Last summer my former Rabbi asked me if, after returning from the Middle East, I might be interested in speaking about some of my experiences to his congregation. So this year I received the following prompts from him:

What do the Arab people you met think about America, Israel, and Jews?

Is there really such a thing as moderate Islam?

If so, what does it take to build bridges?

So I wrote the following address and delivered it to Temple Shalom in Milton, MA on Saturday the 22nd of August.

My name is Abraham Katz, and I’m about to enter my final year at Middlebury College where I study Middle Eastern studies and political science. I spent this past year in Alexandria, Egypt at Middlebury’s school in the Middle East. It was an Arabic-intensive program that included a “language pledge” that we signed, agreeing to speak only Arabic for the year.

This summer, from mid-June until about a week ago, I was living in Muscat, Oman on the state department’s “Critical Language Scholarship.” It was a vastly different environment with a distinct culture and it took some more adapting.

So, for the past year I’ve lived in Arabia. I’ll start by explaining how I tried to represent America and Judaism in the Middle East, and then I’ll try to report on Egyptian and Omani society and Islam here, to you today. I may not be a particularly qualified spokesman in either case, but I have some stories and we can find some trends that might indicate how Arabs tend to view “us,” as Judaism, Israel, and America.

First of all, questions about one’s religion and personal life are commonplace in conversations with Egyptians. Every day I rode a taxi to and from school, and every day I was asked my religion, marital status, thoughts on politics, opinion of the world cup qualifiers, or any combination of the above. For the first month I answered the religion question “Mesihi,” Christian. I was never afraid of saying “Jew,” but at this point my Egyptian Colloquial Arabic was very limited and I was worried about getting into a discussion, argument, or altercation I didn’t understand or was unequipped to handle. So, in these encounters, I lied. Now as for my Egyptian dorm mates, friends I would grow very close with, I was completely honest, without trumpeting my Judaism.

Yom Kippur came shortly after Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and I was playing dominoes with a couple Egyptian friends. They were snacking on something or other and offered me some, which I declined and explained I’m fasting. Why? It’s a Jewish holiday today, and we fast, sort of like during Ramadan. This was the first time I told any member of the host culture that I was Jewish. They didn’t change their conduct towards me in the slightest. Another American student was passing by, Jewish, and I asked him “Hey, are you fasting today?” He shot a look, gave me a non-committal shrug and responded of course not, why would I fast today?

This was the first of many differences with this friend of mine about how we should address our Judaism in this very unfamiliar environment. He and several others were consistently afraid of being socially alienated, or even physically endangered, if they revealed this part of their identity. Indeed, one of the themes of my fall semester in Alexandria was my interaction with many other Jews on the program whose reactions to life in the Arab world ranged from legitimate caution to paranoia and sometimes racism.

As I grew confident in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, after about a month, I began to engage taxi drivers by answering their routine curiosity as honestly as I could. “Enta Muslim?” La. “Enta Mesihi?” La, ana Yehudi. This was typically followed by a beat of silence. The next step generally went one of two ways. The driver would either say “Ahlan wa sahlan, Muslims, Jews, and Christians are all of the book! No problem! Welcome in Egypt!” and it would be kumbaya. The other contingency was “Are you Israeli? What do you think of Israel? What is wrong with Israel? Israel’s a problem, why are they oppressing the Palestinians? Why did they take the Palestinian land?” and so on. Occasionally they would caution me against telling other Egyptians that I was Jewish, because it could be “problematic.” But honestly I understood those drivers themselves to be the most extreme cases and this warning was in fact as dangerous as it ever got. When I felt agitation brewing in the driver, I would divert the conversation to how beautiful Alexandria is, or how amazing the Arabic language is, ma sha allah, and asking him about his children or the next eid coming, and things were generally nice.

The most uncomfortable encounter I had was in March. I was teaching an English class to a group of Egyptian university students and the inevitable religion question came up. So I answered honestly, and a very awkward silence ensued, full of furtive glances and some snickers. I smiled and asked if it was unusual to them that I was Jewish? Did they know the difference between a Jew and the Israeli government? We talked, addressed our differences, and our relationship was strengthened.

In Oman, I was the first Jew a friend of mine had ever met. She doubts the ‘Western theory’ that Al-Qaeda is responsible for the attacks of September 11^th, subscribing instead to idea that the Jews were behind it. And yet, after another awkward snicker and ensuing conversation, she and I remained good friends.

My goal was simple: I am a person before I’m a Jew, and if the curious Arab wants to know me, he or she will know that I care about the weather, and the news, and girls, and whatever it is that I care about. If we suspend our expectations and proscriptions – what we expect the Arab response to our Judaism to be – we’ll tend to find that humans do in fact get along, and sadly our feuds are too often self-fulfilling prophecies. This conviction was demonstrated perfectly at the beginning of my second semester in Egypt when an Egyptian dorm mate, a friend of mine, found out that I was Jewish. We were walking together and I was explaining a new class I was about to take, comparing some stories shared between the Bible, Torah, and Quran. He asked why I was interested in that, and I explained I knew a little about Judaism from growing up Jewish and I wanted to read some of the other Abrahamic texts. He took a beat and said, “Ibrahim, to be frank if I’d known you were Jewish from the beginning there would have been a big problem between us. But you’re my friend!”

