Touching in Oman

I'm sure I've touched on the fact that men and women are not to show public displays of affection over here in the Middle East.  This means that Stephen and I don't hold hands while walking.  We almost never hug unless it's a quick hug at the airport.  We certainly would never kiss in public.  Please keep this in mind so you're not the couple that Stephen saw in the Doha, Qatar airport making out.  It's highly inappropriate over here.

I've often thought this isn't good for someone like me who is already averse to touching.  I scored a 2/12 for my physical touch score in The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  It was my lowest by a lot.  I worry that I will get too used to not touching.  Will this become our new normal?  Will it be okay as our new normal?  Or will it really even change anything since I was so terrible at touching before.  I used to muse over how little our dates probably looked like dates to people on the outside.

My First Ramadan 2.0

I knew I would forget things.  I said I would forget things.  Here are some bullet points of what I forgot about Ramadan in Oman.

The Experience Oman sign in the Wave

My First Ramadan

In a discussion with some friends, we discussed how back in the States, we had no notion of when Ramadan was happening.  You might see it on a calendar which really just meant you had a vague idea of when it started.  We had no idea how long it lasted.  We had no idea what it meant.  My first Ramadan in the Middle East has been quite an eye opening experience.

Ramadan Mubarak:  The way to wish your Muslim friends a happy Ramadan.

Let's start with the logistics.  The Islamic Calendar is a lunar calendar.  This means that the month of Ramadan lasts 29 or 30 days (a lunar month is 29 1/2 days).  It moves approximately 11 days forward each year.  This means that while it is mostly in May this year, next year it will start in April.  It also begins when the local moon watchers see the required first crescent of a new moon in the sky.  It was not seen here on the evening of May 5th like it was in the UAE, so we started a day later.  It's quite honestly a little insane since the phases of the moon can and are tracked.

Culture Shock 3.0

I've accumulated a few pictures of Oman oddities and highlights and cultural preferences.  Just some things you wouldn't necessarily see in the States.

First up, a broom.  What?  You don't see a broom?  I bet you thought that was just a dried up palm branch.  Here, you will see workers clearing sidewalks with the below broom.  It appears to work fairly well.

A palm branch that could be used as a broom for sweeping sidewalks.

Nice Cars

One thing that surprised me about Oman is how many fancy cars I see on a regular basis.  Old Omani families have a lot of money, and some of them like to flaunt that money with cars.  You see similar cars in the UAE (Dubai).  Honestly, I'd be less worried about wrecking a nice car here than in Dubai.

This post will be mostly pictorial.  Funny or interesting notes about the cars will be listed on the picture captions.  Also, I have not sighted a Tesla yet.  Muscat's first electric charging station is only a few months old.

Jaguars are fairly common place here, to be honest.  This is a neighbor.

Culture Shock 2.0

More musings of things that are different:

There is no recycling here!  The grocery stores use thick, plastic bags.  Not many people are using reusable bags.  The Wave does have recycle bins for their residents, though a friend admitted she wonders if it is all just a ruse to make the expats feel better.  She thinks both bins end up in the same place.

Halloween… I knew people wouldn’t celebrate it here, but I didn’t expect people to be against it.  I assumed it would just be a non holiday.  It seems that for some, they have spent their Christian lives avoiding cultural holidays because they celebrate Hindu or other gods.  It makes these people extremely weary of what holidays they celebrate and why and what the origin of the holiday is.  Honestly, not a bad strategy, especially when carefully guiding their children.  It is also really only in America that Halloween is this fun, silly, give kids candy holiday.  I kid you not; I went to a prayer group meeting last month in Halloween workout pants and a Halloween Disney shirt.  They then started discussing how they don’t celebrate Halloween and I was mortified at what I was wearing.  Don’t worry, the conversation wasn’t directed at me or antagonistic, I was just painfully aware that I wore the wrong clothes.

Culture Shock Potpourri

Occasionally I will share a random assortment of cultural differences that I have noticed.  These are in no specific order or theme.  Think stream of consciousness here.

An obvious cultural difference would be clothes.  Omani men wear a dishdasha and a specific Omani hat.  There are two versions of the hat.  The more turban style is the older style, the kuma is the one more frequently seen.  Side note:  I'd love to get Stephen and the boys kumas.  They are very pretty! (is it okay to call a man's hat pretty?)  What I didn't expect was that there were hats specific to Omanis.  I also didn't realize that there are slight style differences in the dishdashas.  An Omani dishdasha has a side tassel.  They are typically white, but they can be in other colors or with colored embroidery and tassel.  The women wear black with their head covered.  Some women have their faces covered.  I expected the Omani women's style.  What I didn't expect was the feeling that we are going to stand out because of our skin color, but we can also blend in with the many expats by being us and dressing conservatively.

Omani Kuma