The Libra in me post- it's all about balance.

Please, this is Caillean in Oman-Oman!

It's seems hard to believe in some ways and in other ways I am so happy to say it. It's been a month now that Caillean has been in Oman. What a difference a month makes. No longer are my days long and filled with warmth and sun, sand in my fingers, and my daughter by my side. No longer am I anticipating her departure, packing, worrying, and sad. The hardest thing that I have done to date (putting my baby on the plane and walking away) is over. Now I am trying hard to step back and enjoy the ride. It hasn't been easy as I miss her presence everyday but the tears have long dried up and been replaced with the stories of life in Oman and the sound of Arabic from her lips. There have been the typical difficulties that come along with being 15 and living far away from home. Learning to navigate school and friendships, being respectful yet still able to communicate clearly needs and wants, and the typical plight of the 15 year old- adult in so many ways but a child in so many other ways, are all challenges. Caillean is navigating it all with incredible grace. The hardest part is patience: patience to not know how to do it all, patience to develop relationships, and patience to not be a master of the situation.

I have to remember that at times as well. Patience is not my strong suit. I like to check things off my to do list, complete tasks before moving to the next, and generally feel in control. Having my daughter travel half way around the world was never on any of my to do lists. Caillean just dropped it on there 5 months ago. I was patient with the application process, and the interviews, but found my patience ran out once the letter of acceptance came in the mail. I had to learn a whole new way of living once we starting planning for Caillean's junior year of high school abroad. Patience can be hard but for me it has  the balance of being patience and also being active that has been the hardest to learn.  We still have to get done what needs to be done but in a time frame that is very different that parenting in the day to day. I don't know why it has been so hard. I have been practicing parenting for 15 years! When my children were little, the focus was really on the day to day. Has the child nursed 8-12 times today, has she slept through the night, was what she ate this week healthy and complete, did she learn to crawl, walk, use the potty, talk, say please and thank you, her letters, to read, to think for herself, to make healthy choices? Over time the focus changes and the vision becomes broader. My role as a parent changed and became less the role of the provider of the moment to moment needs and more of support and guidance for the big vision. I feel like I still have my training wheels on when it comes to the big picture. My husband on the other hand, seems to have taken the figurative road bike out and is riding circles around the island before looping back and finding me a few inches from where I started. He has been incredibly gifted at supporting our daughter from over 7000 miles away. Call after call he offers her just the right advise with the perfect balance of listening and direction. I must say I am just the smallest bit jealous of his ease with this role but really I am more flabbergasted at how he has found such ease in this new role. Caillean turns to him over and over again and together they work on a solution. I am more of the teddy bear in this relationship. I am familiar and warm and comforting but often feel like my head is full of stuffing. I haven't perfected this new role as mom of a older and wiser kid. I just hope that I can keep up- patience grasshopper.

 As you can see from Caillean's blog www.nantuckettooman.wordpress.com she has been experiencing some wonderful things. You can also tell from her new format and frequency of her posts this week that the wifi issue is working itself out. Her latest post goes on to tell us that learning Arabic is coming along nicely as well. Being able to read Cinderella isn't exactly fluent but not bad for only one month into it. I thought a month into this I would be checking the first month off my list and happy to watch the months tick off until her return. Maybe her return is  just too far off in the future to feel excited about it. I think  though it's more that I feel like she is just starting to hit her stride with living abroad. The pieces are coming together and the vision of what is coming in the months ahead is a little more clear. My ease at being a parent from so far away is becoming more familiar. I still feel like the I have my training wheels on but I am steady.  My role has shifted. I am the behind the scenes logistics, telecommunication navigator, preparation for college applications falls into my column, and still the teddy bear. However, the emptiness I initially felt when Caillean left is not as loud as it was. I have come to learn patience in action, the sound of Arabic, and how to be a parent of a child that is almost an adult and always an inspiring individual and humbling teacher to me. And that's only in the first month. Imagine what lies ahead. 

In her own words

I know everyone has been interested to hear from Caillean. The thing of it all is that we were very hopeful that her blog would be up and running by now but have come to find out she has very limited access to wifi. Pray to any and all of the wifi powers to be that this will change soon. She did write us an email this past week and I have asked her if I could forward it to you all to keep you up to date. So here it is, in her own words....

Now that I am on “holiday”, as the weekend is called here in Oman, I finally have enough time to write something. So much has happened and I have been so busy that unfortunately I haven’t had time to journal or write anything. Between getting to know my host family, exploring Oman, and AMIDEAST orientations, I have only had time to sleep. So far, Oman has been amazing. It is so much better than I could have ever imagined, and I truly love every aspect (except for maybe the heat). Omani people are so kind and hospitable, ready to include me in their family.