He then asked me to speak for what he saw as Israel’s crimes. He was not accusing me, but rather genuinely appealing to a friend who somehow represented the enemy. I explained that Judaism has an essential connection with Jerusalem, as does Islam, and a history in the broader land, as do the Palestinians. Sometimes that claim yields Jewish views against Arabs, ranging from a legitimate fear of suicide bombing and rocket attacks to harsh policies essentially aiming to remove Arabs from the land. I emphasized that for every intolerant Jew exist more tolerant Jews, just as I’m sure for every violent Palestinian exists more nonviolent Palestinians, but unfortunately we on either side really only hear about – or experience – the most polarized actors. He nodded, interested, and I felt that I had scored some points for the coexistence camp.

Getting people on the street or taxi drivers or friends to appreciate the difference between “Jew” and “Israeli,” first of all, was a constant effort. Then, distinguishing between peace-seeking Israelis and the more obstinate and intolerant sectors in Israel was another constant activity. These are not actually difficult distinctions to convey, but the media and education and general understanding in the Middle East use the terms “Jew” and “Israeli” synonymously, as The Aggressor. For example, one day at my University there was a student protest. This coincided roughly with the Rabbinate’s decision to excavate some part of the temple mount, allegedly threatening the structural integrity of Al-Aqsa mosque. (This myth was not unwrapped in the Arab media, unfortunately.) The protesters carried a banner that read “La tahuid al-quds!” which means “No to the Judification of Jerusalem!” next to a crossed-out Israeli flag. But in fact, I found that many Egyptians do acknowledge the long and deep connection Judaism has with the old city, and don’t on principal oppose a Jewish presence. What they meant the sign to read was “No to Israel’s Temple Mount excavations that we were told threaten a very old mosque in Jerusalem because, were this true, it would threaten our historical connection to the city as Muslims.” Unfortunately my cavaliering for nuance as the source of mutual understanding and world peace wasn’t inspirational enough for me to go advise the crowd of their mistake.

I was constantly deferring a defense of Israel in the face of those who would challenge me. After all, I am not Israeli, I don’t speak Hebrew, and until December I’d never even been there. American Jewish writer Peter Beinart does a good job explaining my poverty of nationalism in his article “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” I simply never felt that it was appropriate for me to address Israel if I wasn’t wearing my political scientist hat. For me, America is an easier subject to address.

Egyptians tend to like Americans. “Obama!!! Good!” was the response 90% of the time in Egypt. The more educated Egyptians I spoke with, and many Omanis, had a lot of criticisms of American foreign policy – maybe because of our wars in two Muslim countries, or perhaps they understood that – after Israel – the corrupt and unpopular Egyptian government is the highest recipient of US foreign aid. Regardless of their impressions of American politics, Egyptians overwhelmingly liked American people, and exponentially so when they saw we were speaking Arabic! I can’t account for this affection, maybe it’s from something in the movies, or maybe it’s interest in getting the rich tourists to buy a miniature pyramid, or perhaps just seriously developed Arab hospitality, but generally playing the “American” card scored major brownie points.

In America, our impressions of Middle Eastern society tend to critique more than praise, is that fair to say? We see veiled women, militants (sometimes suicidal), human rights violations, a pretty uniform lack of democracy, transparency, accountability, and so on, and we attribute it largely to an immoderate, “extremist” Islam. That’s a fair conclusion to draw, because the governments or militants who defend a status quo that so starkly contrasts ours always cite Islam and Sharia law as justification. This claim is very fringe on their part and our condemning conclusion represents a very slippery slope, dangerously absolutist. Many Middle Easterners may not distinguish between an Israeli soldier who kills a Palestinian in the name of a Jewish homeland, and an Israeli civilian who has sold bread his whole life. They should, of course, because there is a moderate, “benign” Judaism. Similarly, many Americans may not distinguish between a Muslim militant and a Muslim store owner. But there is a Moderate Islam, and if we don’t treat “the other” with discretion we can’t really expect discretion from it.

The moderates, us and them, exist. I have met Egyptian Imams who preach religious tolerance and dialogue, Omani politicians who argue Islam PRESCRIBES democracy, and youth arguing against polygamy and female genital mutilation as haraam or forbidden by religion.

The various communities I visited, all Islamic, can be night and day in their values. Men and women don’t shake hands in Oman, and yet it is prevalent in Egypt. But wait, in 2005, 96% of Egyptian women had experienced female genital mutilation (Egypt Demographic and Health Services, 2005). The proportion of neqabs, the female face covering that only has a slit for eyes, is substantially higher in Egypt than in Oman. Further north, Beirut was like a bombed-out Miami – night clubs, gay bars, and lots of skin. And – Hezbullah flags. Democratically-elected Hamas bans women smoking shisha (water pipes) in Gaza, and yet a Palestinian woman I meet in Oman invites us out to smoke shisha!

