Home in Oman

Abdul Hakim drove like gas was super cheap, the roads were paper smooth, and traffic almost non-existent. Granted, all of that was true in Oman, plus his engine roared with competency when he stepped on the pedal and at about 25 years old, his prefrontal cortex wasn’t quite online yet. But he had steady hands, a shy yet exuberant smile, and was eager to show me the village where he grew up. I liked him immediately.

The paths were dry gravel but his dishdasha white robe stayed immaculate as we ascended between the crumbling houses where he played as a child. Made of mud, woven grass mats, and a few wooden beams, the houses began to fall apart as soon as their occupants moved away. Each of the country’s rare rains dissolve them a little more, washing away down the slope.

“These towns were difficult to live in now, no roads, old systems, so people moved to modern homes over there,” he gestured to a line of solid but unremarkable houses standing in the strong sun. “Some tried to update here, but…it is difficult.” His hand waved at a few dusty internet cables pinned against the wall of a narrow alley, no data flowing there. Below them however, the ancient system of the falaj, or Al Aflaj, was still flowing with crisp clear water in tidy little canals. Just not enough to support a modern town in a booming country.

One very different rooftop offered a contrasting suggestion. Recently renovated, with artisan carved tables and clean white coffee cups bearing Italian branding, the boutique hotel served its guests breakfast in the morning breeze. We took a nearby table for a cup of coffee. Most coffee in Oman is cheap instant mud that tastes burned underneath the sweetness of condensed milk, but these were proper lattes. I asked Hakim if he missed living here.

“Not really,” he said with a shy smile. “But I like to visit.” I might pine for whatever “traditional” and “authentic” mean, but it’s hard to tell someone they can’t have internet or TV shows just so you can take a break from them. But as we talked, he spoke of knowing all his old neighbors, families knit into community.

“Do you know your neighbors now?” I asked him.

“Not really,” he admitted. “Ready to go?”

The engine roared even louder as we raced up the mountainside of Jebel Akhdar, “the Green Mountain.” Hakim dropped me off to walk down through the terraced fields and villages, having pointed out the third one as where he would meet me with the car. Time was not made of minutes as I walked old paths past apricot and pomegranate trees, under bowers where soon the roses would bloom, slathering their lush fragrance on the mountain breezes. Oman is a country with lots of dry rocks, and the irrigated terraces up here felt like a secret shared by the centuries.

Hakim’s genuine grin was shining when he met me on the other side. In Oman I found a beautiful example of the hospitality that grows in Arabia, and he was a friend already. We had driven past the new town where most of the people from these villages lived now. “With the terraces, some are still here, mostly just to come work, but pretty much everybody moved up there.”

Another short roaring drive to one more wadi, or canyon, where we walked along ancient pathways to two more abandoned villages. All were striking in their angles and the dusty feel of lives receding into the past. Laughter carried away by wind unopposed. It is presumptuous to feel nostalgia for someone else’s life, but I couldn’t prevent a certain melancholy from sneaking between my heartbeats as I stood in collapsing living room after bedroom after kitchen.

I’ve spent most of the past 15 years on the road, and more often than not “I’m heading home” means a hotel where I’ll stay for a day and a half, so the concept of “home” is an abstract one for me, but how did these people feel as the last few packed up? Did they look at the holes in neighboring houses and feel a menace? Resignation? All the daily needs would have had to be brought in by hand or donkey, so I can’t blame them for moving, but did they wonder what their grandfathers would have said to see them leave? Did they consider the questions their own grandkids would never know to ask?

Emotion is human. Humanity may be emotion. All of them combine to form our sapien story, and in the abandoned villages of Oman I felt our shared earthling experience as the timeline stretches on. I’m in the process of shopping for an apartment in the Netherlands, and within every wall I see the shadow of the disintegrating mud walls of Jebel Akhdar. It makes me pay more attention to my feeling of Home. Constancy may be an illusion, and Oman has reminded me to be grateful for however much continuity of refuge I can find and build. And that I should get to know my neighbors.