On Indian Culture Shock (or lack thereof)

So, as I mentioned previously, I had some serious concerns about going to India and expected to find it a huge culture shock, despite the fact that I've routinely traveled to the developing world over the last decade or so. I pictured endless slums and people living in abject poverty without proper sanitation or healthcare. I pictured lepers begging for money and dense crowds jostling and molesting you in the streets. Somehow, setting off to India made me feel like I'd never before left the US, much less that I'd been living abroad for a year or that I routinely jetted off to countries much more foreign to the average American than India.

Given my level of trepidation about traveling to India, I figure the only way I can do penance for my previously held erroneous beliefs is to write about India in agonizing detail. Or at least until I get bored and/or finish sorting through my photos. So anyway, I landed in Delhi in the midafternoon and noticed that the impressively modern airport was completely empty. There didn't seem to be anyone waiting at gates to get on or off planes and when I approached the immigration counter my challenge was in finding an immigration officer who was awake since I was the only person at the eVisa counter. As I exited the airport to look for my taxi driver, I expected to be bombarded by hundreds of offers of taxis and drivers and was mentally preparing myself for the onslaught - instead, there were only a handful of people standing outside the airport and not a single one offered me a ride or a tour or anything else.

The drive from the airport to my hotel was utterly terrifying. Lanes and traffic rules are mere suggestions and before we got out of the airport my taxi was almost in a collision with another car as both were trying to share the same lane (although I use the term "lane" loosely - it's probably more accurate that both cars were simultaneously trying to share the same spot in the road and neither was willing to back down). Cars meandered across the roads, including into the oncoming traffic, and it was not unusual to see cars traveling the wrong way down the road. At stoplights cars squeeze in as close together as possible, maneuvering into open spots with mere centimeters to spare on either side of the car. And to add to the chaos, there were also tons of motorbikes, bicycles, horse carts, human carts, pedestrians, tuk-tuks, wild animals, etc. The only saving grace seems to be that no one drives very fast, so at least a collision would likely only result in a fender bender rather than death. I later learned that all one has to do to get a driver's license in India is pay for it (rather than take a driving test), which makes so much sense now.

On the drive in I also noticed that men were peeing everywhere, with seemingly no concern for privacy or sanitation. After about a week in I noticed some of the public urinals, which were basically just open stalls on the streets for men to pee in, but again without any real privacy. I expected the pervasive smell in India to be that of curry-scented BO - instead, urine is the single scent that stands out in my mind from the trip and it's simply because men pee wherever it's convenient. And, all things considered, I'd rather there be rivers of pee than rivers of poo in the streets.

Happy as a pig in shit in the streets of Jaipur

All things considered, however, my culture "shock" was minimal. For starters, I didn't actually see any of the slums that movies have led me to believe exist in every Indian city. I'm sure the slums are awful and depressing, but they didn't pervade the entirety of the cities quite like I expected. In the three cities I visited (Delhi, Jaipur and Agra) and in the handful of train stations I was in, I did see homeless and poverty-stricken people. Poverty and homelessness is always sobering, whether it's in an American city or an Indian train station, but I can honestly say that what I saw in India wasn't any worse than what I've seen in other developing nations or even on Skid Row in Los Angeles. In fact, I've seen more homeless people poop on the streets in the US than in India (I actually only saw one small child poop on the streets in India, though there was a distressingly large pile of poop on the stairs in one of the train stations - I'm still hoping that poop-pile was caused by a very dexterous cow capable of maneuvering up and down train station stairs rather than a human, but I digress). I still think the worst poverty I've ever seen or experienced was in Cambodia and what I saw in India doesn't even begin to compare to that.

