First Steps

I move to Oman in four months.

Six months ago, I knew next to nothing about this unassuming country sitting on the gateway between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.  As a country, Oman does a remarkably good job of staying under the radar of world news.  That’s especially commendable considering Oman’s location in a region that makes headlines almost daily.  But, time is flying by at an alarming pace, and before I know it I will be Oman’s newest resident.  So I had better start learning!

This is my fifth year studying Arabic and I finally feel like it has started to sink in.  My first four years were in college and I confess, I wasn’t nearly as focused as a beautifully complex language such as Arabic requires.  I didn’t like memorizing vocabulary, which happens to be the key to mastery.  This is the language that has countless words that seem like synonyms at first glance, but in reality are incredibly nuanced and have very specific uses.  Eloquence is still prized among Arabic speakers, unlike here in the US, where use of a 'vocabulary word' in common conversation will likely get you blank stares and a little ridicule (or maybe that's just in my circles...) I finally realized that if I didn’t sit down and commit words to memory, I would forever be stuck at the level of being able to order food and tell a cab driver my life history, but never progress beyond that. 

I don’t think it is possible for a foreigner to ever truly master Arabic, but I sure am going to try.  At the very least, it is my goal to be able to carry on intelligent conversation with peers and to never stop learning.

God willing, I will be studying for my master’s degree at Sultan Qaboos University, in a curriculum taught largely in Arabic.  So, I don’t really have a choice when it comes to gaining proficiency.  I have to, or I will fail.  I have submitted my application for their history program, and now I just have to wait for the decision.

In addition to studying Arabic intensively, I’ve been trying to learn what I can about Oman’s history, and what to expect.  In this day and age of internet marketplaces where the world is a key stroke away, I was surprised at how much digging I had to do before I found some quality resources.  There are the travel books, like Lonely Planet and Culture Smart, which offer a very brief overview of Omani history before going into topics more relevant to the casual traveler.  But I have yet to find a comprehensive history of Oman.  I must be looking in the wrong places.  Most of the academic books I’ve seen are textbooks, which are really expensive, like more than one hundred dollars per book expensive.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Google Books has electronic copies of many older books that would be impossible to find in print these days.  I found several travel accounts from British officers who were in Oman in the 19^th century.  Finding the books is one thing.  It is another to read them all.  I'm working on that part.  

I’m still very early in my self-education of all things Omani, but I plan to use this blog to document some of the things I’ve learned.  I can’t rely on my shoddy memory to hold onto all the new things I’m learning these days.  Once I get to Oman, I will also write about my experiences and impressions, but for now, I am limited to the things I read.