INDEPENDENT PURSUIT

No, I’m not writing about a lucrative job on the side. The Independent Pursuit is a German container freighter that operates between Belgium and Philadelphia (port of Chester). And I hope to catch it in Liverpool the end of June to get to America the way my grandmother Selma and brother Frank caught the Saxonia from Liverpool to get there. (They disembarked in Boston instead, but trans-Atlantic passenger service had a lot more options in June 1908!)

Since I started researching this summer leave in earnest back in January, hoping to recreate my grandmother’s immigration experience to the US 100 years ago (and it’s taken more time than any vacation planning I’ve ever done), the biggest hold-up, and the thing that holds the whole trip “up” (i.e. the foundation) has been the trans-Atlantic “cruise” part. Until those dates are established, all other plans are meaningless.

After getting close to booking on the comfier Queen Mary 2 from Southampton, England to New York, I found that in the end – thanks to Ann’s calling around back in California – it would cost me over $3,000 one-way. (Heck, I could fly to LA and back twiced for that amount!)

So, Plan B was the container ship. Perhaps more in the spirit of the steerage class travel that Selma and Frank endured in mid-summer 1908! But I still get a window view, a two-bed cabin to myself, and good grub (freighters are rumored to use good food to make up for otherwise limited pleasures at sea).

Today, I sent the final fax that finalized the trip, so I’ve done all I can do. I’m working with a travel agency in London, The Cruise People, which I found online, that offers freighter passage for passengers in addition to the run-of-the-mill cruise lines like Cunard or Royal Caribbean.

June 27 (or thereabouts) I leave for Pennsylvania, arriving July 7 (or thereabouts – freighter travel depends on the freight, not the passengers), about 10 days at sea.

Today was also the Language Centre deadline for teachers’ applications for annual leave (60 days paid – what, only 60?!) I have put in for all 60 days, leaving Muscat June 15, ten months to the day from the day I arrived last August and returning to the torpor of Omani summer on August 14. God willing (‘in sha’ Allah), the Procurement Office won’t have huge objections to my unorthodox ticket request: roundtrip Muscat-Copenhagen, one-way Los Angeles-Copenhagen!

It’s been a wearying and frustrating time trying to line everything up for my most complicated vacation yet, but this weekend, I can relax a bit. (And, to sweeten things even more, I’m in the middle of concluding a lease agreement with some "fabulous" tenants for my condo back in San Pedro after over 6 months’ vacancy! Yippee!)

“The Paradise of Children is Their Homes”

(P.S. February 15 marked my 6-month anniversary here!)

So ends a wedding invitation from the Royal family here. (Not to me, to an office mate!) I was curious to see how they’re constructed. The normal date, time and place, of course. But I enjoyed the fascinatingly indirect phrase used to instruct (female) guests to “leave the kids at home”!

The invitation was for a wedding between a son of the extended royal clan, Al-Jolanda Al-Busaidi, and Ayda Al-Barwani, the beautiful sister of Tariq Al-Barwani, local computer whiz kid and a 2007 Microsoft award winner (his website is www.tariq.net). They’re both from an overachieving Zanzibari immigrant family. She was the first Omani woman airforce (or civil airline?) pilot. Good genes all round!

Finding out the invitation was from Tariq’s sister was intriguing because I had just emailed the brother the end of last week on behalf of the Writers Group at the Language Centre. We wanted him to agree to an interview via email to be the main reading passage for a unit in a Writing textbook I and colleague Claire Noonan are writing. It was exciting when he actually agreed, and now my Argentinian office mate Carmela is to be a guest at the women’s wedding celebration. (They’re segregated by sex, as in most of the Muslim world.)

Sorry so much time has elapsed since my January posting. The cool, lazy days of January, when all the students were off, have shifted back to classes the beginning of this February, and suddenly my schedule is chock full. I have only eight hours of teaching (four classes) a week, and 12 hours of release time, most of them for the book project, and two a week to finish up the New Teachers Guide a committee has been working on.

Claire and I are almost done with the draft version of our first unit (on family history) and we’re laying the groundwork for our next unit on interviewing, based on our interview with Tariq Al-Barwani, which he is now supposedly working on.

FESTIVAL OF TRAFFIC MESS

The “Muscat Festival” which has ground on for three weeks – and ground local traffic almost to a halt – is nearly over. And not a minute too soon. Our normal near gridlock traffic (around rush hour) has been subjected to the unbearable strain of thousands of out-of-town Omani families flocking to town to enjoy the rides, fireworks, craft exhibits and musical performances. I did get to experience one evening of it several weekends back. I went with another teacher, parking far from the crush, and walking to Qurm Nature Park, one of the main venues for the festival. The crowd was 95% Omani, which was refreshing. Kind of like the Iowa State Fair – something for the locals, with outsiders welcome. And a true cross-section of Oman: city folk, Bedouin families with the older women wearing their black niqabs (face masks), Southerners, Northerners, rich, poor. My favorite part – other than the Zanzibari African musicians and dancers – was the Exhibit Hall of the Nations, where various local nations were displaying typical national crafts. The Iranian/Persian exhibit (I made a bee-line for that first) was filled with affordable treasures from Isfahan, the capital of sophisticated Persian rug-making, metal work, textiles, etc. I ended up buying a round tablecloth for my round table (knights not included) and a miniature model of a Yemeni multistory traditional house.

But after getting stopped in my tracks by ridiculously backed-up Festival traffic on three different segments of my home commute last night, and delayed by at least 50 minutes Thursday night on the way along the sea road to a home musicale evening in nearby Al-Hail, I'm praying fervently for the Lord to deliver us from the Festival and its snarling, inhuman traffic.

LAST WORD: Just received my California ballot for Super Tuesday (Feb. 5) in the mail today mailed from Sweden! Just in time NOT to be able to vote in the primary. Oh, well. I'm in good time for November's elections.