Heat rage and Ramadan

As I write this the temperature is 38 degrees. From tomorrow onwards it will reach a maximum of 42 degrees. That’s what the 15-day forecast says. I don’t want to know what it’s going to be like after that. I would also like to make a confession…Hi, I’m Melissa van Deventer and I suffer from heat rage.

You scoff, but heat rage is a thing. Jurie can attest to that. No, he is not a sufferer of heat rage, he suffers from secondary heat rage.

The symptoms, intense anger, lack of appetite and intense anger…wait I’ve said that already. To be fair this heat rage is self-inflicted. So I’ll forgive you if you don’t feel sorry for me. Often we go walking in the park in Muscat, or should I rather say poke-walking. We go quite early, 9 am because that’s when the park opens. At that time the temperature is already 33 degrees. We walk from 9 am to 11 am. 

So here are the variables:

          1.     Intense heat

          2.  Slow internet

         3.   Intense heat

         4.   Old, slow phones  

         5.    2 hours

I think it must be quite comical for the people that work at the park. Watching us keep to the shadows and also the fact that we are the only 2 people walking around in the park. Other people are usually sitting in the shade, enjoying an ice cold beverage. After we walk around, I am so sweaty that my clothes stick to my body and my face is bright red. Jurie’s face is a slight shade of pink. Why am I so red? It must be another symptom of heat rage.

Anyway, enough about the heat let’s talk about the next thing…Ramadan.

According to the internet: “Ramadan is the 9^th month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed through a month of fasting.”  To be completely honest, I am not entirely sure what Ramadan is all about but I am sure we are going to find out.

How is this going to affect us as teachers though? From what I have heard...
 1.       Students are tired and grumpy because they are hungry.

       2.    Classes are shortened to cater to our students' attention spans.

       3.    We must get through the same amount of content even though these classes are shortened. 

       4.    We are not allowed to drink water and eat in public.  
       5.   We are not allowed to play loud music

It also gets hotter, this doesn’t have anything to do with Ramadan but think about the heat, plus students not eating or drinking water. Teachers have told us about students fainting in class.

I’m just worried about the not drinking water part. I am sure you can imagine while teaching, teacher’s need to drink water. We use our voices a lot, paired with the blasting ACs that means our throats will get seriously dry!

So stay tuned for after the 27^th of May…because then I’m going to tell you all about Ramadan. 

The art of being an adult.

Adulting is hard! I mean I have to constantly think about what I do and say and deal with the resulting consequences.  Just lately, I have been scrutinizing every decision made or we are in the process of making.

First of all, who do I want to teach?

We have been teaching adults in college for a while now and I like it but when I look at college students and their behavior I think to myself…NO! You shouldn’t be behaving this way. You are an adult, I might be an adultier, adult than you are but you should not be behaving like you are in grade7.

“Teacher, he hit me.”

Seriously??? How old are you? 

We wanted to teach High school students but after teaching at a high school I doubt that is something I am cut out for.

Perhaps senior primary. I know the kids will be kids and I am ok with that. At least that is something I expect from the beginning. 

Decision number 2, where do I want to live?

Curse my complicated personality! I like to travel, yet I hate change. How is that even possible?!

I want my own house when I say that I don’t mean that I want to buy a house. Yes, we have rented flats and they were ours for a period of time but I want to decorate my flat with things I have accumulated over the years.

When Jurie and I got married, I didn’t have a Hope Chest because we lived in Korea and I knew it wasn’t permanent. So why invest time in decorating your place if you are only going to leave it in the future? 

I want to settle down but I also want to travel. UGH!

And lastly, do I want to have children?

YES	NO
I don’t want my time to run out	I don’t like babies
I don’t want the van Deventer name to end	I like my own time
It seems like the natural progression	I don’t like noise
	I’m terrified of the responsibility

When I look at those reasons I feel like an idiot. Those reasons seem dumb. Not once did I say I love children or I think they’re great. I just don’t want time to run out and for me to think, at the age of, 45. “I want children.”  I don’t want to regret my decision when I am older, that’s my biggest fear.

So, those are the decisions that we are trying to make at the moment. Any advice from adultier, adults would be greatly appreciated. 

Driving to the UAE

If you ever consider driving to the UAE you need the following:

Your passport

A visa (if you are South African)

Travel insurance

Car insurance

Up-to-date car registration

The latter we didn't have, we found out from the car people that we were driving around with an expired registration (something they are supposed to let us know about before it happens!) In any case the car people said that they would give us a different car for our UAE trip and that on our way there we needed to stop by and pick up the car (something Jurie wasn't happy about because he just wanted to drive straight home from the UAE and not have to stop in Seeb)

That's beside the point. We are going to tell you the story of how we left the Oman border two times without getting our passports stamped.

We received a location pin from Chris and Tash and input it into the GPS. We followed said GPS 

co-ordinates, because it would take us to the border right?

Well, it did take us to the border but this border was no longer in use. No one was there, we drove right through the open boom gates, into no man's land and right to the backside of what must have been the UAE border.

