC comment, but the Indians didn’t seem to mind, and quieted down to listen. We saw a little baby boy turtle struggling to the sea. Turtles follow the brightest light, so we were not allowed to take photos with flashes. At one point, someone slipped up, their flash lighting up the dark night. Saeed hurried over, shouting, “Give me that camera this instant!” I was glad it wasn’t one of us.
I fell asleep early, with the book on my chest and the light still on. The generator shut down at 11:30 p.m. I woke up some time after that, cold and needing a bathroom badly. Outside of the hut, the wind moaned and the sky was lit up with millions upon millions of stars. It was dark and cold. I decided it was too dark to try and get to the outhouses, and thought to relieve myself behind the fence, the choice of hundreds before me, I suspected. I looked over by the girls’ cabin and saw a tall,wide, dark mass, with what appeared to be an arm up in a crooked position. I froze. It froze. I stared into the darkness for a long time and finally decided it was some sort of sign or something. The next day I saw it was a squat firebox on long, spindly legs. Rachel and I laughed. She’d seen it the night before as well, and decided it was a man, but because of his skinny legs, she thought, ever the ex-cop, that she could probably take him out if she needed to. I could just imagine her crashing into the firebox, fullback style, to the sound of splintering wood.
The next day we woke up, had coffee, fruit, boiled eggs, and a delectable dish, inauspiciously named foul medammes. Foul medammes are not dirty maidens, but tomato, onion, and garlic navy beans, as far as we could tell, and they are delicious. More lounging around for all of us, and a trip to the beach occupied our day. Neena and I walked to and from the beach, several miles round trip. Bethany and Rachel took Sam straight there in the car. In the daylight, the beach was lovely, and full of dozens of chattering, kandora wearing teen-age boys, who were much interested in our group. We posed for pictures with them and Sam clambered up on the beach cliffs, with the other boys leading the way and guiding Sam over the rough spots.
We decided to leave the next day. The camp was lovely after all, and colorful and warm, despite my first, very tired impressions. We met friendly people, exchanged cards, and in the case of Ali and Neena, pictures and phone numbers. Ali met us in Sur on our way out, where we toured the souk and bought traditional Omani hats, as well as perfume, insense, and Omani long, colorful dresses.
While we explored Sur, Sam planted himself between Neena and Ali, firmly seat belted in. He wasn’t budging, a formidable eight-year-old chaperone, while I chauffeured them around, alone in the front. We made quite a sight, I am sure. And since Ali couldn’t get to Neena, he covered Sam’s sweet little head and cheek with his Bedouin man kisses, thirty of them at least. Ali is one of 12 children, and apparently he is quite comfortable with little squirts like Sam. Neena pronounced herself jealous, since Sam was the recipient of all of his attention. When we parted, with the three of us going north, Ali saluted us goodbye by doing a donut on the tarmac in his truck. Then he and Neena proceeded to send each other googly text messages. His ran along the lines of “Ali x yoar beckshar,” which meant he was kissing Neena’s picture.
While Bethany and Rachel headed back to the UAE, Neena and Sam and I decided to spend one more night in Oman. We’d finally found an internet site to send off her dastardly paper, which had reared its ugly head on each of the successive days. So, since that responsibility was dealt with, and everyone we met was so nice, and the scenery was spectacular, why hurry home? We headed for Sohar, a town halfway home, and got there about 7 p.m. at night. We stayed in a bizarre, crumbling, and previously 5 star sort of fortress. There was a manicured lawn and pool, but the gates to the beach had all fallen away, and there was a sense of general disrepair. Sam had spaghetti through room service, as he’s becoming quite fond of it. After he fell asleep, Neena and I crept over the balcony on our ground floor room, and made two forays out onto the grounds, with frequent stops back to the room, where Sam remained slumbering deeply.
Our first stop was the pool bar, where an appallingly drunk member of Omani royalty, a gentleman by the name of Hassan, tried to lure us into his cherry red Hummer, parked on the beach. “We would love to show you our beautiful beaches,” he pronounced, while his trench coated bodyguard lurked around nearby. We declined. We also made a short trip to a nightclub about 50 yards away, again, after a check on Sam.
I’ve read somewhere that if the split of men to women in any given place is ever more of a disparity than 60/40, get out of there (sorry guys, but this is supposed to be true). This garish bar was awash with bored looking men, idly watching three scantily clad Filipinas belt out rotten 70’s tunes. Though it was not frightening, it was depressing. I talked briefly to a lovely Brit, a sad man who had just been dumped by his much younger Korean wife of three years. She had left him for one of his richer, younger friends. He was quite morose, and surprisingly surprised by this turn of events. In this small Omani city, the close-knit expat crowd was all apprised of this turn of events in Simon’s life. We were only there a short time, but I got a strong sense of what life in conservative, out-of-the way Sohar might be like for the average expat male, and it looked lonely and frustrating. “A real sausage fest,” said Neena correctly, albeit raunchily. Again, I hear Muscat is different, with a lively social scene and females making much more of an appearance.
The final day of our trip we lounged around the pool. Sam swam me around the pool, pushing me in front of him while I clutched a swim board for buoyancy. Sam declared us to be a “big boat with a very small engine,” as indeed we seemed to be.
Our drive back was uneventful, and we were back an hour or two after nightfall. I was sorry to see our trip end, because despite the mishaps, partially arising from poor planning and the lack of an Omani map, we were all entranced by the Omani culture. We talked to Omani men and women alike, an experience that has eluded us completely with the Emeratis here. Their warmth and friendliness was astonishing after this veritable desert of cultural mingling. We were repeatedly asked by locals, “Do you like our country?” They were also pleased we were American, and except for one muttered comment about Obama made to us on the beach in passing, there seemed to be nothing but warmth and hospitality extended in our direction.
Today I have devoted to clean up and preparation for next week’s teaching and next weekend’s trip to India with Sam and Ryer. But today has not been without its own small drama. I have been out on the balcony typing for hours. I kept hearing small pathetic mewing noises coming from the ground. As this was unnerving for me in particular, I decided to take the elevator down to explore. There on the balcony were two tiny, shivering kittens. Sam and I reached through the gate and held them--they must be no more than four weeks old. When I rang the buzzer to the real estate business that was connected to the balcony, a woman answered and said a litter had been found inside one of their buildings, and of the five kittens, these two pathetic balls of fur were all that was left. The rest have been adopted. I am here to tell you, these are not going to be our cats! But they are in our apartment for the moment. They were famished, and after tripping in and out of the food and milk bowls and eating in a famished fashion, they are now sleeping together on soft towels inside a very large, clear plastic box. They are so small and were shaking and afraid, and now they are well fed and sleeping together, all curled up. That is very satisfying. Anyone want two small kittens? I think we will name one of them Gilman, after the small, defunct mining town just outside of Leadville. And the other, the small black and white runt, we will name Beckshar, in honor of a very memorable Omani trip.
What four women and one eight year old thought would be a casual drive to Turtle Bay in Oman turned into a fourteen hour nightmare. Sure, we knew the trip was sort of ill-planned. Rachel had gotten a hold of someone at this desert camp, and we were signed up to sleep there for four nights. If the camp was two hours south of Muscat, how far could it be? When you look at a map, the UAE and Oman are both smooshed up there in the top of the Arabian Peninsula. There was a mountain range between us and the east coast of Oman, but nothing that looked too hairy to navigate. Plus, in our two cars, we would have the supreme navigation skills of Sylvia, Bethany and Neena’s GPS, who delivered directions in a clipped, toneless, British fashion and my more emotional Gert, a hot pink GPS set to American English, who made her directional pronouncements in a voice alternating from one of maternal pride, when I was on track, to chiding annoyance, if I inadvertently took the wrong route.
