Discover Oman '09 - TURTLE POWER!!!

TAISM is an incredible school. Sure, it has its problems, but overall I am supported, encouraged and I feel like I am developing more in my profession here than I could anywhere else. The students must feel similarly. They have opportunities to be in plays, sports and excel in academics. A common complaint though, is the setting.

We all love TAISM, but we find that outside of school there isn't much to do. For teachers, many of us feel there isn't much of a social scene, but the opportunities for camping and outdoors activities are nearly endless. For students, many of them have their friends, but don't get out much. Their families are too busy, or just not into the adventures of hiking and camping. Despite how much I have loved teaching and my students, everything was amplified during Discover Oman.Discover Oman is a week-long program where students leave everything behind, cell phones, ipods, TVs, radios, comfort, and sometimes friends, to explore certain aspects of Omani life, landscape and nature. This program is so well respected by the staff, students and families of TAISM that people who move around that time will be sure to make their schedules fit to D.O., so their kids can have that before they leave the school.

Each grade has different trips, and I was chaperoning the "Turtles" with the art teacher, Bretta. The first day, Saturday, we did a hike near Muscat with all the 7th graders. We also checked to make sure they packed what would be/might be necessary for the following days of camping. Sunday we boarded the bus and had a 4 hour drive to Turtle beach (our group started here, hence the name of the group). We stopped at a traditional shipyard in Sur to have a snack and learn how they make Dhows. Shortly after, we arrived at our camp and unpacked before heading to a beach not far from Turtle Beach to just relax, wade in the ocean, watch some Omani man struggle to get his boat onto the beach with his bright pink truck, and drove on an airstip that was made by Americans during WWII. We had a nice dinner that the camp provided and waited for dark to go over to the Turtle Beach where a guide would take us to watch a mother turtle dropping eggs into her nest. The kids, of all different nationalities and cliques, all had smiles on their faces and were quiet, respectful and seemed to appreciate the wonder and rareness of what they were witnessing. After heading back to the museum/hotel and from there our camp, the kids were enamored with the adventure so far and all doubts of how great the trip would be drifted into the darkness of the desert. Bretta and I knew who the friends in our group were, so we purposely assigned their tents so they would be with people they normally didn't talk to. After the week, the kids were all friends with each other and accepted any differences with arms open. This being one of the goals of DO was somewhat expected, but I was constantly impressed with how easily and quickly it happened.

On Monday we woke up at 4:45 to go watch the baby turtles hatch and found a mother turtle still making her way back to the ocean. Unfortunetly we only found one baby turtle that was still alive, but we were able to watch the mother for a while, which is always a nice treat. We had breakfast, played a few games and climbed on the bus to go to Wadi Bani Khalid. Wadi Bani Khalid is a large Wadi with deep, open pools. After jumping off a 3 meter bridge with some of the kids, I lead a brave group up the wadi into its narrows and waterfalls. Much of their bravery was following me when I didn't know the way! But, after a few slips and falls on rocks, we made it to a beautiful little waterfall. A few omani boys helped us climb up the waterfall and we continued to the next waterfall. Which was also picturesque and deserved to be on an Omani postcard. We headed back to meet up with Bretta and the rest of our group, had a short lunch and got back on the bus to head for Wahiba sands... The 'classic' desert in oman!

We arrived at Wahibi Sands with a few hours of light left. Our bus couldn't make it through the dunes, obviously, so we climbed into the 4 x 4 trucks which were powerful enough to make it up the dunes with enough momentum and skill. The kids unloaded their things into their tents/huts and came to the main tent to write in their journals. Bretta lead them through a mini poetry unit based on what they've seen so far. We were purposely trying to keep them out of the sun and doing something relaxed so they wouldn't exhaust themselves. After the journal writing and a few games we let the loose in the desert. We had some foot-races and did some flips down the dunes, went sandboarding and played some soccer. After getting very sandy and tired, we headed for the main tent for our dinner. That night we tried to start a Yahtzee tournament, but the kids were surprisingly tired (thankfully!) and went to bed around 9:30 or 10.

