HIGH SOCIETY

(two postings below: "High Society" and an update on my university activities)

Imagine Cinderella finding herself at the ball in her cinder-y clothes without any advance warning from her fairy godmother. That’s how I felt this past Wednesday night (“Friday” in the Omani scheme of the week).

Dr. Don and Eloise Bosch (Arabian Mission doctor and his wife who knew Mom) and I finally got together to go out to dinner after months of trying, but they had one engagement beforehand – the opening of a new wing for the Beit Zubeir museum in Muscat, the center of Oman’s royal court. I was to meet them there for an hour or so before heading off to the marina restaurant for dinner.

I imagined something basic like a short presentation in a big auditorium followed by tea and cookies in the next room while interested people circulated through the new part of the museum.

Wrong.

It was, apparently, the social event of the weekend, with long lines of limousines with the red, white and green government license plates disgorging Omani dignitaries dressed up in their immaculate white dishdashas (robes), masers (turbans), khanjar (silver dagger), and long ceremonial “camel stick” - each piece of which adds up to “very formal” dress in Omani cultural terms. Oh, and the British Ambassador was among the guests. And more security obvious and unobvious than you could shake a camel stick at!

Anyway, here is Paul rushing along the road to Muscat directly from the university, sweaty, in four-day old khaki pants a bit frayed on the bottom (gotta get to a clothing store very soon!) to meet the Bosch’s. No big deal, I thought. But then after parking my dust-covered Daihatsu 4-wheeler next to a black Mercedes and seeing a reception line at the door of the museum made up of obviously high-placed Omani men and women in formal dress, I began to worry that I had perhaps not prepared as well as I could have.

When the Bosch’s arrived, I tagged along next to Don holding him under one arm to guide him up steps etc. (he has beginning Parkinsons). The distinguished looking older Omanis greeted him and Eloise like celebrities, almost like beloved grandparents. The affection was sincere. White-haired Omani men who were obviously the decision makers in modern Oman made an effort to cross the room to say hi and chat. (Turns out the Minister of Health, was there, too, someone Don makes a point of stopping in to see both when they first arrive back in Oman for the winter, then again when they are ready to leave before the hot weather settles in. It allowed Don to kill two birds with one stone, which, given his poor health these days, was a blessing!)

All the non-Omani dignitaries in coat and tie or evening gown also smiled and came over to greet Don and Eloise. I was feeling very self-conscious in my faded open-necked polo shirt and worn khakis, but thankfully I could “slip beneath the radar,” so to speak, as a personal guide for Don. Everyone milled around in a brightly lit exhibition hall where photographs of Omani traditional life filled the walls. Tuxedoed waiters passed out juice and canapés. (No alcohol for a Beit Zubeir function!) Sarah, the British curator of the museum and long-time resident in Oman, spent personal time with Don and Eloise, riding up and down the special access elevator with us several times to make sure Don could get around.

Don tired frequently, and we had to sit with him at various parts of the museum till he could go on. He’s really a brave man, agreeing to an active social life at 90 that would exhaust someone like me, 40 years his junior! And parkinsons is not a condition most people would feel confident about venturing out among strangers with, but he soldiers on in spite of it. Omani society, fortunately, has incredible respect for the aged in whatever physical condition they happen to be, and we were helped at every turn by solicitous Omani men and women, many of whom are members of the wealthy Zubeir clan.

Dinner at the marina, in comparison, was a relaxed affair. We were about the only ones in the restaurant, which made conversation easier. (No shouting across the table like in so many Southern California restaurants these days that seem to cater to Attention Deficit Disorder sufferers with multiple TV’s, background music, and overall busi-ness.)

Don has had an interesting life. He was born to missionary parents in China in 1917, studied medicine at the University of Iowa, graduating in 1941, just as WWII was heating up for the US, then hanging around several more years for a surgery internship despite the mission's pressure to get him and Eloise off to the Arabian Gulf ASAP. They finally got the Middle East, starting in Al-Amarah, Iraq, one of the Reformed Church stations. They arrived in Muscat in 1955, just months after Mom had arrived in her nursing days.

