Friday, April 26: There’s a playlist of songs that I keep on my iPod Nano; I listen to them when I walk or when I’m driving in my car, at times when my mind could otherwise be at peace or be present to the moment. Lately I’ve been wondering why these songs continue to draw me to them. I’ve decided that each of them transports me to a memory, not necessarily the actual moment of the memory, but the feeling I had at the time of the memory. Slowly, I have come to realize that I’m “addicted to a certain kind of sadness,” brought on by these songs.
little musical notes (& memories) stuck into my brain
Since I’ve been meditating lately, I’ve noticed that certain thoughts keep recurring in my mind. I can see these relentless thoughts capturing my attention, and I find when they appear like uninvited strangers that I continue to grasp them as if they’re essential to my survival. In meditation I try to let go of these thoughts, to look at them as if they’re just artfully designed clouds floating by. But too often, when the thoughts arrive, my mind grabs them and runs around them in circles like a dog chasing after its tail.
Of course, many of the thoughts are worries about the future. For the last month, I’ve been so occupied and worried about selling my car that I could hardly concentrate on anything else. I know I’m also worried about the upheaval of returning to the USA, although I’m also very excited. So yes, future thoughts and worries run rampant through my mind. I don’t like the discomfort and mental anguish of worries, nor do I like the stomach upset, headaches or other physical manifestations of anxiety.
The playlist on my iPod allows me to escape from these worries about the future by taking me to another place: back to the past.
my playlist takes me back to fleeting bittersweet memories
Since I’m trying to pay attention to my own destructive thoughts, I noticed that I tend to gravitate to the same playlist of songs over and over. I realized these songs take me back to some strange moments that don’t seem connected. Most of them take me to a time when some big change was happening in my life, when I was feeling deep yearning for something, or when I was in the company of a certain person who I thought was the love of my life.
For some reason I am drawn to this song by Gotye, and I find myself listening to it repeatedly. Here it is: Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (featuring Kimbra):
This song makes me think about the endings of my relationships and how people who I once loved have now become “somebody that I used to know.” But the line that really speaks to me is this: “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.” I recognize that I am most certainly addicted to a kind of sadness. I feel comfortable in this sadness for some reason and I just can’t seem to make the choice to abandon it and move on.
There was a person who I truly loved, for a time. I felt so incredibly alive in his presence that I often dwell in memories of our time together. Lately, I don’t know why, I’ve been reading old letters that I wrote to this person when I was in Cairo in 2007. I’ve actually been trying to recreate, in a blog, my time in Cairo from nearly 6 years ago. Even though this person wasn’t in Cairo with me, I wrote to him nearly every day while there. The letters between us are intertwined with my experience of Egypt. In addition, I’ve also been trying to recreate some other parts of my past, such as two study abroad trips I took while working on my Master’s degree, one to Mexico and one to Singapore, which marked the beginning and the end of this doomed relationship. These trips were the bookends, so to speak, of our short-lived but exhilarating love affair. I can’t help but wonder why I am dwelling on these memories, yet I’m not willing at this time to abandon them.
a happy memory for me that eventually became painful
Some of the songs on my playlist are wrapped up with this person and my feelings when I was in his company. The songs are bittersweet, because they remind me of the happy times we were together; on the other hand, they remind me of an excruciatingly painful ending and a year of suffering and sadness. They are, to name a few:
How to Save a Life, by the Fray
Chasing Cars, by Snow Patrol
Hurt, by Johnny Cash
Silver Lining, by Rilo Kiley
Think I’m in Love, by Beck
The Reason, by Hoobastank
She’s Mine, by Brett Dennen
Meadows of Heaven, by Nightwish
While Your Lips are Still Red, by Nightwish
Falling Slowly, by Glen Hansard
Then there are other songs unrelated to this person. One song is related to the time I separated from my unhappy first marriage. I had a friend and colleague who I thought was the most sophisticated and wise woman I’d ever known. She was 10 years older than me and had traveled all over the world; she had been on safari in Africa and on too many other grand adventures to count. We could talk about everything and I found her wisdom valuable, as I was desperately trying to find myself. At this time, I was 31 years old. The sad thing about Susan, though, was that she was desperately in love with a married man who caused her great anguish. The song “Foolish Games” by Jewel always takes me back to Susan and her doomed love affair with a man who sounds much like the man in that song. For me that time represented new-found freedom and a world of possibilities. Susan’s life, except for the married man, was the life I myself yearned for.
There are many more random and unrelated songs on my playlist, but all of them evoke some feeling of yearning, of possibility, but also of sadness. Many of them are associated with my travels, or the possibilities that travel promises. These are:
I and Love and You, by the Avett Brothers
An Egyptian song played at a wedding party on a boat on the Nile River
All of Loreena McKennitt’s songs about Turkey
Songs by the Turkish grunge band Duman, especially Oje and Aman Aman
There are too many more that I could talk about. I recognize that all of these songs evoke unfulfilled desire in me, a kind of sadness that I can dwell in quite comfortably. I don’t know why I keep going back to them, and to the memories they evoke. But go back I do, time and time again.
my memories are of moments of pure happiness that came to an end
Buddhist thought says that we should not cling to thoughts of the past or the future, but we should be present to the moment at hand. With a steady practice of meditation, we can learn to do this. Because of this, I’ve been trying to cut back on listening to this playlist that so vividly brings the past back to me. When I was in Kathmandu, I bought a CD of Tibetan chanting.