They went to bed early, so they also woke up early. With the rise of the sun. I got out of bed around 6ish to whispering voices trying not to wake up the camp. Bretta woke up from her tent at that time also. I feel like I got a little taste of what it feels like to be parents on Christmas morning when the kids are already staring at the presents waiting for permission to open them. When I stepped out of my tent, the whispering stopped and 4 boys looked at me, one of them ran up to me, and trying to be polite, whispered, "Hey Mr. Manker, do you think we could go sandboarding yet?" We had about an hour and a half until breakfast so we climbed the tallest dune and headed down. Most of the kids ended up falling off the board, which must have been slightly disheartening considering how difficult it was to hike up the dune with a snowboard, but if they were, they didn't show it, they just laughed and wanted to do it again.

After breakfast we went to a Bedouin family's house. Or, better yet, residence. Or, fenced in area with a few huts and a satellite dish (yes, satellite TV has even reached the nomads! I wonder if they've needed to buy an extra camel to carry it to their new spot when they move). It was an amazing experience and the students were both extremely respectful and in awe. They told us what the different jobs for the men and women are for each family/tribe. How to approach a residence, how to sit so you don't show the bottoms of the feat (it wasn't very comfortable for me), how to eat dates and oranges without letting the fruit touch your hands, and we had lots of tea. We also were able to watch the woman there making some crafts.

While leaving, Bretta and I snooped around a little bit. The kitchen was not only the largest hut, but they had huge pots and pans. They must have some amazing feasts! We also checked out the "master bedroom". In which, Bretta and I were startled to see a very familiar face on the wall. There was a medium-sized portrait of Jesus Christ, just a little darker. We looked at each other to make sure the other person took note, and after asking a few decoy questions (Bretta is very clever), she casually asked who the person in the portrait was. Well, not surprisingly, the man was not Jesus, it was Muhammed. No, not the prophet. This nomadic woman's brother. With that, we said goodbye to the goats, to Jesus' sister, the male host, and jumped in the truck.

After lunch it was time to get the caravan a-movin'! We split the group of 16 students in half. 8 would ride out to the desert today, and the other 8 would ride back on the camels the next day. The others would walk (camels can be fast, but not when they are in caravan mode). We took off walking while the camels and students past us slowly. After about an hour of walking we found 8 tents set up in the middle of nowhere. Well, in the middle of the desert next to a massive dune. We fixed up the tents and found wood for a fire. After dinner, we had marshmallows and told ghost stories. Then hit the sacks. The night was fairly windy, but we were snug in our tents and the camels were snug tied to a couple of trees.

The next morning I woke before anyone and decided to climb the massive dune. Halfway up I noticed one of the less-fit boys following me. I decided he may just need to use the bathroom since he seemed too heavy-set to want to climb the entire dune, so I kept climbing and tried not to look back. At the top of the dune I looked back, and found him struggling up the dune. I decided I would wait at the top of the next dune which wasn't far. I got to the top, and just when I started getting worried that he gave up and just fell on his face and suffocated, or rolled back down the dune and broke every bone in his body, I saw a sweaty, round face poke over the dune. I yelled hello, and waved. He gasped something, and put his hands on his knees. Then continued to drag his feet up the hill. We sat together at the top of the dune, looking over the ribs of dunes that is Wahiba Sands. The sun had risen, but it was still red and low. When the student stopped panting, we had some small talk, then I asked him if he wanted to see what was at the end of this seciton of dunes. He said he was fine, he would wait for me there. So I walked to investigate. Found very little and returned. Then, he and I ran down the dunes back to the camp, which was now lively, for breakfast. Well deserved.

