Month: April 2011

Me sand sledding — it was hard to get going fast, but keeping your feet in the air and trying to bend the sides of the sled up to reduce the surface area helped. It would have been much faster if we had one of those circular discs like in Christmas Vacation.

Calvin working on his carving skills.

I can’t believe this video (below) didn’t come out. I pressed record before the camera focused properly and was so focused on holding on for dear life that I didn’t notice until I was playing it back later. I’m showing it to you anyway so you can see Josh’s awesome driving skills at the end when he accelerates at the bottom of the hill.

You can totally hear the stress in my voice as I’m telling Carter to be quiet so I can focus on being freaked out. We were driving straight down a steep sand hill and it was not my favorite part of the trip.

This video is in focus (yea!) and shows how rough a ride it was in parts.

And finally, Carter and his love affair with camel racing . . . he kept hoping a camel would try and outrun our car each time we passed one.

Easter Sunday in Oman. I’m just going to call this the year of the non-holiday because ever since we left the states back in December I have stumbled through all the special days: Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day (and we were even in America for that one), St. Patrick’s Day, and now Easter week. I’m sure it has to do with hardly knowing what month we’re in since our weather isn’t “seasonally appropriate” to what we’re used to (but I’m not complaining about 90 degrees in April – it’s lovely). Anyway, I forget the holiday is coming and then I remember almost after the fact, “Hey, it’s _____ today!”

That’s the way Easter snuck up on me. It was only when we got to church on Friday morning (virtual Sunday) and it was Good Friday that it really registered that Easter was two days away. And here since Sunday is a normal work day, it was certainly not a “normal” Easter.

We went to our church’s sunrise service at 5:30 am. There were several other congregations meeting on the grounds in different areas/halls at the same time (or even earlier!)

All these seats were filled by the end. There were at least 500 people at the service we attended.

Watching the sunrise – I could have used a few more hours of sleep, especially since this cute thing is getting two new teeth and teething and sleeping don’t exactly go together.

But at least I was functioning better than Bob, who spent most of the service slumped in Josh’s lap and immediately went back to bed when we got home at 7am.

Everyone lining up to take communion at the end of the service. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken communion on Easter morning, since we usually have the somber communion service on Good Friday and then the celebration on Sunday morning.

Church was nice. It was fun to see all the Indian women dressed in their beautiful saris and it was impressive to see how many people came to church before heading to work.

We were not those people. We went home and everyone fell asleep for a few hours. The Chartiers certainly aren’t morning people, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate Easter in Oman.

One of the best parts about our weekend in the desert were the huge sand dunes (as long as we weren’t driving over them) and sandboarding. They had some sleds too, but the real fun was in strapping on a snowboard and hitting the sandy slopes.

I love Calvin’s twitchy dance at the beginning — he was trying to swat away a fly . . .

The worst part was the trek back up the long hill, slipping and sliding the entire way. For each step up the slope, we slid back about 1/2 a step. Between the heat and the steep incline, it was a great workout. I only managed three runs before I had to quit and head to the pool. Too bad the Bedouins didn’t have tow ropes!

Calvin and Carter were both professionals by the end. The sand was really soft so the only pain in crashing was getting the powdery fine grit out of your mouth, nose, and ears.

At the base of the dune looking up at Carter.

getting locked in

Ready. Set. Go!

I had a great video of one of Carter’s perfect runs, except it turned out that I didn’t. I thought I hit “record,” but I missed the button and only started recording after he finished. I don’t think you want to see the video I actually took of the sand and my foot.  Here’s a different one that includes a pretty good wipeout.

And what was Camille doing? Our very sandy beach bunny was cheering us on at the bottom of the hill (and eating a tiny bit of sand.)

Posted on the “classifieds” wall at the grocery store near our house. Interesting, huh? I don’t know why, but every ad includes the person’s race. When we were in Egypt, we were told by several people, “Oh, try and get a [insert race here] maid, because they are cleaner than [insert different race here]. Seriously. There’s a weird sort of accepted racism when it comes to maids. In Egypt there was a hierarchy that extended to pay as well. Egyptian maids were generally paid the most, then Pilipino, Indian/Sri Lankan, and finally Sudanese. I think that was the order. The general idea though was that certain races were known to be cheaper labor. It wasn’t just expat folklore, this info was printed in the Welcome to Egypt booklets that were readily available to expats. One difference here is that you won’t find Omani maids. All household help are what they call TCNs, or “third country nationals.” They live and work here, but aren’t native.    I don’t know which race is considered “better” for maids here, but all these workers sure think listing their race is an asset to finding employment!

Are you still jealous?