Some Posts by Other Gulf Blogger Girls

Some posts from others I have read recently and found relevent and worth reading even if you are in Oman:

This post on khaleeji makeup horrors as experienced in Saudi Arabia by BLUE ABAYA http://www.blueabaya.blogspot.com/2012/02/saudi-wedding-make-up-masquerade.html
Her whole blog is excellent might I add, if you enjoy mine, you'll love her's.

And I found the link to this article from Amal's www.al-mademoiselle.blogspot.com blog. Alice's list of reasons marrying an Emirati [or any GCC man might I add] isn't a life of endless designer shopping and maids like some women imagine: http://alice-uae.blogspot.com/2012/02/about-some-difficulties-that-can-come.html

Worth it all the same for me, the negative stereotype people have of foreign women being a negative influence on Omani society and taking up the short supply of marriagable men for Omani women, the culture expecting me to wear black all the time out the house, the limits on how I can act... Because I love my husband and more about the culture than I hate.

But girls who think, oh I love designer abayas, and Arabic food, and music, so I'll find me a rich khaleeji husband and have my dream life.... Simply don't get it. It is laughable.

I feel sorry for them because they usually end up divorced and having lost custody of their children because they don't know how to handle the pressures of family and society and usually screw up royally under those pressures enough for authorities to deem them unfit mothers. [Dear Pearl, you know I am not talking about you. You are 100% a better Omani than your inlaws;)]

Nothing is more tragic to me, than delusions.

Yeah, also, even if you are not one of those women who want to marry a GCC guy I am so tired of expat women thinking my husband is rich (or Expat men).

Okay, Omanis, beyond Yemenis, are the least rich Gulf state which any GCC woman knows. But I guess because of the wasta alot of richer business men in Oman have (which does make it easier for them to get permission to marry a non-Omani) this seems to be the prevalent thought.

My husband owns one pair of 6 rial sandals, and only three wearable dishdasha. He doesn't have a watch. He doesn't have a ring. We don't have a fancy car. The house I live in is smaller and in worse condition than the one my father owns back in North America. Doesn't mean he isn't the husband I need, and the place that I am happiest though.

A very rich well off Khaleeji man from a more famously well off Gulf state than Oman proposed to me around the same time as my husband. I know that life and happiness in a marriage don't depend on being 'taken care of'.

Most of the time I can take care of myself.

If you see my Birken handbag, and 300 rial Hanayen abaya, know, maybe I bought them for myself. Maybe I was the one who had the wasta. Maybe we didn't even need wasta. Maybe people in the Interior Ministry just saw that it was pointless to forbid good honest people like us from being together.

So yeah, I liked Alice's honest and very thorough article. A must read for those considering the prospects.

And definately, for any Gulf State. Emirates is considered the easiest for foreign wives, so if you know what the downs are for there, know the same go for here, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and KSA---and often even further complications.