Oman was such a fun country; we got to do a lot of amazing things because of how open our time was there. Here are several short stories of people we met, things we did, and how we got along as a new team.
When we left debrief at the beginning of December, we understood we didn’t have any partners, or hosts, or contacts, or intended locations. Travelling in any other circumstance, this could be intimidating, but for us it meant we had freedom to do as we felt led. There are a lot of fun stories worth sharing, but here is a handful of the more notable. Really they each deserve a blog of their own but there just isn’t enough time (since our current stay is half over and we haven’t posted about that either yet). The short version is that we made some really cool friends that were difficult to leave, but the stories of how we met them and what great friends they are motivates us to move forward and keeping sharing the love we are filled with.
Getting to Know the Team
– This was the first month with a new team. 4/6 of us are from Southern California. San Diego, actually. North County, actually. Within 15 minutes of each other, actually. Kind of cheating though, two of them are Victoria and I. Getting along was easy to do. The other guys are from Iowa and Alaska. You can read a quick breakdown of the team here. We call ourselves The Aspenators, which is also explained in that blog.
The Palace
– We thought this story was funny enough to rate its own blog; a couple of us accidentally welcomed ourselves into the Sultan’s palace. You can read about it here. Unrelated, the Sultan of Oman reigned for 50 years and did tremendous work for the country. He passed away this month of natural causes.
Foreigners
– One day we were shopping at one of the most impressive department stores I’ve ever witnessed with my own eyes. It can probably best be described as a Target with a MarketPantry (grocery store inside) but with more of the physical size and volume of a four story Costco. You could find anything there – and we did, including a book about the leadership of Jesus… in a Muslim country… I’ll let you know how it is when I finish it. One of the coolest things we found, though, was a couple of Westerners JUST LIKE US. We recognized the same kind of enthusiasm, friendliness and openness as we try to emanate and after a (very) short conversation, found we had a lot in common. We were able to share Christmas Eve with our new friends and since they would stay in Oman once we left, connected them to a couple of the friendliest guys in the country.
The Friendliest Guys in the Country
– I wasn’t there when the team met these men, but I think the conversation went something like:
“Did we just become best friends?!”
“YUP!”
“Do you wanna go do Karate in the garage?”
(leave a comment if you know what that’s from)
A man living and working locally but originally from Pakistan blessed us with impressive hospitality. He made it his mission to share his culture, his country, and his knowledge with us, both of his home country and Oman. He is a great friend – he pursued getting to know each of us. It was such a task that he enlisted the support of his cousin, another of the most jolly men we’ve met on our trip thus far. We hung out with these fine gentlemen a couple times a week (at least!). For our month in Oman and since we’ve left, we’ve received multiple pictures of them with the foreigners we met at the shopping center. They’re a fun and easy relationship to maintain.
Soccer Kids
– We set out one day to buy a soccer ball and try to instigate a pick up game at the beach. We made it approximately around the corner and spent the rest of the day playing what is most accurately described as “kick the ball and chase it into the street” with a group of 10 or 12 kids. The men didn’t have much to do this day, since the kids seemed far more interested in meeting the women, so we held down the stoop for a couple hours. In this time, the girls taught the kids ukulele songs (Aspen has a ukulele), danced, played kick the ball and chase it into the street, and clapping games. It was awesome. The men, however, because of their time on the stoop, got to meet the older siblings and the parents when everyone came home from work. This family was pleased to see we were treating the children well and responded with hospitality – they shared tea and sweets with us. We exchanged contact information and met with them a couple more times to explore the countryside and play with the kids.
The Neighbors
– We stayed in an AirBnb for the month. It was an apartment building with two floors and four apartments on each floor. Our kitchen had a window that faced across a courtyard to the adjacent apartment, which had a kitchen window facing us. Sarah waved at a little girl through the window, and just like that, a friendship was born. The girl began showing up at our door with pictures she had drawn. This graduated into sharing gifts of homemade treats with each other and began to involve both families (yeah, the team is kind of like a family). With Christmas approaching, we decided it would be a great opportunity to share our culture with them as they had been sharing theirs with us (they were from Egypt… their food was insane). We invited them over for dinner on Christmas day. Sarah ran the kitchen, the boys helped prep food, and Victoria and Aspen cleaned the house. That night, we shared chicken casserole, sweet potato casserole, and homemade apple pie with ice cream and homemade cookies. We also explained that a tradition of ours is to read the birth story of Jesus. Because English wasn’t their first language, we tried to watch a video of the story but it wouldn’t work, so we read from an English/Arabic Injil (the Gospels of Jesus in the New Testament). The family shared that they were familiar with the story and we spent the rest of the night talking about the similarities of our faith.
– If you’re friends with me on Facebook or Instagram, you can find the video we made of our beach day/fishing trip with this family. We had such a wonderful time with them! We definitely have relationships with each member of this family and will maintain contact with them.
