Blur

If you want to eat the date correctly, first you have to start with your right hand. Squeezing the fruit, you work the long, oval pit to a surface, breaking it through the sticky meat, and deposit it on the table. You do not use your left hand because it is dirty. Nor do you stick the whole fruit in your mouth and pull out the masticated seed with your fingers. It is fluid and intuitive to an Omani, and a downright mashed-up failure for the rest of us.

On Monday we visited the Sultan Qaboos University. Beautifully laid out and highly decorated, Oman’s solo public University boasts seven different colleges from education to engineering, and isn’t shy to admit that they have lowered their admission standards in order to keep men enrolled at all. The school IS difficult to get into, they skim the best and the brightest off the top for all of Oman since SQU not only offers a free ride to its students, it also pays for all their supplies and offers them an allowance… that being said, the school is currently girl:boy around 60:40 and that is only because of this recent lowering of standards.

Post SQU we visited the US Embassy wherein we were briefed on certain things we should not do in order to stay in this country’s good graces. They brought to the forefront issues of health we should be aware of and made sure we understood that in case of an emergency, they could spring us if necessary. Maybe.

For some reason this particular day seemed exceedingly hot and I was irritably, miserably tired. Once the adrenaline-induced novelty unravels on about day 3, fatigue just seems to accumulate on itself, backing up over and over in muggy folds.

I’m quite sure we ended up back at SIT for yet another briefing on yet another essential topic but… whatevThat evening we were invited to break fast at the home of Farouk, the gentleman in charge of homestay coordination for our program. It was a mansion of a house, filled will filigree and inlay, Persian rugs and peacock feathers, gold lame, dark wood, beveled mirrors, painted tile, and ten bathrooms… and they are decently middle class. Breaking the daily Ramadan fast is like Christmas dinner. Times thirty - since it’s held for an entire month. After the fourth call to prayer, the throbbing sun finally falls away. Everyone gathers for essentially a course of appetizers; triangular beniets, mango/strawberry/lemon/orange/etc fresh fruit juices, sweet cheese bread balls, falafels, breaded something-or-others with green coconut/na-na (mint)/lemon sauce, and dates, dates, dates, dates. The men eat quickly in order to make it to the Mosque before seven for the magreeb (sunset) prayer. Upon returning, the main meal is served, always consisting of innumerous variations on a chicken dish, something akin to potatos al’gratein, piles and piles of rice, a carrot, cucumber, and greens salad, and for this particular instance, a gigantic fish in yellow sauce. As if this weren’t lavish and filling enough, a sweets spread follows, similar to the fast-breaking course, but in this case with the addition of a sort of sweet soup made of pumpkin and coconut milk… can’t say anyone had trouble getting to sleep that night.