The chants are evocative and repetitive, much like a mantra. I’ve started listening to these chants while walking and I notice when I listen to them, I become more aware of my surroundings, of the feel of my feet moving along the path, of the small breezes that whisper across my face, of my breathing, of the actual act of walking. I love it because it feels like a walking meditation and releases me from that “addiction to sadness” that my old playlist brings to me. It helps me to be present to the moment, to be alive to the NOW.
I know it’s best to leave the past behind, but I don’t really want to abandon it. Not yet.
I don’t think I will abandon this playlist of memories absolutely, but for now, I’ll put it on the back burner for rare rainy days.
Friday, April 26: Today is my daughter Sarah’s 29th birthday! I wish I could be there for this special day, but since I can’t, I will have to do a lot of making up for lost time when I return home.
Sarah works as a waitress at Joe’s Inn in Richmond, Virginia while also attending school at Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives in a row house in Richmond’s Fan District with two close friends and her dog named Bagel. She’s a wonderful writer and wants to write for a living one day. She’s got a great sense of humor and a sharp wit. In high school she loved drama and she played the part of Alice in Wonderland in a school production. She also has run a half-marathon and a number of 10k runs. She loves healthy food, wearing dresses, and collecting cute things for her house. We enjoy going out together to eat at Richmond’s many great restaurants and going shopping at her favorite stores, including Target, anthropologie and Urban Outfitters. We also enjoy toasting each other with glasses of red wine. 🙂
Happy birthday to my little red-headed munchkin. All my love goes to her on this special day.
Click on any of the pictures below for a full-sized slide show.
Sarah and her bubble lawnmower in Richmond, Virginia
Sarah in Richmond
Sarah rides a pink shoe
Sarah as a baby
Sarah in Richmond 2011
Sarah’s high school graduation picture
Sarah riding a fire engine??
at her Nana’s house at Christmas
Me and Sarah drinking some wine in Richmond
Sarah changes her name to “Sal” at summer camp
Sarah and her snowman
Sarah in 2009
Sarah as flower girl at Mike’s and my wedding
having a picnic
Sarah in her Nana’s garden
Sarah in Richmond 2011
Sarah
Sarah, Adam and Alex
Mike gives Sarah flowers after finishing his triathlon
Sarah at Christmas
Alex, Sarah and Adam
Me with Sarah in Richmond, Viriginia Around 1987
Sarah at her Nana’s house
Sarah and Adam
Sarah in 2009
Sarah gets flowers after her performance of Alice in Wonderland
Sarah, Alex and Adam in Hilton Head, South Caroline
Sarah plays dress up
Sarah playing the part of Alice in Wonderland in high school
Thursday, April 25: Today I drop by the Lulu Hypermarket in Nizwa to pick up a few items. I’m shocked to see long lines down each aisle of the huge store. Omani families are lined up with grocery carts overflowing with food and clothing items. It looks like people are getting ready to hunker down in their homes for some natural disaster. Each line goes all the way down a different aisle. I have never in my 18 months seen the Lulu like this so I ask what’s happening. It turns out today is Pay Day in Oman!
I have to wait a half hour in my line. One man stands at the front near the register ready to pounce. He looks like he’s waiting for the perfect opportunity to cut in line at any moment. As I am never one to allow myself to be stepped on, I tell him, pointing to the end of the line of at least 15 families: “Sir, the line is back there. You will NOT be getting in front of us.” He says, “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to do that.” The next thing I know he has moved to another line and promptly cuts in front of someone else. Argh!!
Wednesday, April 24: I listed my 2008 GMC Terrain for sale on April 1, just as I planned. I was worried about the whole process because 1) I’m always a worrier and 2) I’m a foreigner in Oman and don’t know all the ins and outs of doing business here. So, as you can imagine, my stomach was tied in knots as I went through this process. All I could do was take steps that I thought would lead me to my goal and keep my fingers crossed that everything would work out as it should.
My GMC Terrain all clean and shiny
The hardest part was determining a price because Blue Book values as we know them in the United States are not applicable here in the Gulf. The price is determined solely by the market. I looked at similar 4-wheel drive vehicles with prices ranging from 4,000 rials to 5,600 rials, with higher mileage than mine. But I knew I had paid 5,550 ($14,421) for mine in November of 2011 and I’d put 60,000 km on it in 18 months. I am a good and gentle driver, but I often took the car off-road into wadis and up mountains in less than ideal driving conditions.