In retrospect perhaps we should have known something was up with the open boom gates and also the fact that we were traveling on a gravel road.

Melissa: I think I saw a police station nearby why don't we ask them.

Jurie asked them and it turns out that border was closed (well then they should have a sign or a closed gate but there's no use in complaining about these types of things)

Ok, plan B. Type Hatta border into the GPS and go to the other border crossing.

Yet again when we arrived there were no signs and we drove right through the border into No man's land (at least this time it was tarred road) and right up to the UAE border crossing.

Jurie: We have to get an exit stamp before we can go into the UAE.

Melissa: You'd think someone would stop us somewhere along the line!

So we drive back to the Oman border crossing and are stopped by the customs officers.

Jurie: We want to go to the UAE but we didn't get our stamp.

Officer: Go back 7km to building.

He didn't check our car, he just took our word for it that we wanted to go to the UAE. We think this must have happened before.

Anyway, we go back to the window and get our exit stamp and drive all the way back to the UAE border crossing.

Seriously Oman, where are your signs???? 

We stayed with Tash and Chris in RAK (Ras Al Khaimah)

They stay in a lovely flat, close to the beach and have an awesome swimming pool.

On the first night, we spent time with Chris, Tash, Beth, Judith (the people we knew from Woosong) it was great fun.

Thursday we drove to Dubai.

The traffic in Dubai is insane. We witnessed an accident, it was only a fender bender but still. People drive right on your butt at crazy speeds. Dubai is a really impressive city! There is a lot of construction going on but it was great seeing all the buildings you see in movies like the Burj Khalifa

Thursday evening we were treated to a night out at the Hilton. Had loads of drinks (Tash really enjoyed herself- Hee hee)

Then Friday we just chilled and had a braai on the beach for supper.

We really had a great time. A long drive but totally worth it to see our lovely friends.

Burj Khalifa 

View from Chris & Tash's place 

A weekend of life lessons

Matrah Souq

This past weekend we decided to see something cultural and visit Matrah Souq (pronounced sook), which is an open air market. We decided to go in the afternoon, a silly thing to do.

The thing is everything shuts down around midday for prayer. We arrived and everything was closed. UGH! Ok, we’ll go watch Beauty and the Beast now and then we’ll go to the Souq tomorrow (Saturday).

Side note, we were Poke-walking before this and the little shops in the park closed. We finished our water and were both really thirsty. We thought we’d buy some water by the souq but alas, everything was closed.

Jurie: Don’t worry we’ll get something by the movies.

It’s a 10-minute drive to the movies and my mouth felt like the desert I could see outside!

At the movies, we quickly bought our tickets and didn’t buy popcorn (priorities!!) but we bought slushies.

Here comes problem number 2, it's ice and not liquid. Here I was sitting in the cinema sucking through a straw that would not give me anything. Finally, in frustration, I opened the top of the cup and shovelled the ice into my mouth using the straw.

So two lessons were learnt that day…

      1)      Always carry an extra bottle of water with you.

      2)      While slushies are awesome movie beverages, don’t buy it if you are dying of thirst.

Beauty and the Beast.

Oh wow! What a fantastic movie. Team van D give this movie five stars *****.  I don’t like to advertise this to just anyone but under this ice cold exterior beats the heart of a softy. I’m not a sentimental person but this movie just brought back so many childhood memories and I found my eyes leaking once or twice. So do yourself a favour and watch this movie.

The Souq again

So we looked up the times that the souq opens (which we should have done the day before) and found it opened at 7am – 11am then from 5pm -11pm. So we went at 8:30am to be on the safe side. Yet again everything was closed. What the hell google?! Some of the shops were opening but then we found a sign that said the Souq opens not at 7am but at 8am! Seriously?! But I guess that would basically explain this place, information is subjective. But still the sign said 8am and it was past that time and only 5 shops were opening. We did find a souvenir place and bought a few things. We also have some nice pictures of the promenade near the market.

Lessons learnt that day

1     1 )      Have patience because you won’t get all the information you need at once but it bits.

2     2)      Don't take everything too seriously and just go with the flow.

Changing plans

We had a great weekend! We went diving on Friday and then swimming on Saturday. But that wasn’t our original plan. I like having a plan before I do things. I like things to be just so…

These were the weekend plans.

Friday

Arrive in Muscat

Play Pokemon in the park

Eat lunch 

Check into the hotel

Relax and swim

Eat supper 

Anyone who knows me knows that I plan my life around my meals.

Saturday

Have breakfast

Go to the dive centre

2 Dives

Go back to Ibra

That was the plan but then the unexpected happened. The park was rented out for a private function. We weren’t allowed in.

Jurie: Why don’t we go watch a movie?

I check my phone for movie times.

Me: Movies only start at 2 pm

So we can’t go into the main part of the park where most of the Pokemon/Pokestops are. We can’t go to movies and we can’t check into the hotel. We stare at each other.

Me: Why don’t we cancel the 2 dives for tomorrow? Then do an afternoon dive today, we can come to the park tomorrow and do our Pokewalk.

Jurie phones the people and Plan B is a go.

