I just don’t like cold weather so when this position came up
in Oman (land of sunny skies and smiling people) I took a chance and in a week
I was on the way to the airport in Halifax. But nothing ever goes perfectly…
when we were past New Glasgow, I realized, my passport was home. Wheel around,
(Archie never even grumbled) and went back home for it. Flew out of Halifax at
3:40 Monday afternoon a bit late but still caught the Flight to Frankfurt from
Montreal. Had a 3 hour stop over there and then it was on to Saudi and then on
to Oman. Arrived at Muscat about 9:30PM after
22 hours and was met by a school employee who drove me to my apartment. It is
very large and furnished, with 2 huge bedrooms with their own bathrooms plus
one more bathroom. I was unpacked and ready for bed by 12:00 and with the alarm
set for 6:30. It was a long trip so I was looking forward to a nice shower this
morning, it certainly was refreshing and very cold…. no hot water. After I
finally warmed up I pushed a few buttons on the panel in the hallway and found
the water heater on switch….a nice warm shower tomorrow. Had a bad hair day
since the current here makes my hairdryer so hot it smelled like burning
plastic and getting ready to melt down.
The weather here is like our July-August weather, very nice
to feel that sun. When we were stopped
in Saudi it was very overcast due to sandstorms. This morning my drive to
school was here at 8:00. The school is quite large but very clean and appears
well organized. The teachers are all very friendly and especially glad to see
me ….since they had been covering my classes since the first of the term. The school
provides everyone with ‘breakfast’ (really brunch) every morning about 10:00.
It’s a good meal so if you make it your breakfast you don’t need much lunch, if
any, and eat again when you get home with a small snack in between. I was able
to go in and see my boys today, stayed about a half hour. Very nice fellows,
can’t see any big problems. They are beautiful children, big brown eyes and
they look very healthy. They are all dressed in clean white dis dashas (my
spelling) which are long shirts without a collar or buttons. They wear an
embroidered hat, which I would say it is sort of like a pillbox hat. The male
Omani staff, wear the same, as well as most Omani men you see around the city.
What I can’t understand is how they keep their clothing so clean. I saw a group
of the boys walking across the school yard in the sun. They all had beautiful
white dis dashas but they were all many different shades of white.
Someone took me to the phone store to get me set up but
nothing is working. I will have to take a cab there tomorrow to get things
straightened out. This evening I went for a walk on the beach with one of the
teachers in my building, who has a car. The beach sand is so fine, something
like the Sahara. When it is wet it packs something like Daytona beach and there
are many people walking or playing soccer. There were waves today so not
suitable for swimming but I guess it is usually very calm.
Mostly all the teachers have rented/leased cars. I’m
beginning to think I may have to get one if I am going to see anything besides
my immediate area. The transit system
here isn’t very good, not many busses, didn’t see any yet. I came here
expecting traffic to be similar to the chaos I saw in Egypt. Not true, the
roads are modern, speed limits are posted and obeyed, traffic lights are heeded
and there isn’t the continuous honking of Cairo.
No jet lag yet. Since our weekend began this afternoon, I’ll
have a chance to get caught up on sleep Thursday and Friday. Back to school
Saturday.