Speaking of cows, they're everywhere in India and are not eaten by Hindus. It's not correct to say that Hindus worship cows, but one of the religious reasons that cows have a protected status is because the Lord Shiva rode a bull (the non-religious reasons are pretty practical - live cows can sustain life far longer than cow meat by providing milk and dung, both of which are important in Indian rural life). It's one thing in the villages to see cows freely roaming around, but it's another thing to see free-roaming cows in cities. Especially when those cows choose to lie down in the middle of busy roads or stand around chewing cud at a busy intersection. Cows (and water buffalo and dogs and donkeys and goats) also add tremendously to the utter chaos of driving in India. Some of the cows have homes that they return to at the end of the day for some more substantive food, but other cows have been disowned. Apparently Indian superstition maintains that it's really bad for a cow to die in one's home, so when cows stop producing milk or start to get old, many Indians will just release the cows to wander about freely. These cows are still relatively well fed, since in all Indian homes, when a woman bakes chapatti (Indian bread), the first chapatti of the evening is made for the wandering cows and the last is made for the stray dogs.

A cow, doing what cows do in India. Namely, hanging around and eating stuff.

We watched these cows cross a busy road in Jaipur to then hang out in the street or in the median. Didn't seem at all bothered by the cars rushing past.

Based on the numbers of stray dogs we saw, you'd need a lot of chapatti. But unlike other developing nations where the sight of stray animals is enough to make me want to put all my spare income into animal rescue organizations, strays and animals in general in India didn't seem so bad off, especially compared to some of the homeless humans. Over 80% of Indians practice Hinduism or one of Hinduism's splinter religions (Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism), all of which believe in some form of karma and the concept that mistreating even an animal could affect one's karma or reincarnation (in fact, some devout Jains are so concerned with the sanctity of life that they cover their faces so as to avoid inadvertently swallowing and killing a bug and others carry peacock feathers to dust off places to sit to avoid sitting on an insect and killing it). While a lot of the dogs looked mangy or hungry, none looked beaten or scared of humans and we often saw stray dogs living alongside the "stray" humans on the streets. In fact, the only animals in India that truly tugged at my heartstrings were the elephants, many of which have been forced into terrible working conditions as a result of the tourist industry.

Cows, pigs and dogs happily cohabiting a trash pile together in Ranthambore.

The pink gates of Jaipur, as well as the crush of humanity and pigs, dogs and cows happily munching on trash - totally a standard scene in India.

We also spent a few days in an Indian village, Tordi Garh, which I found fascinating. Village life in India resembled a lot of the village life I've seen in Africa or Southeast Asia, though the Indian homes were surprisingly immaculate. Our guides pointed out that while the streets were dirty with trash or animal dung, the insides of the homes generally had tiled floors that were kept very clean by the women of the families. Most if not all of the houses had running water and electricity; while we saw some men bathing in public water spigots, our guide told us that was likely due to personal preference rather than necessity, since many of the home showers are cramped and hot and can be uncomfortable to bathe in.

A village water pump in Tordi Garh. We saw these all over the place and people used these for washing, drinking and bathing.

A house in Tordi Garh - the paintings on the wall were to advertise a wedding, thereby inviting all the villagers to the wedding or anyone who happened to pass by the house

Even more impressive is the government's promotion of the villages. One thing that's easy to forget is that while many in India live below the poverty line, the economy of India is booming and the government is not necessarily poor. We learned that schooling in the villages is free and children receive a free lunch, which also helps promote attendance in the schools. There are forms of village welfare where poverty-stricken families can receive deep discounts on certain food products and there are specific jobs offered to low income families (i.e., help build a road for 2 hours tomorrow and receive a full day's wage for 2 hours of work), not to mention all the charitable religious organizations. There were free medical clinics and other civil services that sort of put what we have in America to shame.

The streets of Tordi Garh

All of which begged the question of why so many people live on the streets in the cities or in the slums or in the train stations rather than in the villages. Some leave the villages in the hopes of a more exciting life in the city (or, as frequently happens with teens, they want to be Bollywood stars), some move to the cities for jobs and then are too ashamed to return to the villages when things don't work out, some people don't want to be farmers in villages and some people just don't want to work for a living. But you could ask the same question and get many of the same answers if you asked why there are so many homeless people in expensive American cities - I often wondered why the homeless people I saw freezing in Boston winters didn't find some way to head down South and find a nice warm place to squat in Georgia (not to mention the huge savings in the cost of living in the South vs. a northern city).

