The Local Falaj

One of my hopes before coming here was that I would be able to have access to one of Oman’s many “falaj” systems, the water irrigation system commonly used in Oman (and popular in other countries around the world as well).  One of them, Nizwa’s nearby Falaj Daris, was even named a World Heritage Site.  What a pleasant surprise it was for me to find that the University of Nizwa took care of this for me! :)  Counting as our second excursion, the trip to the falaj and old mountain village nearby was a great opportunity to get out of the university and check out the surrounding town.  You see, the University of Nizwa is not actually located in Nizwa but rather 25 minutes down the road in a district called Birkat al-Mouz.  From what I’ve seen of it (which hasn’t been much), it’s quite small.  And, again from what I’ve seen of it, it has the perfect personality I’d pictured of a “typical Omani village:” brown, rocky mountains in the distance, while, under shady palm trees, boys bathe in the gurgling water that makes its way through the simple town.  My photos in the gallery will complement this description.

So the way the falaj system works (this is how my cultural excursions guide explained it, at least) is that, even before modern technology, Omanis somehow recognized where water was located deep in the mountains of Oman.  So they would dig all the way down until they discovered the pool of water, then they would move out a little farther from the mountains and dig down to a pool of water again and keep doing this until they got to their village.  They would then dig a pathway to each of the “pools” so that the water could run freely from deep within the mountain down through to the village.  Such a method continues to be the main water source for the people of Oman.

Between the sounds and the sights of the falaj, I found the place to be perfectly serene.  The water was not as cold as I had expected, but it was crystal clear.  Following Birkat al-Mouz’s falaj up the mountain, our group entered an old mountain village where only a few families still reside.  When Sultan Qaboos took power in the 70s, he had village houses built for the people of the mountains.  I’ve been told that in some places, the people refused to leave their mountain homes.  In other locations around the country, the people moved into the more modern homes but refused to let the government tear down their old mountain residences.  In Birkat al-Mouz’s case, you can see by my pictures of what remains of these preserved homes.

Emotions to the Extreme

My emotions are like a roller coaster.  One minute, I am ecstatic that I understand as much Arabic as I do.  The next moment, I feel my eyes glaze over as I search deep in my mind for a vocabulary word that someone said fifteen sentences ago.  Maybe I’m over my head, but I love the discussions we have in class.  Many times I don’t understand them very well, and sometimes not at all, but what I do understand is that the discussions we are having in class are about topics that truly matter—rights between men and women, the separation of church and state…

For the entire week, I have been debating with myself about whether or not I need to go a level lower and review the chapters I did in Morocco, or stick it out and push myself as I try to comprehend whatever part of the class discussions that I can.  And I wouldn’t feel half so exhausted, I think, if I could at least comprehend the discussions taking place during our language partner sessions.  But Ross and Alice are both awesome (or at least way more comfortable) at conversing in Arabic, so I find I end up just sitting there nodding or staring blankly at them, hoping that a spark of comprehension will suddenly alight in my noggin.  Fortunately, Mohammed engaged in 1-on-1 conversations with each of us for about half an hour before returning to a group setting, and I was open and honest with him (in Arabic, of course) that I don’t understand half the time what they’re saying but that I’m trying to.  We then proceeded to converse about my life and his life, ground which I am comfortable talking about.  I definitely want to push myself on this program, but I’ve come to realize that I will be most successful if I take baby steps; trying to leap across buildings will only leave me bruised and battered, and that is how my mind has been feeling since I got here: on information overload.

It’s about time for me to go meet the rest of my group for our language partner session, but I think I’m going to speak with my Resident Director afterwards and see what she thinks about my situation.  I hate the thought of re-doing the chapters which I studied in Morocco last summer, but at this rate, I’m going to be burnt out before the program’s half-way through.  But I must say, as troubled as I may sound in this post, I really am having a wonderful experience regardless of the level I am in.  I am learning new, important words every day outside of the classroom, too, and the exposure to such a different culture has been incredible.  So don’t worry, friends, I will figure things out! :)