On the way back to the main camp, one of the 8 who was supposed to ride the camels that day was a bit scared. So, we decided I would go. What fun! Right? Well, I am sure it can be fun, but I got a saddle that made me... raw. WARNING: This gets a little graphic. After about ten minutes of fun, novelty and figuring out how to balance on a camel, my upper... um... well... just below my... How can I put this delicately? On either side of my area below my tailbone started to chafe. I knew the ride was an hour long, but I thought it would just be uncomfortable, which it was, but I didn't know just how uncomfortable it would be. When we got back to our base camp, I was more excited to get off the camel than I was to get on it. I jumped off after the the camel knealed and walked bowlegged back to the tents with the students. I felt some wetness in my pants, and since I knew it wasn't anything from inside my body, I just figured it was very sweaty. Well, we rushed the kids to have a quick lunch and then to jump on the bus to head back to Muscat, ending our week of Discover Oman. During lunch however, the "sweat" never left my buttocks, in fact, I seemed to only be wetter. And more painful. On the bus, it finally started to dry, but it was also very sticky. It was then, that I thought it may be somehting different than sweat. I wasn't eager to find out how badly I was chafed, so I was happy to say goodbye to the kids and run to our principal's house with all the other chaperones, drink some beers and exchange stories. Later that night, and after plenty of beverages, I had almost forgotten about my butt problem. The smell of camel on my shorts wasn't enough of a reminder, apparently. We continued the party at Courtney's where I discreetly went to the bathroom and tried to look in the mirror to look at the damage. I peeled off my underwear and looked in the mirror to find two strips of skin missing from my buttocks. My first thought was that this was going to feel VERY weird in the shower. I wonder how long I could smell like a camel and a week of camping without people complaining? I decided that that was a question to be left until after a few more beers.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. Despite it being exhausting, it seemed like all the staff and students were reenergized the next week of school. We all had lots of stories to tell and some new relationships. Our personal communities had grown, and our TAISM community had grown and strengthened. And, after about two weeks, I had healed enough to sleep once again on my back.

Old post! Kara Visit!

Kara came to visit a while ago, around Feb. 26, 2009. Kara and I worked together at the Pinnacle and she is now in Dubai. James blunt was in town, so we had a good excuse for her to come down. She arrived on Wednesday night pretty late and we sat out on my patio drinking and catching up until 1 or so. Thursday was a big day for us. We picked up Courtney and went down to Wadi Shab, or the 'Keyhole' wadi. This one was so built up, I decided I would save exploring it for when someone special came, and that was Kara. We drove down in about 1.5 hours and parked in what little shade we could find. We started up the Wadi passing a lot of Omani families having picnics or teenage Omanis filling the canyon with their rythmic drums. As it happens in every wadi, though, we were soon passed all the people and litter bugs and onto a high, narrow path walked on so much that the hand holds were smoothed out. Living in Dubai, Kara was impressed by how much water our wadis have in them. They are pretty impressive when you think about how much desert surrounds us; I guess that's why we return to them nearly every week. Wadi Shab is one worth visiting as it has beautiful, bright blue pools surrounded by cliffs and round boulders. Walking up the path took about 30 minutes, and when we finally arrived at the water trail head, we had lunch.
The water trail head is just that, the rest of the trail is water and requires wading and swimming, so we had to leave our bags and belongings (that means no pictures, sorry). We followed Courtney since she had been there before down a very steep cliff and then into the water. Courtney isn't exaclty the most graceful person as she falls a lot even on flat ground or in the hallways, but she is suprisingly attentive when it comes to stepping and crawling over mossed covered rocks. Where I was falling all over the place, slipping on every rock or boulder I touched and flailing my arms all about my head as if I were swatting a swarm of bees to try to keep my balance, both Kara and Courtney just watched, laughed, and took the opportunity to get their payback for all the times I had mocked them for falling or stubbing their toes.
After the treacherous moldy rocks, we arrived at a deep pool in a box canyon. At first glance you would think that there is nowhere to go but the way we came from. So, you can imagine my confusion as I saw Courtney swimming to the far wall as if she could swim through it. I was even more surprised when she did swim through it yelling behind her that we were almost there. I swam to the far wall and discovered the small crack to fit my shoulders and head and treaded water through the 'keyhole'. When you pop out of the crevice, you do a double take and wonder if you just stumbled (or treaded) into paradise (yet another one!). You find yourself in a huge cave with a waterfall flowing on your left and a cave under the waterfall and light shining down from above the waterfall and from above your left shoulder. Kara and I were speechless; so, Courtney did the talking for us, "Pretty incredible, huh?" Yes it was. We climbed up the waterfall on a frayed rope and jumped from there as well as another huge boulder. Whoever comes to visit, you will see this Wadi, it is quite impressive.
After about 45 minutes of playing an soaking up the sun above the waterfall, we headed back. Grabbed our backpacks, had more lunch, and hiked back. As we passed the picnics and drummers, we noticed a huge mobile jackhammer coming to block our path. Omanis can be pretty inconsiderate and irrational (to us) sometimes, but blocking the only way out with this construction equipment just even too odd for Omanis, but when we looked to where it was actually going, we couldn't help but laugh. A big 4 wheel drive Toyota SUV that can do anything and go anyway found its limit; its limit being water (we thought is was just common sense that you don't drive a car into water, but I guess you don't truly know until you try! Maybe his GPS told him to drive into the water, damn technology!) We walked passed the Toyota and tried not to snicker too much as the crane approached. We left as the mud soaked car was being successfully pulled out.
We arrived home and I took a quick nap, then we had dinner and headed to the James Blunt concert which was great fun! I agree that his music is pretty slow paced, but he seemed to speed everything up, and had a lot of energy! He was jumping all over the amps, having the crowd sing along, and his hair looked like Beetlejuice's; a rocker through and through.
On what was supposed to be the last full day of Kara's visit, Friday, we ended up just hiking in small Wadi near Muscat. It was a nice hike and Courtney and I bouldered a bit, and swam in a small pool. The next day, my phone died and for some reason, I was the only one of the three of us to set an alarm, so we rushed Kara to the highway to catch a cab so she could catch the bus and I could make it to school on time. She missed the bus and showed up to one of my classes, I couldn't help but laugh when she came in and my students were extremely confused of who this tall, blond woman was. The rest of the day, she was at Courtney's and finally made it to a bus to take her back to Dubai around 4:30.

