This is rumour control. Here are the facts.
An important step in the battle against the intellectual supremacy of the Nerds has been made. It is expected that we shall soon have proof that we are at least as smart as Nerds.
(happy dance, awesomesauce etc)
Hello everybody! It has been quiet here because I have started, again, on the papers I had promised to my former employer. Prompted by the not-insignificant repair Bill for Dieter, I will stick with my renewed efforts this time.
So the last few weeks have seen me hunched over my laptop, transforming data sets and writing scripts that should ease the planned analysis. Writing those scripts is particularly challenging when dealing with data you do not really understand. In that case you have a compound problem: You are trying to find the correct lines of code for commands that may not even be appropriate. It is a proper errror message party. And that is a challenge the OCD-centre in my brain finds hard to resist. There is also the added motivation that all information out there is written by experts for experts. It is very succinct and indicates little tolerance for smalltimers like me. I won’t be beaten by nerds. I won’t.*
But at least I was more or less able to explain this, in Arabic, to our dear teacher who was dissappointed I had not studied at all. This softened the blow slightly.
In the absence of a real story I shall tell a paradoxical one from the garden. You know how cacti have spines and that those babies can sting. You also probably know that cacti love the sun. Some species, however, grow in places like the Andes where the sun’s rays can be especially harsh. These cacti grow very soft, wool-like spines to protect themselves from UV-radiation and prevent sunburn.
If you were, say, a bird building a nest you might consider that wool good building material. ACS and I therefore now occasionally run out of the house to protect our cactus from being ravaged and plucked bare by a tiny little sun bird.
* I might.
It is getting hot again, with the quicksilver reaching 40 degrees C regularly. So I pretty much confine myself to lying under the aircon, but hey: At least I am not our cats who have to work really hard to find the next relatively cool spot to lie down at and pant.
On the other hand I do have a nasty bacterial infection which decreases the efficacy of the aircon somewhat. (That is a reference to fever.) Only somewhat, though, because only my hand is infected. (And I do not actually have fever. I was exaggerating.) One of our Omani friends had a much cooler explanation in mind: “Is that a snake bite?” Luckily, I seem to have the bacterial invaders beaten. The swelling is going down, the pain is residing as are other, less pleasant symptoms of infection. So I get to not visit a doctor just a little bit longer.
No such luck for Dieter, though, who was leaking oil. I was okay with that because, you know, oil is cheap here. But when the warning light for the coolant came on, I decided to bring him to the shop. Cue big repair bill. Our neighbour had already predicted this, which made him a bit of a seer in my mind. Now, however, he is saying that I bought a lemon that will need many more repairs. I really hope he is wrong about that, but if not he has offered to introduce me to a much cheaper non-affiliated repair expert for German luxury brands. Had we only had that conversation five days earlier …
In this region, with a mere 5 satellite dishes on our roof pointed at not a single European satellite (yes, I could get that looked at) ACS and I are a little short of the mind-numbing diversions provided by normal tv. On the other hand, if we want to get our Qur’an groove on we are pretty much set. But that rarely happens. So when someone last year recommended a data storage website that incidentally makes it easy for you to anonymously grab tv-shows off the Interwebz, we were on it like flies on cake.
Jump forward to about three weeks back, when Star Trek deprivation set in. ACS is a big fan and she has brought me to the dark side as well. I started acquiring fairly high-quality copies of the series DVDs. You can imagine that this has led to very heavy data traffic into our house. Well, it was noticed somewhere, because a few days back suddenly the data storage website was deemed to be against the norms and customs of the Sultanate. Access denied.
Now I happen to know that most people here think that ‘copyright’ is their right to have a copy too. So I figured it was probably just some overzealous automated trigger that had been activated, rather than some spy noticing an suspicious change in our internet use. I the took the plunge and filled out the form to have sites unblocked. Since upon completion of the form I received an error message, I did not expect any result.
Today I tried it for fun – and my appeal has worked! Now I am secretly hoping that it was in fact a spy who blocked the site and that he/she was then forced to watch hours and hours of a rather silly sci-fi show to make sure we were not downloading immoral films. I just hope they do not try playing that stuff backwards…
Just a brief update for all you arachnid-lovers out there. The other day, the yellow-striped spider and her web had disappeared. There was some new webbing, with some brown spots in it and I bent the branch to take a closer look.
“Hmmm. Those look like eggs. No, can’t be. This species guards the eggs until they hatch.” At which point the screaming-panic-center in my brain managed to attract the attention of my eyes, which swivelled to a leaf very close to my head as well as my hand. Behind said leaf were eight suspicious-looking twigs. I am very proud that I managed to maintain my cool and not scream like a girl. After this week’s rain, however, she really is gone.
