Excursions and Fun: A General Update of Weeks Three and Four

Yesterday marked the four week point since when I got to PDO in Washington D.C..  I only have three weeks left in this country but I wish that I could have so many more.  I didn't know what to expect when I came to Oman, but I have fallen in love with this country.  The people here are incredibly nice and welcoming.  Family is one of the most important things in Oman and even as a foreigner, I am still recognized by my host family and all of my host family's extended family as a member of the family and I am treated as such.  I have been blessed with a wonderful group of girls in my program as well as amazing program directors who have become more like our family away from home than our supervisors.  In twenty days I will be home and I will have left these people and this country behind.  That thought is really saddening to me but also makes me push to make sure that these last twenty days are the best that they can be. 

Class has been going well.  There are four or five hours of instruction each day and then an hour and a half of practice and extra instruction with our Omani peer facilitators (FGILS).  Being in class for such a long stretch of time is difficult but I know that I am learning a lot.  When I got to Oman I knew my alphabet.  Now, four weeks later, I just took my midterm on the first four chapters of Al-Kitaab and gave a presentation on myself and my family. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I have learned a lot but I really have.  I generally have a basic idea of what people are talking about in conversation even though I don't know what they are saying specifically.  I can carry on a basic conversation about myself.

There are moments when I feel really good about how much I have progressed and I can see myself taking Arabic throughout college and studying abroad and obtaining my fluency in this language.  There are also moments when those dreams feel impossible.  But I have to take the future as it comes and see where it takes me. 

Another important part of the program here is learning about culture in Oman.  Writing about the cultural excursions is a lot more interesting than writing about what I did in class, so that is why this blog is more orientated towards the culture side of my international experience than the language aspects. 

On Tuesday (7/7), our program and our FGILS went to the Seeb Souq for iftar and a scavenger hunt.  A souq is a traditional outdoor market.  The one in Seeb is quite close to the beach and the Gulf of Arabia so seeing the ocean was quite nice.  The weather was also really warm which was pleasant.  Before iftar, we all just wandered around the market a little before finding our restaurant.  Iftar consisted of fresh fruit and fried meat followed by chicken, bread, French fries, salad, and juice. Exotic juices are extremely common here and that is definitely something I will miss a lot. 

Arabian Sea

Juice menu, I chose strawberry

After dinner, we were split up into groups of two or three to start our scavenger hunt.  We were given a list of clues (in English) that we needed to use to figure out what items to find (in Arabic).  To find these items, we had to ask for directions for a store that sells it (in Arabic) and then ask the owner for permission to take a picture with it and ask for the name of the item (all in Arabic). 

This was a really good experience for me.  It pushed me out of my comfort zone, but in a good way.  In the United States I am not particularly comfortable talking to strangers nor doing things like hailing taxis.  I am even less comfortable doing stuff like that in a language I barely know.  However, I got through it and everyone who helped us was extremely nice and understanding, which helped put the evening in the "learning zone" and not the "panic zone".

The next excursion was the next weekend (7/10-7/11), when we went to Nizwa and Jebel Shams.  Both areas are in the interior of Oman so they are less hot and humid.  Nizwa is the former capital of Oman and dates back tot he sixth ad seventh century in the history of Oman. We all got up early on Friday morning to head to school to get in the four wheel drive cars that we would need to get up the mountain.  The two hour drive to Nizwa was fun because we got to see more of the interior of the country, because we had only really been in Muscat previously. 




Views from Nizwa Fort

Our fist stop in Nizwa was the souq.  There was an animal market going on so we saw a lot of people selling and buying goats and cows.  We also walked through a vegetable and fruit market and then a pottery/souvenirs area where a lot of the girls made purchases. 

Views from Nizwa Fort

  
We then explored the Nizwa Fort and Castle, which were constructed around 1650.  We climbed to the top of the fort to see the beautiful views around Nizwa as well as explored the grounds and inner buildings in the castle and fort. 
           



Foliage!

After exploring the fort, we went to a small town near Nizwa and explored around there.  We walked through a grove of date trees and explored an area with a little spring and more green foliage than I had seen in Oman previously.  It was really nice to be in the interior of Oman and outside the city of Muscat. 

Date Tree!

Our "guardian goat"

We then traveled to our campsite on Jebel Shams, the highest mountain in Oman.  The road was definitely quite rough and bumpy, but we stopped many times for pictures.  We saw a lot mountain goats, which was pretty awesome.

NSLI-Y girls prove they have another talent besides learning languages:
we can take jumping pictures

Our camping site was not a traditional camping site.  We were staying in Arabian tents, which were significantly nicer than any American tents that I have ever seen, and the "tents" even had bathrooms attached. 

Our "tents".

After arriving at Jebel Shams, we relaxed poolside for a while before deciding to explore.  A small group of us went on a small hike with our Residence Director which ended with us spending an hour sitting on the edge of the mountain enjoying the perfect peace and calm.  The calmness felt so good.  During this period of free time, some girls also formed a goat army. 

After dinner, all of us got together and spread some mats out under the stars.  It was nice to see the stars, the moon, and a little bit of the sun for the first time since leaving the United States.  It is too dusty here to see them; the sky is a permanently hazy gray-ish color.  We had some really nice conversations, everything from college advice and feminism, to sharing stories and reflecting on the trip and musing about the future.  It's nights like these that I think that I will miss the most.  I love the sense of community within our group.  I've never experienced that to such as a degree as I have with the other girls on this program. 

The next morning we got up early to go on a hike down the mountain.  We had to go early in order to avoid the worst of the heat.  The hike, although it was only about two and a half miles, wasn't easy.  The views, while I wasn't staring at my feet to make sure I didn't trip and die, were spectacular and definitely made the difficult hike worth it.   
Views from the hikes:
 

8 members of NSLI-Y Oman and 1 RD.
An incredibly great group of people.

After we came back, we had a few hours of down time before lunch.  After lunch, we left for Muscat again although we did make a few stops to take some group pictures and enjoy the pretty views. 

One of the girls made a video recap of the weekend, shown below.

The other notable thing that happened recently was that yesterday was the last day of classes before Eid break.  Eid is a holiday that marks the end of Ramadan and is filled with a lot of family time and food.  I also have ten days off of class for this holiday, so I'm pretty happy.  Yesterday in class we took our midterm, which I think went pretty well for me.  It was also the 18th birthday of one of the girls in the program, so we planned her a surprise birthday party.  The party went really well, her parents and the FGILS were there as well as all of the NSLI-Y girls and the program directors. 

Because we spend so much time at our school building (14 hours yesterday), it is beginning to feel like a second home in Oman to a lot of us.  Yesterday we started a decorating project, and the other girls who worked on it and I are really happy with how it is coming. 

I'm starting to feel really at home here in Oman and I'm really happy.  I'm really excited as to how this experience has changed me as a person and I look forward to how I continue to grow from my time remaining in the Middle East. 

Eid Mubarak!
EmmaLeah Hardin