So, long story short - India was a lot of things, but it wasn't necessarily a culture shock for an experienced traveler. And it wasn't any worse than most other developing nations and even had a lot of governmental and social programs that could be compared with similar programs in the US.

On Deciding to Go to India

Ok, so I have to admit that India was never high on my list of places to visit. I just pictured India as being an utter cacophony for the senses, a chaotic assault on sight, smell, sound and, most importantly, on my stomach. Since Indian food in America made me sick, I figured I would undoubtedly get Delhi Belly and spend the entirety of a trip crouched over some horrid public toilet, bemoaning evil curries and likely contracting something that killed the settlers in my childhood Oregon Trail game.

 

 

And then I moved to Oman. And India is soooo close and I did finally successfully try Indian food and not die. But I still didn't want to go. Most of the expats in Oman are from the Indian subcontinent, so I sort of figured Oman was like a much better smelling, cleaner, richer cousin of India. See, no need to go, especially since over the last few months Western media has been really focused on the rape and, specifically, gang rape issues in India. So, further justification for not going to India and dying of dysentery and/or gang rape. And, finally, even the tour company included a warning for India - it said that even really experienced travelers found India challenging and culturally shocking to travel to, further justification for me avoiding the second most populous country in the world altogether.

 

Except...India has tigers. And the Taj Mahal. And I really enjoyed studying Hinduism in school. And it's such a big and diverse country with so much fascinating history. And it's only three hours away. So, against what I thought was my better judgment and after many hours of agonizing over itineraries and tour companies, I booked a 2 week G Adventures trip to India to see tigers and the Taj Mahal and started stocking up on Immodium and Pepto Bismol and camping toilet paper.

 

 

I justified this trip on the basis that half the trip was spent in national parks stalking tigers, so that in and of itself would limit the amount of time I would be exposed to the crush of humanity that I expected (or slums or dodgy curries or utterly horrid toilets). Plus I convinced my roomie from Borneo to go with me, so at least I wouldn't be violently ill each day in front of a total stranger. And I booked a female taxi driver from the airport to reduce my chances of being raped until I could join up with the tour.

 

A few weeks before the trip my dad told me about a TV special he watched where they discussed sanitation in India (or lack thereof) and that so many people got sick because people working in kitchens still wiped their asses with their hands and then prepared food without properly washing their hands. So I bought enough pre-packaged food to bring with me that I figured I could survive on granola bars alone if necessary. The day before the trip started, one of my coworkers told me to avoid wearing sandals in Indian cities because of the "rivers of poo". My mind was filled with images of slums and human feces free-flowing in the streets, with the stench of a billion people's curry-scented BO and utter lack of sanitation. I might have canceled right then if my friend hadn't already flown to India from Australia...and I'm so glad I didn't.

 

I have so much to say about India it's going to take me multiple blog postings and time to continue sorting through my 2000 pictures. But it truly is an incredible country with unbelievable wildlife, architecture and history. The people were friendly and wonderful and the chaos of sight, sound and smell was invigorating rather than off-putting. While I can't say my stomach was 100% normal, I never got sick, nor did most of the other people on my trip. And though the tiger safaris didn't result in any up-close encounters, we did see two tigers, which just left me wanting more.

 

 

The tall grass didn't help, but at least you can see it's an actual tiger!

 

So while I figure out how to sort through my thoughts and photos of an unbelievable two weeks, I'll leave you with my favorite picture that I took of the Taj Mahal:

 

 

The Unsexy Part of Traveling

So first, a nifty travel map generator I found:

I love maps. I also love coloring in the maps to show where I've been because it gives me a weird sense of accomplishment. Which I guess makes sense if "world traveler" is one of the phrases I would use to define myself, but probably still pretty annoying to everyone around me.