Our first mistake was a late start. I had emphatically insisted on an 8:45 a.m. start for our car, which would contain Neena, Sam, all our gear, and me. Bethany and Rachel were to go in the other car, and they were ready at the appointed hour. Neena was not. She had another Master’s degree online course paper due, and its spectral presence was to haunt us on this trip. Having worked on it late the night before, Neena overslept, so by the time she got herself and her computer with the half-written paper sorted out, it was close to 10 a.m.
We still weren’t worried. The trip looked to be about eight hours long, so without turning on our GPS’s, we made our way to the border. We’d already been there three times to have our visitor visas renewed. The border is an hour away, and the check-through usually takes about 45 minutes. We were finally on the Omani side when Bethany had a spirited discussion with an Omani guard.
“He seems to be saying we can’t get to Muscat from this border,” she said, puzzled. Was there a language barrier? “He says we need to go back to Fujairah and drive to the border that way.”
“No. I am not doing that,” I said, in disbelief. We were in the country already, couldn’t we just start heading right, over to the eastern coast?
“Well, yes,” said the guard in Arabic, “but it is a four wheel drive road and your Yaris’s will never make it!”
We had unwittingly driven to the wrong border. There was no real road to Muscat from this border! This was a major setback. Now we needed to drive back to the UAE, across the country, and enter Oman from the west coast. Tempers frayed as we negotiated our way back through the border checkpoints. Whose damn fault was this? No one’s apparently. Just a wrong assumption, that if we drove to Oman, we could get to where we were going. At 1 p.m. we were headed back to the UAE and to Fujairah.
At this point we relaxed into knowing that it was going to be a very long trip. As we neared the second border crossing, we had the Arabian Sea to our left, and the imposing, dry, wrinkled and jutting Hajar Mountains to our right. At least the drive was picturesque. We were passing through a succession of small coastal towns, with fishing boats and center roundabouts, and the beautiful omnipresent mosques in every town.
The second border crossing was nearly painless, and with Sylvia and Gert bleating directions, we pressed on. At one point, many hours later, and after a quick meal at one of the ubiquitous, yet unnervingly friendly (our first exposure to sunny Omani personalities) McDonalds, Gert and Sylvia began to quarrel. The lead car had different directions. Sylvia barked repeatedly, “When possible, make a u-turn!” Gert sounded disappointed by our failure to follow her directions. In the pitch dark, Rachel was now driving my car, and Neena and Bethany were in the lead. We had gotten separated twice, so Rachel made the decision to turn our GPS off, and just follow their directions.
Once past Muscat, and with an almost full moon hanging overhead, we turned onto a brand new road, which headed up into the mountains to Sur, close to our final destination. This road was so new, that the tollbooths were unmanned, and they loomed ghostly, as we squeezed through one unblocked gate. Even more alarmingly, big thick white arrows painted on the tarmac pointed toward us on our side of the road, showing that the flow of traffic was coming towards us, yet we were one of several cars moving in our direction. We finally concluded that the road was so new, they were using it as a dual carriageway, and would later cut off traffic moving in our direction and reroute it onto a yet to be built road.
Soon after midnight the GPS (which I had sneakily turned on again) revealed the merrily waving black and white checked flag marking our final destination. Gert beamed, “You have reached your final destination!” Turtle Bay Beach Resort was eerily quiet. There were cars in the parking lot and the gates were open, but no one was around to check us in.
Finally, Bethany and Rachel decided to put up their tent in a strongly whipping wind. A late arriving Indian family helped them to secure the tent to the car. Neena originally planned to sleep in the car, but finally she settled on my choice. An old shipping boat had been reconstructed into an open-air restaurant by the beach. I tucked Sam into his sleeping bag on some cushions and stroked his wiry hair until he calmed down enough to sleep. Then Neena and I sat by the beach and enjoyed arrival cocktails while watching the millions of stars in the sky compete with the glitter of phosphorescent algae sparking in the waves by the beach. It was such a beautiful spot that Neena, a self-proclaimed “I’ll flirt with a fly” kind of girl, told me that because it was so beautiful out, with the wind and the waves and the stars, that she thought she might have to propose to me. I declined, much to her relief. But it was a special spot, with its thatched date frond huts on the beach, and gaily-strung Christmas lights. For those romantically inclined, and with the right person, mind you, I would highly recommend it.
The next morning, we awoke in the stern of the boat to the disapproving face of an Indian worker. “Where are your reservations,” he demanded prissily. “Poff? Rachel? Osius? Lanier? Engman?” I said helpfully. The long and short of it was we had crashed at the WRONG resort, and a significantly more expensive one at that. We hastily packed our sleeping bags, repacked the cars, and after misplaced key hunting for twenty minutes, (Neena, the other car) we beat a hasty retreat. We arrived at the second resort by 9 a.m. The Nazreeb camp, at first sight, was daunting. Where was the promised beach? The turtles?
Tiny, squat huts surrounded the perimeter, which was encompassed by barbed wire, to keep the goats out, we later learned. Tall, parched mountains ringed the camp. The sun beat down, the wind whipped through the camp, throwing sand up into our faces. The place looked deserted.
“This place looks like a refugee camp!” a disappointed Rachel exploded. I sank down onto the rickety wooden platform behind my ugly hut. Bethany and Rachel and I looked around, disheartened. Suddenly I began to laugh, and laugh. “Wow. I’ve never seen you laugh like this,” said Bethany, slightly disconcerted. My laughter turned into tears. After hours of traveling and after seeing the beauty of the other resort ($135 a night), we were going to stay here? Rachel comforted me. We’ve all broken down at various times here. Apparently my time had come. “It’ll be alright, Lucy! You and Sam take a nap. This will seem better after you have rested.” I knew she was right, so I took Sam into the hut, read him a few bedtime stories at 11 in the morning, read my own book, and fell into a deep sleep to the relaxing sound of the date fronds, which made up our hut walls, swishing in the wind. It sounded like ocean waves crashing on a shore, when in reality, the shore was three or four kilometers away.
Four p.m., and we were all awake, if groggy. The desolate camp had been transformed during our nap. The light was softer. The camp bustled with activity. Now it seemed more like a United Nations gathering than a refugee camp. Families of all nationalities roamed around in colorful clothes. We all walked over to the central gathering area in the middle of the camp, which was split into two parts: two cement ledges, 25x25 feet each, covered with carpets and pillows and the fire pit area, and a second, open-air dining area. I walked into the dining room. There were several Bedouins lounging in plastic chairs. “I am Ali,” said one. He flashed me a blinding white smile, delivered with a quick wink. He would later tell us that the wink to Arabs is somewhat naughty, signifying dishonorable attentions. Dressed in a floor length kandora and with a turquoise blue patterned scarf wrapped jauntily around his head, the sight of dashing Ali brightened up the camp, and our spirits, enormously.
In the course of our two nights at the camp, Ali would become our ally, and Neena’s romantic interest. Ali was 27 years old, heart stoppingly handsome, with a contagious, devilish smile. He smelled heavenly, and we would later learn that he scented himself with two colognes, alternating between his favorite scent, “First Love,” and another, “Love in Tea City.” In fact, Ali was all about love, with his “sweetie” of a truck, rakishly decked out with red crushed velvet and tan fur, and his ceaseless flirting. Like Neena, I had the feeling that Ali could also “flirt with a fly.” They were well matched. Ali, who had worked at the camp for 6 years, attached himself to our little coterie. He would become our friend and bridge to the Omani/Bedouin culture, and he’d been around enough westerners, that even the worst faux pax (like Neena repeatedly asking him if she looked like a pig, while we tried to shush her, and he feigned a lack of understanding) left him unfazed. Handsome Ali had never been to school, yet he had traveled around Europe with a previous Austrian girlfriend, “who broke my heart,” he told us somberly. He had also never brushed his teeth with a toothbrush, ever. He used water and some type of metal pick, accompanied by chewing some native plant for fresh breath. I thought of the European mouths we’d seen on this trip, with their gnarled, greyish teeth. Ali of the strong white teeth might be onto something.