The Terrain on the dirt road through the Hajar Mountains, a harrowing 70 km route.
the Terrain at the bottom of Wadi Bani Auf
I had done all the proper servicing through the GMC authorized service garage, but I also knew there were some problems with the car: 1) One was the small dent on the front driver’s side of the hood, which was there when I bought it. I didn’t know the origin of that dent and so couldn’t answer potential buyers’ questions about it. 2) The tires were questionable, but my friend Tony looked at them in December and told me that the tread was good and the tires were perfectly good. Mike also looked at them when he was here in January and agreed that the tread was good and I didn’t need to replace them.
the small dent in the driver’s side hood
3) The last issue was the electrical system of the car. Before I first bought the car, I took it to Precision Auto for a computerized test. They told me a few minor problems that needed fixing, but they also said that there was some kind of electrical problem with the car. However, they couldn’t determine what it was. I could tell that in a small panel in the dashboard, the date and time didn’t work. My CD player and radio worked, but I couldn’t advance through tracks because the button didn’t work. But everything else seemed to be just fine, so I never bothered with checking it further.
the time and time electrical panel on the dashboard never worked
Mario told me the way he got a value for his used car when he sold it was to go to the Toyota dealer and pretend he was interested in buying a new car. So I took his advice and went to visit them. Of course, it didn’t help that I had originally bought my car from this same Toyota dealer, so they knew the whole history of the car. This is life in a small town in Oman.
This is where I originally bought the car in Nizwa
I told them I was looking to buy a Toyota RAV and that I wanted to know what value they would give me for a trade-in. The same guy who sold it to me asked how much I owed on the car and I told him 2,600 rials. After a couple of hours of thought, he called me back and told me he’d give me 3,000 ($7,795) on a trade-in!! I was shocked at the low value, so I called my husband Mike in Virginia and told him the situation. Being the finance guy that he is, as controller for a large government contractor, he did an extensive analysis with detailed spread sheets telling me the dealer would mark up the car about 20%, up to about 3,600 rials or more. Thus I should expect to get about 3,400 in the private market. He said I’d do well to get my loan paid off and recoup about 1/2 of my down payment of 1,400 rials. So the ideal sale value would be about 3,400 rials. Because I know everyone wants to think they’re getting a good deal, I raised my asking price to 3,700 rials ($9,614).
The Toyota dealer in Nizwa gave me a very low offer on a trade-in 😦
I started by telling my students, who immediately texted their uncles, brothers and fathers with the news. I put up an ad on Dubizzle, an online free advertising site for the Gulf. I sent an email to everyone in the Foundation Institute at the University of Nizwa, with a link to my Dubizzle ad. I put up flyers all over the university. A number of expats at the university told me my 3,700 asking price was a very good price.
And the calls started coming in.
The barrage of calls I got in the first two weeks were Omanis calling or sending text messages: “What is your last price?” I quickly got annoyed with this question about the “last price,” as I was certainly not going to tell them my last price. After all, who really knows what their “last price” is until they decide to accept that price? The last price always depends on the seller’s level of desperation — how quickly the seller wants to get rid of the vehicle. My last price in June, when I am due to leave, would certainly be lower than my last price in April, when I still have several months to go.
At first, in answer to this question, I would say, “I’m not going to tell you my last price. You can make me a reasonable offer and I’ll tell you whether I will accept it.” But I quickly found this was a waste of time. They’d make me an offer of 2,500 or 2,700 or 2,900 or 3,000 and then refuse to budge. So I finally started answering that my last price was 3,500 ($9,094). That immediately eliminated the people who were wasting my time.
The other calls and texts I received said the following: “I’ll give you 2,500 rials ($6,500) upon inspection of the car.” I got so many of these calls, I figured out that these were Omanis looking to buy the car at a low price, then mark it up and resell it. I got to the point where I cut these people off, either by not responding to their texts or telling them in the phone calls that they were way too low so there was no point in wasting time talking.
I showed the car many times at this Lulu Hypermarket
The first person I showed the car to was an Egyptian pharmacist who works in Birkat al Mouz. When he took the car (with me inside) on a test drive from the Lulu Hypermarket, he almost wrecked the car before we even got out of the parking lot. Then he drove the car at about 150 km/hour on a road where no one should be going that fast, looking at me and talking with his hands and swerving over the line. I kept having to yell at him, “Slow down! Watch out! You’re going too fast!” When we finally returned to the Lulu parking lot, happily unscathed, he said, I’ll give you 2,800 right this minute. I said no. I said 3,500. He came up to 2,900. I said 3,500. He said he wouldn’t come up anymore and I said I wouldn’t come down. So we parted ways. A week later he called and asked if I changed my mind. I said, I’m not yet desperate. Call me back in June and if I still haven’t sold it, I’ll consider your offer.
Another long line of Omanis at the university asked to test drive it. The car has always been noisy and make a kind of shimmying noise, but some of these people were commenting that the tires were not good and that was what was making the noise. I said no, I had been assured by several people that the tread on the tires was good. They said, no, in Oman, because of the heat, the tires can have good tread but they get very dry and hard. They insisted that was what the noise was. I heard this comment enough times that I started to think they might be right. I went to see a friend’s trusted mechanic who told me that yes, the tires were responsible for the noise.