New schedule aka Plan B

Friday

Short Pokewalk

Eat lunch

Check into the hotel

Dive

Swim

Eat supper

Saturday

Eat Breakfast

Go buy alcohol (Because it’s the start of a new month and we can)

Pokewalk

Swim

Go back to Ibra

I know the new plan was excellent, we thoroughly enjoyed our weekend but having to suddenly change plans causes me all sorts of anxiety.

On the plus side, we saw some camels while driving back to Ibra and we saw a father turn around and shout at his children in the car in front of us. It was quite comical. We tried to imagine what he was saying to his children.

Me: That’s enough! I’m going to stop this car and you’re going to walk home!

Jurie: We’re in a desert, I don’t think they can do stuff like that here. I think they would get sun stroke just standing outside for a minute.

Another thing I’m sure you are all going to get annoyed with is us telling you how hot it is here. But try and imagine it from our perspective. I just had a shower and had the water on cold but it came out scalding hot because the tank on our roof is in the sun all day! I seldom get hot. I never complain about the heat, I thrive in it. But this heat is beyond anything I have ever felt and it’s only going to get hotter. So Jurie usually knows, if I complain about the heat then it’s the depths of Mordor HOT! Just like I know when Jurie complains about the cold then it’s beyond the wall, COLD!

(If you don’t get the weather pop-culture references then you can’t be my friends anymore)

·         PS. Jurie tells me I can’t go disowning friends since I don’t have many of them to start off with. Mordor is a Lord of the Rings reference and beyond the wall is a Game of Thrones reference. 

Down the rabbit hole

A lot of the time I am very quiet. I have a lot on my mind, but I don’t vocalise it.

 I battle to make friends because of it. I know shocking…I’m so personable and approachable. I don’t think my RBF or RMF, resting Mel face (as Chris likes to call it) helps me much either.  

I have noticed that we haven’t made a lot of friends here yet. Sure people are nice and friendly, but there’s not much of a “hanging out” culture…or other people are hanging out and we don’t know about it.

Well…I have been thinking…dangerous business I know.

Perhaps if I share some of my thoughts in a comfortable setting with friends and family I will get used to it and start sharing with other people…UGH, other people…see what I mean?!

So I have compiled a bunch of thoughts I have had while in Oman. I have even got some photos to go with my thoughts.

1.    Who would buy a car this colour? Gross (Seems like loads of people have cars this colour) Hmmm…Do they buy this car to be camouflaged in the dunes? Oh, I’ve got it! They don’t want to wash their cars so much, the colour disguises the dirt…smart.

2.    My students often do this to me. “Teacher one minute, one minute.” They hold their hand out like that…so if this is one-minute…then what is two minutes?

3.    I often see this bus outside our flat. For some reason it makes me think of Resident Evil. I wonder if the people that take the bus to work pretend that they are living in a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested wasteland. Which is quite appropriate if you can’t stand your job! And if you are a teacher because sometimes it feels like the students are "eating" your brain. 

4.    These are our curtains! I’ve become the box lady in the story my grandmother used to tell me as a child.

I don’t suppose I should share these thoughts with my colleagues. They might think I’m “cray” (as Jurie likes to say)

But I’m glad I got to share with all of you because even though you might think I’m “cray” you are stuck with me. And if you think of leaving me…I’ll find you.

Out and about

Wadi Bani Khalid

On Friday we drove about 2 hours to get to Wadi Bani Khalid. A wadi is a river. Not all Wadis flow and some dry up but apparently the water flows underground???? And then when the rains come (around May) they fill up again.

Well, to swimWadi Bani Khalid flows year round and people go there to swim. We arrived and it truly looked like an Oasis. We had a delicious lunch with our colleagues and then swimming. Jurie and I looked for the deeper area to swim but our colleague took us first to a shallow area. We saw fishies swimming around and we splish splashed. When we said we wanted to go to the deeper area we were asked if we could swim because the area we wanted to go to was 10ft deep. We assured our colleagues that we could swim and off Jurie and I trekked on our own. We didn't swim at the deep area because while we splish, splashed in the shallow area some other brave souls went swimming there.

I didn't feel comfortable swimming there because I noticed that everyone swimming were males. I know I'm not usually the type to shy away from stuff like that but here I get a weird vibe and so we walked back to our picnic site. We sat around until sunset and then went off home. We stopped for some tea with cinnamon in it, yum yum!

Movies in Muscat

On Saturday, we went to the movies. We both really wanted to see Logan. We set off to Muscat early in the morning, made it in record time and decided to take a quick walk around the park for Pokemon hunting. The cinema is about 6 minutes away from the park. We got to the shopping centre, got our tickets and looked around at the many choices of snacks. You can get Pepsi, Fanta and Mountain Dew as slushies!!!! Also, we could choose our flavour of popcorn, salt, caramel or chilli cheese and you can even order nachos. Going to the movies in Muscat is an expensive affair but still, the seats were super comfortable and I enjoyed the movie, Jurie not so much.  We then went shopping afterwards and finally stopped off at the park on the way home.

All in all, the weekend was quite a good one!