Guess my age again ... and a day on a boat

It's funny to think that I will (only) be 23 two weeks from tomorrow. I suppose the age that I look is quite ambiguous and that I can easily pass for less than 20 with a little bit of trying or easily blend into the 25+ crowd ... (Aside: it reminds of that summer with several MEI interns and Abdallah asking random people on the streets of DC how old he looked)

My ambiguous age also lends itself to the usual topic of Omani conversation: marriage. It isn't considered rude to ask people if they are married if they look the marriage-able age ... or if they are married, how many kids they have, or if they have kids, what are their ages, etc. Such is the topic of conversation in group conversations I have with Omanis ... and such was one of the many topics of conversation with the group I went with yesterday on a boat trip to the Dimaniyat Islands yesterday. At some point, another girl and I were candidates for the second wife of one man ... or even first and second wives for the man who had connections with the one who owned the yacht we were on ... and what a nice yacht it was!

It was quite the motley crew of Omanis and ex-pats, with all the males being Omani and the females (all 5 of us) being the ex-pats -- American, Spanish, Bulgarian. I felt like I was in a surreal episode of "The Real World," sans extensive drama and adding more laughter and live music that a typical episode yields. I went snorkeling for the first time in my life in crystal clear turquoise waters covering the softest of sand ... I didn't see any fish unfortunately, as I had panicked, quickly took off my mask and high-tailed it back to the yacht. Alas. Next time, I will work up my muscles and stamina for when we go boating out to Khasab (the capital of the Musandam Peninsula, the northernmost tip of Oman; it guards the Strait of Hormuz is only 60 km away from the Iranian coast ...) Most of the men were at least 30 or older, which completely surprised me, as they were out jumping off the boat and acting jovial as any 20-something I have ever known. Age ain't nothin' but a number, I suppose ... And our ages were so varied, and our life experiences so different, but no body cared (although they did care that I did not have a TV and wondered how I could live such a life). The salty sea breeze was in our hair, good food was in our bellies and we had just been swimming in the most beautiful waters imaginable ...

In other news, I have dove in head first with my research (concurrently dealing with officials who are responsible for issuing me my one-year visiting visa ... which is a trip inside Omani bureaucracy in itself ...) and am completely excited about visiting many women and as many OWA chapters that I can. All I need to do is figure out the intricacies of the various dialects within the over-arching Omani dialect ... should have done that for a Fulbright project instead, eh?