On the weekend of April 11, Mario and I were on our way to Wadi Bani Kharous and we stopped in Muscat to show the car to two Omani brothers. They drove the car and made an offer to buy the car at 3,300 right then and there, AFTER they took the car to Precision Auto to have a computerized test done. By then I was getting sick of the effort of selling the car, and sick of the really low offers and it was close to my “last price” of 3,400. When they took the car to Precision Auto, the computerized test showed some problem, as it had when I first bought the car, with the electrical system. They said something about a catalytic something that senses buildup in the exhaust system and said it could present a POTENTIAL problem in the future. By this time, the two Omani brothers had been joined by their father and several other brothers to inspect the car. A whole family affair!! They asked the mechanic at Precision Auto if he could guarantee there would be no problems for 5 years. Of course the mechanic couldn’t guarantee such a thing. They tried to get me to come down further on my price and I said the car was already discounted for the unknown of this electrical problem. The deal fell through and Mario and I went on our merry way to Wadi Bani Kharous.
The next day, on our way back through Muscat, another Omani drove the car and offered me 3,200 and told me to think about it a few days. I told him I would do so, and then we returned home to Nizwa.
In the meantime, one of my colleagues had expressed interest in the car, but she needed to obtain financing. She didn’t give me a deposit, nor did I have anything in writing from her that she would buy the car. Therefore it was impossible for me to hold it for her. She and I had agreed on a price of 3,500, but I had determined that until the deal was done, I would sell it to whoever made me a reasonable offer first and could close the deal.
Finally, last Thursday, April 18, two Omani friends, Badr and Senad, came to look at the car. Senad came because Badr can’t speak English, so he came to translate. Badr had heard about the car from a student at the university who had seen my flyer. Badr, who is from Suwaiq in Al Batinah on the north coast of Oman, wanted the car for his wife. He has four children from 2 years old to 8 years old. When he drove the car, immediately he asked about the electrical panel and I said it has never worked since I bought the car. He mentioned that the tires seemed to be a problem. He asked me my “last price” and I told him someone at the university had offered me 3,500 but she was trying to get financing. However, I said, if you want to give me 3,400 today ($8,835), I will sell it to you now. Badr decided he liked the car and said he would go to the bank to get the money. We had to meet at the finance company to pay off the loan and get a release letter. I would get the difference in cash.
We had an hour to wait until the finance company opened, so I ran home and cleaned out my car while they went to Bank Muscat to get the cash. When we got to the finance company, Oman ORIX Leasing, we found that Badr could pay off my loan, but it would take a number of days to get the release letter from their Muscat head office. The police station is closed on Thursday anyway, so it was impossible to transfer the registration until after the weekend. We agreed since they had to wait to get the clear title, Badr would just pay off the loan We would draw up a bill of sale for the difference of 879 rials ($2,284), and we would meet next week at the police station to do the transfer. However, as Oman ORIX Leasing wouldn’t open again until Sunday (the bank weekends are Friday and Saturday), it would take until Monday or Tuesday to get the release letter. I had the sudden realization that the payment for the Terrain of 141 rials/month had just come out of my account and thus I had no money to rent a car, which I would need to do right away. So Badr gave me 200 rials ($520) of the 879 rials he owed me, leaving a 679 rial balance remaining ($1,764).
Oman ORIX Leasing, where I have my loan
When we walked out of the finance company, Badr opened the back car door of the Terrain and ripped off the FOR SALE sign I had taped to the inside window. “Khalas! (Finished!),” he said happily. Then I drove the Terrain and he drove his Nissan Altima to Muscat, where we met at the Clocktower Roundabout. We drove together to a used car lot where someone drew up the bill of sale for the remaining 679 rials. As we were driving, Badr again mentioned that the tires were no good. These Omanis know their cars, there is no question about that. Even though two people I trusted had told me the tires were good, they were Americans who didn’t understand what Oman’s heat can do to tires.
I handed over the keys and all the paperwork on the Terrain to Badr, keeping a copy of his ID card, the bill of sale, the receipt for the loan payoff, and the mokia (registration) for myself. I also had his phone number. We agreed to meet at the police station in Nizwa the following Wednesday morning, April 24, to do the transfer. He attends Master’s degree classes at the University on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so that seemed to be the perfect arrangement.
After all of this, he kindly dropped me off at the airport where I went directly to Budget Cars and rented a turquoise Suzuki Celerio for 150 rials/month. That is $390!! Outrageous! My car payment on the Terrain had only been $141 rials a month, and that for an all-wheel drive!
me with my Suzuki Celerio rental car
Of course the unfinished deal left me with a lot of discomfort. I thought right away that both Badr and Senad were honest and upright people. It was just a feeling I had. I would have never felt that way dealing with that Egyptian who drove my car like a maniac. I was slightly worried that Badr might never show up to pay me the remaining balance. However, I had all the documents in order and could go to the police if he didn’t show up. My bigger concern was that when we met again, he would have had the car for a week and might decide there were more things about the car he didn’t like. I was afraid when we met again, he would try to wiggle his way out of paying the whole 679 rials on the grounds that he found repairs that needed to be made.
the Suzuki Celerio I will have until I leave Oman
Then we had a water debacle at the university. On Saturday, the beginning of the work week in Oman, there was no water in the university. As you can imagine, this started creating back ups in the toilets. Disgusting, yes. On Sunday, the situation was the same. The university decided to cancel classes for the week; however the administration insisted the teachers continue to come to work. As you can imagine, this made for some very unhappy teachers. I will write about this in another post.