My point is Islam, like any other religion or identity group, cannot exist as a single entity in our minds. We might hear the speech of absolutist spokesmen, “fundamentalists,” and not much rings louder than a suicide bomb, but let us not forget the details and the nuance. The fun facts. That, for example, the most violent pocket of terrorism on the planet is a feud between Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka. The polarization of the leaders of groups and states in the Middle East must be attributed to something else, and the idea that Islam plays a primary causal role in its problems is a false correlation. As a political scientist, I’m inclined to point to a number of geopolitical factors such as the legacy of colonization or resource scarcity, but that’s another topic entirely.

As I am a human before I am a Jew, he is a human before he’s a Muslim. Nothing in our faiths sets us against each other. Arab Muslims call Jews “Awlad al-a3m” – cousins. Then how do we build bridges? We remember this bond. We learn each other’s languages and we speak. We visit each other. V’yahavta li-raecha k’mocha – “And love your neighbor as yourself.” We identify our differences and we celebrate them. We disagree, we look within, and we reconcile. Patience. Nuance. There is always more to the story. Shukran jazilan, thank you very much for having me and Shabbat shalom.

Wednesday night I relaxed with a couple American friends and a PF who spent the weekend with them, and we watched some movies on TV. Thursday evening we went to Church! My friend had found the times for Arabic services and so we joined a group of Egyptians at worship. It was a tiny side room on a low, modest steepleless church and it reminded me of Beth Tikvah in Westborough in that it was unassuming. The Egyptians were absurdly friendly and welcoming and spoke English well but were impressed and delighted to speak Arabic with us. I understood all the parts of the pastor’s sermon that I was focusing, probably because it was in Egyptian Arabic and while I have little trouble understanding Gulf Arabic I’m simply better wired to recognize Egyptian cadence or something deeper in its flow. We attended a small reception afterward and met some cool youth – a Sudanese brother and sister who spoke American English remarkably well and who had only studied it at international school in Oman. An Iraqi girl, whose parents live in Oman, about to enter her second year studying Christian studies at a university in Tennessee. Wild world.

Last night it was left over Indian food and move TV movies after an understimulating day. All that remains is a Fosha presentation and an Amiyyah skit, so I did a very little amount of preparation this weekend. After those, we have a party at the Crown Plaza later this week and with it a talent show. And Friday evening we take off.

The week has been rolling regularly. Yesterday we had a lecture about religious tolerance in Oman. Sunni, Shia, and Ibadhi all get along fine. In fact, there is no friction between Muslims, Christians, and even Hindus. Christians and Hindus here are just about exclusively Indian immigrants. I was surprised to hear about the tolerance for polytheistic Hindus and no mention of Jews, I guess because there simply aren’t any Jewish residents and it’s a non-issue. But then I started thinking, in a community that is allegedly 90% Muslim (according to the lecturer) and whose law is Sharia (which defines the punishment for a Muslim leaving Islam to be execution), why is religious tolerance even a good thing? In fact, why should any religion ever interact with other religions other than to proselytize or crusade? I entered into another deep religious debate with some American friends (one of the themes of this summer) after the lecture. Disclaimer: my challenges are as devil’s advocate and very facetious because I don’t actually like inquisitions… But my challenge was why should we follow any religion if other religions are alright? Shouldn’t we either be all secular believers or trying to religiously cleanse the earth? Spicy.

In Media class the past two days we’ve watched interviews with Aiman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s number two man, architect of Anwar Sadat’s assassination, all around antagonist. He makes very legitimate complaints against America and Israel, although they’d be a little more palatable if he got rid of the epic colorful language like “spears of American crusaders” and such. I guess you can’t blame him with President Bush himself said “We’re gonna conduct a crusade…” But al-Zawahiri and I tend to click our tongues at the same irresponsible and greedy choices America has made in foreign policy. The difference, of course, is that his train of thought results in violence. He says “I don’t ask the oppressed to give up his resistance. I ask the aggressor to stop.” As if we are either oppressors or resisters. It is somehow encouraging on a self-esteem level to be able to look down on a man so learned, white-bearded, influential, and wrong. I made the point in class today that I have no inherent problem with extremism. It’s a risky business but hey, if you have convictions, sing them out. Gandhi was an extremist, right? But violence is for the weak.

The consistent solution we find in the widening gyre is that the US get off oil completely. This is a point that was hit home for me today when I realized the impression of many Arabs in Oman, at least, and in the broader gulf is that there is an American occupation of the Gulf. Well yeah, an American presence, but would you really call it an occupation?! We have frigates and bases, and the impression here is that we compel local governments in certain ways as to guarantee lower oil prices stateside. That might be true. Further, the impression is that as America controls the gulf, Israel controls America. Meh, if we had big solar and wind farms on American Indian reservations and hydrogen cars all the above would be moot and all America’s problems solved, right? Isolationism. Except a little bird told me that water is the new oil, which makes our hydrogen car idea kaput. So ride bikes and eat local. Wait – the crazy Vermont hippies have it right?!

So in the car today I was scheming with some friends about finding a new Earth-like planet and leaving it all behind. How’s that for a week of pontification? Crises religious, geopolitical, and extraterrestrial. I need a dose of provincialism – good thing it’s back to New England soon.

