The Wedding

(Not my own. Not even the one of someone I even remotely know...so fear not)
All 65 of us were invited to a wedding yesterday of one of the PF's colleauges. It wasn't the whole wedding part-I remember when I was in Muscat going to an all-female all-glittery all-henna'd-up dance party, and this wasn't it. Rather, the boys got to go to the mosque for the actual ceremony, and then we got to drive up to the hotel that they had walked/danced to just in time to see a bunch of americans parading around with a bunch of omani men in the street. I have some pictures, but I spent most of my time laughing and trying not to be obvious about it. didn't want them to think I was laughing at them...

Almost all of us went. And when we got there, we were told that we were all invited to someone else's house nearby, who had a son getting married the next day, and who had the whole of his dowry/gifts out on display. I didn't take pictures in the house-many people did-but the guys were all herded down to the first floor sitting room, and we were herded up to the other, and we sat and were given Tang (I mean...why not?) and got to talk with the many sisters of the groom-to-be as they showed us the many pretty things that their brother had purchased in honor of his new wife.

Then a few of us went back to the khareef festival with a some of the PFs. Let me tell you. I think my favorite experience to date is driving through a drainage ditch (eh, who needs an underpass when you can drive off the road just as easily) as the boy up front pumps the celine dion ballad and we all sing along. I knew all of the words. And so did he. And we were not ashamed.

But it was a fun second visit. We ate fair fatoosh that was kinda fresh and also did not kill us, which was nice. We saw some traditional omani and yemeni dancing, and finally ended up in the shopping tents (I have a strong suspicion that one of the PFs only came along so that he could get into those tents, because guys aren't aloud to get in without girls. Kind of like a club. Probably for fairly similar reasons). It was mostly table after table of the same kinds of things, but I did get to look at some jewelry and also see a threading (kind of hair removal) demonstration. My friend let the saleswoman demonstrate on her arm...I, however, was not so brave.

In other news, I have suddenly become that student in class who never wants to do grammar and really only wants to discuss. I never used to be that student. And it shows...my version of verb conjugation and proper sentence structure at time devolves into stuttering out syllables and waiting for native speakers to correct me. But it's also because our class discussions are so interesting-our teacher tries to center them around different cultural and social subjects, so that he can talk about things in Oman and learn about them from our perspective as well. Today we talked about race. And I'm not going to blog about it but...eep.

Normally my conversations are pretty enjoyable, but since I'm almost always oblivious they can also be slightly problematic...so last night at the fair, we were passing by a tent with some teenage boys standing outside, and they called over one of the Omanis we were with and asked them to translate for us. I don't know what they wanted-I missed that part of the conversation. But they were told that we spoke arabic, and didn't need a translator, and when they didn't believe it I started talking to one. They asked all the basics...were astonished that we studied Arabic in the US, etc etc. We talked for a couple of minutes, and I was so focused on what I was saying, that somehow by that point a huge crowd had gathered around us and I had a veritable audience. And then, um, we left.

It wasn't threatening at all...we were just a novelty. But still.

Holiday tomorrow=no school!