This situation threw a glitch in my plans to meet Badr in Nizwa because if classes were cancelled he would have no need to come to Nizwa on Wednesday. However, when I communicated through Senad, he told me that the Master’s classes were not cancelled, so Badr would still come to Nizwa. During the week, I obtained the release letter from the finance company and transferred the insurance to Badr’s name, so I was ready to go on the final deal. In Oman, unlike in America, the insurance is on the car rather than the person, so when the car is sold, the insurance goes with it. I had just renewed my insurance for 175 rials in January of 2013, so the insurance was good through January 2014.
New India Assurance Company, where I transfer the insurance to Badr
On Tuesday and Wednesday it started raining in Oman. This is tantamount to a blizzard in the USA. When it rains here, everyone is afraid to drive because of flooding wadis. Many people are killed as they try to drive through raging wadis and get washed away. Apparently, the wadis in Al Batinah, where Badr lives, were quite problematic as the rains in the north had been quite heavy on Tuesday.
As I walked into the Nizwa police station through a steady rainfall on Wednesday morning, Senad called to tell me Badr wasn’t able to make it out of Suwaiq because of flooding wadis. He wouldn’t be coming to Nizwa after all. He suggested we could wait till next week, but I wasn’t happy with that. I wanted to close this deal, get my money and be done with it. I was already feeling so much anxiety and I didn’t want to go another week feeling this way. So I suggested that if Badr could at least drive to Muscat I would meet him there. Senad called Badr and he agreed to try. We both headed on our way to the Royal Oman Police in Muscat.
In Muscat, there are four or five police buildings across from the airport and I wasn’t sure which one I was supposed to go to. I drove through several parking lots looking for the Terrain. I called Senad and asked if Badr was driving the Terrain so I could look for it. He said, no, Badr is driving his Altima because the Terrain is in the shop! Gulp! I panicked, wondering what was wrong with the Terrain. I again feared that there was some problem and he was going to try to pay me less than we agreed for the car.
When I finally met Badr at the police station I knew all my fears were in vain. The first thing he did was proudly show me pictures of the Terrain on his phone. The dent on the front hood had been repaired and repainted and the car looked like brand new!! His excitement was infectious. I said, “How much?” He said 30 rials! That was nothing. He added that he also put 4 new tires on the car. I was afraid to ask, but I did anyway: “How much?” He said 350 rials ($909)!!! I was shocked. He said he needed to make the car perfect for his wife. It was so sweet!! He was as excited as a little boy who just got some brand new toy.
He asked to see the papers. I gave him the manual, which I had accidentally removed from the glove compartment when I cleaned out the car, and showed him the release paper and the insurance document. I asked about the money and he had the 679 rials bundled up in a rubber band. I counted it in front of him. He told me he had a friend in the police so we didn’t have to take a number; we could get in right away. We sat down with the policeman and the transfer was done in two minutes. Badr showed me pictures of his children, glowing.
Badr and his Altima
What a perfect ending for my GMC Terrain. I couldn’t have sold the car to a nicer person, someone who I know will love and take care of that car like it’s a precious gem. He obviously is a caring person – to his wife, his children and his possessions. I’m so thankful that he turned out to be the next owner of my much-loved little GMC Terrain that has enabled me to explore all the terrains in Oman!!
Badr, the new happy owner of my car
Finally, after leaving Badr in Muscat, I drive the long 1 1/2 hours to Nizwa in the pouring rain. Here’s some very rare video footage of rain in Oman.
Ma’a salama (مع السلامة) ~ Goodbye in Arabic ~ to my dear traveling vehicle! I hope that my little car will give him and his family as much happiness as it gave me. 🙂
Friday, April 19: This week, one of my students was absent all week. She’s a sweet girl who poured her heart out to me a couple of months ago about losing her father in a car accident when she was a child.
Toward the end of this week, she came to see me in my office, crying. She handed me an excused absence for the three days of the week she had missed and told me her uncle just died in a car accident. Then she said, “You know, teacher, it’s the same uncle who called you about your car.”
the tomb of Mohammed bin Ali in Salalah, Oman
Before I listed my car for sale to the public on April 1, I mentioned to my students that I was going to offer my car for sale starting in April. This student immediately called her uncle, while we were still in the classroom, and told him about the car. She asked me all the details and I wrote them on the board. She did what most students do when I write homework assignments or anything important on the board. She took a picture of the information with her phone.
