(This was written the evening of Aug. 6.) Leaving Oman is hard. It was hard four years ago. It was hard last year. It’s hard tonight. My seven students feel the same way. They’ve said it. I can see it on their faces, too. Yes, I’m sure they’re eager to get home. But I also know they have come to …
Last week was pleasant here in Muscat, the capital city of Oman. The temperature was in the high 80s to low 90s, and the heat index was barely above 100. Maybe 105, but not much more than that. In July, that’s heaven in Muscat. When I talk about the heat in Muscat, people say it’s a dry heat, though, right? …
We left for the mountain about 20 minutes late. Last-minute dashes for extra bottles of water put us behind schedule. We were headed for Jebel Shams, Mountain of the Sun, in Oman’s interior, next to the desert. We piled into two SUVs at 6:20 a.m. and started the heart-stopping climb up a winding dirt road, to the trailhead in a …
When Elaine and I left Oman just over four years ago after 9½ months teaching at Sultan Qaboos University, we cried. We left with 10 bags of clothes and souvenirs, accumulated from friends, students and our own purchases, and struggled to get the new checked, paid for and off our hands. We walked through the process of turning in our residence …
Thursday is the end of the workweek in the Arab world. Friday is the Sabbath. The sidewalks on Souk Street (Market Street) in Al Khoud are almost empty this Thursday night. Usually on Thursday night, the plastic tables and chairs outside the restaurants and coffee shops that line Souk Street are filled with men gathering to eat and talk. Moms, …
The great British writer and poet Rudyard Kippling wrote a book in 1901 titled “Kim.” In it, Kim, the young orphan of Irish parents, who has grown up among Indian playmates in old Lehore, is called “Friend of All the World” by an old Muslim horse trader who uses Kim to run errands. The modern-day Friend of All the World …
Elaine and I left Oman on June 20, 2012, after living there 9½ months. We had come to the country with five suitcases. We were leaving with nine. Everything was packed, we had wedged each last item into the bulging bags and were sitting in the flat until it was time to go to the airport. One of my students …
Chris Allen’s journal dispatches from the Middle East country of Oman are an unusual and very welcome addition to Unheralded.fish. Allen is a professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he has taught since August 1996. In addition to his teaching duties, he is the general manager of UNO Television and a board member and past-president …
I almost killed my class Thursday. Not in the way a teacher may say that after a difficult day. I really almost killed them. Understand that I really like students. I rely on a steady and abundant supply of them for my living, and I do truly like students. Have I mentioned how hot is here in Oman? I mean, …
I feel at home. I’m 6,000 miles or more from my house, the town I live in, the university where I teach, and yet I feel at home. I’m in Oman, a country my wife, Elaine, and I came to love when we were here in 2011-2012 while I taught at Sultan Qaboos University on a Fulbright Award. I loved …