12: New Year, New Season & Weather - 19 Jan 2008

Well its been a while since the last entry. The lead up to & celebration of Christmas, New Years, lots of family time, starting back at school, I had lost the blogging groove. It took some amazing rain to get me back. And my dance card is filling up so my entries may continue to be infrequent.

CHRISTMAS was great, all the traditional foods available, even pork for us non-muslims, & lots of European fare, no running out at the last minute. The kids had their best Christmas yet. Just at the perfect age to get into it of course. 3 little ones bouncing with excitement... They have learnt that Santa goes by sleigh & reindeer in some countries, tractor & sheep in NZ, surfboard in Hawaii, & by camel here in Oman. I'm not totally sure they quite believe in him but they were a little impressed that he ate most of the Christmas snack we left out. Mainly they are quite present focused. They seemed to enjoy their school nativity concert though. They still break out with "you will have a baby boy, son of god...etc" out of nowhere at times. Its a change from the super thrashed "twinkle twinkle little star & wheels on the bus, snakes on the bus, camels on the bus etc." I just wished they'd opened their mouths more to sing at the actual concert instead of saving the bellowing for private.

NEW YEARS was great for us, with a babysitter. We got to go out for the first time in a while, since our New Years when living in Tokyo turning 2003. Its a popular night though. All the parties & dinners, at the club & international hotels sell out very quick. We were lucky to squeeze in to a rooftop dinner with some friends at one of the international hotels & squish into their latin music nightclub afterwards. Clubbing here is very much a male past time & couples of course, but men are overly represented. And ocal women would not like the proximity to so many men, especially uncovered. Omani men & women who are not married are not allowed to be alone in rooms or cars or any place together. They have to be very public, & more often than not, in large mixed groups to socialise. Even in private homes when socialising or having family gatherings, apparently the genders are separated into 2 different rooms. In some restaurants, supermarkets & other public places there are sometimes separated queues or seating areas for men or families or women and mixed.

We took a drive to the DESERT & stayed a couple of nights. It was cooler at night but still warmish, like a North Island summers evening. It was quite incredible to see the sand & dunes & watch it disappear forever into the horizon. Awesome vistas, better than I'd anticipated. The sand is incredibly soft, I've never seen anything like it. I was expecting regular old, coarse beach sand but it was velveteen. The kids loved playing in it. It was the biggest sandpit they'd ever experienced. And we came across no nasty creatures. I don't know if I believe there are snakes & scorpions in Oman. Friends of ours did sight loads of sea snakes out on a boat but haven't seen any on land. One mother at school tried to convince me she'd just run over a baby snake until I pointed out it was in fact a shoelace. I did see squashed baby snakes on the padi field roads when biking to the schools in Japan & they didn't look like shoelaces. But apparently they're here & dogs get bitten & die after snooping around in the nooks & crannies in the ground.

CAMELS We saw lots of camels in the desert. The Bedouin walk them in long lines, gallop along the desert or put them in pens. As you drive you see camels in pens in the middle of nowhere. Often no houses or buildings, just camel pens. They were lovely, we didn't get spat at, & riding them is like riding a horse. If we can lose the kids one day, I'd love to go for a long desert trek by camel.

Seth went DUNE BASHING when out in the desert. Luckily the kids & I didn't go, in fact, I'll never, ever do it. He went for a very long time when it was supposed to be a relatively short journey, so they could come back & take us up the dune near camp for a sunset picnic. Turns out they lost a wheel after some silly car acrobatics, 20 odd kilometres further into the interior with no one in sight. Another vehicle also dune bashing did come across them & threw them a spade then took off. They managed to dig the wheel out & replace it. Meanwhile back at camp no one knew anything. I could see the camp people pacing around a bit but they didn't mention a thing to me & the kids as time ticked on & the sun got further down in the sky.

