My friends in Turkey, who know more about the Gulf region politics are very upset with my consideration of going to Oman, worrying about my safety. Are they worried solely about my safety? Or does this awareness cause the surfacing of their own anxiety about their mortality as well as mine? As Yalom says, does their death anxiety immobilize them with no overt symptoms but with projection of extreme reaction to a seemingly harmless trip? How can I calm down my best friend, who keeps telling me I shouldn’t do anything in Oman unless the American Embassy designates protective guards for me!
This reaction takes me to my daughter getting very anxious every time I take a solo hiking trip to a national park. Not that I haven’t had any risky experiences including encountering a grizzly bear. Yet, how can we live our lives without taking any risks? Death is with us, day in day out. In every day-trip I take to our capitol Des Moines, driving for four hours on the high ways, rain or shine, snow or ice, I am traveling in the company of death just as everybody else. The lines from Yalom ring in my ears “Confronting death allows us not to open a noisy Pandora’s Box but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner by embracing the present moment. If we shield ourselves from death, we also shield ourselves from a good life”. I utter to myself then to my friends “I am doing the right thing by going to Oman, it will enrich my life. I will make sure I take all the safety precautions including keeping some of my thoughts and questions to myself!” My friend is not convinced.
And here I am at Muscat Airport, to visit Oman for only 26 hours! Yet another indication of my bias, as a starter. Not knowing anything about Oman, I just couldn’t bring myself to dedicate 3-4 days to Oman during my first visit. What if I felt suffocating, what if it feels like Iran or Saudi Arabia, not that I visited either, but at least from what we hear from the news, the books, etc… Quotes from “The women of invisible land”, a book written by a Muslim Pakistani female surgeon based on the two years she spent in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia are flashing in my mind like a nightmare. “I have to take this slow and be compassionate to myself as well as to others” is my final resolve at this point.
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| Omani men with formal and casual head pieces. |
Muscat airport is a small one, reminding me of the airport in Cedar Rapids, in Iowa. As soon as I land, I find myself in a crowd of men in white long dresses and either a cap on their heads like an Ottoman “fes”, or a turban wrapped around their fes in a very elegant way. Their white dresses are exactly like what boys, who are circumcised in post-toddler age wear in Turkey until their wound heals. As I look at these fully grown and proud men walking around me, I just can’t get the image of little Turkish boys holding their white gown away from their penis, which recently underwent the circumcision procedure, with an inner mischievous smile in my mind. It will take me 24 hours until I start seeing them just as Omani men wearing their national costume, which is required especially in governmental posts. I will also learn that fes is the casual head piece, whereas the turban around it is also required for government officials to wear at least at work. By the way, Omani men look pretty attractive with the turban on their heads, perhaps because of the elegance in the way they tie it around the fes. Next day, I will see them as seriously as they mean to look; no more “circumcision boy” image in my mind!
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| Three Omani men with casual headpieces. |
I wonder how "manly" these men are. Are they truly responsible adults, or do they look like adults outside the home and become adolescents like Turkish men in the home, either leaning on their mother or their wife even for as simple tasks as getting a drink of water. How do mothers raise their children in this culture? Do they raise them so that children grow up to become independent, competent adults, flying away from home in a timely manner, or do they do their best to keep them as tightly knit with their extended family as possible. Yalom whispers in my ear again: “For many parents, children serve as an immortality project”. Is that why, helping our kids do good is so hard-wired into our existence? Is that why, we are proud of our children when they do good things in life? Is that why, we get anxious when we see them veer toward risky directions, taking unpredictable paths? Food for thought…
I stop to ask a man where I need to go for customs. He produces my visa from the bunch of papers he is holding: it so happens that he is the person designated by the university to pick me up. He is distant but polite with tangential eye contact. I don’t even attempt to shake his hand, I don’t know yet, if it is acceptable in Oman or not. He probably reads my hesitancy as MY need to keep a distance from him. That is a safer place to be in Arabic culture rather than being too friendly as a woman, I resolve. Better present myself as modest and measured rather than too friendly, since this may raise questions about my decency and honor, I suspect. I remain cautious and observant. He moves me through customs like a breeze, although my visa reads“male”! I have already started tapping into Arabic vocabulary, which has been integrated into Turkish language for centuries. I tell him “teshekkur” Arabic for ‘thank you”, he smiles. I can’t tell if he understood me or not.
