khubz Oman and dirty dishes

I spent the last week in an area outside of Nizwa. Nizwa is one of Oman's larger cities, and in 2020 is set to be the cultural capital of the Middle East. The girl's were placed in host families and the boys, considering Nizwa and its surrounding area is more conservative than Muscat, stayed with male students studying in Universities in Nizwa. I was placed with a wonderful family. I became very good friends with the 15 year old daughter, and had a wonderful time playing football and basketball with the three little boys. I shared a room with the three boys, the 15 year old girl and 20 year old who is married to one of the older sons (none of whom I ever met). I was strongly encouraged by the mother to wear a scarf during the entire week, and I enjoyed helping out with household chores which included washing the dishes. Cooking for the entire family requires the largest pots I've ever seen. They do not fit in the sink - it took all week for me to perfect my method. I also got to help feed the goats, shew away the army of cats outside the kitchen door as we cooked on the floor, and helped prepare Khubz Oman. Khubz Oman was probably one of my favorite parts of the Nizwa experience. It is the thinnest bread I've ever seen. Making it requires grabbing an entire handful of dough and slapping it onto the hot surfaced contraption we had set up on the floor of the kitchen. After slapping the pan about 10 times, you are left with the residue and then you CAREFULLY peel it off the pan, drizzle it with oil and then hallas, youre done. I began to get worried about my host mother's hand getting burned in the process, and around the same time I was wondering about the broken tape floating in the water she was using. Just then she said "Ow!" for the last time, grabbed the broken tape and used a new method for making the khubz that resembled making a crepe - only with a broken tape. I hope this is not the last time that I witness a broken tape being used as a cooking utensil.
Unlike other girls in my program, I got to leave the house. This was a big deal. My family took me to another family member's house, where an engagement lunch was celebrating three new brides (aroose) in the family. The purpose of the lunch was to get to know the new girls and welcome them into the family. This took me almost the entire afternoon to understand. It was a wonderful chance to practice my Arabic, considering a very few people speak English. The best part of the afternoon was when I described my friends and family in America ALL IN ARABIC! and they all understood and said, "Meshallalah! you know a lot! in sha allah, Arabic will be very easy for you." This was nice to hear, despite the fact that I knew that what I had just said was not really that impressive. They had very low expectations. I made friends with many of the women and I had a great time looking at the bride's wedding pictures.
During our tour of Nizwa Tech University I met an incredible student there. She was great to talk to and it was interesting hearing her perspective on men, work, marriage and women's roles.
Our week in Nizwa ended with a tour of Jabel Shams and Jabel Akhdar (two mountains). They were beautiful. We got to look over the sides of many cliffs and walk through a few wadies and went through the first cave tour in the gulf region. It was a fun week, but I missed my Muscat host family and was warmly welcomed by them when I returned. I spent that evening getting caught up with my host mom on family gossip and shared my experience in Nizwa with her and listened to rap songs with my host dad - back to the regular routine.