Makin’ Friends and Drinkin’ Juice

This week we are on an excursion to the Unviersity of Nizwa, about an hour and a half west of Muscat. The interior region is more conservative than the more cosmopolitan Muscat, so the males and the females are having very different experiences.

The girls are staying with another homestay family somewhere in Nizwa, and the guys are lodging with some Omani college students in a dorm-eque hostel. So for this week it’s me and the boys stoopin’ it with some Omanis. It’s pretty cool. Living with Omanis my age has given me a better idea of the dynamics of this culture. There a few students from Bedouin family who are always getting ragged on for their accent. And another guy is from Sohar (thie city which had the protests), and they were joking that he lived in the supermarket that got burned down.

I lived one of my (more conservative) dreams last night, which was explaining to foreigners what English swear words meant. Although the conversation was juvenile, I though it was hilarious.

Nizwa is a little different from Muscat. It’s hard for me to gauge it because I’m living with guys from all over the country, but people here seem to be much more welcoming. Now, Muscat is already welcoming to begin with, so here it’s like – overkill welcoming.

Last night we were trying to hail a cab to get to the Hungy Bunny down the street from the University, and a guy we had never met before stopped and gave us a ride (generally not uncommon in Oman). But after that he gave me his phone number and is going to give us a tour of the School of Applied Sciences. Also, earlier today we were in a small town called Bahla, and the owner of a small halwa stand invited us in for coffee and dates, showed us how he makes halwa, gave us a big bag of dates, and then took my phone number so he could drive to Muscat to bring us fresh halwa next week. It’s a little bit too much, honestly. Anyhoo this week is going well and I’ll give a more complete overview once it’s over.