what i will miss

It is fitting that I end this rather uneventful week with the news that this upcoming week will be quite full of adventure and travel. From Saturday through Monday, I'll be staying with an Omani family in Rustaq whilst I learn more about their OWA. Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm helping show some friends' guests around Muscat, and Wednesday afternoon until Friday evening, I will be on the edge of the Sharqiyah sands (in the Eastern part of Oman), staying with another family whilst learning more about their local OWA. Adventure abound, indeed ...

Is it bad that I'm already thinking about what I'm going to miss when I leave in eight (really?) months?

I love that I live in an Omani neighbourhood and not in Little Britain (Medinat Sultan Qaboos) or Qurum (where the oil company headquarters and plant are located). As much as I frequent those places, my little flat no. 5 in South Ghubrah is located in a special place. The neighbourhood is quiet, save for the daily shouts of kids playing in the streets during that last precious hour of daylight before the maghreb prayer. Driving in my neighbourhood is the antithesis of driving on crowded al-Ghubra street, the main road I turn off from to enter. There are two distinct occasions during which the streets are packed with cars and a semblance of crowds: during prayer times and when there's a football game across the street at the sports complex.

To think, I take it for granted every day when I pass at such a strategic time ... I yield the road to fathers walking with their young sons in tow, groups of pre-pubescent boys and old men with wisdom as deep as their cheeks' wrinkles, en route to perform a centuries old act of worship in the little mosque around the corner. The white, cream, and beige dishdashas are decorated with red and green cloth, colors of the Omani flag, as scores of eager football fans saunter their way to the stadium and cheer on the national team. Perhaps a group of these young men with the country's flag painted on their faces are the same young men who host their own daily amateur football tournament on the dusty field that now serves as a crowded parking lot for the big professional match.

Every day, I park my car and I climb up three flights of stairs. Oftentimes, the distinct scent of frankincense wafts through the stairwell and tickles my nose, and I am reminded of my Catholic school days and Friday Mass. As I open my door to enter my flat, I see the blazing orange sky fade into a navy blue. I open a window to hear the echos of the call to prayer emanating from the tallest minaret of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, welcoming the repose of the end of the day.