Goodbye, Girl

To all those who regularily read our blog, sorry for not posting. I just had a new baby and thus do not sleep---- like ever. Another OPNO is pretty much permanantly in Sohar with the worst internet ever, and lo and behold, we are losing one of what was probably our long-time readers' favourite OPNO girls:---- to London----of all places.

She decided to become a lawyer and is marrying a Brit.

I know:  :OOOOOOO.

Anyways, congratulations to her (we look forward to the wedding pics) and a long-ago promised post comparing life in London to life in Muscat. I also await her editing of my book (finally almost finished the story [highly dramatized and now a work of fiction completely] of our early days in Oman). I guess lawyers, are like, busy ;p.

This post will be reminiscent about those crazy days in Al Athaiba, wearing niqab, photographing Bedouin races [our flat conveniently located to the Oman Camel and Equestrian? Racing Federation building], and her love of hurricanes and helwa-making, and very bad choice in automobiles for those things.

When I think of her, I will think of Oman Air stewardesses bringing us fresh clotted cream from the U.K.; I will think of Ferraris and [scary] Russian accents; I will see a hundred pairs of black shoes and a row of ten of the same grey t-shirt from Zara hung neatly next to colourful floral shoulder-padded cotton Bedouin-worthy long-sleeved Omani dresses covered in crystals; I will smell Turkish coffee and hear her cell phone getting a message every minute; her bosses' dry-cleaning is hung on the door, and designer stationary covers her plastic garden furniture table, camofaluged as it is with fancy linens from Versace Home. Her bookcase has more books on its shelves than I have ever seen on any expat's bookcase in Oman. Her plug-in tacky insence burner is at odds with the designer perfumes lining the mirrored rim of her bathroom vanity.

Her hair is always done in a million different styles of a pony tale. Unlike me, she thinks before she speaks, and thus, everybody whose anybody in Oman trust her with their secrets. If they are good people, she guards their secrets. If they are horrible human beings trying to impress her, she secretly blogs about them on our online pages. I think, they have guessed now, who she is.

She is generous as an Arab, selfish only that she abandoned us to better herself, seek an education, and marry someone not Omani, and not Muslim.

"But!" she will exclaim reading this, "I married an Omani once. It just didn't last. Completely his fault."

 She carried a Qu'ran with her when she went, prayer beads [a large collection], a minaret topper, and several prayer mats [although she did intend to use them as dog mats---no offense ever intended] when she left via Muscat International Airport.

Of all things that she was, besides friend to few but dear to them blessed with her sincere aquaintence;), she was not your average expat, nor ever indeed, a tourist. She was a traveller, who meant to make home here. But she carries what she learned from Muscat and Oman and the best and worst of Omanis with her. I know her personality, and her outlook on life, are forever changed by the imprint of this place and its people.

Just as I am forever changed, from the imprint of her, brief as it was.