A friend of mine who had lived in Salalah spearheaded the planning .We spent the first two nights in a cheap apartment in the “mintaqa al-sina3iah” which means “industrial district” and it was exactly that – autobody shops and carpenters. And our apartment. Here’s the view from our window:

The price was right. We started the day lazily, appropriately, and then met up with a PF’s friend who drove us around some fun places. We visited what is allegedly Job’s tomb, competing with a spot in Syria for the title. We visited an ex-spring now sinkhole.  All the while I was gaping at the nargila – coconut trees. I can’t remember ever seeing these before! They’re significantly taller than nakhil (date palms) and their trunks are smooth. And wiggly – it looks like Dr. Seuss drew the place.

This month there’s been a festival in Salalah with cultural dancing, goods for sale, and carnival rides. We swung by at night and saw some dancing, and I got a little judgmental. About ten men wearing their white dishadeesh stand in a row, glancing sideways furtively at one another, and bounce their canes from the ground up to their shoulders and back down again in time to music. They are terribly self-conscious. I decided that this cultural dance was not only boring as hell relative to the crazy Namibian war dances I witnessed in a documentary, but was in fact OBJECTIVELY boring as hell. Tar and feather the imperialist, cultural relativists… It’s simply not fun to watch and seemed not fun to be a part of. We finished the evening off with food at Baalbeck, a Lebanese place. I liked having been to the real Baalbeck last year.

The next day we visited a souq by the sea with tons of luban and bukhar – flammable scents and frankincense, for whose trade a few centuries ago Salalah is still famous. The summer months in Salalah are the “kharif,” which confusingly means fall in Arabic. It means the monsoon season in this context, I suppose, and the result is dense fog and often rain and beautiful temperatures. The oceans are mamnua3 al-siba7a (forbidden of swimming) because of their intensity. Walking along the smooth beach and taking in the crash was a nice time. We came across a long stretch of huts overflowing with coconuts, bananas, and various other fruit and had some fun there. I bought a coconut and the gentleman selling it hacked into it with a butcher’s knife in such a way as to convey a small opening for a straw. The milk was not that disgusting, but certainly strange. I had some of the meat from inside but we concluded the drinking coconuts were at a different stage of development, or differently raised, so their meat actually tasted like rubber. Actually. The bananas were the best I’d ever had – dense and sugary.

A piece of Paradise.

We chilled out for a little while until we rendezvoused with our teacher’s friend, a Palestinian woman now living and working in Salalah. She was a firecracker: muhajiba, but invited to go smoke shisha and had one to herself. Spoke about freedom of choice and independence from inane pressuring traditions and how she likes boys and the lack of significant “tafkir” (thought) in the Arab world. I probed her liberalism and she delivered consistently with US university student responses, except for the homosexuality point. Because it’s a mental disorder and we need to treat our friends who have it, not shun them. That’s progressive of her, I suppose? As a side note, the Palestinian counter continues up up and away on the attractive scale, furthering my case that if for no other reason the Israelis and Palestinians should get along to make lots of beautiful babies. The night ended with very late Chinese food.

Our last day in Salalah we rented two cars (24-hr rental) and drove out of the city to a place where natural fountains occur. We stood on cliffs overlooking mountains crashing waves. Somewhere beneath us were submerged caverns that had been burrowed by nature and reached the ground so that when the waves came in huge sprays of water erupted from the top of the cliff. Oftentimes it was air and violent spray, and in this way very reminiscent of the sound a dragon makes. When you hear them.

It was a relaxing day and we ended it at the Crown Plaza hotel for some drinks on the beach. We then slept at the Crown Plaza hotel, in the parking lot. That was an uncomfortable evening. The morning eventually came, alhamdilulah, and we made it to the bus station and took off on the 13-hour return trip, sleeping most of the way.

School resumed on Sunday with a celebration arranged by our PFs in honor of the National Renaissance Day. This is the 40th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos’s coup glorious ascension. (We’ll see if wordpress gets blocked after this post).

Today we began a new schedule, which will only happen once more because we only have two weeks left and the last week is different. After Fosha and Media class we made our way in groups of 6-ish to houses of Omanis in the area. The program really should have instituted this aspect from the get-go, it was fantastic. We had coffee and lunch and chatted for several hours. This is the fourth of fifth time I’ve been in an Omani home, much higher than the number in Egypt (2?) but it was the first time the men and women ate in the same room. It felt nicer that way. Some of my colleagues got into a dense but good-natured political conversation with the man of the house I half listened to, something about Turkey pulled between or rejected by Europe and the Arab world. When I tuned back in it was “How could Osama bin Laden, in the mountains with camels, have orchestrated the attacks on September 11th?” “Well then who did?” “Al-yehud!” So much for the comfort zone. A discouragingly high proportion of residents in this part of the world subscribe to this theory, and it becomes seriously more disturbing in Oman where the education level is seriously higher than I encountered in Egypt. Although not high enough to distinguish between Jews and Israelis, which really should be an uncontroversial point particularly to monotheistic Muslims, “awlad al-3am” (the cousins).

Well there are about two and a half weeks left here. I like Oman a lot, and I really like my comrades-in-flashcards, so I can’t put my finger on why I’ve been a little off this summer and itching for some ‘merca. Going to see Inception tonight.