 

But anyway, the last couple of weeks have been full of the unsexy part of traveling - visa applications. I'm off to India in a few weeks for a tiger safari (!!!!), so this past weekend I started my electronic visa application. It wasn't a big deal as far as visa applications go, at least until I got to this question:

 

 

Surely they had to be joking. Figuring this could take longer than expected I started filling it out, but before I even finished 2014 I ran out of space. But, this scary question aside, the Indian visa application system was a breeze and I already have my electronic visa all ready for my trip.

 

In sharp contrast to India are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, two of the hardest countries in the world to get visas to. I'm traveling with my dad there this summer, so in addition to my own visa, I'm also trying to make sure he can get one as well since there are some concerns about his ability to get a visa due to his age.

 

Turkmenistan you can get a visa on arrival (supposedly), but first you have to get a Letter of Invitation from the government. Our tour company is working on that and I have my fingers and toes crossed that on arrival in Turkmenistan it all actually works (at least my dad and I are flying into Turkmenistan together, so if we get stuck or have problems we'll be together). Apparently someone from our tour company is going to have to meet us at immigration and shepherd us through the process, since the government wants to ensure that no one visits the country without a tour guide.

 

Uzbekistan has turned out to be a way bigger hassle. If you're an American citizen living in America, you just send your passport off to the Uzbek embassy (or hire a visa company to do it for you) and in a few weeks you get your passport back with a shiny new visa, which is what my dad is doing. But if you're not living in America and not willing to send your passport off for a month or so, it means you have to find an Uzbek embassy or consul which, as you can imagine, there are not a lot of. And if you're applying for a visa outside of the US, you need a Letter of Invitation from the government, which makes no sense because I'm still American regardless of where I'm living. And to get a Letter of Invitation you need a letter from your employer stating where you work and that you're only going to Uzbekistan for vacation and not for work and that you plan on returning to work after the vacation, which was a whole other hassle.

 

After a lot of research and phone calls to my tour company, a visa company and the Uzbek embassy/consul, this is my current plan: apply for Letter of Invitation (done); receive Letter of Invitation; fly to Dubai on a Sunday in April (the consul is only open Sunday, Tuesday and Thursdays from 9-12); cross fingers and hope that nothing goes wrong and that I'm able to leave Dubai that same day with a visa. I've also booked our plane tickets (a whole other clusterfuck...you have no idea how difficult it is to find flights out of Uzbekistan), so I'm really really really hoping we don't have visa difficulties.

 

While going through this whole ridiculous process, I kept thinking to myself "Why?!?!?" and "This trip damn well better be worth it." It's not like there's a ton of Americans trying to sneak into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for job opportunities. It's not like their economies couldn't desperately use some additional tourism revenue, not to mention some good publicity with Western tourists. And if I wasn't so determined to see these countries and the Silk Route, I would have given up long ago. So what does deterring travelers and all the additional bureaucracy and paperwork really give these countries? Other than more jokes for Borat...

 

And finally, as a result of all these new visas, I've run out of pages in my 2 year old passport. So yesterday I schlepped on down to the US Embassy here in Muscat for them to do some shoddy arts and crafts on my passport:

 

 

Seriously, they just glued random pages into the beginning and end of my passport. It looks like I did it myself and the damned thing doesn't even close now unless I hold it or stick something heavy on top of it. Here's hoping I can actually get through immigration with it...

 

So yeah, I love traveling. And the thought of going somewhere as wild and unexplored as Central Asia thrills me to the core. But the visa processes can be monstrously time consuming, annoying and, ultimately, expensive. And after all this work and effort, I'm not even positive that we'll be able to get visas, since we think they could be worried that my retired dad is trying to sneak into one of the 'stans for job opportunities (because that's totally logical for a happily retired American to do).

Extremism in Saudi Arabia vs. Oman

One of the goals of this blog was to entertain, educate and, most importantly, reassure my friends and family back home that I was safe and happy here and not living in fear of terrorism. I've tried to share my experiences and some of the knowledge I've picked up by reading a lot and just being a nerd in general, but the single best thing I've read to date on why terrorism just won't be an issue in Oman is the recently posted article by Gary Grappo, "Saudi Arabia and Oman Have Different Experiences With Extremism". So follow the link and read an excellent article that's far more compelling than anything I could write.