Birthday Omani-Style

So, yesterday was my birthday.  And I had two quizzes.  How fun.  If I were in America, Sunday would mean the weekend, and I would have spent my birthday celebrating with family and friends over cake and ice cream.  But I am not in America and my life is not normal.  How did I spend my “special” day?  Putting thoughts of class and quizzes aside, I spent it sitting cross-legged on the floor in the students’ activities hall of the University of Nizwa feasting on Omani snacks with my fellow female colleagues.  The language partner women cut up bananas and mangos and apples and oranges, and they opened cartons of cookies and cake for us, too.  Someone had prepared “hilwey” at home, which is a jelly-like substance made out of dates and nuts that has the slightest spicy zing to it.  Personally, I don’t care for it.  But the plain ole dates may be growing on me.  We were also served coffee from tiny teacups and I’ve noticed a trend here: there are only about 2-4 cups a set, so, initially, that number of individuals will take their tea.  As soon as they are done, the server will scoop the cup through an oversized bowl of water and then fill the cup up with coffee to serve to the next person.  Another interesting Omani aspect of taking tea/coffee, which I formally learned in my Omani Arabic course, is that as soon as a person has had enough to drink, they will shake the cup back and forth slightly as they hand it to the server to signal they are satisfied.  Although the feast was by no means prepared in my honor, word got out that it was my birthday, and so I was treated with both the English and Arabic versions of the birthday song (the same tune is international, by the way).  I’d like to say that my friends and I made a cake back at the apartment and celebrated, but I’d be lying.  This program is seriously so draining that all everyone wanted to do (myself included) was do their homework and go to bed.  Maybe we can celebrate this weekend, when two other people are having their birthdays.

It wasn’t until I checked my email this morning and got a note from my sister that I was reminded it was not just my birthday, but my golden birthday (turning 23 on the 23rd)!  So perhaps my friends, family, and I will have to have an extra big welcome home bash when I return.  I miss you all!

Word from Aubrey At Last!

Hi, everyone!  Sorry about leaving you all in the dark for so long.  At first, I didn’t upload any posts simply because I was so busy.  And then once I tried, Google blocked me because I’m out of the country!  Sheesh… but I woke up this morning and crossed my fingers as I hit the “publish” button for every blog I have saved, hoping that somehow the problem would be solved over the weekend and that my posts would magically be published.  Ta-da!  Alhamdulillah, they were.  I still have a few more tweaking to do to some, but Insha'Allah they will be uploaded soon and you guys can finally get a taste of what I have been experiencing here.  But now that I have finished taking extra advantage of the university wi-fi by uploading all of my current photos, I’m going to get back to work so that all I have to do this evening when I get home is snuggle up in my bed and blog!  And, please, if anyone has any questions or comments, please post them—it makes me happy to know that someone actually reads what I write, and I want to clear up any fuzzy thoughts about this region of the Arab World.  Happy reading, everyone!

First day of class

I placed in Level 4 (out of 5)!  I am so pumped—it has been an entire year if I remember correctly since I have taken a formal Arabic class.  When I was in Morocco on scholarship last summer, I cracked open the second volume of Georgetown University’s Al-Kitaab series for the first time and it was awesome digging into the grammar covered in that book.  AND this means that we will actually finish Al-Kitaab 2 and start the last book in the Al-Kitaab series starting in July. How cool is that?! I’ll be an advanced speaker by the time I leave here.  However, I remember that in Morocco I was quite overwhelmed because the amount of speaking was extremely intense in class, so that might be what I’m in for again here.  Fortunately, when I returned to school after that study abroad, my Arabic professor noticed that I could more comfortably speak the language, so maybe I’ll be alright.  We’ll see… 

So far, Arabic class here is good.  I like the professor, I like the people, and I like the subject; that should carry me a long way.  But three hours every day of it is definitely a lot to take in.  Omani Arabic class should be okay, too, I think, because the professor is very engaged and had us performing skits today as if we were truly guests drinking coffee at a friend’s house.  My prof looks like an Arab version of one of my guy friends back at school, though, so that’s a little distracting.  Anyways, hopefully I’ll get to try out the new Omani dialect vocabulary sooner rather than later!  Unfortunately, I have found myself quite busy with homework already as we’re cruising through chapters 6 and 7 of the textbook this week.  Things should slow down next week, so hopefully I’ll be able to spend some time talking to the Omani women who ring our doorbells (or, in some cases, just barge right in to our apartment), other than to tell them in Arabic that, sorry, I can’t hang out tonight because I have too much homework!