Arabian Gulf Cup! - Jan. 2009

I am going to stop apologizing for not writing on this. It just seems that if I were truly sorry, I would fix the problem. And while I am actually sorry, I just need to do, instead of give myself excuses. No worries, though! We are all busy.

January 2009 was a great month. We were supposed to arrive in Oman and have 5 straight weeks without a break from school. Despite the break, I was not mentally prepared for such a long time with the kids and a super busy schedule. But, the rain and soccer gods looked down from the skies and smiled on the TAISM community. Our first day off was due to what we would call in Michigan, "a drizzle". The rain was nothing, but closing school on that Wednesday was very much needed. I laugh at the song lyrics "I miss you like the desert misses the rain", or however it goes, because the desert did not soak up the much needed rain, in fact, it just flat out rejected it! I know, poor rain. So when the desert is too good for rain, it has to go somewhere else, so the roads and our apartments filled up with it. I spent only about an hour cleaning up my living room after the "storm" (again, drizzle in Michigan), compared to others here who spent a few hours. The roads were unmanageable by Omanis and Indians. Those of us from Seattle or Michigan, who are used the the rain grew impatient and began going to the opposite extreme of the natives and just drove the 1 - 2 foot pools in our SUVs splashing the cars on our way. I've never seen so many relaxed and easy-going Omanis scrunch their faces at me!

The next day off was after the weekend. Saturday night Oman was in the Championship game against Saudi Arabia. After Oman won the game (woot woot!) the Sultan declared it a national holiday! (Thanks Qaboos!) So, of course we didn't have school on that Sunday. Courtney and I went to two of the games; our first was Saudi Arabia against the Emarits. We cheered for the Saudis only because UAE losing would advance Oman. Plus, they had cooler cheers that we couldn't participate in, but were enjoyable to watch. We sat in the family section. Yes, I know we aren't family, but wouldn't you know it? Women are only allowed in the family section of the stadium. It was a pretty strange to look out at the crowd and think that all the thousands of people there were men. We also went to the Qatar vs. Oman game in the Semi-finals which was the friendliest match I had ever been to. I don't think there was any booing, just cheering for both teams. Oman ended up winning.

For those of you who might be wondering; no, Arabian soccer isn't good. It is like watching Italy play Mexico, but without any real team talent. Everyone just pushes each other and falls over. U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you AGC, you AGC! The crowds had amazing songs and chants though, the most exciting I've ever heard!

We watched the final game at the high school principal's house and after making fun of the "fluffy" Oman coach and watching the win, Jeff, Courtney and I ran out to join in the celbration at the stadium. Everyone loved us and thanked us for joining in their celebration. One kid gave me a poster of the Sultan when I asked him where he got it. He now has a spot at my dinner table. If they were excited about seeing me and Jeff, two American whites, out there celebrating with them, they were ecstatic to see an American woman there! We had a lot of pictures taken of us and a lot jumped in our photos. For the most part they were very polite, and great (Courtney did have one bad encounter, but the guy ran away). It was a fantastic night, a night I felt closer to the Omanis than I have yet.

