First Day of School

Wow, today was a really long day. Once again jet lag won at about 4:00 am, but I was able to talk to some people in America while I was laying awake, so I wasn't too upset about it. School starts at 8:30 am for me, but my 3 roommates start at 8:00 am because we are in different levels. It was nice to hear them getting ready while I got to lay in bed for another half hour! We get picked up every morning by Mundhar (like Gunther with an M). He's super cool and fashionable. He sort of looks like a dishdasha (robe) and kuma (cap) model. I also appreciate him because he's a good driver. Oman has the highest number of traffic fatalities in the world, so typically being in a car is really stressful. Mundhar is very safe and cautious… but I still wear my seatbelt because driving here is sort of a free for all. 

Anyway, we arrived to school and began the interviewing process that helps better assess what level to be put in. We took online placement tests before we came, but you can only get so much information from a written test… so it makes sense to have a conversation placement test too. I was really nervous I was going to be sent back to level one! But it wasn't so bad. My teachers asked about my life in America, what I studied, what my hobbies were, and why I studied Arabic. I only had to ask them to repeat a few questions, alhamdullah (thank God). 

After the interview we had our first class, which was reading and writing. My teacher is named Da'aa, which is hard to transliterate to English… but we read a newspaper article in Arabic and barely understood any of it so we went sentence by sentence for the whole class. It was painstaking but helpful. So it goes.

Next we had grammar class with Raja. She's my favorite teacher so far. She's really funny and I even understand some of her jokes in Arabic. She's super sassy and I feel like her class will be really fun… even though it's grammar. Here's a picture of the whiteboard with Arabic grammar basics. Luckily today was just review.

 Between classes we hang out here. It's actually way more comfortable than sitting in chairs. I can see myself napping here definitely. Everyone is at different levels so the conversation flows in and out of English and Arabic. Mostly we talk about cultural differences with other students; there are people here from Australia, England, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, etc., so it's cool to talk about what's similar and different where. 

 After lunch and a break we had time for our "PF's" or peer facilitators. They are students from Sultan Qaboos University and they come to CIL for two hours every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday to have one-on-one conversation. My PF is named Ahmed and he is also 20 like I am. I was too shy to ask to take a picture with him because I'm still not sure if that's culturally appropriate, but maybe after a few weeks I will ask. Anyway, we have a lot of similar interests and study similar topics, but we are inhibited by one issue. He doesn't speak English very well and I don't speak Arabic very well. It takes quite a bit of back and forth to get information across, but I already feel like I have improved conversationally from just two hours with him. 


I went to the grocery store after school with some friends and being oh-so domestic I bought oatmeal, cereal, eggs, and fruit. Luckily my roommate Brooke is a great cook so hopefully I'll start eating like a real person and stop eating like a 5 year old… we'll see. Al Fair is a really nice grocery store and is much like Kroger or Giant Eagle; I could find just about anything I wanted there. You also don't see many men in grocery stores. The gender separation is very real here, which I'll talk about some other time, but it was a nice change in pace because not as many women stare (for a long time) like the men sometimes do. Some of the little kids point at us but it's harmless, I think they're just curious that somebody as pale as me actually exists.

For dinner we went to a Turkish restaurant and had Sharawah (a meat wrap with french fries). It is super inexpensive and is where all the CIL kids hang out. I got a "sharawah dijzaj kabir" (big chicken wrap) and a kuka kula (coke) for 900 besas, or about $2.30. It is also served with pita bread and salad and after, he served us tea with mint, which is to die for. The owner is really kind and actually talks to us girls and took our hand when we offered him to shake it (sometimes men don't shake women's hands and women won't shake men's hands). He is really cool and I think we'll be spending a lot of time there. 

After dinner the beginning Arabic students went back to our shaqa (apartment) to start their homework. Advanced didn't have any homework tonight so we were very lucky and got to go out to the hookah bar and watch some futbol. People are crazy for futbol here and every night there are World Cup games being broadcast on big projectors outside! It's a cool atmosphere, but again, no women other than us CIL kids. 

That about sums up my day, which was intellectually exhausting. Now I'm off to bed. Oh, I  already have a sandal tan. Which is cool because I don't tan. At first I thought there was dirt on my feet (which there was) but even after I washed it off there was a tan! Mashallah! (God willed it AKA Awesome!)