I began travelling on August 24 at 8:32 in the morning with a flight to Providence, RI. The night before I left was very difficult; I didn’t get much sleep and, frankly, I was an emotional mess. It was so overwhelming to think that the time had come for me to actually leave my home, my family, and everything I knew for an entire nine months. Once I arrived at the airport, some of my excitement returned. Nonetheless, hugging my family goodbye was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Once I arrived in Dulles at about 11 in the morning, I had calmed down a little and was more excited than sad. Still, when I called my father to tell him that I had arrived safely in Dulles, I started crying. I don’t think that I can identify how I felt at the moment; too many emotions were racing through me to correctly identify how I felt. After many conflicting directions, I finally found my gate and sat down to read while I waited to meet up with Cara, YES-Abroad Oman’s travel chaperone. Mae, another Oman-bound YES-Abroad student, arrived at the gate at about 12:45, and we went to grab lunch and talk. Talking with Mae was extremely helpful to process emotions and feed my excitement and enthusiasm. Soon after, most of the other girls arrived. As the others got lunch, Mae, Davan, and I played a card game with a very friendly group of Japanese exchange students headed to study at an American university in the Midwest and waited for two other girls and Cara to arrive.  We finally were all at the gate about an hour before the plane was scheduled to board, and played cards and talked. We were all extremely excited yet a bit nervous to begin such an extraordinary adventure.   We embarked on our eight-hour flight too excited to sleep; I only got a half hour of sleep on the way to Zurich. We arrived in Zurich at about 7:30am local time, or about 1:30am Nantucket time. The first flight was uneventful; I watched a confusing movie and attempted to sleep while sitting in uncomfortable airplane seats and listening to Justin Timberlake. After eight virtually sleepless hours, we stumbled off the plane in Zurich, bleary-eyed yet even more excited than we had been in Dulles. 

We had five-hour layover in Zurich, where we bought amazingly delicious Swiss chocolate and bottled water with Swiss Francs, explored the airport, and played Truth or Imitation (an airport-friendly version of Truth or Dare). Boarding the plane for Dubai-Muscat at 12:45 on August 25 was without doubt the most exhilarating experience of my life. The next time we set foot on the solid ground we would be in Oman. Despite having been travelling through innumerable time zones for about 24 hours on a half hour of sleep, most of us were too excited to sleep. I managed to get an hour of sleep on our way to Dubai, and woke up just in time to see the largest skyscraper in Dubai from the sky. Most of the plane’s passengers got off in Dubai, and then it was off to Oman! I tried to get more sleep, to no avail, and watched yet another on-demand movie (at least this time it made sense and didn’t have subtitles). We arrived in Oman at about 11:30 at night local time, retrieved our bags, and made our way to the hotel for a very interesting late-night dinner and, finally, a full night’s sleep in a real bed. I have never appreciated beds as much as I did in that moment; the bed was uncomfortable and hard, and the sheets were tucked in (my biggest pet peeve!), but it was a bed nonetheless. After more than 36 hours of travelling, any bed was welcome. 

Aug. 26

The next morning, we woke up early and headed to the first of many orientations at AMIDEAST. After our orientations, which included an incredibly helpful mini crash course in Arabic, and a delicious traditional Omani lunch at Al Maida Omani Restaurant, we left to meet our host families for dinner, and to the return to our new homes with them. When Talya, my housemate, and I entered the room, we immediately saw our host father H with our sisters T and R. Both girls were extremely shy and didn’t say a word to us throughout the dinner, which initially really worried me. However, once we got in the car to go to our house, they really opened up and wouldn’t stop talking about anything and everything. I now feel very close to both of them, and enjoy spending as much time as possible talking to them. Host mother M and brother were waiting for us at home. Our host brother is 2 and a half years old, so M was at home putting him to bed and therefore wasn’t able to attend the dinner. However, we were warmly greeted upon arriving home, and quickly set off to explore the house and unpack. 

Aug. 27

Then next day we ate showered, dressed, and ate traditional Omani breakfast before being picked up by Mohammed, our bus driver, and being brought to AMIDEAST. Following a long day of uniform fittings, orientations, and school visits, we retuned home for dinner and bed. 

