I don't know if this applies to me. I really don't see how it could but maybe someone has read my blogging about loving Oman in the wrong way? Or mixing the girls who write this blog all together? But someone from back home was complaining about the Muslim women bloggers married to GCC nationals living in the GCC bragging about their Gulf-lifestyles and thinking they are better than women married to Arab nationals from non-GCC places. Don't get me wrong. I love Oman, and feel privellaged to live here and get to do some of the things that I get to do. Be a local in a very conservative---nigh secretive tribal society---with an ancient history.... Kind of cool, def. has its drawbacks as well. Get to go do special things like Muscat Fashion Week, totally cool, but that's because it is a long term interest for me, and I think I deserve to go to things that I like. Having Mosques, and Bedouin, and a beatiful landscape to explore and people to get to know... I think if I was married to a guy from Morocco or Jordan ect... I'd have the same, so it is about making the best of everything. I'd like to think that I do that. And don't forget, I spent part of my childhood in Oman. This is where I belong.
But I guess, someone out there misunderstands having brand name abayas and housemaids and big villas and all that, not understanding life or the culture here AT ALL. It isn't bragging. It can be, for some women life, and the culture, and I have never thought of myself as better than anyone else. So I hope the person who was saying that kind of wus-wus didn't mean me or anyone else that I think they could have meant. Because trust me, we are sooooooooooooooo not like that. To show you, I will document an average day in my life:
Any old average day in my life begins at home. No, I am not always camped out in the desert under the stars swapping stories with Bedouin, or the like. I live in a Muscat villa very similar to the one pictured here where my family takes up one floor of 3 [it is split into 3 sections as Omanis often share homes]. It is STILL bigger than we need unless we have guests [which is always for Omanis] and then, well, it seems overly small. We also would, it would seem, have more bathrooms than people, but two of the bathrooms have never worked since we moved in, and despite all our efforts, still do not work, so what we have is actually just enough. That is life in the Capital of Oman. Like the photo above, my home is also a sunny creamy yellow. Although I am a tragically bad gardener so you can imagine... And just to note, the first 2 years of my marriage I lived in a rural 1 bedroom home in a slightly impoverished Omani lifestyle. Marrying an Omani did not make me rich. I actually pay for my Muscat villa out of own salary, and work very hard to do that. When I had my baby I decided I didn't want to live dealing with lizards and sometimes-functioning electricity and leaking roof ect... so I don't think my husband is superior to anyone else's by history or profession ect... Nationality does not guarantee ANYTHING. I also think that money in marriage means very little to me, as I have almost always supported myself financially and like that. But it is nice to know my husband can manage the basics if I ever decide, hey I don't want to. To get back onto my average day {which is probably similar to your own}:
Every single day begins by me hating my alarm clock and ignoring it as long as possible by hiding under the sheets. I would stay in pajamas all day if life would allow. Since I am also a Muslim [and was long long ago before I married] that means my alarm goes off before the sun comes up. Yes, we wake up every single day before the sun goes up. Most Omanis I know go back to sleep after this time. Sadly, or tragically, I do not. I am not able to. As a result in the mornings I am very grouchy until I stumble to the kitchen to go and boil some coffee. My kitchen is similar to the kitchen pictured below, although my oven sucks, and I need a new one.
The kitchen is where I spend the first part of my morning while everyone else is sleeping. Yes, technically I DO have a housemaid, but actually, I don't like her to do the work that most Omani families make their housemaids to do. I like to think of her as a tradtional "nanny". I hired her to watch my daughter while I am at work or when I have to go out for chores ect... and that's all I need her to do. When she's not doing that, and I have spare time, usually we hang out and watch TV together and she explains her traditional Ethiopian dances and cultural stuff and translates her favourite channel or gets me to translate her other favourite channel that features wrestling and mixed martial arts. Anyways, being that she is Christian and not a Muslim, she doesn't wake up as early as me, so usually I make breakfast or coffee for myself. My Omani husband does the same. As I like to say, Allah gave him hands, sooooo. {And he is also forbidden to bother the housemaid for anything as, it's not her job}. But sometimes I am nice and amke an actual Western-style breakfast myself:).
 |
| On my Omani-husband's ideal day, we'd both be eating breakfast in bed on trays like this. Which is not to say that it never happens, but only that, usually, not so much. I DO make an effort on the weekends though. Mostly. |
But usally I am lazy, and breakfast is more like this:
And this...
...Only more bouncy. Because by this time my 1 year-old is awake and wants out of her bed. So I release her and sick her on her sleeping father to jump and bounce on him until he wakes up to drink his coffee while I get dressed for work Which means:
Sitting at my vanity, brushing my hair into a quick up-do, doing my make-up, accessorizing, puting on the Western style shorts and t-shirt I usually wear under my Muslim hijab, and trying to remember to cram my flashdrive and phone and/or lap-stop+day-planner into the handbag du-jour...
No comments:
Post a Comment