That evening, her uncle, who sounded quite young on the phone, asked me about the details of the car. I told him all about it and he said he would get back with me. The next day after class, the student accompanied me to the parking lot so she could take pictures of the car.
gravestones in Salalah, Oman at the Tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali
Her uncle called again after seeing the pictures of the car that my student had sent him. But he never arranged to see the car, and I never heard from him again.
When my student told me that her uncle, this same uncle, just died in a car accident, my heart went out to her. I was shocked. Although I’d never met the young man, I had spoken to him twice on the phone. When I asked how the accident happened, she said he was alone in the car and fell asleep.
Road facts
– Every eight hours someone is killed in a road accident in Oman
– Every hour someone is injured in a road accident in Oman
– Every 56km there is a death on Oman’s roads.
– Speeding and reckless driving account for 72 per cent of all accidents.
– In 2011, ROP imposed over 2.24mn fines for speeding.
– Compared to 2010, 2011 saw a 30 per cent increase in the number of deaths due to speeding.
– Nearly 60 per cent of all deaths on the roads are due to speeding.
– According to WHO, road traffic accidents are the third biggest killer of people in Oman.
After she left me, I thought about my poor distraught student and the tragedy of losing an uncle to a car accident after already having lost her father to an accident when she was a child.
Then the thought hit me: I wondered if the uncle would still be alive if he had bought my car. I wondered if the time he took to buy the car, or the fact of being in my heavy solid GMC Terrain, might have changed the trajectory of his life and thus the outcome. The whole idea of this made me think of the movie Sliding Doors, starring Gwenyth Paltrow as Helen, the main character.
a cemetery near Plakias, in Crete, Greece
Sliding Doors is a 1998 British-American romantic comedy-drama film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah. The film alternates between two parallel universes based on the two paths Helen’s life could take depending on whether or not she catches a train. In the film’s conclusion, both tracks of life, one of which leads to Helen’s death in the arms of her new lover James, and the other which leads to Helen leaving her cheating boyfriend and ending up by chance on the elevator with that same James, both end with what we can assume is the same ending. The audience is left to speculate whether it was fate or coincidence that brought Helen and James together in the end (Wikipedia: Sliding Doors).
I mentioned my thoughts about my student’s uncle to one of my Muslim colleagues and she said, “It wouldn’t have made any difference. We believe that everything is written before you are born. He was fated to die on this day, and it would have happened no matter what he did.”
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France
After my colleague’s comment, I looked up the belief of fate or predestination in Islam. I found that Qadar (Arabic: قدر) is an Arabic word for destiny and divine foreordainment. Essentially, destiny is what Allah has decreed. Allah has knowledge of everything in His creation. Nothing occurs except by His will. Human beings are given free will, and it must be made clear that destiny does not have a cause-and-effect influence on the choices humans make. The choices that humans make are all within Allah’s knowledge.
Some Muslims believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet (“al-Lauḥ al-Maḥfūẓ”) all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written. According to this belief, a person’s action is not caused by what is written in the Preserved Tablet but, rather, the action is written in the Preserved Tablet because God already knows all occurrences without the restrictions of time (Wikipedia: Predestination in Islam).
This is a fascinating question which I’m sure all of us have from time to time. After checking into Islam’s belief on this, I thought I would check to see what Buddhism says about fate. According to About.com: Misunderstanding Buddhism, the word “karma” means “action,” not “fate.” In Buddhism, karma is an energy created by willful action, through thoughts, words and deeds. We are all creating karma every minute, and the karma we create affects us every minute.
cemetery in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
It’s common to think of “my karma” as something you did in your last life that seals your fate in this life, but this is not Buddhist understanding. Karma is an action, not a result. The future is not set in stone. You can change the course of your life now by changing your volitional acts and self-destructive patterns.
The Christian Bible is very murky on the concept of fate or predestination. Some verses state that it is preordained by God which people will be saved and which are doomed to eternal hell. Other verses say that it is God’s perfect will that all people should be saved. Most of what I can find about Christianity has to do with salvation or damnation, rather than about if one’s life is predetermined, as to life or death or other earthly matters (A Matter of Truth: Predestination).
I can’t help but wonder about this situation, along with countless others. On September 11, 2011, many people were late to work and so avoided death in the World Trade Center attacks. I have a friend who was in a terrible bus accident in Africa; by some freak chance she and two others survived while everyone else on the bus was mangled horrifically and killed. My friend Mario was in El Salvador during the revolution and was afraid for his life many times. He wonders why he never was killed when so many people he knew were gunned down in the streets. I’ve heard of people who missed their plane flight and when the plane crashed killing everyone on board, they wondered why they were lucky enough to have been detained, and thus spared. And I’m sure the Boston Marathoners and spectators who were injured or killed this past Monday, April 15, never thought they would be victims of a terrorist attack. And those who didn’t happen to be at the finish line wonder why that incident happened at a moment when they weren’t crossing the line.
a cemetery in Akrotirion, Santorini, Greece
I remember reading the amazing book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder, that told the story of a (fictional) event that happened in Lima, Peru, at noon of Friday, July 20, 1714. A bridge woven by the Incas a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk who was on his way to cross it. Wanting to show the world of God’s Divine Providence, he sets out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he compiles a huge book of all of the evidence he gathers to show that the beginning and end of a person is all part of God’s plan for that person (Wikipedia: The Bridge of San Luis Rey).