 

 

To Go Home

A couple of months ago someone posted an article on Facebook about whether one could ever go home again after being an expat and it's something I've been thinking about since, especially as I've been fielding a lot of questions from work lately about whether I want to stay in the region or go back to the US.

 

When you live abroad, whether it's for one year or ten, life moves on without you at home. You miss weddings and birthdays and births and other big life events. You miss the phone call from your best friend that she got engaged because of the time difference. You miss the impromptu calls from friends to chat about life or love or work. And while your friends might think of you fondly and miss you occasionally, they generally fill the gap you left in their social group and move on without you. And as time goes on, the calls and the texts and the emails lessen.

 

And sad as that might sound, my life has also moved on. In 2014 alone I visited 16 countries. Most of my American friends will never visit that many countries in their entire lives and, as the gap between our experiences and lives widen, it becomes harder to find things in common. I learned this at a very young age when I first started traveling - after returning home from a trip, I wanted to tell my friends all about every cool experience, only to find that many of them were immediately bored or were just jealous of my trips (and thought I was bragging). So when people ask about a trip after I return, I generally say something generic like "Oh, it was great!" or "I had a lot of fun but it was so cold!" The people who really want to know more (whether because they care about me or because they're genuinely interested in traveling or just because they're inquisitive people) will generally ask enough follow up questions to get me talking.

 

Most of my funny stories start with phrases like "So, this one time when I was camping in Uganda and surrounded by wildebeests and hippos..." or involve some story about my trials and tribulations of using a squatter toilet (in fact, if I ever wrote a book, I'm pretty sure the title would be something like "Ass Hoses and Squatter Toilets: One Girl's Adventures in Learning to Squat in the World's Shittiest Toilets"). Those stories tend not to be received so well in the US (except by my closest friends). And when I only traveled once or twice a year, it wasn't a big deal to leave those stories out of my dialogue. But now, after traveling this much, how do I go home and be myself and yet leave out such huge pieces of my life and experiences?

 

I imagine it's also hard adjusting back into American culture after living in a foreign culture. I've already talked about how sometimes I get offended on behalf of Arabs when I hear Americans say something ignorant, and I know it's going to be so much worse if I were to return home. Aside from the comments about terrorists and subservient women, there's plenty of people who have said/will say "Ugh, Oman?!?! Where the hell is that and why on earth would you want to go there?!? Did you have to ride a camel to work?"

 

And finally, living abroad makes you miss and appreciate America in ways that I took for granted when I lived there. I miss Target and Wal-Mart and Home Depot and other one-stop shops. I miss craft beer and Cajun food and southern BBQ. I miss real Diet Coke from a fountain. I miss Americans' sense of independence and pride and bullheadedness and belligerence and all the other adjectives that describe our upstart nation, both the positive and the negative. And I know that if I move back I'll just be frustrated by all these things that I miss  (well, not Diet Coke - I'd never be frustrated by Diet Coke) and appalled at how insular and ignorant many Americans are of the outside world.

 

So no, I don't think repatriating back to the US is going to happen anytime soon. And as for going home? Well, I'm already there. Because as any nomad will tell you, home isn't a single place. It's where your friends are, where you put down roots (even for just a year), where your pets are (minus my happily retired dog who has permanently abandoned me for my parents), where the bed is that you long to return to after a few hard weeks on the road, where your local pub is, where the waiter at your favorite restaurant knows your name...

(Oh, and here's a really poignant blog post about this very same topic.)