Aug. 28

The next day, however, was incredible. The long-awaited time when we would explore the city had come! First, we visited the Grand Mosque. The mosque was privately funded by the Sultan and took over six years to construct. Many of the materials were outsourced from numerous countries around the world, and the mosque set two world records. For years, its main prayer hall’s carpet was the largest in the world; however, it has since been surpassed by that of a mosque built in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. The mosque’s German-made, eight-ton chandelier, also located in the main prayer hall, still holds the record of largest chandelier in the world. The mosque’s sheer scale was incredible. Following the mosque, we went by tour bus to Bait Al Zubair, or the Zubair family’s personal museum, which contains Omani artifacts and is open to the public. Next, we travelled to one of the Sultan’s numerous palaces, located in Muttrah to take pictures and admire the scenery. Muttrah and the Sultan’s palace are located adjacent to the sea, or bahr in Arabic, and the view is beautiful. The bay is full of both the Sultan’s yachts and traditional Omani fishing and transporting boats, called dhows. Not even a ten-minute bus ride from the Sultan’s palace is the Muttrah sooq. A sooq is a traditional Omani open-air marketplace. Innumerable venders were selling their wares in cramped shops- pashminas, perfumes, abayas, dishdashas, cosmetics, and many other types of goods were for sale, often for less than the market price. An AMIDEAST employee, Jesse, explained to me that, at the sooq, price is relative. A good may be priced as two rials, but when you go to pay the vendor, he may sell it to you for one rial, five hundred baisa. Following the sooq, we walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and then retuned to AMIDEAST, where we had free time to communicate with our families back home or rest. We then headed to a restaurant with Mohammed, who spoke Arabic to us the entire bus ride as we attempted to reply in our very broken Arabic. Following dinner, we returned to our homes and fell into bed soon after. 

Aug. 29

The next day was a light day. We were picked up at our respective homes by Mohammed in the morning, and went to City Centre See, a large mall located in See, a part of Muscat, and then went to AMIDEAST to retrieve our uniforms and quickly returned home. That night, M’s sister A and her children came over to talk and meet Talya and I. A’s daughter N is almost 13, and the three of us got along very well. A told us all about her family and we talked with N for hours. The next morning was holiday, so we stayed up late talking. The next morning we woke up late and had breakfast, then headed out with H, T, and R to visit some places. First up was the affluent part of our town. We saw the golf course and marveled at the enormous houses under construction. Next we drove to Shatti Al Qurm, or Qurm Beach. I can now say that I have waded in the waters of the Gulf of Oman! R, T, Talya, and I played in the water, took pictures, got sandy, and collected shells. I told R and T that my brother back home used to enjoy creating a human chain by holding hands, then jumping over waves as they broke on the shore. This game was a big hit with the girls, and we played in the water for over a half an hour. The water was warm, yet still refreshingly cool in comparison to the sweltering sun shining down on us. After we retuned to the car, wet and sandy with hands full of seashells, H drove us past the Ministries and Embassies of the Omani government. It was strange to see the American embassy housed in a traditional-looking Omani building. We then went to Sultan, a hypermarket –“The best place ever”, according to T – where we bought food for the barbecue we were planning on having that evening for dinner. Upon returning home, Talya and I helped M and maid K prepare for lunch and dinner. Aunt A and cousin N, along with our great-aunt and her daughter, visited us. Our great-aunt and her daughter soon left, but Aunt A and N stayed for dinner. N, Talya, and I helped H, T, and R barbecue the meat and talked. We discovered that N and I shared likes, and talked until all the meat was cooked. 

Aug. 30

Today we spent a leisurely day full of messes made by our host brother and went to the bathhouses with Munira, an AMIDEAST employee. There we sweated so much we would’ve lost five pounds, had it not been for the rice we eat with two out of every three meals. I am trying to minimize my rice intake by leaving a little food left on the plate when I want to be done. In Oman, if you clear all the food off of your plate, the host takes this to mean that you are still hungry and will serve you more food. Omanis seem to take many things to mean that one is not eat sufficient amounts of food- everything from stomach aches to headaches to tiredness all point to malnutrition. After we walked home and I had a very cold shower and changed into cooler clothing, we played and read magazines and books for hours. Later this evening we went to a pharmacy to get migraine medicine for M, and falafel and chicken shuarma for dinner. However, we also stopped at one of the numerous village tailors to get T and R’s uniforms for school and ended up spending hours at a friend’s house and even eating dinner there.  I played with the kids for a little bit after we arrived home, and am now writing this in bed, with my pajamas on. Both the AC and the windows are completely open and the fan is on as well. 

I apologize for the horrible grammar and probably unnecessary detail of this letter- it started out as a blog post and later I realized that its over 2,000-word word-count is too substantial for a blog post. Also, it is a bit boring. (personally, I don't think it's boring at all!-Sunny)

Lots of love all the way from Oman!

Caillean