GOOD NEWS x 3

Quickly, some good news. The last day of October I finally got my salary for August, September and October wired to my HSBC bank account here. Finally some money for all my labors!

Second, my car loan from the bank finally came through, and my Daihatsu Terios is now paid for after 6+ weeks and 4,400 kilometers! Some final clean-up to do with the dealer concerning ownership papers, etc., but the car is now officially mine. (Thanks to interminable foot-dragging by the SQU Personnel Office through September and most of October, I managed to drive the car for 6+ weeks before really finishing the purchase.)

Third, I’ve been bumped up this new term from Level 4 (badly run and consequently very stressful) to Level 6 for Commerce Majors run by my "faculty buddy" Browder, who did so much to help me adjust when I first got here. (After Level 5, the English courses are divided by student major.) There was little career benefit to rehashing what was a dead-end in Level 4, and not getting Commerce would have nixed my chances to work on a computer materials project I had discussed with the “e-Learning” coordinator here. I mainly lust after “career development” for my CV while here, so I’m very pleased – and relieved!

WE ARE ALL OMAN

The young Omani woman at the main DHL express mail office this evening was typical. Looked like your average Omani high school grad who did as well as could be expected. Cheerful, helpful. taking down my mailing addresses and weighing my packages.

Then she picks up an office phone and calls a colleague and starts chatting about currency conversion rates between Omani Riyals and UAE Dirhams (I was sending something I had bought in Dubai in Dirhams but had no idea what the dollar value was). In what sounded like Hindi.

“She doesn’t look particularly Indian,” I thought. She was dressed like any Muslim Omani city girl, not an Indian. “Maybe her ancestors were from India?” But it didn’t fit.

I finally asked her, “What language were you speaking, Hindi? I heard ‘tin riyal’ (‘tin’ is three in Hindi).” She smiled a bit sheepishly. “Yes, I speak three languages: Arabic, English, and Hindi. Oh, and my native language. “ “What’s that?” I asked. “Baluchi,” she replied – a regional language of southwest Pakistan along the Iranian border. Then it all clicked.

There are lots of Baluchis in Oman, whole villages of them. Their part of the Pakistani coast (Gardar) was an Omani colony a century or so back, and many came to Oman looking for work. The town next to the university, Al-Khoud, I come to discover, has a large Beluchi minority. Baluchi “mafia” some call them - the wheeler-dealer s a bit beyond the pale of the law.

There’s been a national ad campaign for a few years here called “Kulluna Oman” (We are all Oman). When I first got here, I didn’t give it much respect. “Of course. They’re all Omani Arabs. That kind of unity is pretty simple to achieve.” But as I’ve been here and talked to students, teachers, and expats, I’ve come to realize how much of an ethnic “mosaic” Oman today really is. And that’s before you count in the expatriate workers.

There really is a need to foster common national ground among the surprisingly diverse citizenry here. From Sunni to Shi’a to majority Ibadhi Islamic sects – plus some native Hindus thrown in for good measure. From back-hills Arab to coastal mestizo with a mix of Zanzibari African, Subcontinental Asian, and Arab. Not to mention indigenous South Arabian tribesmen in the south who still speak the language of the Queen of Sheba (or related dialects).

There are city folk whose ancestors sailed the Indian Ocean for trade, country folk who do agriculture the old fashioned way with “falaj” aqueducts to channel cold mountain streams, formerly nomadic desert folk with livestock expertise in camels and goats, fisher folk bringing in tuna and shrimp. And there are the old immigrants: Beluchis, Lawatis (old Pakistani families), Persians, repatriated Arabs and Arab mestizos from Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, etc. And the descendents of former slaves who look like they got off the dhow from Africa last week. Last weekend at my HSBC bank branch in nearby Seeb, I discovered that my very competent customer service rep Samiya spoke Swahili. As did her boss Aida. As did her boss Ali. A little East African-Omani mafia right there in the bank! These experiences are becoming typical!

And then there are the new immigrants: poorer Muslims from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. who would dearly love to stay and become citizens – and many who already have.

And the hundreds of thousands of expat workers who have no plan to set down roots but are happy to skim the fat off the top of the booming economy. Yes, Westerners like me and the many Brits and Commonwealth workers, but also well-educated Indians, Filipinos, Chinese and Koreans. At the Protestant Church of Oman, Westerners are a distinct minority at the English-speaking service - which is probably a good statistical representation of our 21st-century world!