 

And while it feels like I'm channeling my 20-year old self, I'm going to leave you with some appropriate some lyrics from an old favorite band:

 

I met a girl who kept tattoos
For homes that she had loved
If I were her I'd paint my body
'Til all my skin was gone

On Being Female...and Other Musings

The question I get asked most often by people back home is what it's like living and working as a female in an Arab and Muslim country. And frankly, my answer is that it's pretty much the same, with the exception that I wear slightly longer skirts and cover my shoulders. Sure, sometimes I have to work a little harder to get the same respect as a similarly situated male colleague, but that's no different from my experiences in the US. 

 

Most people are shocked by this answer and the next follow up question is usually something like, "But aren't women really second-class citizens over there?" (Not to mention that any time there's violence perpetrated anywhere in the world by an Islamic terrorist that my Facebook feed is rife with commentary on how horribly women are treated in this region.) As I find myself explaining over and over again how American media incorrectly portrays life in the Middle East, or as I try to explain the differences in culture, or describe how many women choose to wear an abaya/hijab, I feel a bit like an Arab apologist.

 

That's the phrase we used for our Middle Eastern History professors in college who were Westerners teaching about the Middle East and yet constantly trying to apologize for the Western misperception of Islam/Arabs. My Arab or Muslim professors tended not to apologize - they just stated facts and, if a debate started about the morality of a topic, the professors just shrugged it off as Americans' inability to understand other cultures. When we called professors Arab apologists, though, it wasn't a compliment. But I understand it now - to study or experience or understand a foreign culture, yet never truly be a part of it, can wind up alienating you from both cultures, as you're always trying to explain or defend one culture to the other.

 

So when I talk to Westerners about life in the Middle East, I wind up saying "Yes, but..." a lot and qualifying my statements.

- "Yes, some women are forced by their husbands to cover their faces, but they are the minority, except maybe in places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan."

- "Yes, some women are still put to death for adultery, but that very rarely happens, except maybe in places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan (and besides, how many women are killed in the US each year through domestic violence?)."

- "Yes, some girls are married off at very young ages to older men, but that really only happens in places like Yemen or Afghanistan."

- "Yes, divorce and child custody over here might favor the man more than the woman, but you have to understand that the culture is different. Divorce rates are much lower, not because women can't divorce, but because people marry for different reasons. Rather than marrying for "true love", people marry for a spouse that can support them, or that can provide them with children, or for companionship. Their expectations for their partner are lower (and clearer), so divorce rates are naturally lower."

 

And so I feel like an apologist, constantly trying to explain and justify my host country's culture. I also find myself getting offended on behalf of Arabs/Muslims when I hear Westerners say ignorant and misguided things about a culture that they have never witnessed or experienced. (Oh, and it goes both ways - my Arab colleagues think I'm constantly trying to defend American culture or politics, or diffuse claims that everything wrong with the world is somehow an American conspiracy). But as much as I might be branded an apologist, I also think that the only way Westerners are likely to change their perception of Arabs is by hearing it from a Western female. If an Arab woman told you that she wore the abayajab out of personal preference and that she did not feel like a second class citizen, would you believe her? Or would you instantly start coming up with counterarguments in your head, like she's only saying that because that's what she's been brainwashed with?

 

So I'll keep apologizing (for both cultures). Because I'm so lucky to get a glimpse into a culture so foreign to Americans and because there's a chance that when an American hears me say that my gender isn't an impediment to my success here, that maybe some of you will start to believe me.

 

Finally, a post! And some updates...

I know, I know, I have been woefully remiss in updating this blog lately. It's a combination of being really busy, crankiness/expat frustrations (and not wanting to use this blog as a forum for whining) and trying to write posts that don't stray into local politics or things that could piss off the people who so nicely sign my checks every month. So I'll just ram the past few months into this one post and then I'll try to promise to be better in the future.

 

1.     I Moved!

 

As you may recall, I had some serious maintenance issues with my former house. It turns out that living in a house with toxic black mold, unending plumbing issues and where your kitchen cabinets are lying on the floor can make you cranky. It also turns out that living in the middle of absolutely nowhere, 20+ minutes away from any conveniences, can make you feel even more isolated and homesick than you already do as a single expat in a foreign country.