Rain, I hear you say? Yes, and quite a bit of it. We went to check out Wadi alKhoud the day after and it was a proper river. Hundreds of people, some of which tried to cross the river in their offroaders. Today I heard a first-hand account of one lucky driver who got stuck in the middle of the river. He was lucky, because they managed to get him and his family to safety before the water suddenly swelled and swept his car away. The same storm severely damaged a village and killed six people near JAlan (bani abu Hassan). Water is like all things: good only in moderation. But more may be underway, apparently.
Last Wednesday, which is the day we meet with our German-Arabic tandem partner to speak in each others’ language (often unsuccesfully), our Omani friend decided to mix things up a little. Instead of him visiting our house and us going to his, he took us to his brother’s school. His brother is the head master of a private school and he requires his teachers to be present on Wednesday, even though they have no pupils then. Since the school teaches pre-schoolers and up, up to age 8 (I think), our friend thought it would be a perfect opportunity to amuse bored teachers and actually get us to learn something that will help us master the Arabic language.
While we were waiting, we tried to decipher the writings on the wall. One started with “a-l-l-h-m” and as I tried to fit in the right vowels, our friend became increasingly uncomfortable until he interrupted me. ‘Try this,” he said, placing his hand over the ‘m’. Obviously, that left me with a-l-l-h and “Allehum” indicates to God that you are speaking to him directly. At this point, I broke out in a cold sweat.
The reason is that the week before I tried my best to describe my parents’ house. Upstairs there are two bathrooms, one of which is small. This, at least, is what I was going for, but since I did not know how to say ‘one of which’ I decided on “… two bathrooms, the one is small”. Now, in retrospect I could have suspected that ‘the one’ could also be written as ‘The One’ and that would have indicated that I was about to make a significant mistake. Since I had not considered capitals, however, I ended up saying: “Upstairs are two bathrooms, God is small.”
So yeah, mangling a-l-l-h-m made me uncomfortable. I will try to stay away from words with a-l-l-h or ‘the one’ the next few times we meet with our friend. I may have pushed him to the edge already. On the other hand, I will now never forget how to say ‘one of which’.
****
This started out as the story of us meeting, perhaps, our new Arabic teacher. But this story is not as funny as the one above, so I will just finish it – but for future reference only. Read on at your own risk.
We were led into the head masters’ office – you know, never before in my life had I seen the inside of one of those. I was that well-behaved – where we, our friend, the headmaster and two giggling Egyptian teachers tried to make sense of the situation. This took some time, as our friend had somewhat forced the school visit on us and we had not really thought about our expectations. We definitely did not impress the head master, who at some point quipped that maybe we could do some chores in the school and then we’d be speaking Arabic in no time. But his general demeanor left me with the impression that he did not think much of our future as conversationalists in Arabic.
Once he left and soon after our friend had left as well, the Egyptian teacher loosened up and gave us a childrens’ story to read. This took a lot of effort, because words look different when they are conjugated and we just do not know whether we are looking at conjugations or completely new words. For instance, “he sits/is sitting” is “y-j-l-s”. “He will sit” is “s-y-j-l-s” and “then he will sit” is “f-s-y-j-l-s”. Compared to that, a-l-l-h-m should have been easy.
I can see how practice will enable us to recognise such structures quickly but for now … Luckily the Egyptian teacher could not believe she was teaching Arabic to two Europeans, doctors no less, and she remained enthousiastic throughout the whole thing: “When I tell her, my mother will simply not believe this!”
I have contacts. Contacts are what make the world go round over here and well, … I gots ‘em. Not to brag, but I know people that work for the Big Man himself. (The Big Man being His Majesty, of course.) Of course, they are one or two rungs (at most, they assure me) below him, but still. My good friend, ‘Aboot-eh’, showed us around the construction site of what will be the Oman Botanic Garden.
It is a thing of beauty. Seriously, I might almost recommend waiting a few years if you intend to visit us only once, just so that you may see this place. If you already were here … well, you’ll have to come back. Measuring several square kilometers, most of it will remain natural and undisturbed by humans. Or their goats. I confronted Aboot-eh with a report that OBG forced people to field their cattle elsewhere, as I felt this was a bad example of combining the environment and economics. I still think that, but by golly does the absence of goats-that-eat-everything make a difference to what a stony desert looks like. Plants were absolutely everywhere and even more uncommon was that they all had leaves!
So it is just magical. OBG will have seven ‘biomes’ in all, 5 of which are outside that recreate a sandy desert, a gravel desert, a rocky desert, a wadi and a salty floodplain. Each biome is filled with the plants that could occur there all close together, so that the biomes look more like a garden than a desert. Then there will be two indoor biomes, one of which shows off Oman’s mountain agriculture (pomegranates etc) and one which will recreate all three seasons of the Dhofar region. If that sounds confusing, there are three rooms containing all plants that will be kept in different phases of the annual cycle. This is expected to be the star of the show. We saw only concrete shells and one working outdoor biome, but I am convinced it will become a major highlight.