Our hotel was at the top of the mountain. We hung out for the rest of the evening and got up early the next morning to “visit families.” We weren’t sure what this meant but apparently the administration or tour company had made contacts with locals to take us around and feed us lunch in their homes. Most of the day was spent traversing the side of the mountain which was completely terraced farms. An older age of Omanis constructed a seriously ingenious network of “filaj” or irrigation channels from either a naturally occurring spring, rainfall, or both, it wasn’t clear. These channels snake their way down the mountain and through the terraces, where the villages cultivate pomegranate, corn, roses, and grapes, among the things I remember. In the valley, where the filaj eventually empty, there are nakheel (date tree) groves. I have had a sort of terrace fetish since a family vacation to Italy over four years ago, and adding two years of farm work to that made for some giddiness. I would love to spend a year or so living in one of these villages and farming pomegranates on a mountainside… And this is the beginning of the trip and the reasons why living in the Omani country would be amazing.

Here’s a picture of the mountainside as seen from walking along the filaj.

My group (five or so of us) ate at our guide’s house. Omani houses generally have a “majlis al-rijal” where the man of the house hosts guests, while the women sit in the “majlis al-hareem” inside. It’s that Arab hospitality. However, I raised the argumentative point to some friends that hosting strangers in a side room isolated from the living space isn’t actually hospitality at all. I was disagreed with, but I’d love to argue my point more if any readers are feeling contrary.

In the afternoon we drove to the desert and spent the evening at a desert camp. It was super similar to my Siwan experiences, beginning with a roller-coaster jeep ride through sand dunes and ending under the stars. Except this desert camp had a pool and fully catered eating area. Siwa felt more “authentic,” although of course this is an imperialistic term created by orientalists to inform their expectations. Friggin hippies. The next morning we made our way to a “camp resort” on the sea via a Boom factory. A boom is a type of large, beautiful wooden boat. The camp resort was a short but beautiful stretch of sandy beach with a restaurant bar on it and a series of A/Ced straw huts… figure that one out. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, swimming, playing cards, and fishing. One of the teachers who came with us is a pretty bad-ass wilderness kind of guy, so before we knew it he had killed a crab or snail and used the meat as bait on a hook and line he’d either brought or found. I took a couple tries at throwing the line and reeling it in, and on my third try I caught a bright blue and yellow fish! It’s a fun feeling. (Disclaimer to PETA: The fish lives to bite bait another day.)

That night we piled into our jeeps around 9pm and headed to the Turtle Reserve. We got into smaller groups and walked in the dark out to the water, which is difficult to do in sand. The guides had red flashlights and led us up to a crater in the beach where a huge green turtle had dug in and was slowly dropping her sticky shiny eggs. After a while she buried them, and later on she was headed back into the surf. It’s a very very slow process and per turtle only happens once every 35 years or so, but this is the egg-laying season I guess. It was a very zen experience, or very boring experience, depending on how one approaches the world or one’s mood. It was a very zen experience.

Today we headed to a huge wadi, this time a towering narrow one with a river in the bottom. We hiked up it for about a half hour and found some BEAUTIFUL swimming and cliff-jumping. It ended in a cave booming with a waterfall. A rope led up the waterfall to a higher pool outside and another waterfall and more cliff-jumping. But the scariest cliff was in the cave itself, from whose walls one could crash into the turquoise below. One student described it as “the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen” and another as “that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done!” The cave of superlatives. It was a wonderful place.

Eventually we made it back to our hotel in Muscat and an administrator informed us that the bus will pick us up at 9am tomorrow as opposed to 7:30. Alhamdilulah. It’ll be an even shorter week than expected because Tuesday after school I’m joining some friends on a midnight bus to Salalah in the south of Oman (12-hour ride) where there is allegedly the kharif, or monsoon season. This means temperate weather and greenery inshallah.

And así we pass the halfway point.

I supped at an Indian restaurant last night, and some of us are at risk of becoming regulars there. Today we had lunch at a Zanzibari restaurant near the school – Oman has a long history with Zanzibar, from the days of Omani colonialism on the eastern coast of Africa, and the result is a lot of Zanzibaris here. Great food and Egyptly priced! I’m starting to find a different way of appreciating Muscat, which is a pretty disappointing place to try and learn Arabic. The problem is also the fix – there are so many non-Arab immigrants here and Omanis don’t generally hold blue-collar (waiting tables) jobs, so day to day interaction with locals is frequently in English. The bright side is a whole swath of diversity harder to find in, say, Vermont. Tons of good Asian food from nationalities you don’t really hear about state-side (Zanzibari?) and crazy fruit in the grocery stores that you won’t find at a Stop & Shop (like DRAGON FRUIT?)

On the academic front, it’s a similar (but less optimistic) story. I’ve sort of resigned myself to using this time for independent study, trying to broaden my vocabulary and listen to al-Jazeera. I find I don’t benefit from class time, which is usually a interruption-fest of sometimes interesting discussions and minimally instruction or practicing of skills. Originally our class was larger, around ten or eleven students, but because of requests to make class time more intimate we were split and I’m in a class with just three others. Too much discussion, and the teachers seem unable to control the direction of the class time so it’s really disappointing. Halfway done and I haven’t written a single assignment for class – all this new vocab with no outlet will vanish so quickly, and it’s frustrating. I think after our trip this weekend I’ll start taking that upon myself, too, and writing five pages a week or something.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, Metric Friday, after class, we’re starting our three-day weekend and are headed to the mountains,  the desert, and sea-turtle spotting. We’ll be split into jeeps of 4 people each and I’m excited about my crew. Good people. It’s time for pounce to reach Oman.

