New Hairstyle

Being married to an Omani man, surrounded almost entirely by Omanis, or at least, Muslim women who are experienced in dealing with Arabs and living their lives in the Gulf, my identity is hard to distinguish sometimes.

I was never terribly patriotic to the land of my passport. Even as a child I knew, I belonged somewhere else, and my life was always going to be somewhere far away and unexpected. People always say expats are either a worthless or a romantic type of breed. You JUST KNOW this. Some people just belong somewhere, and when they find that place, they just know.

Others are boundless, but these are the rarest form of man. I wouldn't ever say I am boundless.

My home is certainly Oman. And the majority of my culture is Islamic and even Omani, nigh 90%, while I know Omanis whose culture is only around 60%, but still, I am not Omani. I am not even 30% the country of my passport, but I am not 100% Omani either.

So I still consider myself kind of an expat. An Omani expat, for in my home country, to all apearences, I am certainly Omani, but I am still someone not 100% on the inside.

A close family friend said it is a gift, to be able to walk between worlds and relate to people of all walks of life, to the most fabulous, to the most humble, and find one's self most at home with the humble, but at ease with the great. I guess this is my gift. I find it easy to adapt and relate to almost anybody. But it doesn't make me anymore an Omani, or any less of an expat.

Does it?

MOP says just because I am married to an Omani, I am an Omani, and it is a simple as that. For my most of my Omani girlfriends, it IS as simple as that.

If the girl is from Dakliyah region but her husband is from al Batinah, she becomes an Al Batinah girl. The girls say, this is only rare for Dhofari girls, and they reason, maybe that is why they marry only Dhofaris.

I think it is more like my parental culture. I am not my husband and he is not me. Together we are something more.

My Omani husband veiws us as one and same. That is his culture.

I don't think one is better than the other, but I think my identity is of an Omani who is an expat, no matter what country they go to.

I started thinking about this after reading Nadia's post one, YOU KNOW YOU"VE BEEN TOO LONG IN OMAN WHEN http://dhofarigucci.blogspot.com/2010/12/15-signs-you-might-have-been-in-oman.html

And I remembered the comment's on Jet Driver's blog on this post. From JD: What gives you away as being a newbie expat in Oman: http://muscatjetdriver.blogspot.com/2010/02/experiences-you-must-have-before-i-will.html

I don't know why really. It is not so important to me really, to know my identity, for I truly believe that only the shallow know themselves, but I have to assert what I am not, when people claim "you are an Omani girl now", for at least I know what I am not, even if I do not comprehend wholly what it is exactly that I am.

My husband and I were joking on this, after a weekend of fighting over nothings.

What is the difference for an Omani man, of being married to an expat wife, as opposed to an Omani wife, from his tribe?

Difference #1

Husband says to the Omani wife, "Come here, habibti, I want to show you something."

Oman wife comes.

Omani Husband says to the Expat wife, "Come here, Honey, I want to show you something."

Expat wife [okay, it's a defensive OPNO] screams, "You can't make me!"

Difference #2

Husband says, during an expedition shopping for household goods in the Souq, "I really think this one is nice."

Omani wife, puts it in the basket, and they buy it.

Husband says, during an expedition shopping for household good in the Souq, "I really think this one is nice, and you said wanted soft and warm and not too expensive."

Expat wife [looks at Husband like he's an idtiot]. "And I also said NOT UGLY. Nothing THAT ugly is going on my bed." [They leave with nothing].

Hehehe.

Sometimes I am kind of happy that I am an Orphan in the Islamic sense, when I hear stories of horrible families, abusing their daughter's rights.

MOP was telling me a story about a girl from Jebel Akhdar whose family married her when she was seventeen to an old man who was 80. She didn't really have a say, unless she wanted to be cast out by the tribe and family.

From my friend, we'll call her Rayan: "If we Omani girls go against our families, even if we commit no sin and do something that is good for us, it is as if we have committed adultery, or worse. No matter how good and liberal you think our families are. My mother loves you, but if you were her daughter, she'd never have allowed your marriage to MOP. Wrong tribe. Wrong job."

And Rayan is from Muscat.

I always say to myself, if I was her, the girl from Jebel Akhdar, I would have stood up for myself and run away, but if you don't have a job, and your family keeps you from learning the skills needed to provide for yourself, what can you do? And she didn't have any skills, just barely her schooling, so...

One of her male highschool teachers apparently thought to save her from this fate because he felt sorry for her in this situation, by marrying her as a second wife, but he didn't have the money for her maher.

He was a decent age, only fifteen years her senior, and kind I suppose, but I mean, doesn't a young girl deserve some options in life?

So I ask my husband about our sons and daughters. Ours sons could marry as they choose he says, even though his brother did not marry a [very white] Zanzibari girl he loved because of the fact that she was not "A Real Omani" and it could bring shame to the family, and no one would want to marry their daughters to the family anymore, and that it would be worse for them men of the family to marry a black skinned woman than to marry an Omani woman who did not wear a headscarf or abaya.

I get angry, wallah. This is not my religion. This is not Oman as I love Oman.

"What of our daughters?" I enquire. One always should, before marriage, if they want to know what kind of man their husband is.

My husband relents that he'd possibly allow a black man who was a good Muslim of good reputation who was amazingly secure and wealthy marry one of his daughters, but it would be unaccepted by the village. But in this case wealth was important because no one would accept them.

And then MOP was an idiot for a bit and tried to tell me that the Prophet Mohamed SAW never married his daughters to an African man or non Arab.

"He said "Salman Al Farsi [a Persian] is of my family!"" I retort to such tactics in anger.

MOP nods in agreement and says that is why he loves me, that he WANTS me to change some things in his village, after I stop BEING the change. Right now he is the person bringing the change. I am scary CHANGE incarnate Bwahahaha. I am here people, and you can't scare me away with gossip, and fear that your husbands will all marry white women. Because don't worry, they won't. Most of your husbands have smaller minds than you.

Forgive the bitterness, it will go in time.

I just chant to myself. "I love Oman. I love Oman. I love Oman."

Believe me. One white woman is enough change for his village at this time I suppose. And they like white skin.

I've had to sister in laws ask me for whitening lotions already.

I say try sunscreen and eating lots of cucumbers. Honestly, I just want them to lay off the bleaches.

Apparently though, in case of some miracle, like the sky spells out his name, any future daughters of ours will be forbidden from marrying men of a tribe that is enemy to my husband's tribe.

I fight this. I say "races, tribes, and nations are a thing of Jahiliyia [not of Islam]. [The Prophet Mohamed said] Leave it. It is rotten."

My husband relents in case of miraculous perfect man from said enemy tribe who rejects his tribe.

To be honest, using my good judgement, I'll help my children to marry as they feel capable.

I feel I have to fight, because knowing my husband's luck, if we have a daughter, she'll take after me.

And what did MY father say when I asked him if there was anything I could do in this life that would sorely disapoint him?

"You could suppress yourself to wear a veil and convert to some strange religion like Islam."

Yes, yes, my father really did say that.

So if she's anything like me...

MOP allows he may have to make room for his bad luck;D

I am one of those people that likes for everybody to like them, and not to hurt anybody. This is impossible, I know, but I can't help it. I am just that way. Like that quote from the first page of the famous Ernest Hemmingway novel, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', taken from the John Donne poem 'No Man is an Island':