| Sultan Qaboos' attire is certainly much more sophisticated. Apparently, nobody in the ocuntry is allowed to wrap his turban the way he does! |
He transfers me to yet another man, who will drive me to my hotel. I tell him “shukran” this time, he responds with “shukran” back… My driver’s English is very poor, but I manage to learn from him that Oman has a 3-million population. However, during the next 24 hours, I will hear various numbers on this, ranging anywhere from 3M to 6M; every informant giving me this information being as confident as the other one! The government’s goal is to keep guest workers’ proportion to Omanis at 30%. Apparently, during the last census it reached an alarming 40%. Everywhere we go, we see non-natives working in service jobs such as waiting jobs, cleaning, construction, etc. Omanis and others from other Gulf countries are not shy to let me know that Omanis are not willing to do such unskilled jobs, although they are slightly embarrassed to say this, since they are globalized individuals after all, and know that this is not a politically correct stance, but a fact.
I am curious to find out what the existential goals for these men are: How do they construct their fundamental human responsibility toward an authentic life of engagement, connection, meaning and self-fulfillment. How do they prioritize things they’d like to do in their lives? Are they allowed at all to think for themselves, to make decisions, to ask questions in the first place? Or is it the sultan, the father of the extended family, the man of the house dictating all there is to think, ask, and answer? Or do they live badly as is dictated upon them and die badly, as a result, as Yalom points out. Will find out gradually, over time…
My driver distracts me from all these questions and thoughts by pointing out to me some of the buildings along the highway. In the dark, I discover with surprise that we are in a mountainous terrain. The next day my hostess will tell me that Oman and Northern Saudi Arabia are the only mountainous areas of the Arabian peninsula. They are proud of their Green Mountain, I wonder if I will ever see it.
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| Muscat terrain toward my hotel away from Sultan Qaboos University |
I make a mental note that I saw only two Omani looking women at the airport among all the men. One wearing a long black caftan without a hair cover. The other wearing the typical black hicap covering her, head to toes, yet face and hands exposed. My hostess tomorrow will proudly tell me that it is not part of Omani culture to cover the face and hands. My heart goes to her sensing an Arab woman’s need to be respected as a strong, proud Arab woman by a western woman. And I do, as the hours go by, I discover how smart, hos insightful, personable, and welcoming she is. I sense, we may indeed become friends, which is my style in any country I start professional programs.
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| I have seen all variety of attire on women from hair exposed to covered with or without make up on te face. |
Women submitting to the rule of Islam with their attire, with being responsible for men’s sexual arousal or not, with accepting secondary role in their society arouse conflicting feelings in me: One is the need to shake them by the shoulders and tell them “Wake up, stand up for yourselves, raise your voices, claim your territory in your family and society”. The other one is the compassionate understanding that they cannot do this because of the way they were raised, they were socialized at least yet. Will a time come something drastic will shake up and jerk Arab women and give them the courage to shed their covers, get out into the society, into the malls, onto the streets like it happened to a certain extent during Arab spring? As they shed the things of the past, will they be able to claim a new space, persona, and a life? That would be the best fight against mortality, wouldn’t it?
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| I heard in rural areas of Oman some women wear veils as in Saudi Arabia btu I saw none with a veil in Muscat. |
How will they be able to do that, though, without much education and re-molding? I recall, one time when my daughter at age 7-8 had come home and told me how her girlfriend’s mother had humiliated her in front of my daughter. She was furious “If you had done that to me, I would have screamed at you!” My response to her was an understanding “Had I treated you all your life the way your friend treats your friend, you might not have learned that you could scream at me, my dear”. She had gotten the message and given me a warm hug. I am excited to see how I will connect with the women of Oman and if and how I will be able to integrate the two attitudes in a constructive manner.
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| This is typical view of an Omani public space, mostly men, few women, but some of the big gas gozzlinng SUVs may be driven by well-to-do women! |
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