In brighter news I’ve narrowed my thesis topic considerably since my initial thoughts. The current questions are as follows: How have the states of the Arabian Peninsula developed politically? What are the similarities and differences in the ways these monarchies have addressed representation (parliaments, consultative councils, etc)? Why have they gone different directions? How do their differing systems affect governance and security? With particular attention paid to Yemen, the only democratic regime on the Peninsula. And the only FUBAR situation. This is the technical term.

Time to read some more Naguib Mahfouz and stuff more vocab in my brain that I’ll certainly start to recognize but whose use will certainly not be required of me by the program. (A little bitter.)

Tuesday we went back to Salsa dancing, so it’s officially a weekly ritual for me. I’m getting some basics down and having a grand old time. It’s also fun to pontificate with my dancing buddies between the boogying – some great booze and discussion.

The rental car chapter closed yesterday afternoon when we paid up the 120 rial. Khalas. It means this 2-week period it looks like I’ll reach my stipend limit…

Tomorrow I’m likely to go with a small group renting a car to get out of the city and explore to the north. The group comprises, should I say, the wisest of the program, so I’m looking forward to hanging out with the big kids.

Today I’m planning on not leaving my suite as I study up on the week’s Arabic I haven’t had a chance to absorb and hopefully work some on my thesis research. It’s a three-day weekend because Saturday is the celebration of Mohammad’s ascension. Next weekend is our program trip into the country to do some hiking in the mountains, camping in the desert, and inshallah seeing some sea turtles!!! So it’s also a three-day weekend. The following weekend may or may not be a three-day weekend depending on the moon because the national (Muslim) holidays here are announced correlating to the stages of the moon and therefore inconsistently. This surprised me because my impression was that the stages of the moon are consistent. Wrong again, I suppose.

As we approach the half-way point, I notice somethings to comment on. This experience is the expat experience. We go to bars, we talk in English, we network with other Westerners here. It’s a stark contrast to my Alexandria life, and obviously I preferred that. However it’s nice to have my mind less under the linguistic and cultural grind 24/7 considering that technically I’m on summer vacation. I’m getting my feet wet in Oman. Were I in Alex four weeks in I would feel much more comfortable with the geography of the city, at least, and knowing where to get cheap good food, etc. I’m enjoying myself but a recent revelation is also worth mentioning – I’m ready to be done wayfaring for a little while and am exceedingly relieved that a year settled in the Green Mountains by Otter Creek is on the horizon.

Another day this week I went salsa dancing with a handful of comrades at a bar in the Intercontinental Hotel. A few of them have danced for a long time and it was a delight and inspiration to see them knowing their stuff out there on the floor. I mostly watched, but I was urged up for a meringue. Good fun. Afterward I went with some others to watch the Spain-Portugal game at a tent that is set up outside the hotel in a great atmosphere, bleachers and huge screen and popcorn and so on. I think we’re going back there for the final.

Soccer on the beach was a little bit masochistic and quite fun, whatever that says about my psyche… I’m consistently awful at the game, so it’s really not about winning or losing (we tied) but running around outside. Within minutes my clothes were as soaked with sweat as they’d be with water had I plunged into the lukewarm sea. Which I did eventually, of course. Several of us ended removing our shirts and mine was so trashed with sand and sweat I left it off on the way back to the hotel, serious culturally insensitive moment. I got honked at and stuff. Whooops.

Yesterday, Metric Saturday, a few of my friends and I rented a car! This is my first time driving outside of US/Canada, and it was perfectly fine. I was paranoid, idealizing all the things that could go wrong if I got a ticket or wrecked the car and so on. What actually happened was not on my mind in the slightest. We drove to Wadi Mayh, which is a canyon about 20 minutes south of the city. Somewhere as you approach the road becomes dirt. Having read the fine print a few times, I knew that driving on unpaved roads nulls the insurance on the car. Not a problem until it’s a problem, you know? So out we drove without incident. We parked on the side and dipped into the knee-high water for a while. After a cyclone these canyons are allegedly huge rivers which would have been much more beautiful, but it was nice to be in the hot dry air and submerged in clear water with fish nibbling at us. After chilling in the water for a while we got back into the car and decided to explore the canyon further. We drove around a date farm, which more closely resembled a village. School, mosque, houses all crowded together around a mini mountain with an irrigation well. All around the huge rock / hill are acres of date trees. It was fantastically beautiful. We continued on the dirt road until we reached a spot where the water flowed over the path. It wasn’t deep, mid-shin, and it was full of big round rocks. I sat at the wheel considering this obstacle. It was so shallow. Our next destination was through the canyon, so really we had to cross this obstacle if our day was to continue. We concluded that momentum would be required. I put the Renault into reverse and when I felt there was enough of a head start, off we went. We came down into the stream with a disneyland ride-esque SPLASH and pushed through to the other side, triumphant. We cheered. We congratulated each other. I said conclusively “that was such a success!”