While Ali lent his own flair to our visit, so did many of the other guests, who hailed from Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and other far flung locales. Rachel named the cement block meeting spot “the Peace Couch,” because of all of the nationalities hanging together and talking peacefully. Sam played soccer, or “football” with kids from four or five different countries, while we talked to the parents. The food at dinner was surprisingly good, with chopped cucumber, carrot and tomato, hot Arab bread, Dahl and rice, and roasted lamb and chicken.
Later that night, we drove en caravan to the science center for turtle viewing. Because of the full moon, the turtles were scarce, but we saw a large mamma, who had ambled onto the beach to lay her eggs, and who was making her laborious way back to the sea, having found the sand an unsatisfactory texture and temperature for laying eggs. The beach was pockmarked with huge holes, where the turtles dug with enormous flippers and buried their eggs. The babies, buried a meter down, spend three to five days digging up to the surface, where they make their break for the sea. If they do make it (and only three in one thousand do), they swim for three days without stopping or eating.
Our guide, Saeed, was knowledgeable, but his English showed his Arab origins. The p and b are often confused. Please becomes Bleaze, and the g is often mispronounced. Saeed was a stern guide. “Ladies and Gentlemen! (Pronounced with a hard g) I have some important scientific information for you. Bleaze! Be quiet!” A particularly recalcitrant and annoyingly amorous group of dark skinned males continued to talk during his presentation, draped all over each other, giggling and interrupting.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. INDIANS!” roared Saed. We gasped and giggled at his very un-PC comment, but the Indians didn’t seem to mind, and quieted down to listen. We saw a little baby boy turtle struggling to the sea. Turtles follow the brightest light, so we were not allowed to take photos with flashes. At one point, someone slipped up, their flash lighting up the dark night. Saeed hurried over, shouting, “Give me that camera this instant!” I was glad it wasn’t one of us.
I fell asleep early, with the book on my chest and the light still on. The generator shut down at 11:30 p.m. I woke up some time after that, cold and needing a bathroom badly. Outside of the hut, the wind moaned and the sky was lit up with millions upon millions of stars. It was dark and cold. I decided it was too dark to try and get to the outhouses, and thought to relieve myself behind the fence, the choice of hundreds before me, I suspected. I looked over by the girls’ cabin and saw a tall,wide, dark mass, with what appeared to be an arm up in a crooked position. I froze. It froze. I stared into the darkness for a long time and finally decided it was some sort of sign or something. The next day I saw it was a squat firebox on long, spindly legs. Rachel and I laughed. She’d seen it the night before as well, and decided it was a man, but because of his skinny legs, she thought, ever the ex-cop, that she could probably take him out if she needed to. I could just imagine her crashing into the firebox, fullback style, to the sound of splintering wood.
The next day we woke up, had coffee, fruit, boiled eggs, and a delectable dish, inauspiciously named foul medammes. Foul medammes are not dirty maidens, but tomato, onion, and garlic navy beans, as far as we could tell, and they are delicious. More lounging around for all of us, and a trip to the beach occupied our day. Neena and I walked to and from the beach, several miles round trip. Bethany and Rachel took Sam straight there in the car. In the daylight, the beach was lovely, and full of dozens of chattering, kandora wearing teen-age boys, who were much interested in our group. We posed for pictures with them and Sam clambered up on the beach cliffs, with the other boys leading the way and guiding Sam over the rough spots.
We decided to leave the next day. The camp was lovely after all, and colorful and warm, despite my first, very tired impressions. We met friendly people, exchanged cards, and in the case of Ali and Neena, pictures and phone numbers. Ali met us in Sur on our way out, where we toured the souk and bought traditional Omani hats, as well as perfume, insense, and Omani long, colorful dresses.
While we explored Sur, Sam planted himself between Neena and Ali, firmly seat belted in. He wasn’t budging, a formidable eight-year-old chaperone, while I chauffeured them around, alone in the front. We made quite a sight, I am sure. And since Ali couldn’t get to Neena, he covered Sam’s sweet little head and cheek with his Bedouin man kisses, thirty of them at least. Ali is one of 12 children, and apparently he is quite comfortable with little squirts like Sam. Neena pronounced herself jealous, since Sam was the recipient of all of his attention. When we parted, with the three of us going north, Ali saluted us goodbye by doing a donut on the tarmac in his truck. Then he and Neena proceeded to send each other googly text messages. His ran along the lines of “Ali x yoar beckshar,” which meant he was kissing Neena’s picture.
While Bethany and Rachel headed back to the UAE, Neena and Sam and I decided to spend one more night in Oman. We’d finally found an internet site to send off her dastardly paper, which had reared its ugly head on each of the successive days. So, since that responsibility was dealt with, and everyone we met was so nice, and the scenery was spectacular, why hurry home? We headed for Sohar, a town halfway home, and got there about 7 p.m. at night. We stayed in a bizarre, crumbling, and previously 5 star sort of fortress. There was a manicured lawn and pool, but the gates to the beach had all fallen away, and there was a sense of general disrepair. Sam had spaghetti through room service, as he’s becoming quite fond of it. After he fell asleep, Neena and I crept over the balcony on our ground floor room, and made two forays out onto the grounds, with frequent stops back to the room, where Sam remained slumbering deeply.
Our first stop was the pool bar, where an appallingly drunk member of Omani royalty, a gentleman by the name of Hassan, tried to lure us into his cherry red Hummer, parked on the beach. “We would love to show you our beautiful beaches,” he pronounced, while his trench coated bodyguard lurked around nearby. We declined. We also made a short trip to a nightclub about 50 yards away, again, after a check on Sam.
I’ve read somewhere that if the split of men to women in any given place is ever more of a disparity than 60/40, get out of there (sorry guys, but this is supposed to be true). This garish bar was awash with bored looking men, idly watching three scantily clad Filipinas belt out rotten 70’s tunes. Though it was not frightening, it was depressing. I talked briefly to a lovely Brit, a sad man who had just been dumped by his much younger Korean wife of three years. She had left him for one of his richer, younger friends. He was quite morose, and surprisingly surprised by this turn of events. In this small Omani city, the close-knit expat crowd was all apprised of this turn of events in Simon’s life. We were only there a short time, but I got a strong sense of what life in conservative, out-of-the way Sohar might be like for the average expat male, and it looked lonely and frustrating. “A real sausage fest,” said Neena correctly, albeit raunchily. Again, I hear Muscat is different, with a lively social scene and females making much more of an appearance.
The final day of our trip we lounged around the pool. Sam swam me around the pool, pushing me in front of him while I clutched a swim board for buoyancy. Sam declared us to be a “big boat with a very small engine,” as indeed we seemed to be.
Our drive back was uneventful, and we were back an hour or two after nightfall. I was sorry to see our trip end, because despite the mishaps, partially arising from poor planning and the lack of an Omani map, we were all entranced by the Omani culture. We talked to Omani men and women alike, an experience that has eluded us completely with the Emeratis here. Their warmth and friendliness was astonishing after this veritable desert of cultural mingling. We were repeatedly asked by locals, “Do you like our country?” They were also pleased we were American, and except for one muttered comment about Obama made to us on the beach in passing, there seemed to be nothing but warmth and hospitality extended in our direction.