I was hoping to get some of it out of the way with my language partner meetings, but that’s not the way it worked out.  I ended up getting placed with the only guy in the language partner group, so this will be a good chance for me to freely talk to an Omani male without any “issues” arising.  And with all of the Omani women back at our apartment, I don’t think it will be too much trouble to strike up some female friendships.  My partner, Mohammed, is a student studying electrical engineering here at the University of Nizwa and he is rather shy but very nice.  Coming into this program, I expected that our language partner time was going to be 1-on-1 but that’s not the way it turned out to be.  So I am in a group with my friends Alice and Ross, who are both awesome at Arabic!  Today I found that I didn’t say anything, but hopefully as vocabulary starts coming back to me, I’ll speak up next time.  As it has pretty much been an entire year since I have spoken/read Arabic on a regular basis, I’m a little rusty.  Once I get the hang of it again, however, I know I’m going to advance so far.  How could I not, with fitting in an entire year’s worth of language learning into two months?  :)

Introduction to Oman

Hi, everyone!  Welcome to my blog based in Nizwa, Oman.  A short introduction: I am here studying at the University of Nizwa, which is about an hour and a half outside of the country’s coastal capital, Muscat.  As a recipient of the U.S. State Department’s 2013 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the Arabic language, I will be devoting the next eight weeks of my life purely to improving my Arabic and embracing the Omani/Arabic culture.  Although there are no strings attached, I intend to use these skills by becoming a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, and I consider these next two months exclusive, but critical, foreign training—thank you, tax-payers!  I will return the favor in the future by making the world a better and safer place for us all, and these cultural understandings will be helpful, indeed.

These past few days have been extremely intense and, in addition to the fact that I have had very few opportunities to access internet, I have had very little time to write any blog posts.  My adventure actually began last Wednesday afternoon, when I flew to D.C. and met up with my twenty-six colleagues—a collection of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students—who would be traveling with me to Nizwa (a CLS group going to Jaipur, India, was there as well).Our two-day orientation in D.C. was followed by an eight-hour flight to Frankfurt plus a seven-hour flight to Muscat (with a brief stop in Abu Dhabi).  A briefing by the U.S. embassy started off our first morning in Muscat, and then after a long first day of orientation in Nizwa, we got the chance to settle down in our apartments.  They are about fifteen minutes away from the University of Nizwa campus and have air-condition—it’s fantastic!!  Residing with us this summer are a number of young Omani women studying at the university this summer.  Even before we stepped inside the apartment building for the first time, they were squealing with delight that we had arrived.  They continue to randomly ring our door bells so that they can practice their English and—for some—become friends with the first Americans they have ever met before in their life.

Life is definitely different here in Nizwa than it is in my Michigan hometown.  As mentioned during our D.C. orientation, it’s important to keep in mind that no culture is better or worse than another.  They are all just different.  But more on this concept in upcoming posts…  Tonight, I want to stress the facts of my personal living situation, which includes a guarded female apartment with a nine p.m. curfew every night.  At first, I was concerned that this would not very easily allow me to hang out with Omani friends and explore the areas of the city which come alive at night.  As soon as I met the gaggle of Omani girls living on our floor, I am positive that this will not be a problem.  It is Omani culture, after all, that women stay in after nine p.m. and the Omani men dominate the city’s night-life.  If I don’t strike up a friendship with any of these giggly gals, then at least there is my mandatory university language partner.

Although I am not sure who mine will be yet, my group met the nine Omani individuals who will be our language partners for the next eight weeks (eight women, one man—very reflective of the University’s population, which is composed of about ninety-five percent women).  After following a half-day orientation, their introductions, and our Arabic written and oral placement tests (as if our jet-lagged minds weren’t already drained enough), the professors, language partners, and CLS group visited the Nizwa market (souq) for the first time together and then we finished off the night with a traditional Omani dinner.  Sitting cross-legged on large, stuffed pillows, a dozen or so of my colleagues and I gathered around a clear plastic tarp stuck to the floor (easy for clearing the meal) and dug into a variety of dishes including hummus and pita, salad, chicken, shark, and calamari.  Being careful to eat with only my right hand and not show the bottom of my feet directly to anybody (both of which are proper Omani etiquette), I couldn’t get quite comfortable with this custom.  It sounds like I will have lots of opportunity for practice, though, according to the itinerary the program committee has laid out for us.

That’s all for now.  It has been a very long day, but hopefully once my classmates and I get into a regular routine, mine will include time to blog!  Ma’a Salaama! (“With Peace!”)