Not 100 meters up the road a man was hanging out by his car and waved at us, pointing to the front of the Renault. So I got out and looked, then asked him what was wrong. Looking down the road behind us there was no shrapnel or anything. He gestured more emphatically and then I noticed that our bumper was half underneath our car. We made our way back down to the crossing and inspected the land. Pieces of black plastic were everywhere. We had come down into the river and a stone knocked the bumper half off, shatter a lot of plastic under the front of the car. There were expletives.

We tied the bumper up enough that it wouldn’t drag. We drove BACK through the river, slowly, and it was fine, so we probably should have abandoned that “momentum!” idea. Whatever. Eventually the bumper started to drag and making our way back on highways to Muscat was stressful. We pulled over frequently to re-tied the loose bumper. Alhamdilulah we made it back without having to be towed. The Omani worker (Indian-owned company) came out to look at the damage and his response was “khalas, ma mushkilah.” Which means “alright, no problem.” What? He meant “ma mushkilah, come sign things.” I explained, in Egyptian Arabic which he would understand and which would allow me a good level of detail. Sunday I’ll get a call from the company, after they get an estimate from the mechanic, telling me how much we owe. If the damage is in excess of OR 170, we pay OR 170 and the insurance covers the rest. If it is less, we pay it, and I get the difference credited to my card which they had charged when I first took the car.

Fortunately I couldn’t pick a better group of people to make a poor decision with so we were all in agreement and nobody said “I TOLD YOU NOT TO!” and we’re splitting the cost four ways. That means worst case scenario I’m out OR 42 (~$110), which is a week’s stipend. We get OR 80 every two weeks, and I only used about OR 40. So it’s living on jam sandwiches for the rest of the summer. I would be very surprised if the damage is that much, since it was only the bumper and the car drives perfectly. But we shall see!

This blog entry will be the first my parents know of this, intentionally so!

Yesterday evening we celebrated Independence Day. We procured a small amount of spirits, and everybody brought some food! We grilled burgers on the roof of our hotel, there were pies and potato salad and freshly-caught lobster and music and mirth. On July 4th, metric Tuesday, we’ll be going to the Embassy party. We were invited to it after they came to the center to give us the mandatory “security briefing” so an otherwise dry talk was well worth it. A pool, bar, and food! We even get to leave school early! And why celebrate the founding of the best-designed polity in the world once when you can celebrate it twice?

Today, Metric saturday, just like last Metric saturday, I stayed in all day working. I’ve been doing lots of reading, a “literature review,” of a topic about which I’m going to write my thesis! The long and short of it is evaluating the role of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, think a Gulf “EU”) in establishing and maintaining security and stability in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly concerning Yemen, Iraq (neither of which are members), and smaller instances of violent sub-state actors (as in Saudi Arabia). The broader “so what?” is something like “Implications for regional international organizations,” or, “How to keep the US relatively out of your hair,” or, “Peace in the Middle East.” Salivating. It feels very good to be this genuinely curious about an academic subject – I can’t say I’ve felt this way before. It keeps my mind occupied, at any rate. If you go to the GCC website, http://www.gcc-sg.org/ you will find a frustrating and funny message. That is kind of slowing down my research in terms of primary sources… I have two friends who “know people” in the Omani and Saudi foreign ministries. I’ve started drafting questions I can ask them regarding intra-Gulf politics and hopefully I can get some juicy primary sources out of that. Otherwise its lots of charters and resolutions and oil statistics and incidents of violence, which are cool but not quite primary research. If this topic sparks the interest of any of my blog’s readers, I encourage you to ask me stuff because at this point I probably won’t have the answers and I’ll have to find them. Alternatively, if you know stuff (or sources and people to talk to), I encourage you to tell me.

It’s 11:00p and therefore thirty minutes after my bedtime. Getting up at 6:30a and working until 5p is just stupid. But reality.

The first stop in Nizwa was an old fort / souq. One of the nicest things about Oman is that it’s not so touristy, so we enjoyed local prices and real goods. Had some testosteronal fun playing with real swords, rifles, and khanajir. We (a handful of friends I was wandering with)  spent a little too long in the silver shops and didn’t make it to the fort itself. That was ok because the next stop on the trip was another old fort, in perfect condition. We had a fosha-ed tour which was interesting enough to keep me from actively bemoaning my exhaustion and heat stroke. Drama queen. At the conclusion of the tour we had a nice lunch of chicken and beef on rice. At this point we were all ready to return to the hotel and wallow in our air-conditioned refrigerators. But the final stop remained, a trip to a Wadi (canyon) allegedly green and full of water. It wasn’t.
All in all it was really great to get out of Muscat and see a rural side of Oman. The rural populations of Egypt live in the Nile valley, except for pockets of oasis communities. Rural Omanis are in the mountains and the DESERT. I couldn’t believe how barren this place can be, and it somehow felt more like a desert than the deepest depths of the Siwan expanse (where I left part of my heart). Nizwa and the experience of the day weren’t particularly memorable for better or for worse.