He and Eloise labored on for 15 years under the old Sultan, who kept the country isolated and backward, doing medicine in 100-degree temperatures in those pre-AC days. He finally was asked by the new sultan, Sultan Qaboos, in the early '70s to arrange a transition of the mission's medical facilities to government control. The mission decided it would establish better relations for the future if it cooperated rather than fight it, and in 1973 an agreement was signed ending the mission’s mandate. Don stayed for another ten years or so doing medicine and running things at the nationalized Ar-Rahma ("Mercy") Hospital, as the old mission hospital came to be named. This earned him the respect and appreciation of the Omani government, which gifted him and Louise with a seaside villa near Muscat for as long as they live.

After retiring to upstate South Carolina, he and Eloise continue to come back to Oman yearly during the cooler months of the year. From Louise’s comments to me, it sounds like they plan to come back next fall as usual despite their age and Don's Parkinson's. Maybe sister Ann will get to meet them after all when she and Cam visit!

SCHOOL

The last couple of weeks have been ridiculously hectic - the end of the February-March block with final testing, grading, etc. in addition to projects due from my release time work: the new teacher guide several of us have been asked to put together and the fourth revision of the writing course unit my partner Claire and I have been working on since January based on the life story of a Bedouin woman from the United Arab Emirates.

The new block (April-May) begins tomorrow, and for the first time I won't be teaching a single hour. (Last block I was half-and-half.) The Language Centre is desperate to get the writing units ready for next September when a new cohort of students come, so all the Writers Group writers will be working full time on them the next two months. Then, in June, we get our summer break, when I start my Sweden trip.

Life is good - but busy! Apologies if your email or letters have sat languishing for a while.

CONDOMINIMIZE

Whew! Since leaving LA August 13 for Muscat, one of the longest-standing matters of unfinished business has been finding tenants for my condo back in San Pedro. (A $1,953 mortgage payment I’ve been bearing myself for 6 months!) Now I can rest a bit easier …

In January, my local San Pedro “agent” and old Aramco friend Kim Ayers-Petker agreed that perhaps it would be wisest to hand the tenant search over to a professional, so I contact the same local realtor in San Pedro who had helped me find and buy the condo, Madeleine Drake.

First, before Madeleine listed the condo, came a nice Japanese couple working overseas in the US for their Japanese company. Things were hopeful. They had seen my (free) ad on Criagslist.com, and when Kim showed them the newly fixed-up condo in late January, they were instantly interested. But then they hemmed and hawed in the following days, and in Japanese culture if you don’t actually DO anything after saying “yes”, it means “thanks, but no thanks.” I told Kim that we should stop waiting and get on with it.

So, Madeleine finally listed the beginning of February. I’m not sure how many people she actually showed the place to – not many, it sounds like, but eventually in early March Pamela Fox, a 50-something woman on permanent work disability, and her college-aged son Brett saw it, liked it and asked for a lease.

Madeleine emailed (this was all carried out by email with the 12-hour time lag that living half-way around the world entails) that she had found “fabulous tenants”. Pamela had a great credit rating, good references from the present landlord, and wealthy parents who would be leaving her lots of money. (They’d act as co-signer tenants with Pamela, since she couldn’t work.)

They initially tried to get me down to $2000 from the $2200 per month asking price – at the same time asking me if I could move all my stuff out of *my* storage space and get my car out of *my* garage space – one of four. (They needed all four spaces??)

I pointed out that not only would this mean losing $200 monthly, but I’d end up actually paying close to that for storage I didn’t necessarily want - $400 out on my end. I wasn’t very interested. I emailed saying what they were asking should logically mean *raising* the monthly rent to $2350, $2200 plus my storage costs.

Apparently, they were “sold” on the condo, however, and relented on the storage – they’d share it with me, just putting some Christmas decorations down there – and the rent: they’d go up to my original $2200.

Finally, after draft lease after draft lease finalizing the small bits the beginning of this month, I signed the documents and sent them express mail (DHL) March 6.

Madeleine emailed a few days later to say they had arrived and the tenants would now sign. From my online bank statement, I see that Pamela paid the $3300 move-in fee as of March 11, so I have tenants!!!

This will mean that more of my salary here can go to other things - including expenses for my trans-Atlantic trip and 20-day tour of Sweden this summer.

COUNCIL

Just one last update: last Friday March 7, I became a member of the Church Council of the Protestant Church in Oman. There were just enough candidates to fill openings, so there was no need for an election. My name had been put forward both by Ed and Tamera Schreur, the American Reformed Church pastors here (husband and wife team), and by Mom’s old missionary doctor friends Don and Eloise Bosch. With that backing, how could I refuse? ;-) Our first meeting is next Monday night.