Hi Everyone,
I’m so sorry to have not written in a long time. I know I stopped writing home
when we were stuck in Malaysia still waiting for our work visa to Oman….and
what a long wait it was. We had problems all the way up to boarding the plane.
Word to the wise, don’t fly to the Middle East on a one way ticket, it is
guaranteed to make your travel experience an unpleasant one. Fast forward
nearly 3 weeks that we have been in Oman and things have gotten much better.
The Middle East is SO different from Asia, and we are absolutely loving it!!
The food is amazing, and people are nice and friendly and our job is so much
better.
The change of scenery is breathtaking, we had no idea that a vast dessert could
have so much beauty. Since we have been here we have spent some time at the
beach, gone snorkeling and eaten a lot of good food. The weather is perfect
right now because it is winter here. In the summer we hear that it is
unbearable, but for now, it’s perfect for camping and snorkeling, two of our
favorite things to do. The beaches are so clean with deep blue water and off
white sand. The sand is a bit rocky like the rest of the environment, and the
mountains are very unique; rocky and jagged, and layering for miles. The sun
sets and rises here bigger than I have ever seen before and it’s always a deep
red or orange color. We learned about the particles in the atmosphere creating
these kinds of situations in science class, but we never imagined that it would
be this beautiful. We have seen camels walking in our town and are planning to
go see the turtles that storm the beaches this time of year very soon. The
nature here is simply amazing. City life however, or lack there of, can be a
bit frustrating.
The capital city is Muscat which is 2 hours away from our city, Sur. The drive
is nice and we have done it twice to go shopping, but it is a bit of a headache
if we were going to do it often. Our town is very small and the people are very
conservative, although the whole country is compared to the rest of the world
as in alcohol is illegal, and that sort of thing. However this being one of the
most relaxed Arab countries, the people still wear traditional clothing, all of
the time. That means the men were a long, white robe called a distasha and a
traditional hat. The women wear long, black robes which they pull a piece over
their faces when they are shopping or out in public. No it’s not the type from
Saudi which you can see the woman’s eyes, but instead made of a sheer material
so that the women can see out but no one can see in. It sort of looks like they
put a black sheet over themselves to play ghost like we did when we were
children, but then just left it there. It’s called an Abaya and they can be
quite intricate and beautiful. The more conservative girls wear just a plain
one, but the other girls wear them with embroidery and glitter on the head
piece. (the Hijab) However the people are remarkably nice and both Skyler and
I are thoroughly enjoying teaching adults. As well the girls are not allowed to
wear their face coverings in the university, which makes it easier to try to
remember their names and keep order in the class room. But it makes it weird
when you are standing in the checkout line at the store and a black floating
ghost walks up behind you and says “Hello Heather Teacher.” 90% of my students
have a great sense of humor and I find it quite interesting to talk to them.
They are very open and I have asked them everything from why they still wear
this, to how they feel about having multiple wives, and they are happy to
discuss these topics with me. Similarly, they are eager to ask me questions.
Although non of them believe that I’m from America, as everywhere that I go.
They automatically think I’m some sort of Arab, in fact three male students
came to my office today to ask/argue with me about my nationally. They had
actually come to give me their grand explanations for their recent absences
and poor test marks, but the conversation turned when they were not able to
persuade me into changing their situation. That is a problem in this society,
males are favored so much over females that they are often given special
privileges, consequently the female students are less pampered and far surpass
the boys in academic skills. The girl students sit on one side of the class
room never talking to the boys, and the boy students on the other and steal
glimpses of the girls, so it’s a sea of half white, half black robes and far
too much perfume on both sides.
The whole country is covered in Mosques and the call to prayer sounds 5 times a
day, including the first one at 4:30 in the morning. Now remember that I said
that the country is literally covered in Mosques and you’ll get the idea of why
we’ve yet to be late to work. Which now starts at 7:30am, a stark difference
from our 2-10 timetable in Korea. There is 3 times as much paperwork to do in
the office, but we teach far less class time per week as well. We also share
our office with our two good friends Greg and Cecile and upstairs are two of
our other friends from Korea Sarah and Chris. We have met lot’s of great people
living here and we also share our office with 2 Indian women who are very nice
and fun to be around.
Photographically we have yet to take a picture… but there is some good news
onthis front. Previous to 2 days ago, we did not have a car, so we could not get
around. We now have our apt, a leased car, our cell phones and internet, so we
are back to living in the real world. This quarter we actually sold images on
Lonely Planet which was very nice and the big news so far is that Sky has just
got a shoot for this Friday. (Our weekends here are Thursday and Friday, so
Wednesday is now the happiest day of the week =) My husband is very good at
marketing himself and tries so much harder than myself. He notified other
photographers and companies that he would be in this part of the world for a
while and because of this a magazine based in Abu Dhabi, UAE has contacted him
for a shoot this weekend in Muscat. The day rate is awesome and it is a
possible cover shoot, which means if they choose to run it for cover, he will
make even more. I’m very proud of him. We have a set of images to send of to
Lonely Planet from Malaysia, but it will take a while to edit them.
We can’t wait to start shooting here, which we will probably be able to start
in the next month or so. We have 9 days off at the end of this month for the eid
holiday, a Muslim holiday here. That will be our prime time to produce some
images. This letter is getting ridiculously long, but I hope you got a feel for
what we are up to. I am in the middle of making banana bread for one of our
Indian co-workers because she is loaning me one of her Indian outfits for a
Halloween party that our friend is having tomorrow night, I’m going as a
Bollywood movie star. We miss everyone so much, especially me and I can’t wait
to see everyone. Anyone wanting to come visit is more than welcome, we would
love to share our 1 bedroom apartment.. =)
Love you guys and I hope everyone is doing great, Love The Burts
Posted on May 27, 2010 by Yellow Street Photos
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