Today I have devoted to clean up and preparation for next week’s teaching and next weekend’s trip to India with Sam and Ryer. But today has not been without its own small drama. I have been out on the balcony typing for hours. I kept hearing small pathetic mewing noises coming from the ground. As this was unnerving for me in particular, I decided to take the elevator down to explore. There on the balcony were two tiny, shivering kittens. Sam and I reached through the gate and held them--they must be no more than four weeks old. When I rang the buzzer to the real estate business that was connected to the balcony, a woman answered and said a litter had been found inside one of their buildings, and of the five kittens, these two pathetic balls of fur were all that was left. The rest have been adopted. I am here to tell you, these are not going to be our cats! But they are in our apartment for the moment. They were famished, and after tripping in and out of the food and milk bowls and eating in a famished fashion, they are now sleeping together on soft towels inside a very large, clear plastic box. They are so small and were shaking and afraid, and now they are well fed and sleeping together, all curled up. That is very satisfying. Anyone want two small kittens? I think we will name one of them Gilman, after the small, defunct mining town just outside of Leadville. And the other, the small black and white runt, we will name Beckshar, in honor of a very memorable Omani trip.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sam's B-day
Hi everybody:
I am just sending a quick update. Thanks for individual emails. I just emailed Mom and Deb with a tentative summer timeline for Sammy and me, which has us arriving in CO June 12, spending much of July in MD and flying out of Colorado and back to Dubai around August 15. So it looks like we will have two months at home.
I had my 90-day professional review with my principal yesterday. It went well. He says I have a job next year. Of course I remain concerned about the low student recruitment-I still have only one student-and the prohibitive price of enrollment. Will there be a school next year? I believe so. There remains the challenge of a somewhat divided staff. There are really strong personalities on this staff. Some people have had different professional responsibilities in the past, and are bringing that baggage to the new job. Old habits die hard, sort of thing. Our CEO told me, "This too shall pass. Right now, you guys are like a bunch of relatives who have all overstayed your welcome in each other's houses. It will be better after the two December breaks." I bet he is right. That was A LOT of together time in that trailer in La Joya Bay before the school opened. Meanwhile, I enjoy my nice friends here, as does Sam, who now has four friends his age.
Sam Osius is having a great time with his teacher Rachel. He is learning a ton. I mean a ton. Double digit addition and subtraction, place value up to 1,000, he is reading more fluently, and she is tackling phonics with him, so he is learning how to sound words out. He is still a terrible speller, but they are working on that too. Essentially, he has a private tutor 5 days a week, and I think he will be caught up in no time. I am very proud of him, as is she. He is working so hard. Yesterday my son Sam, and my student Sammy, both made presentations on the UAE and RAK, respectively. They both had projects to present, and posters, and maps, as well as fact sheets on their assignments. Both boys did a bang up job presenting yesterday. Son Sam read in a tremulous voice, but you could hear him!
Thanksgiving was a very interesting, and super exhausting day. I was up at 6 a.m., and Sam and Rachel and I drove to Dubai. Rachel drove, because I hate Dubai traffic so much. She is an ex cop, so she drives really well. We found the Indian Consulate, and spent most of the day there. I will need to go pick up our visas this Wednesday, another all day affair. This would have been a painless process, if I had just had our residency visas here in the UAE. We were there the morning after the Mumbai shootings. I expected a weird vibe, but all seemed to be (extremely slow) business as usual.
Today is UAE National Day. Something like our July 1, without the beer and barbeque, I suspect. Sam is going to the beach with Neena and Rachel, and I have a day to organize before Lizzie arrives. Plus I need to turn my attention to planning next week’s Oman camping trip.
Back to Thanksgiving Day... We rushed home in time to get our eleven-pound turkey “Tom” in the oven. Then we cooked frantically. I had eight people. I have a picture of our dinner up on Facebook, lots of pics there, if you are in a position to check. We had a fantastic meal, and I slept like a log that night after the cleanup. Turkey has some natural sedative in it, doesn’t it?
One other element made the day unique. We had torrential rain here in RAK. Luckily this all happened after the trip to Dubai and during turkey dinner preparations. Sam was so excited he called the taxi stand where he is assistant manager, and Mohammed drove him up to the fort hotel. He always has his phone with him, and the General Manager, Mr. Nicholas, has taken a very fond and proprietary interest in him. Sam eats at the buffet free, whenever he wants to, and sometimes arrives home after his fort forays with a take-away box stuffed with buffet delicacies.
So, I was in phone contact with him when the fort went into lockdown. No one was allowed in or out because of the rain and lightening. Meanwhile, back at my building, Rachel and I were cooking like mad. Suddenly, lightening hit the building and the fire alarm went off. I called Sam, Sam told Mr. Nicholas, and someone came to turn it off. But all was wind, lightening, flooding and chaos. At this point, Sam was calling me telling me that he was sending Mohammed to pick us up because the building was not safe. I told Sam to stop making arrangements for me (!) and to come home in a taxi. So they let him out of the fort, and a taxi made its slow and careful way the ¾ mile to my building. The road was flooded, and Sam’s taxi got stuck in the flood! He was calling me all excited, saying, “Mom, I can’t open the door or all the water will come in!” We ran down, and a worker pulled him out through the window (the car was not buoyant, just stuck in high water) and delivered him to his mama waiting on the sidewalk in the rain. Very, very exciting for a seven-year-old boy, as you can well imagine. Bethany went downstairs and took photos, so when she puts them up on Facebook, I will pass them along. (Speaking of Facebook, Mom, Fred Lewis is my friend on Facebook. Don’t you guys want to join? Then you can see pics that don’t get sent to you directly.)
The next day, Sam turned eight, and I drove him to Fujairah for an overnight stay. We ordered room service for his birthday dinner, and the food came in a rolling cart with a heated compartment underneath. This was terribly exciting. My friends Neena and her sister Eda (both half Puerto Rican, Eda is the visiting sister from the US, and Neena works at my school) had a suite there, so we dined on their especially elegant balcony. The next day Sam took a paddleboat out into the Arabian Sea with Eda, and I sailed a little Sunfish around. We wrapped up our weekend with a little bit of pool time, and then home we came.
During my review, my principal told me that the way that he is proudest of me is that I had the courage as a single mom to come over here and expose Sam to this culture/experience. I am enjoying it, to be sure, but I have my professional frustrations, with a delayed start, and a class of one student! I do think the experience is proving to be very beneficial to Sam, most of the time. There are times when he misses home, family, and Kiwi and Daisy (Not necessarily in that order!). But overall, he continues to be pretty engaged in what is going on here. Let’s hope he is a better educated, more open-minded adult as a result.
Well, that is it for the latest summary. If there is a blurb I can produce out of camping on the beaches of Oman with friends, I will send it out in the next 10 days.
If anyone wants a personal correspondence, I have these lovely 10 days off, so send me an email and this time I will write back, I PROMISE. Right now I am not working 7:30 to 3:30 (with no permission to use email at work) and commuting 40 minutes each way, plus trying to exercise, and the usual Sam routine in the evening. So I have the luxury of time! Yum yum.
Much love, and hope you all are well, happy and enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday.
Lucy and Sam too
I am just sending a quick update. Thanks for individual emails. I just emailed Mom and Deb with a tentative summer timeline for Sammy and me, which has us arriving in CO June 12, spending much of July in MD and flying out of Colorado and back to Dubai around August 15. So it looks like we will have two months at home.
I had my 90-day professional review with my principal yesterday. It went well. He says I have a job next year. Of course I remain concerned about the low student recruitment-I still have only one student-and the prohibitive price of enrollment. Will there be a school next year? I believe so. There remains the challenge of a somewhat divided staff. There are really strong personalities on this staff. Some people have had different professional responsibilities in the past, and are bringing that baggage to the new job. Old habits die hard, sort of thing. Our CEO told me, "This too shall pass. Right now, you guys are like a bunch of relatives who have all overstayed your welcome in each other's houses. It will be better after the two December breaks." I bet he is right. That was A LOT of together time in that trailer in La Joya Bay before the school opened. Meanwhile, I enjoy my nice friends here, as does Sam, who now has four friends his age.