I don’t believe in predestination. Otherwise why would we have free will? We ultimately don’t have control over our lives, but we do have the free will to take certain actions, which of course have certain or uncertain outcomes. There really is no way of knowing whether a person’s life is preordained by God or Allah, whether our actions, or “karma,” determine our fate, or whether our lives are just a series of coincidences. Any way you look at it, only one thing is certain. We all will die.
cemetery in Santorini
In the book I am currently reading, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche, the author says: Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die.
The author goes on to say: Switch on a television or glance at a newspaper: You will see death everywhere. Yet did the victims of those plane crashes or car accidents expect to die? They took life for granted, as we do. How often do we hear stories of people who we know, or even friends, who died unexpectedly? We don’t even have to be ill to die: our bodies can suddenly break down and go out of order, just like our cars. We can be quite well one day, then fall sick and die the next.
colorful gravestone in Santorini, Greece
No one can know if that young man’s untimely death was preordained, or if he would have forestalled it by doing something different. Whatever beliefs we have assimilated over our lives are what ultimately determine how we look at it. In the end, we really cannot know.
Tuesday, April 16: Marianne of East of Malaga has a monthly photo challenge called the Conejo Blanco Blog Hop, or CBBH for short. Her challenge for this month is: multi-colored.
According to this website: “Colour is a meaningful constant for sighted people and it’s a powerful psychological tool. By using color psychology, you can send a positive or negative message, encourage sales, calm a crowd, or make an athlete pump iron harder.”
Talking of sales, Henry Ford famously declared that the Model-T buyer could choose “any colour, so long as it’s black.” Thank goodness that these days, consumers are more discerning!
Here are some multi-colored photos from my travels around the world.
multi-colored boats in Pokhara, Nepal
more multi-colored boats in Pokhara, Nepal
rowboats in Pokhara
a flower stall in Delhi, India
woolly multi-colored gloves in Kathmandu, Nepal
multi-colored flowers in front of the Sultan’s palace in Muscat, Oman
multi-colored trims for abayas sold at Mutrah Souq, Muscat, Oman
** One blogger I follow and love is Lynn Wohlers of bluebrightly. Lynn blogs about “photography or philosophy, birds or flowers, zen, maps, psychology, travel… [her] mind roams.” She takes stunning pictures of forests, leaves, flowers, and anything else in nature you can think of. When I look at her photos, I want to jump into their magical worlds and stay there for a good long time.
**Another blogger I love is Roseanne of Wondering Rose. Rosie works at an art museum in southern California and shares quirky and funny stories about her encounters at her cash register. She always writes thought-provoking posts and comments. I truly enjoy and appreciate her kindness and her insights. Rosie had the life-altering experience of walking the Camino de Santiago. I really hope to meet her if I can get to California this Christmas.
Sunday, April 14: I have been struggling for three days now to come up with something for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Change. I first thought I would post a picture of my children and how they have changed, but I realized that would take hundreds of pictures. Then I thought of posting about how my life has changed since I decided to live and work abroad, and still, that would have taken too many pictures. I thought of posting one photo of me in my graduation gown accepting my Master of Arts degree. Or at my first wedding. Or my second. Or, I could have posted pictures of the change of seasons, flowers growing, leaves dying, snow falling. The possibilities were endless.
The problem, of course, is that EVERYTHING CHANGES. Every minute of every day, change happens.
Finally, after spending hours looking through my archives for something that would inspire me, I decided to show something that is ALWAYS changing but NEVER changing. This is my friendship with four women, Louise, Martha, Rosie and Charlene, that has spanned decades. Four of us met in 6th grade, in 1966, when my family moved to Yorktown, Virginia and I attended Yorktown Elementary School for the first time. I moved from the “big city” of Newport News to the rural Yorktown, and it was a rude awakening. I arrived on the scene wearing a plaid dress with layers of crinoline, delicate lace-bordered ankle socks and patent leather shoes. The girls I met at Yorktown Elementary wore A-line skirts, button-down shirts, athletic socks and tennis shoes. My friend Louise always tells me she can never get that picture out of her mind of me arriving in that dress with those black shiny shoes.
Louise & Martha have been my friends since that time. I was elected to be Vice-President of the SCA (Student Cooperative Association) in 6th grade, and Rosie was elected President.
I’m on the left as Vice-President of the SCA, and Rosie, second from the left, was President.
When we merged with another elementary school in 7th grade, at Yorktown Intermediate School, we met Charlene. Though I had known Rosie ever since I arrived in 6th grade, our friendship didn’t solidify until we were in 10th grade, at York High School. Since then, the five of us have been good friends.
Yearbook staff at York High School: bottom row: Louise, Rosie, me, Martha, and Charlene standing back, second from the right.