The second day of that “weekend” (Thursday-Friday) I studied in the suite all day. I’m doing a lot of independent stuff – the book we’re reading in Fosha class is very difficult and so I literally circle all the words and experiences I don’t know and write them onto flash cards and study them, in repeated stages. Fortunately I don’t have a lot of homework, mostly reading or very simple and redundant verb charts for Amiyyah. No more useless Al Kitaab drills. It means as long as I’m disciplined my vocabulary will explode this summer inshallah. Also watching lots of Aljazeera, so hopefully I’ll get a little better at listening.

Today a bunch of the male students and PFs will play football on the beach after we get out of the center around 4. Sgonna be ridiculously hot. Tonight I’m going to the Intercontinental Hotel for salsa dancing and to watch the Spain-Portugal game. Watched the US disappointment outside and it was the sweatiest I’ve been not moving in my whole life.

This Thursday my suite is throwing an Independence Day celebration: acquiring booze through suspect means and grilling up some burgers and dogs. With some ketchup. AMERICA.

What we see of the Muscati coast through the thickest air I’ve ever breathed, the city is epic and old. Seventeenth century Portuguese forts are impossibly wedged onto crag-toothed promontories over the cleanest port water imaginable. The sun is where the sun is at 7:00p, and it’s taken on that mood.

I had some great conversations with a few comrades and enjoyed the sometimes breeze while my shirt steadily saturated.

After the two hour ride, I went to the souq in Matrah with some friends and their PF who had invited me to a wedding the next day (today). Matrah is the old town, tiny-alleyed area of Muscat. We bought dishadeesh, the plural of dishdasha, which is the long usually white Omani robe. Here’s how the outfit works:

First, one wraps the wizaar around his waist like a towel, nice and tight. This is the underwear. He then dawns a Fruit of the Loom white undershirt. Next, from over the head, comes the dishdasha, hanging loosely to the wrists and ankles. A button clasps the neck pretty cozily and a decorative tassel flaps around on the collar bone. This is the equivalent of wearing a suit / nice casual, so all of our professors and PFs wear these daily and most Omani men wear them all the time. The hat is a kima, a beautifully patterned cap generally not too boldly colored. For occasions, many men wear a masar, what might be confused with a turban, around their kima. For really special occasions a man will whip out his khanjar, the Omani traditional knife depicted on the flag and selling for a pretty price in the souq. We’ll see about buying one of those later. Unlike knock-off Bedouin / Mamluk weapons in Egyptian souqs, khanjars are sharpen-able and sharp! Other accessories of the male digs include the bisht, a sweet cape-ish affair. The alternative to the bisht is a shali, a long cloth wrapped around the waist. Top it off with a pimpin’ 3sa (thin cane). I elected to only go dishdasha-kima because I feel poor all the time here, and it was good enough. Just some light khakis rolled up a little underneath the dishdasha are unknowable.

I mention the digs in depth because tonight I went with this PF, one of my suitemates, and another friend to the PF’s friends wedding. There were no women, including the bride, in attendance. My understanding is that, like in Egypt, the wedding process has a few installments and this was more akin to a bachelor’s party. We drove about an hour and grabbed juice at a qahua on the side of the road with some of the PF’s friends, and I felt for the first time in Muscat that I had found my ezbat saad, a genuine interaction with Omanis. We had a great time chatting. We made it to the wedding late, which really didn’t matter. I hadn’t really known what to expect, for sure it wouldn’t be like the raucous Egyptian affair I’d been to. It wasn’t. There were hundreds of men sitting on mats on a soccer field in several parallel rows facing each other. We greeted people, careful to shift the cane from the right hand to the left and shake with the right, and then switch back. Kicked off the sandals, sat down, chatted. A guy came around with coffee. Take with the right hand. “Abe, I think he’s waiting for you to finish right now, he only has like three cups…” Chug the coffee. A box of dark goo gets pushed in front of me. It’s called helwa, my PF explains, which is more than I need to hear to be reminded I’m still in Arabia and this stuff is gonna be SWEET. It was great – a gelatinous sweet goo with some nuts in it. Eat with the right hand. Don’t wipe your greasy hand off on your white dishdasha. Here’s a platter of beef on rice for four of us to share. Squeeze balls of rice and beef together between your palm and fingers and scoop it into your mouth with the back of your thumb. Never acknowledge the existence of your left hand. These were all skills I’d actually acquired at the center, from lunch with a teacher on day one to cultural lessons in amiyyah class, so I was surprised how practical education can be sometimes!

Rinse of your hand at the water pump, don’t step in the puddle. Ready to leave? Let’s nusalim 3la al m3rsa, say hi to the groom. Good idea. Ah yes, he must be the one with the shali and the khanjar. Holding a rifle. I asked him for a picture with me, stupid tourist. He was thrilled to!

Omani men often greet by kissing on the cheeks four times and then pushing their noses together and making kissing sounds with their mouths a few more times, which from all but a small number of angles looks like their kissing on the mouth. It was really funny to stand in line to greet the groom.

We peaced out eventually and I’m back in the hotel. The week had its ups and downs. The last couple days have been lovely improvements on how I’m viewing my time here. Really getting into it now. Tomorrow the program is going to Nizwa, inland about 1.5 hours and allegedly hotter and less humid and more beautiful. We’ll tour a castle and see some natural beauty. After leaving the hotel at 6:30. This week is ridiculous. More to come soon.