Sam Osius is having a great time with his teacher Rachel. He is learning a ton. I mean a ton. Double digit addition and subtraction, place value up to 1,000, he is reading more fluently, and she is tackling phonics with him, so he is learning how to sound words out. He is still a terrible speller, but they are working on that too. Essentially, he has a private tutor 5 days a week, and I think he will be caught up in no time. I am very proud of him, as is she. He is working so hard. Yesterday my son Sam, and my student Sammy, both made presentations on the UAE and RAK, respectively. They both had projects to present, and posters, and maps, as well as fact sheets on their assignments. Both boys did a bang up job presenting yesterday. Son Sam read in a tremulous voice, but you could hear him!
Thanksgiving was a very interesting, and super exhausting day. I was up at 6 a.m., and Sam and Rachel and I drove to Dubai. Rachel drove, because I hate Dubai traffic so much. She is an ex cop, so she drives really well. We found the Indian Consulate, and spent most of the day there. I will need to go pick up our visas this Wednesday, another all day affair. This would have been a painless process, if I had just had our residency visas here in the UAE. We were there the morning after the Mumbai shootings. I expected a weird vibe, but all seemed to be (extremely slow) business as usual.
Today is UAE National Day. Something like our July 1, without the beer and barbeque, I suspect. Sam is going to the beach with Neena and Rachel, and I have a day to organize before Lizzie arrives. Plus I need to turn my attention to planning next week’s Oman camping trip.
Back to Thanksgiving Day... We rushed home in time to get our eleven-pound turkey “Tom” in the oven. Then we cooked frantically. I had eight people. I have a picture of our dinner up on Facebook, lots of pics there, if you are in a position to check. We had a fantastic meal, and I slept like a log that night after the cleanup. Turkey has some natural sedative in it, doesn’t it?
One other element made the day unique. We had torrential rain here in RAK. Luckily this all happened after the trip to Dubai and during turkey dinner preparations. Sam was so excited he called the taxi stand where he is assistant manager, and Mohammed drove him up to the fort hotel. He always has his phone with him, and the General Manager, Mr. Nicholas, has taken a very fond and proprietary interest in him. Sam eats at the buffet free, whenever he wants to, and sometimes arrives home after his fort forays with a take-away box stuffed with buffet delicacies.
So, I was in phone contact with him when the fort went into lockdown. No one was allowed in or out because of the rain and lightening. Meanwhile, back at my building, Rachel and I were cooking like mad. Suddenly, lightening hit the building and the fire alarm went off. I called Sam, Sam told Mr. Nicholas, and someone came to turn it off. But all was wind, lightening, flooding and chaos. At this point, Sam was calling me telling me that he was sending Mohammed to pick us up because the building was not safe. I told Sam to stop making arrangements for me (!) and to come home in a taxi. So they let him out of the fort, and a taxi made its slow and careful way the ¾ mile to my building. The road was flooded, and Sam’s taxi got stuck in the flood! He was calling me all excited, saying, “Mom, I can’t open the door or all the water will come in!” We ran down, and a worker pulled him out through the window (the car was not buoyant, just stuck in high water) and delivered him to his mama waiting on the sidewalk in the rain. Very, very exciting for a seven-year-old boy, as you can well imagine. Bethany went downstairs and took photos, so when she puts them up on Facebook, I will pass them along. (Speaking of Facebook, Mom, Fred Lewis is my friend on Facebook. Don’t you guys want to join? Then you can see pics that don’t get sent to you directly.)
The next day, Sam turned eight, and I drove him to Fujairah for an overnight stay. We ordered room service for his birthday dinner, and the food came in a rolling cart with a heated compartment underneath. This was terribly exciting. My friends Neena and her sister Eda (both half Puerto Rican, Eda is the visiting sister from the US, and Neena works at my school) had a suite there, so we dined on their especially elegant balcony. The next day Sam took a paddleboat out into the Arabian Sea with Eda, and I sailed a little Sunfish around. We wrapped up our weekend with a little bit of pool time, and then home we came.
During my review, my principal told me that the way that he is proudest of me is that I had the courage as a single mom to come over here and expose Sam to this culture/experience. I am enjoying it, to be sure, but I have my professional frustrations, with a delayed start, and a class of one student! I do think the experience is proving to be very beneficial to Sam, most of the time. There are times when he misses home, family, and Kiwi and Daisy (Not necessarily in that order!). But overall, he continues to be pretty engaged in what is going on here. Let’s hope he is a better educated, more open-minded adult as a result.
Well, that is it for the latest summary. If there is a blurb I can produce out of camping on the beaches of Oman with friends, I will send it out in the next 10 days.
If anyone wants a personal correspondence, I have these lovely 10 days off, so send me an email and this time I will write back, I PROMISE. Right now I am not working 7:30 to 3:30 (with no permission to use email at work) and commuting 40 minutes each way, plus trying to exercise, and the usual Sam routine in the evening. So I have the luxury of time! Yum yum.
Much love, and hope you all are well, happy and enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday.
Lucy and Sam too
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Desert Storm
A long convoy of flimsy, American-rented Toyota Yaris’s, interspersed with expensive Emerati-owned vehicles, wended its way toward the heart of the desert flanking Dubai. After a short stop to park and reshuffle our belongings, our motley crew resorted ourselves into an assortment of luxury SUV’s and powerful pick up-trucks. Turning off the blacktop and onto sandy roads, we resumed our trip. Cars packed with people and camping gear bounced along. Occasionally, an errant sleeping bag would fly out of a truck bed, and a passenger from a following car would hop out, pluck it up from its sandy resting place, and pop it into the back of another vehicle. Sorting out our belongings once we reached the camping site would later prove to be a challenge.
We were a consortium of Americans, Tunisians, Emeratis, and Kiwis, all gathered here for the sole purpose of having an authentic desert camping trip together. Our primary host, a dashing, and extremely generous Emerati named Atef, was determined to provide his guests with an authentic Emerati camping experience. Other Emeratis supporting the trip were Essa, husband of Donna, our RAK American School Vice Principal and Kindergarten teacher, Saeed, and another friend and driver for the group, Ahmed. All four men were friends, conspiring to show American teachers overseas a true desert . Also along were Arabic teacher and Tunisian, Wafa, her soft-spoken husband Bashar, and their six-year-old son, Yousef. A professed eremikophobe (fearer of sand), Wafa had never been desert camping before, but was determined to be a good sport, and spend a night outside. The rest of us were our usual mishmash of Americans and lone Canadian, along for the ride, and with varying degrees of desert compatibility and prior camping experience.
Once we reached our campsite, a low, flat wash surrounded by higher dunes, our hosts rounded the SUV’s, much like the circling of the wagons in early American westward expansion. “This is to protect you from dune-bashing vehicles, “ explained Essa, our resident Emerati, in his impeccable English. We would look to him frequently during this experience as our cultural and linguistic translator. I imagined waking up in my sleeping bag to the crushing weight of an off-course Land Cruiser smashing down onto my tent. I readily complied with Essa’s instructions to set up our tents inside the protective ring of cars.
Along with our nearly dozen tents, our hosts brought huge rugs for the group gathering, a newly purchased, rumbling generator, and a myriad of electric lights, as well as festive, mood-inducing tikki torches. As I looked around at our newly constructed campsite, I realized that no detail, and no expense had been spared in creating a comfortable, luxurious camping experience for this group of expatriates. In addition to planning a lavish dinner, our hosts had also given a polite nod to our western culture by providing us with some German beer for the event. Neena, our resident Puerto Rican American and future winner of the evening’s dance contest, would later proclaim that it was just this liquid courage that allowed us a glimpse of her slightly more provocative and renowned Shakira (I mean, Beyonce), signature dance moves.
After everyone had settled in, and tents were erected, cots constructed and sleeping bags laid out, our crew assembled around the campfire. Essa showed us how to sit in the sand like a true, tribal nomad. We contorted our legs and knees into the customary posture, and Essa regaled us with tales of his father’s desert experiences, and stories of the way the country used to look before the arrival of western people, and modernity in its present state.