Rosie, Josh, and Charlene in 1973
Rosie, Martha, me and Louise at a party in 1973
me, Rosie, Louise and Charlene at Lake Gaston, 1973
partying in 1974. I’m the one with my mouth open. Rosie’s sitting beside me
Building pyramids at York High School, 1974. Me top tier on right, Charlene and Louise middle tier on left.
Charlene, Mickey Mouse and Rosie at Disney World, Spring 1974
me, Donald Duck and Louise at Disney World in Florida on our senior class trip
Louise and Gary, me and Paul in 1974
We have each constantly changed: married, divorced, had children, had grandchildren (except me), and moved to different parts of the country and the world.
At Charlene’s bachelorette party: Rosie, Louise, Charlene and me
me and Louise (and our mothers) at Charlene’s wedding
Our bodies have gotten older and chubbier. Yet. Despite all the changes we have gone through, one thing has remained constant: our friendship. Despite 40 years, we are still best of friends. Whenever we get together, it as if nothing has changed, even though, in reality, EVERYTHING has changed.
Louise, me and Charlene in New York City
Rosie and Charlene in New York City
me, Rosie, Charlene and Louise in Yorktown, September 2007
Louise, Charlene, me and Rosie in Yorktown in February 2009
Rosie, Louise, Martha and me in Yorktown in April 2009
Charlene, Rosie and me in Yorktown in June 2009
Rosie, me and Martha at Rosie’s brother’s house in August 2009
Charlene, me, Rosie and Martha in May 2011
Louise, Rosie, me, Martha and Charlene in May 2011
Martha, me and Rosie in front, May 2011 at a York High School reunion. (Standing in front of a port-a-potty, not the best choice for a photo!)
I know without a doubt that our friendship will be something we’ll have for the rest of our lives. 🙂
Friday, April 12: We wake up in The Gulf Sand Hotel in Al Musanaah to find we have no water. We are planning to go the The Chedi, one of the most upscale hotels in Muscat, for the Friday breakfast buffet, so this is not acceptable. I run out to the front desk and since the receptionist doesn’t speak English I do all kinds of pantomimes to show him that I have no water in my room. They run around looking for people in the know, and finally a Bangladeshi guy comes, turns a switch and fills up the water tank. Sweet relief!
pretty little flowers outside the Chedi
wildflowers outside the Chedi
We drive to Muscat, which takes us over an hour since we get a little lost and end up driving in the wrong direction past the sprawling new airport that is under construction. When we finally get there, I am struck by the Zen-like atmosphere of the Chedi. It has plenty of simple white arches and waterfall gardens, but it feels more Japanese than Arab. The 5-star boutique hotel fuses together traditional Omani architecture with Zen, Arabic, Japanese and European influences.
entrance to the Chedi
inside the lobby of the Chedi
The website for the Chedi describes the hotel as follows: “Where the majestic Al Hajar Mountains meet their luminous reflection in the serene waters of the Gulf of Oman, the Chedi Muscat rises amidst an elegantly landscaped twenty-one acre garden oasis with 158 Omani influenced guestrooms and villas. This sublime yet central location equally suits leisure and business travellers while six distinct restaurants, a just opened thirteen-suite Balinese spa, three swimming pools, including the 103-metre Long Pool, 400-square metre health club plus two executive meeting rooms enhance Muscat’s considerable cultural attractions.”
inside the restaurant
We decide to sit inside as it’s quite muggy and hot in Muscat today. We’re directed to several stations where we can get typical breakfast fare, pastries or desserts. We both desperately need coffee as we haven’t really woken up.
table decor
After we get our coffee, I pile my plate with olives, yogurt, feta and Arabic cheese, spinach, sautéed mushrooms, potato cakes, and chicken sausages. We both order omelets with cheddar cheese, mushrooms and tomatoes.
my first plate
The breakfast buffet runs from 7:30-10:30 a.m. and costs 15 rials plus 17% taxes. Our total bill is 17.5 rials, or about $45. After eating our omelets, we head to the pastry bar, but I’m too full to indulge much. This is the problem with buffets; I never can eat enough to feel like I get my money’s worth.
me at the Chedi
After breakfast, we walk around the grounds and see the outdoor seating areas, the pool, and the beach from a distance. We’re not allowed to go to the beach because we’re not hotel guests. Anyway, it doesn’t matter to me because I’m underwhelmed. I think I prefer Al Bustan Palace or the Shangri-La to the Chedi.
an outdoor seating area at the Chedi
the outdoor dining area
the pool at the Chedi
the pool
looking out from the entrance
After breakfast, I try to put flyers up for the sale of my car in the Al Fair grocery stores around Muscat that expats frequent, but the bulletin boards are too full and one of them won’t even take my flyer. They tell me it costs 5 rials to hang it up for a week. I put one up in the Medinat Sultan Qaboos Al Fair, but I guess that 5 rial cost will limit me to putting the flyers in only a few places.
On the way back from Muscat, I stop to show another Omani my car and he makes an offer which I still feel is too low. Oh well, I still have time, so I’m not going to panic. Not yet. 🙂