The idea is to offer short-stay tourists, as well as Omanis, an opportunity to see all of Oman in just one place. Of course, you will miss the grandeur and car sickness of actually driving through the mountains, but I suspect this way might be better for many. I got a sense that OBG was planned also to impress upon Omanis that their country is beautiful and that even those gravelly plains harbour some incredible-looking life – and should be treated accordingly. Already it is starting to attract an abundance of insects, including a huge, yellow-spotted beetle that was apparently new to the site. We got the scoop, yay! The nurseries were unfortunately under threat from a huge weevil, so there were signs everywhere saying: ‘If you see this weevil, do not be hesitated to kill it.’ Our personal garden has many as well, so it’s time to deploy some PifPaf. Anyway, the OBG site will also contain a genetic database and appartments for guest researchers. So hopes are definitely high and I wish them all the best.
Our real reason for visiting, however, was to get our hands on some indigenous flora. All the nurseries here sell only exotic species and sadly they want lots of water and do not necessarily like the sun much. So to make our garden more Middle-Eastern-summer-proof, ACS and I thought we’d pay a visit. Turns out that every one of their 110,000 plants (!) is numbered and labelled so we could not just pick some up and leave. Someone would notice. Which was a real shame, because Oman harbours some very strange-looking plants. Mostly succulents, of course, but one was square, another had gigantic, fleshy flowers, yet another had tiny flowers that stank really bad from as much as a metre away and then of course, there was the Dhofar Aloe. Green with a blue hue, soft red flowers … just beautiful.
I really need to talk to Aboot-eh again about another, more productive visit.
This is a picture-heavy post, but I think it should be ok data-wise. The contents of this post, however, may shock some of you. Particularly those with a squeemish disposition towards … arachnids.
Let’s start off slow. Many a month ago I made a picture of this flower and I cannot for the life of me recall if I already posted it. This flower is pretty, but has the unfortunate smell of dead-mouse-behind-the-dishwasher. Oddly fascinating, however, if you’re either a fly or me. I just could not stop sniffing that baby: “Does it really smell like dead mouse?”
Stinky Flower
Then I give you our Elaeophorbia (I think, this one was extremely difficult to identify using the Interwebz) in full bloom! Everything grows here, but this one really took to it and started sprouting red pimples within one or two weeks of planting. At first we were worried, but then these cute flowers appeared.
Elaeophorbia grandifolia
If you don’t like spiders, this is the point where this post becomes ugly. I am going to ease you into it, but you have been warned. Let’s start with our huge sunflower, in full bloom, visited by lots and lots of bees. (Disclaimer: This picture is from a while back as well and the flower in question has attracted the attention of a rogue parakeet/parrot and is brutally savaged for seeds every morning – it does not look quite as pretty nowadays.)
Sunflowers attract bees
And while we are on the topic of sunflowers, here is another species with smaller flowers, but more of them. Spot the crab spider, if you can. (You can, I did some Photoshop.)
Crab spider
Circle-jerk of life
And then this morning my usually relaxed watering-the-flowers-ritual got a nasty jolt from this lady. She is from the genus Argiope and is, lucky for her, mostly harmless. Lucky for her, because her being killed by me was only allowed by ACS if Argiope was poisonous. Since she is not, I will now jump at every minor brush against my skin when I am in the garden. Soon they will have overrun the place, I am sure of it …
Argiope
Argiope
Argiope
Scary, wasn’t it? Here are some nice relaxing pictures of our newly acquired Desert Roses to soothe your frayed nerves.
Desert Rose
Desert Rose
In our Arabic class, we just learned how to find the root of any word. The root is typically three letters, armed with which you can use an Arabic dictionary, for instance, or make related words. But flicking through a dictionary, you soon find that some meanings from the same root are a bit far-fetched.
There is one, however, that I think hits the mark perfectly. The root for ‘being fortunate’ is s-A-d. Your hypothetical friend, Saeed, then, is a fortunate person. He shares his name with ‘sAdan’ – monkey – and ‘sAdaneh’ – nipple.
It then gets weird again if you add ‘door’ to ‘nipple’ to make ‘doorknob’, but s-A-d is for now my favourite Arabic word.
This gallery contains 20 photos.
I was just playing around with this site, unsuccessfully trying to get the images for the weather widget to work. Then I decided to get the Musandam pictures ready. Boy, was I in for a surprise. I knew I had … Continue reading
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