Later, we were provided with a true desert meal, complete with roasted goat, head and body nestled into a plate of saffron rice, grilled lamb, and fresh salad. Donna thoughtfully provided everyone with dessert S’more’s, Emerati style, with toasted marshmallows and chocolate served on digestive biscuits. Rick Sailors entertained us by strumming on his guitar and serenading the group with a smattering of rock, pop, 80’s, blues, and folk songs, and we accompanied him, singing happily, loudly, and occasionally VERY, off key.
In another act of unsurpassed generosity, our host Atef, along with Essa and Donna, had planned a quiz night event on U.A.E. trivia, including questions such as the name of the ruling family and the date the U.A.E. was created (December 2, 1971). Atef provided a wrapped luxury gift for every participant, which we chose from a pile of gifts on the carpet. Personally, I have never excelled in trivia questionnaires. Luckily, Wafa bent down and fed my son Sam an answer to one of the questions, which he proceeded to bellow out, winning us a wall-mounted night light screen with floating water, fish and coral scenes playing on a continuous feed. Other gifts included DVD players, microwaves, and a women’s Neet Hair Removal kit, received by our perplexed, and not particularly hirsute P.E. teacher, Alan.
The last event of the evening was the bonfire dance club. One of the Emerati gents backed his SUV up to the bonfire, and people started dancing. The Sailors’ son John busted a move, along with Neena, Amanda, and sylph Casey, who was in full desert rat regalia and in rave mode, shimmying up a storm to techno beats. Sam provided a disco light aspect, by continuously gyrating two flashlights over the dance scene. At one point, Neena fell to her knees in front of her cohorts and shouted the ultimate challenge. “Get up and dance!” she screamed. “Get up and dance! I can dance better than you on my knees, B-----s!”
We slept in our tents until first light, and the sound of Essa’s welcoming voice roused us. We planned a hasty departure, and after a campfire-cooked pans of eggs and sausage and fresh coffee, we dismantled the tents and lights, packed the trucks and headed out again, just in time to miss the scorching afternoon sun and bothersome flies. We took an afternoon excursion in the cars up near the Oman border to visit the Hatta Fort Resort and to lunch on more sumptuous fare, again, courtesy of our host Atef.
Later that night, Sam and I returned to our flat in RAK. We were in bed at 7:57 p.m., too exhausted to even make dinner and eat. I fell asleep to the shimmering glow of our new picture show nightlight with two memories still playing rewind in my mind. The first was the realization that Sam and I had very nearly died today. While driving to Dubai post-camping, and in the morning after collecting our cars, we were whizzing along, returning to Essa and Donna’s villa in Dubai for a quick shower before our lunch soirée. Suddenly, Rachel, who was in my passenger seat, shrieked, “Look out!!!” We were driving about 135 km an hour, zooming along on a 5 lane highway, my Yaris manfully revving its sewing machine engine, in order to keep up with one of the SUV’s. In one instant, I saw what appeared to be an enormous, car-sized piece of foam rubber in my lane. I swerved left, narrowly missing a car and just slipped by the object, all in 1/10th of a second. As we passed it, Rachel realized it was not a piece of foam at all, but a couch that had been sitting in the center of our lane--and the Ottoman--along with the car following on our tail, had both come inches away from carving us into an accordion- shaped heap of scrap metal.
The second scene to replay in my mind as I tried to fall asleep after a full day’s worth of excitement was exactly this… After lunch, we all filed back to the parking lot to divide up into the cars for the ride back to RAK. Atef and Ahmed were in the front seats of our car, Amanda, Bethany and I were in the middle, and Rachel and Neena were in the way back of the GM Denali. Donna had commented on the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. “We might just get rain, “ she said to us just before we set off. On our drive south, we eagerly scanned the horizon. Suddenly, two drops, then four, then ten splashes hit the windshield of our car. Atef turned on the windshield wipers and began to speak excitedly to Ahmed in Arabic. We squealed with excitement, all of us straining to get our hands out the window to touch the falling raindrops. I breathed in the wet smell of dampened desert that was filling the car.
But as quickly as it had begun, the short drizzle of rain was over. “It’s been a year and a month since we’ve had rain,” Ahmed told us. “How long will it be before it rains again?” asked Bethany. “Another year and a month,” he replied. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but in this part of the world, we are learning to make hay while the rain falls.
We were a consortium of Americans, Tunisians, Emeratis, and Kiwis, all gathered here for the sole purpose of having an authentic desert camping trip together. Our primary host, a dashing, and extremely generous Emerati named Atef, was determined to provide his guests with an authentic Emerati camping experience. Other Emeratis supporting the trip were Essa, husband of Donna, our RAK American School Vice Principal and Kindergarten teacher, Saeed, and another friend and driver for the group, Ahmed. All four men were friends, conspiring to show American teachers overseas a true desert . Also along were Arabic teacher and Tunisian, Wafa, her soft-spoken husband Bashar, and their six-year-old son, Yousef. A professed eremikophobe (fearer of sand), Wafa had never been desert camping before, but was determined to be a good sport, and spend a night outside. The rest of us were our usual mishmash of Americans and lone Canadian, along for the ride, and with varying degrees of desert compatibility and prior camping experience.
Once we reached our campsite, a low, flat wash surrounded by higher dunes, our hosts rounded the SUV’s, much like the circling of the wagons in early American westward expansion. “This is to protect you from dune-bashing vehicles, “ explained Essa, our resident Emerati, in his impeccable English. We would look to him frequently during this experience as our cultural and linguistic translator. I imagined waking up in my sleeping bag to the crushing weight of an off-course Land Cruiser smashing down onto my tent. I readily complied with Essa’s instructions to set up our tents inside the protective ring of cars.
Along with our nearly dozen tents, our hosts brought huge rugs for the group gathering, a newly purchased, rumbling generator, and a myriad of electric lights, as well as festive, mood-inducing tikki torches. As I looked around at our newly constructed campsite, I realized that no detail, and no expense had been spared in creating a comfortable, luxurious camping experience for this group of expatriates. In addition to planning a lavish dinner, our hosts had also given a polite nod to our western culture by providing us with some German beer for the event. Neena, our resident Puerto Rican American and future winner of the evening’s dance contest, would later proclaim that it was just this liquid courage that allowed us a glimpse of her slightly more provocative and renowned Shakira (I mean, Beyonce), signature dance moves.
After everyone had settled in, and tents were erected, cots constructed and sleeping bags laid out, our crew assembled around the campfire. Essa showed us how to sit in the sand like a true, tribal nomad. We contorted our legs and knees into the customary posture, and Essa regaled us with tales of his father’s desert experiences, and stories of the way the country used to look before the arrival of western people, and modernity in its present state.
Later, we were provided with a true desert meal, complete with roasted goat, head and body nestled into a plate of saffron rice, grilled lamb, and fresh salad. Donna thoughtfully provided everyone with dessert S’more’s, Emerati style, with toasted marshmallows and chocolate served on digestive biscuits. Rick Sailors entertained us by strumming on his guitar and serenading the group with a smattering of rock, pop, 80’s, blues, and folk songs, and we accompanied him, singing happily, loudly, and occasionally VERY, off key.
In another act of unsurpassed generosity, our host Atef, along with Essa and Donna, had planned a quiz night event on U.A.E. trivia, including questions such as the name of the ruling family and the date the U.A.E. was created (December 2, 1971). Atef provided a wrapped luxury gift for every participant, which we chose from a pile of gifts on the carpet. Personally, I have never excelled in trivia questionnaires. Luckily, Wafa bent down and fed my son Sam an answer to one of the questions, which he proceeded to bellow out, winning us a wall-mounted night light screen with floating water, fish and coral scenes playing on a continuous feed. Other gifts included DVD players, microwaves, and a women’s Neet Hair Removal kit, received by our perplexed, and not particularly hirsute P.E. teacher, Alan.
