And The Homestay Begins...

     After a very educational 5 days filled with countless lectures, drop offs, and visits to various Omani sights as well as just the right amount of time for a formal introduction to my peers, supervisors and professors it was time to leave the al-Naseem hotel and move in with my Omani family.  It was the Wednesday after I arrived here in Oman when the father of the family I am staying with, by the name of Ahmed, picked me up from The World Learning Center and brought me back to his house, in a part of Muscat called Seeb. His house is located near a LuLu’s Hypermarket, which is more or less a Costco, as well as a few other shops that may prove useful over the next couple of months that I am staying here. Upon arriving at the house I was introduced to his 5-year-old daughter, Sumaya, as well as is 4-year-old son Habeeb, who both greeted me very politely and seemed very happy to meet me. It was then that Omani hospitality was made perfectly apparent to me as it was explained by Ahmed that I should think of the house as my own and he then suggested that I take a nap. For all of you that know me, you know just how beautiful a nap suggestion sounds to me.

My Room 

     Ahmed’s house is constructed, in a very interesting way, so that there are a bunch of rooms, some connected, some not, around an outside, open roof, common room area. The main part of the house consists of a living/TV room right next to the entrance, a kitchen, a couple of shower rooms, then there is the main part of the house with my room then a hallway then a play room as well as a bathroom then another hallway with the children’s room and the master bedroom. The housemaid, a very pleasant Sri Lankan woman, putters around the house cleaning up after the children and taking care of their youngest, an 11 month old girl named Lyaan.

Outside Common Area

     After my nap and a shower I met the youngest child as well as the mother of the family, an extremely nice South African woman who is also an English teacher at a school, here in Muscat. It is nice because English is her first language so it is refreshing having another adult around who speaks fluent English; both the two older children speak pretty good English as well. It was then I was also introduced to the multitude of pets that inhabit this house. They consist of a female cat named Mr. Ugly and her six unnamed kittens, two unnamed birds, a rabbit and three turtles.

     As it is Ramadan there is no eating or drinking in the house before sun down and being a guest in this home I tried my very best to abide by these rules as well. So every day for the following week or so we began the day by eating breakfast at 4 am then Ahmed would go to pray and I would go back to sleep then there would be no eating again until Iftar which is the breaking of the day’s fast. After Iftar there would be a dinner, which usually, for my family, took place around 930 and then everyone would go to bed around 1030. The first weekend I was in the house consisted of me playing with the children and just trying to get a general feel for Omani home life, which is different enough but even more so now that it was Ramadan. Before I knew it the first weekend was over and it was time to begin classes.