 

I'll admit, I was willing to live with too many issues for too long because it seemed like living with the House from Hell was easier/less stressful than dealing with moving, so it's partially my fault for waiting until I was totally miserable. My final straw(s) was when my shower stopped working for like the 6th time and when my house completely flooded when we got 30 minutes of light rain. That was back in October and thus began a nearly two month endeavor to get HR to move me. (I actually wrote a blog article back in December on that whole seemingly unending clusterfuck, but then decided I sounded too whiny and angry. But if you ever ask me about it in person, be prepared for me to launch into an angry tirade since I still have some anger issues about the whole topic).

 

To make a loooooooong story short, on Christmas Eve I moved into my fabulous new apartment (which also happens to be the apartment I was originally supposed to move into, except HR accidentally gave it away to someone else), which happens to be in the heart of the expat area and is a 3 minute walk from an area with my favorite restaurant, a bar, liquor store, 2 coffee shops and a Western grocery store. Let me tell you what a huge sigh of relief this has been for me - I'm much happier here, much more willing to consider staying beyond my contract term of 15 months and much more social now that I can walk to meet up with friends.

 

[Side note: After moving out of the House from Hell I heard a lot of other stories from people who had also moved out of the same development. Turns out one of my neighbors had three huge, poisonous viper snakes in their laundry room and other people have reported poisonous vipers coming up through toilets. Turns out that as part of their botched plumbing construction, they've managed to let poisonous snakes into the pipes. Can you only imagine how I would have reacted if I'd had a poisonous snake come up through my toilet?!?!]

 

2. Christmas

 

Christmas in the Middle East is pretty strange. It's a normal work day, all the restaurants and shops are open, there's no Christmas trees or decorations and it feels like any normal summer day. I had offered to work on Christmas so my coworker could spend it with her family and it was so strange to be at work and to go out for lunch at a normal restaurant. Also, you know how in the US you're not supposed to say "Merry Christmas" anymore but instead have to say "Happy Holidays" to be politically correct and inclusive of all the non-Christians? Well, here there are no other recognized holidays in December other than Christmas and every Omani assumes that all white people are Christian. So pretty much every time an Omani saw me on Christmas, they exuberantly shouted "Merry Christmas!!!" and seemed pretty happy with themselves for remembering the white-people holiday. I found it charming and funny.

 

[Side note: I could give two shits about the whole "Merry Christmas"/"Happy Holidays" political correctness debate in the US, so please don't think that previous paragraph was meant to indicate an opinion on the political correctness of either statement.]

 

3. New Year's Eve

 

I traded working Christmas for getting off for NYE. My sole requirements for NYE were that I wanted to be somewhere cold and I wanted to not be in Oman. So I met up with a few friends from my Romania trip in Edinburgh, Scotland for the annual NYE street festival called Hogmanay. Two comments: I am too old for drunken street festivals and my body is too broken to handle a cold, wet Scottish winter. Everything ached for like a week even after I returned to the desert.

 

4. Naughty Nala

 

I got suckered into taking home a stray kitten that we'd been feeding outside of our favorite restaurant for a while. She's sweet and adorable and I think Zim is happy for the company, but she's in the naughty kitten stage where she races around the house and then knocks everything off every surface. She also has an obsession with smashing fruit all over the house (so far I've had an avocado, tomato and apple smeared everywhere)...hence the title Naughty Nala.

 

Zim and his mini-me, Naughty Nala. Yeah, I know, one day I should get a pet that isn't black.

5. Winter Wonderland

 

All summer people kept telling me how awesome Oman is in the winter when it's not hot and gorgeous. I heard tales of rooftop bars and restaurants, nightlife only available in the summer and desert excursions that wouldn't kill you from heatstroke. I can finally say that while I would hardly call 75-85 degree weather winter, it is definitely a nice change from the scorching summer. And this is definitely a more interesting place to live from December-March.

 

 

Ok, I think that's it's for the major "catch up" and I'll try to get out some more substantive posts on my recent adventures soon!