The last event of the evening was the bonfire dance club. One of the Emerati gents backed his SUV up to the bonfire, and people started dancing. The Sailors’ son John busted a move, along with Neena, Amanda, and sylph Casey, who was in full desert rat regalia and in rave mode, shimmying up a storm to techno beats. Sam provided a disco light aspect, by continuously gyrating two flashlights over the dance scene. At one point, Neena fell to her knees in front of her cohorts and shouted the ultimate challenge. “Get up and dance!” she screamed. “Get up and dance! I can dance better than you on my knees, B-----s!”
We slept in our tents until first light, and the sound of Essa’s welcoming voice roused us. We planned a hasty departure, and after a campfire-cooked pans of eggs and sausage and fresh coffee, we dismantled the tents and lights, packed the trucks and headed out again, just in time to miss the scorching afternoon sun and bothersome flies. We took an afternoon excursion in the cars up near the Oman border to visit the Hatta Fort Resort and to lunch on more sumptuous fare, again, courtesy of our host Atef.
Later that night, Sam and I returned to our flat in RAK. We were in bed at 7:57 p.m., too exhausted to even make dinner and eat. I fell asleep to the shimmering glow of our new picture show nightlight with two memories still playing rewind in my mind. The first was the realization that Sam and I had very nearly died today. While driving to Dubai post-camping, and in the morning after collecting our cars, we were whizzing along, returning to Essa and Donna’s villa in Dubai for a quick shower before our lunch soirée. Suddenly, Rachel, who was in my passenger seat, shrieked, “Look out!!!” We were driving about 135 km an hour, zooming along on a 5 lane highway, my Yaris manfully revving its sewing machine engine, in order to keep up with one of the SUV’s. In one instant, I saw what appeared to be an enormous, car-sized piece of foam rubber in my lane. I swerved left, narrowly missing a car and just slipped by the object, all in 1/10th of a second. As we passed it, Rachel realized it was not a piece of foam at all, but a couch that had been sitting in the center of our lane--and the Ottoman--along with the car following on our tail, had both come inches away from carving us into an accordion- shaped heap of scrap metal.
The second scene to replay in my mind as I tried to fall asleep after a full day’s worth of excitement was exactly this… After lunch, we all filed back to the parking lot to divide up into the cars for the ride back to RAK. Atef and Ahmed were in the front seats of our car, Amanda, Bethany and I were in the middle, and Rachel and Neena were in the way back of the GM Denali. Donna had commented on the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. “We might just get rain, “ she said to us just before we set off. On our drive south, we eagerly scanned the horizon. Suddenly, two drops, then four, then ten splashes hit the windshield of our car. Atef turned on the windshield wipers and began to speak excitedly to Ahmed in Arabic. We squealed with excitement, all of us straining to get our hands out the window to touch the falling raindrops. I breathed in the wet smell of dampened desert that was filling the car.
But as quickly as it had begun, the short drizzle of rain was over. “It’s been a year and a month since we’ve had rain,” Ahmed told us. “How long will it be before it rains again?” asked Bethany. “Another year and a month,” he replied. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but in this part of the world, we are learning to make hay while the rain falls.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
New Times Ahead...
I remember 11/00 when Al Gore lost the election. I was enormously pregnant, and so sad to see our country go downhill. 11/04 wasn't much better, with Sammy a challenging 3-year-old. We were living in Denver and I was in school to be a teacher. That time, I stayed up all night long crying, and watching the results come in, and in the morning, after I dropped Sam off at daycare, I went to the Democratic Headquarters for some consolation. Everybody there was packing up their belongings to go home. I told them how very sad and sorry I felt about the current course of events in our country. Then I got in my car, at 11 in the morning, and backed into a pole, causing $1,500 in damage to the rear door.
In the last few years I have heard the song, "And I am proud to be an American, God Bless the U.S.A.!" I have heard it with derision. What a joke, I have thought. And then today, I asked Sam if he would be willing to call Grandmom and say the same, and he did, somberly. He is a small, proud boy to have an African American in the White House, finally, at last. I am filled with gladness.
In the last few years I have heard the song, "And I am proud to be an American, God Bless the U.S.A.!" I have heard it with derision. What a joke, I have thought. And then today, I asked Sam if he would be willing to call Grandmom and say the same, and he did, somberly. He is a small, proud boy to have an African American in the White House, finally, at last. I am filled with gladness.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Dune Bashing
Dune-Bashing in the U.A.E.
"It's normal, it's normal," mutters Josef Abdul, our dune-bashing driver, as he gets out of the Land Cruiser to assess the damage. We are straddling a dune, sand trailing down at precipitous angles to the left and the right of us, and we are stuck.
"Don't worry. I will call my friends to pull us out. This is normal," he emphasizes. "We will be free shortly to continue on."
Until this momentary hang-up on one the dunes, we’d spent the last half hour sliding and gunning up and down 45-degree angles and popping up over dune precipices absolutely blindly only to roll at break-neck speeds down the other side. It had been a bone-jarring, breath-stealing experience. We’d had no idea what we were getting ourselves into on this desert safari trip. I’d imagined something more along the lines of a tame camel ride to an oasis, followed by a delectable Middle Eastern repast. This was not turning out the way I had planned.
"How do you all not hit each other? " I ask our driver nervously, as I watch another Land Cruiser pop over the dune 20 yards to my left. I am not so sure I want to continue on shortly. Sam's eyes are closed and Ted looks a bit green around the gills.
"We drive on assigned routes. Every dune has a name and we know all of them. I have been doing this for 10 years. Trust me," replies Abdul, as he starts punching rescue numbers into his cell phone.
Earlier in the day, the three of us had signed up for one of the fabled desert safari trips in the UAE. Under the banner of adventure tourism, the desert safaris of the last 10 years cater mainly to tourists, and take place all over the Rub’ al Khali Desert, otherwise known as the Empty Quarter, a huge expanse that covers much of this geographic region. The tours are generally a six-hour, $50 per person deal, including dune bashing, sand boarding, a trip to a camel farm, a ride on a camel, and a barbeque dinner, complete with local cuisine, sheesha smoking and henna painting. Our driver works for RAK events, and adventure outfit operating out of Ras Al Khaimah, the northern most Emirate, where I have chosen to live for the next 2 years.
I have recently moved to the UAE to teach at Ras Al Khaimah American School, the first American school in this Emirate. Uprooted from our home on the western slope of Colorado, my son Sam is also with me on this adventure. My brother and his partner (who wisely decided not to join us tonight) have flown over to visit us for a few days, a getaway from their home in New Delhi, India. My brother has just received a job offer for the DCM post at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. He is about to ascend to a very important position in the international world, and I am going to feel pretty guilty if he doesn’t live through this experience… if we flip over and roll sideways down two hundred feet of dune. Not to mention Sam, who has his whole life in front of him.
Earlier in the evening, we'd stopped off the highway to let air out of the tires in preparation for this experience. Abdul had cautioned us to stay away from all food and beverages, except the water that he
would provide for us on the dunes. Now I knew why. My stomach churns in the aftermath of the earlier lurching and spinning we’d been through.
Right now our desert safari is stalled out because Abdul, though a deft and confident driver, has bottomed out on a dune. He asks us to exit the car, and I walk to the end of the dune, enjoying the stillness and wide desert views below us. Soon help arrives in the form of a turban-clad driver in a kandora, who hooks a piece of 50 foot nylon webbing to both cars and hauls us out. We are on our way again.
It seems that all dune drivers have signature dune driving music. Abdul plugs in his MP3 player, and cranks up a tune that was popular in 1984. Performed by Modern Talking, a German pop band, the lyrics boom out into the car. "You're no good, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis Louis? I'm in love, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis, Louis!" What on God's green earth was this 20-something kid doing with this 25-year-old Euro trash pop?