BODY BASHING. The sun had almost completely set when they got back but they took us up for a quick view from the dune before it got too dark. Wished we hadn't bothered. We drove like we were trying to have head on collisions with the dune. No car seats, just seatbelts. The kids were airborne but loving it, & I was just about sick my whole body & insides jelly from the bouncing, impacting vehicle. I couldn't speak nor stop trembling when we got to the top. I said I would walk back down after the car was nosed right to the edge of the dune we had to descend down. It was a vertical cliff, who in their right mind would drive a vehicle down there at a sharp angle!! After whispered assurances by Seth (we were whispering so not to alert the driver to my absolute fear) I did get back in the car. We went straight down over the edge & the driver went so slowly, so peacefully, it was beautiful. Nothing like the body assault climbing up. I completely see how they lost their wheel & slashed their tyres to shreds however.

The WINTER has been interesting, some days including Christmas it was suddenly overcast & cooler, going down to low 20sC. But then other days looking like a holiday destination catalogue - sunny, hot, high 20s with sunburn for the palest ones. I've found I pretty much don't burn here in Oman at all, in fact I'm relatively pale. I lathered sunscreen on during the summer & the heat made me avoid the sun & what I've discovered is it doesn't have that harsh UV bite of NZ. Feels extremely hot but no substance.

The RAIN... I've not seen so many happy, twittering faces excited at rain & mentionings of gumboots, wellies, home countries... It doesn't happen often & when it does within an hour everything is dried up as if it never rained. Not so at the moment. It has been raining over 24 hours, sometimes a little heavy. The environment isn't set up for large amounts of rain so it's a bit exciting. Puddles form, roads flood, wadis fill with water, motorways clog, 40 mins commutes turn to 3+ hour commutes, accidents happen, buildings leak, power cuts out, satellite tv stops, people don't go to work & schools close. Not our PDO school though, only if the electricity & the water is cut, does it close apparently. It was all very dramatic. I even noticed, work halted on the major road working sites. Now that is amazing as that is round the clock 24 hours, 7 days a week, public holidays, hot summer days or not. It never stops.

Someone mentioned it may rain, but we hung up our washing out as usual thinking it'll only be a bit, only to see it through the window the next morning saturated. It was so novel, I almost took a photo. The kids & I went puddle bashing on our way home from school, as it's fun in a 4wheel drive & tomorrow there have been rumours or reports for everyone to stay home, not go far as major flooding may occur as the mountain water makes it way down to our level through the wadis. However I think Seth is keen to go driving around the suburban wadis to look for any mini raging torrents. It's almost as exciting as having heavy snow during our time living near the Japan Alps.

KAIJA is coming out of her shell slowly at school. She finally knows one of her teacher's names. Last term she really took to Coles teacher - was her no.1 fan, knew her name, used to jump up & down to greet her (as she'd see her twice a day at drop offs & pick ups), she'd even fight fiercely with Cole at home over who had the right to use Miss Ellie's name. With the new term, some of her kindy peers moved on to Cole's class & now she has more attention, & the teachers are reaching out to her a bit more. She loves going to kindy, never cried, always wanted to go but just didn't have a repore. Hopefully it is changing. Good thing is next school year, starting September, Miss Ellie will be her teacher.

SWIMMING has started at the pool now it has reopened in winter after repairs. I am helping out each week with some of the other mums as we have to walk the kids up the road to the club pool, undress them, hand them over to a team of instructors & then dry, dress & walk them back afterwards without losing any of their clothes or dressing them in someone elses. I do that a few times a day for 3 little ones, 21 4yr olds is a bit of a handful too. No wonder the teachers wanted help. It's all very cute though. Don't know about doing it come summer time. Blinking will break me out in an exhausted sweat in that heat. Maybe they'll cancel classes for May & June. Its hard for the kids too, all holding hands, walking with bags on their backs, they struggle a bit with slowness, distractions & swimming bags. In the heat of spring/summer it will be a challenge. And for the mums who aren't allowed to show much more skin than a tshirt & long shorts permits. I've heard people say they don't go outside after 9.00am in the morning and the walk will have everyone soaked in sweat.

Its been a month since I entered a blog & the site automatically is coming up in arabic until I negotiate my way through & get my password entered then I get back to English. It's the same with Google. It comes up in Arabic unless I use the NZ suffix. Oh well more fun & games. I'll have to learn arabic script. Seth should be starting classes this week which will be good.

Looks like the blogsite isn't letting me use some of the tools maybe to do with the arabic version so no photos for now. With any luck it'll be workable another time.