Finally, I can blog again!

Hi you guys!

Sorry for the delay in posting to my blog. I haven't been able to because the headers are all in Arabic, so I couldn't figure out how to log in. Somehow I figured it out tonight, so yay!

Due to security reasons I won't be able to blog about the specific spiritual aspects of my journey as I had hoped. But I CAN use it to post pictures and tell you about the touristy stuff we do.

Muscat (the cap city of Oman) is very beautiful. It's a coastal city with absolutely perfect tempertatures in the high 70s right now, although in the summer it often gets up 120. It kinda reminds me of a middle eastern La Jolla, California. Everything is super clean and nice, in fact, people can get ticketed if their car is too dirty! All the cars look normal and people drive normal... I even drove a couple times since I'm one of the only ones who can drive a stick shift.

All the buildings are white, many with beautiful intricately designed doors, windows, and gates. Most of the homes are huge, since extended families tend to all live together. There are virtually no poor people, becase Oman is an oil rich nation. It makes getting the gospel into this country even more difficult. The people here are very comfortable in every worldly way. One of the benefits of their wealth for us is that we can freely eat the food and drink the water without fear of getting sick. That's been nice and has alleviated some of the culture shock I experienced in Africa and Panama.

The major culture shock here is in the male/female relationships and the way I as a woman have to dress and act. The females in our group have chosen to respect the local culture of the Omanis and "cover" ourselves as much as possible, unlike most American tourists who come here and don't care that they are completely offending the locals. This means that we mostly wear long loose ankle-length skirts and long baggy shirts. If we wear pants we wear shirts long enough to completely cover our butts and crotch area. That's a big deal here. When we visited the Grand Mosque this morning we were required to cover our heads, wrists, and ankles. Many of the westerners who showed up to tour the mosque were denied admittance because of how they were dressed.

The other thing we have to do is avoid eye contact with Omani men as much as possible, unless they are working at a store or at the festival, then we can talk about that and exchange pleasantries like "Salaam Alekum" (peace to you). More than that is considered inappropriate and loose. The weird thing is though, that we CAN make eye contact and talk to the many Indian and Pakistani men who live and work here. At first we were all like, how on earth are we supposed to know who is Omani vs. Indian vs. Pakistani??? In America we are taught NOT to racially profile, but here it's a necessity. Basically, you can tell who everyone is pretty much by how they dress. The Omani men wear the starched long white (occassionally brown) robe called a Bid-Bid with a cap that has beautiful intricate embroidered designs. The Indian men dress like westerners, and the Pakistani men look like they are wearing pajamas -- long flowy pants with long flowy knee-length shirts.

At the Muscat Festival the other night we got some food and had a good time laughing and joking with the Egyptian food vendors. They are Muslim, but not as strict, and because they were vendors we were able to be more relaxed with them. But then we had to go sit on the "women's side" of the eating area. When we bought tickets for the rides there were separate men's and women's lines.

With few exceptions the women here all wear long traditional black "abayas". All of them cover their hair completely, and some cover their entire face except for the slits of their eyes. We've seen a few who actually wear a complete face veil that they can see through but we can't see in, not even their eyes. It's kinda creepy looking, but you get used to seeing it and now we even comment on how beautiful and different certain abayas are. We're told that women here claim to love "covering" and say they choose it because they prefer it and feel more "free". Hmmmmm, I'm not sure I'm buying that!

I could talk all night about the dress and the male/female thing. It's been a major thing to get used to. I'm just not used to rubbing elbows with people who look like sheiks!!

I'm running out of time on my prepaid computer card and want to post some pics, so GOOD NIGHT!

Love,

Sooz