The Grand Canyon and Paradise on Earth! (I don't want to build it up too much though))

I am still trying to finish up 2008, before I begin my 2009 blog of Oman. Thankfully, I haven't had a ton of adventures in the '09 life yet.

Jabal Shams and Wadi Damm

A few days before I went home for Christmas, Sara, her sister Karen and I went to Jabal Shams (The sun mountain) to hike and camp. It was a beautiful place and is described as "the Grand Canyon of Oman". Well, having been to the real Grand Canyon, I can tell you that that is simply overstating its grandeur, so don't get your hopes up. What it is, is on 'arm' of the Grand Canyon. However, the smallness of Jabal Shams doesn't take away from its breath-taking-awayness (that sentenced is laced with Kate's influence, don't you think?) The cliffs are steep and deep. The mountain tops are high and range is thickness across the sky line. Some cliffs are as narrow as foot bridges (careful! it's windy!), or as gradual and round as in Appalachia. Whatever the make up, the mountains surrounding the deep canyon do rival the Grand Canyon if not in size, in beauty.

We hiked along the ridge of a cliff for sometime, then decided to look at handicrafts and practice our two known words in Arabic: La - no, and Shukran - Thank you. After getting the handicraft ladies' hopes up we drove down to our hiking spot to find that it would take us about 6 hours to complete. We were not prepared for an overnight backpacking trip, so we drove as far as we could, then made our campsite near a small plain above where the canyon started. It was a very pleasant spot with a lot of shrubs, small trees, and of course rocks. We decided to explore our site a bit and ended up splitting up, but still within view of each other. I saw some animals to my right and made my way to them. They were donkeys! How exciting (kinda)! I walked toward them thinking about how amazing it would be if I could get close enough to one and maybe even ride it! After that point, I thought how similar that thought process was to when I was a kid and I would entertain the idea of trying to ride Tanzy like a horse. Lost in my childhood thoughts, I didn't realize just how quickly I was approaching the ferrel animals. They began moving nervously even though I was still about 50 meters away. I took a few more steps and a loud hissing sound and grunt from one of them jolted me back to the present. The sound didn't sound very welcoming, in fact, it sounded downright mean. So, I was a bit put-off with the whole idea and irritated with their poor manners when having guests on their land. After all, we were in an Islamic country, shouldn't they invite me to ride on them?

I met back up with Sara and Karen and we headed back to camp. After a fire, dinner, and some talk about what would happen if it got too cold, or if our tent blew away, we went to bed. But before headed for slumber, I went to relieve myself so as to assure my body wouldn't wake me up in the middle of the night. Even though it was dark, I decided it would be a good idea to go behind some rocks to keep up the illusion of privacy. As I walked around the rocks in the dark, I heard it again, only louder! A hiss and a grunt. This time more aggressive and closer! In my mind the donkeys were following me and were plotting their revenge for even thinking that I could ride on them! So, I quickly walked away to find another bathroom. The whole night I was a little paranoid they would run through the camp and rip our tents and those who dwelled inside to shreds. But, thankfully, we were lucky.

The next morning, we awoke to a cold morning air. I was happy to see the the donkeys were up before us and had moved from our campsite up the mountain a couple hundred meters. We had breakfast and watch a flock of goats join the donkeys for breakfast, then they moved along, as did we.

Wadi Damm may only be about 10-20 kilometers from Jabal Shams, but as anyone who has been in the mountains knows, there is no flying like a crow, and it took about 1.5 hours to go around the mountains, through the desert, to the visit the Beehive tombs and finally Wadi Damm. As we came out of Jabal Shams, we drove Taj with the windows up to keep the dust out. However, we soon discovered that there was so much dust, the vents started to blow dust on our sweaty faces, so, we drove down in the hot sun with the windows up and the air off. I had never been so happy to reach pavement!

We drove along without any interruption except to stop so Karen could see her first camel of Oman. It made me laugh to watch her excitement and reminded me how I was upon seeing my first camel in Oman. I had no idea that eventually I would see hundreds of camels and have to stop for dozens of camel crossings just in my first year here.

