Holidays

Christmas coincided with Eid Al Adha, the holiday when Muslims slaughter a sheep to commemorate the sacrifice of a sheep as a substitute for Abraham's son. My neighbors, however, chose to flaunt their wealth by slaughtering a camel. The hapless beast was tethered in their compound and tormented by their 10 (count'em!) unruly children for days before he met his end. On the holiday, the executioner arrived in a bloody dishdasha (traditional white garb for males) bearing a long, curved sword. The camel did not go quietly; he bellowed, moaned and snorted as the children shrieked and threw firecrackers. (My cats hid in the closet during the din.) When the executioner departed, his dishdasha was totally red and blood was dripping from his hair. Silence prevailed briefly, followed by the sound of chopping and more firecrackers. Hardly a quiet or peaceful holiday.

After taking a friend to the airport in Muscat, I risked life and limb on Christmas Eve driving alone nearly 200km on a rocky track through the mountains along the coast. On the map there was no indication that it was not a proper road, and once I had set out, there was literally no turning back. I drove through thousand year-old villages that cling to the cliffs over the sea and through rocky wadis, dry wadis and wet wadis. At least twice, I thought that the jeep would flip over and plunge me to my end at the bottom of a gorge. Though it took a full day to recover, the destination made the journey worth the effort. Sur is on the coast where the Gulf of Oman meets the Arabian Sea (or the Indian Ocean, depending on which map you're looking at.) Our hotel was on the beach and we slept with the door open listening to the waves. The beach is full of broken coral, deposited by the cyclone last summer and crabs of all sizes and colors.

The free-range goats made the rounds of rubbish bins and cleaned the beach of paper plates and other picnic debris. From my room, I could watch the oyster catchers and various herons stalking their meals, and 4 kinds of terns plunging into the surf in pursuit of fish. We're back at work now for final exams, but I'm planning a trip to Salalah in Oman's far south over semester break to see migrating sea birds and the only green part of Oman.