Listening to it, I am instantly transported back to Spain, during my junior year of college, when I’d studied in Madrid for a semester. This jingle played constantly at that time. In my mind's eye, I can almost see Madrid's boisterous streets, and taste the Cordero Negro champagne we'd drunk while dancing in Mediterranean-themed clubs. This was also the year my father died unexpectedly. And in just a few short months, I would be meeting a Moroccan, a man who was to become one of the great romantic interests of my life. Who knew where he was now? Yet I am, in part, here in the Middle East because of that long ago liaison, which started in me an appreciation for the Arab culture.
After a few initial show-off turns and spins, Abdul suddenly points the car downhill, and at breakneck speed, we float down an endless dune. "Brother Louis, Louis, Louis," pounds in my ears. I turn and look over my shoulder at Sam. His eyes are screwed shut. Then I look back at Ted. He just shakes his head at me. What have we gotten ourselves into this time? The brochure had looked innocuous enough.
"Please sir," I croak to the young driver. "Could you go a little more slowly, please?"
"Just relax," he counsels. And I do. In this minute, I open my eyes, force myself to unclench my hands from around my shoulder harness, and try to enjoy it. I am afraid of heights, but I tell myself this driver is experienced. And suddenly, it is sort of fun, if only a little bit. Sam crows from the back seat. It feels like we are flying over the sand, catching air, gliding and turning and swirling. The sun is setting over the desert. I decide we might survive after all.
An hour later, while seated on cushions in the open air, sipping Coronas and eating a sumptuous meal of savory daal bat lentils over rice, grilled vegetables and khandahar red curry spiced lamb and chicken, we talk to our neighbors at the adjoining table. They are two women who hail from Miami.
"Oh, no way!" says the short, pretty one. "We were told absolutely, under no conditions, were we to go on the dune pashing part of the safari. People throw up and hyperventilate and stuff all the time. You guys did that?"
We had, and we'd lived to tell the tale. A moment from it remains minute frozen in time, where we are all in that car, Abdul, Sam, his mother and uncle, three of the four mouths making perfect O's of fear and delight, as Modern Talking tells us, "Life is Life, come on stand up and fight!" The desert floats below and the sun melts into the horizon in sandy waves of orange heat.
--
"It's normal, it's normal," mutters Josef Abdul, our dune-bashing driver, as he gets out of the Land Cruiser to assess the damage. We are straddling a dune, sand trailing down at precipitous angles to the left and the right of us, and we are stuck.
"Don't worry. I will call my friends to pull us out. This is normal," he emphasizes. "We will be free shortly to continue on."
Until this momentary hang-up on one the dunes, we’d spent the last half hour sliding and gunning up and down 45-degree angles and popping up over dune precipices absolutely blindly only to roll at break-neck speeds down the other side. It had been a bone-jarring, breath-stealing experience. We’d had no idea what we were getting ourselves into on this desert safari trip. I’d imagined something more along the lines of a tame camel ride to an oasis, followed by a delectable Middle Eastern repast. This was not turning out the way I had planned.
"How do you all not hit each other? " I ask our driver nervously, as I watch another Land Cruiser pop over the dune 20 yards to my left. I am not so sure I want to continue on shortly. Sam's eyes are closed and Ted looks a bit green around the gills.
"We drive on assigned routes. Every dune has a name and we know all of them. I have been doing this for 10 years. Trust me," replies Abdul, as he starts punching rescue numbers into his cell phone.
Earlier in the day, the three of us had signed up for one of the fabled desert safari trips in the UAE. Under the banner of adventure tourism, the desert safaris of the last 10 years cater mainly to tourists, and take place all over the Rub’ al Khali Desert, otherwise known as the Empty Quarter, a huge expanse that covers much of this geographic region. The tours are generally a six-hour, $50 per person deal, including dune bashing, sand boarding, a trip to a camel farm, a ride on a camel, and a barbeque dinner, complete with local cuisine, sheesha smoking and henna painting. Our driver works for RAK events, and adventure outfit operating out of Ras Al Khaimah, the northern most Emirate, where I have chosen to live for the next 2 years.
I have recently moved to the UAE to teach at Ras Al Khaimah American School, the first American school in this Emirate. Uprooted from our home on the western slope of Colorado, my son Sam is also with me on this adventure. My brother and his partner (who wisely decided not to join us tonight) have flown over to visit us for a few days, a getaway from their home in New Delhi, India. My brother has just received a job offer for the DCM post at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. He is about to ascend to a very important position in the international world, and I am going to feel pretty guilty if he doesn’t live through this experience… if we flip over and roll sideways down two hundred feet of dune. Not to mention Sam, who has his whole life in front of him.
Earlier in the evening, we'd stopped off the highway to let air out of the tires in preparation for this experience. Abdul had cautioned us to stay away from all food and beverages, except the water that he
would provide for us on the dunes. Now I knew why. My stomach churns in the aftermath of the earlier lurching and spinning we’d been through.
Right now our desert safari is stalled out because Abdul, though a deft and confident driver, has bottomed out on a dune. He asks us to exit the car, and I walk to the end of the dune, enjoying the stillness and wide desert views below us. Soon help arrives in the form of a turban-clad driver in a kandora, who hooks a piece of 50 foot nylon webbing to both cars and hauls us out. We are on our way again.
It seems that all dune drivers have signature dune driving music. Abdul plugs in his MP3 player, and cranks up a tune that was popular in 1984. Performed by Modern Talking, a German pop band, the lyrics boom out into the car. "You're no good, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis Louis? I'm in love, can't you see, brother Louis, Louis, Louis!" What on God's green earth was this 20-something kid doing with this 25-year-old Euro trash pop?
Listening to it, I am instantly transported back to Spain, during my junior year of college, when I’d studied in Madrid for a semester. This jingle played constantly at that time. In my mind's eye, I can almost see Madrid's boisterous streets, and taste the Cordero Negro champagne we'd drunk while dancing in Mediterranean-themed clubs. This was also the year my father died unexpectedly. And in just a few short months, I would be meeting a Moroccan, a man who was to become one of the great romantic interests of my life. Who knew where he was now? Yet I am, in part, here in the Middle East because of that long ago liaison, which started in me an appreciation for the Arab culture.
After a few initial show-off turns and spins, Abdul suddenly points the car downhill, and at breakneck speed, we float down an endless dune. "Brother Louis, Louis, Louis," pounds in my ears. I turn and look over my shoulder at Sam. His eyes are screwed shut. Then I look back at Ted. He just shakes his head at me. What have we gotten ourselves into this time? The brochure had looked innocuous enough.
"Please sir," I croak to the young driver. "Could you go a little more slowly, please?"
"Just relax," he counsels. And I do. In this minute, I open my eyes, force myself to unclench my hands from around my shoulder harness, and try to enjoy it. I am afraid of heights, but I tell myself this driver is experienced. And suddenly, it is sort of fun, if only a little bit. Sam crows from the back seat. It feels like we are flying over the sand, catching air, gliding and turning and swirling. The sun is setting over the desert. I decide we might survive after all.
An hour later, while seated on cushions in the open air, sipping Coronas and eating a sumptuous meal of savory daal bat lentils over rice, grilled vegetables and khandahar red curry spiced lamb and chicken, we talk to our neighbors at the adjoining table. They are two women who hail from Miami.
"Oh, no way!" says the short, pretty one. "We were told absolutely, under no conditions, were we to go on the dune pashing part of the safari. People throw up and hyperventilate and stuff all the time. You guys did that?"
We had, and we'd lived to tell the tale. A moment from it remains minute frozen in time, where we are all in that car, Abdul, Sam, his mother and uncle, three of the four mouths making perfect O's of fear and delight, as Modern Talking tells us, "Life is Life, come on stand up and fight!" The desert floats below and the sun melts into the horizon in sandy waves of orange heat.
--
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