We soon arrived at the beehive tombs. They were built about 3 to 5 thousand years ago for burial purposes. According to one of my guides, the tribes would fit up to 250 remains of people in the tombs. We had a hard time envisioning that since they were fairly small. But, I guess the dead don't need to be comfortable!

After a short time at the tombs, we headed to our final destination, Wadi Damm! "Paradise on Earth" our books called it. The pictures were amazing and the descriptions were often "my favorite Wadi" or "the most beautiful Wadi in Oman". Wow! It certainly sounded amazing! We parked the car and unpacked for lunch next to a goat's hoof (we are pretty accostomed to that kind of thing now) and started our hike up the canyon/wadi. It was a nice little hike despite all the trash. We followed a small stream which would go underground sometimes. There were some small waterfalls and some difficult climbs at some points, one included a frayed rope! As we progressed we could see the trash became less and the litter-bugs were thankfully the same people who wouldn't want to climb much or walk too far. We finally came to our final destination, unfortunetly, even after all you have to do to get to paradise, it still doesn't show itself to you, so we kept on hiking. Like Forest Gump, we just kept going, not knowing where to stop. I became super deteremined and left the girls behind in my quest for Paradise. The boulders became larger, and the wadi, harder to traverse. But, nothing was going to stop me from getting to paradise. And how great it would be if you had to do all this work to get to it! Eventually mine were the only footprints in the Wadi. Then I began to question and analyze the situation. What had the book said? I think they hike was supposed to last and hour at the most? How long have I been hiking, and where were my hiking buddies? I sat for a second to enjoy the solitude and the quietness, then decided that I had somehow missed paradise.

I started to walk back, not realizing how far I had really come in my excitment. I turned a corner to hear my name being shouted, it was Sara. They had stopped a while ago. They had figured out we had missed paradise long before I had. So, we hiked back and stopped at a place where the water seemed to start. And, yes, on a small hike down, we stumbled upon the place that was so beautifully described. "It's... a lot smaller than I thought it would be" said Sara as we all stood looking down at a pool with a nice little waterfall, but much different than anything we had imagined. "Yeah... it's beautiful, though. But... you're right, this is the smallest wadi I've been to." After we got over our shock, we jumped in and swam the 10 yards to the other side, under the waterfalls and back out. It was actually beautiful once we were over our disillusionment. So, Paradise on Earth, is small, I guess that makes sense, only a few people can visit at one time, and you have to work hard to get to it. But, when anyone visits, just realize that it is pretty small.

Our first Thanksgiving

In my last post, I forgot to tell what I did over Thanksgiving break. So here it is...

Inshallah - Plymouth Rock to Masirah Island

I'm sure the pilgrims had never heard the word "inshallah", but they understood it perfectly. When they sailed to the 'new' world and met and dined with the natives, they were probably saying their own "inshallah" - Allah willing.

The foundation of the Omani culture, and it seems like most of Arabic culture (if I may make a huge generalization), is "inshallah". Which sometimes actually makes sense, like, when I say "Ok kids, see you tomorrow!" In Omani schools, I am sure they would all respond, "Inshallah", because, who knows what could happen between now and then. This recently happened, when, last week Wednesday we had school cancelled because it rained through the night and there were a few floods. So, I was wrong to make that promise when Allah has ultimate control. Then, again, it happened after Oman won the Arabian Gulf Cup championship and the Sultan gave us yesterday off. But, we were prepared for that one, and at our inservice, we all said, "See you tomorrow, Inshallah!"

I digress. I am sure the pilgrims understood this perfectly well. "We'll make a new life in the new land, inshallah" or "we'll make friends with the natives, then manipulate them to take over the continent, inshallah". Well, our entire Thanksgiving weekend was up to Allah as well. As I mentioned, we had National Day, which is supposed to take place on the same days as His Majesty's birthday, but, as the Sultan thought if National day were actually planned, well, then people might leave and not celebrate Oman or his birthday. So, the ironic rule of inshallah was in place. The Sultan kept it a secret until about a week before. I would like to stop for a moment, and just say, I am in no way criticizing the culture of inshallah, on the contrary, I think it is good fun for the most part, although it would be nice to plan ahead if we were leaving the country. So, we ended up having a full 4 days off during Thanksgiving because of National day.

