College Life in Ibri

The institution started life as a college of education for women about 20 years ago. In 2003, it became the College of Applied Sciences and began to admit men. Though classes are now co-ed, there's very little mixing of the sexes, with the men, all in white, sitting up front and the women, cloaked in black like a flock of crows, in the back. Group work is difficult because the women outnumber the men about 8 to 1, and few women will write on the board if a man is present as that would be construed as immodest flaunting of themselves. English proficiency ranges from hopeless to near-native fluency.
The students, like Omanis in general, are unsophisticated, chronically indolent and incorrigibly sociable. Between classes the females hang out in the gazebos, and the males pass the time drinking endless cups of weak NesCafe in the male students' cafeteria....a shocking practice in a part of the world where coffee will normally support a spoon upright.

Fahad Khalfan Obeid Al Kaabi, one of my favorite students. He, unlike most of the students who

love to hang around our offices with no apparent purpose, actually has something to say. My colleagues and I have developed specific criteria to describe the various student approaches to hanging around: loitering, lurking and skulking top the list.

The buildings are all (surprise!!) blindingly white and every classroom has an OHP and a computer, but the internet access is so hopeless that net-based lessons are not really possible. The grounds, maintained by an army of Indian workers, attract a lot of birds that don't normally live in the desert.
The female students who live on campus are not permitted to leave except to go home for weekends and holidays. The gates are locked at night just to make sure there are no escapes.

We're not exactly overworked here; I teach two ninety minute classes 3 days a week, and one 90 minute class 2 days a week. Compare that to my New York schedule of 9 hours a day in the classroom 4 days a week. Keep in mind that here my house is rent-free, I don't pay taxes, and health care is free for everyone who works here. Life is so different from my teacher's life in New York that I may join my students in their terminal indolence.