A pilgrim? No, a typical Omani woman waiting on the ferry across from us. Which one will leave first? Inshallah, ours, if it fills up with cars first!

In the spirit of crossing a body of water to... well, that's kinda where the parallels stop between us and the pilgrims, although we were invited to dinner with the natives, but that plan was dropped when the women inviting us never showed up to the gas station where we were waiting (Inshallah!). Anyway, for Thanksgiving, Sara, Jenelle, Jeff and I took Taj and Jenelle's care on a 5 hour drive down through the middle of the desert to a small dock where we jockied and positioned to get on an overcrowded ferry to take us on a 1.5 hour boat ride to Masirah Island.

The ferry ride was easy enough. When we arrived we were starved, so we found a nice spot near a green patch, set up our cars for some shade and set up a picnic on our Wadi-mats for a nice picnic of Hummos and arabic bread with capsicum and a beautiful view of flamingos, the ocean, and Dhows.

After lunch we drove down the Masirah coast to try to find a camping spot on the southern tip. Masirah is about 40 miles long and 5 miles wide, with a small mountain range in the middle of it. When you are trying to find a campsite on a desert island, or anywhere for that matter, in an Islamic country, you need to take a few factors into consideration. On our way, we followed a guy on a horse for a while, very cool.

1) Are there women with you? If so, and you need to find a secluded beach (usually not a problem, especially on Masirah) that has very limited visual access to drivers from the highway and as small as a window as possible for the fisherman who don't often get to see much skin on a woman. All this, while there are no trees and you are trying to optimize your camp's vista of the ocean and mountains.

2) There are no bathrooms... anywhere... ever. So, find a campsite with some nice boulders or dunes nearby. Hopefully it won't be too far of a walk from where factor 1 is ideal.

3) Is there a mosque nearby? If so, just remember that camping isn't always comfortable, so when you are woken up by the hazzan at 4:30 in the morning, you might have trouble falling asleep again.

4) If it is in the cooler temperatures, make sure you seal zip your tent up all the way as there are spiders, snakes and other insects and animals looking for warmth. Although, we've never encountered this (although and crab, or some small animal did leave us a little poopy surprise in the center of our tent one night, or day, we weren't sure) we've heard and read about it. Other than that, just make sure you have enough water and you can pretty much just drive off the road at any point to set up camp.

When we found a nice spot, we accidently got Jeff's car stuck on a dune, pulled it out, then set up camp. The first night was relaxed. We explored our little beach territory where we found some of the classics: trash, dead sea creatures, and crabs dashing with fear between us and the waves. Later on we made dinner, did some star gazing, drank some wine and headed for bed.

The next morning, Jenelle and I went for an 8 k run, then Sara and I went for a hike to one of the hilltops near the sea.

Masirah wasn't too different from Oman's mainland. We were invited for dinner after Sara and Jenelle help 8 Omani women get their one car out of the sand on the beach, and we went swimming and Jenelle and I tried kite-boarding with little success because of low winds and low tide. We did get to see dolphins off the coast about 150 meters!

On Thanksgiving day, we took another great journey - home, to have dinner at Courtney's as she loves Thanksgiving and prepared everything for us. As we were on the ferry to get back to the mainland, our fairy passed by the dock where we had gotten on the couple days before. We thought that that was fine since the drivers seemed to know what they were doing. The ferry wasn't full so we felt free to wander around the small deck and up to the front gate. As we were out enjoying the view we noticed that the view began to remain the same; that is to say, we were 200 meters from the shore and the dock we were passing was no longer being passed. We looked down at the water and saw that the beautiful blue had turned into a muddy gray-brown. We were stuck! Inshallah. The engines struggled in reverse, then back to forward while black smoke spewed from the pipes above us. Then, the struggling stopped and a man came out of the cabin to tell us to move all the cars as far forward as possible to distribute the weight. We all did so eagerly, and soon the engines were at it again. And suddenly we were passing by the dock again! And soon, onto shore where Jeff and I in one car were determined to make it to Thanksigving dinner. We drove long and hard, leaving Jenelle and Sara in a town to dine on their own. But, we made it back to Muscat and ate with Keith (principal), Trish, Tommy, Courtney and a few others. It was a great meal after a long 6 hour drive home.