By Brett Beesom (CLS Oman '11)
Sitting
out on a rooftop in the night, I purvey the city below me, Batman-like in my
silent guardianship. Soot grey clouds smother the moon tonight, shrouding the
glory of her ethereal rays; behind me, the smooth hum of the air conditioning
unit chugs along, providing an additional wave of heat in the cooling Omani
sauna of daytime. I watch as a white dishdasha, topped off with his customary
kuma, strides along on his cell phone far below me. It’s eleven o clock, and
Muscat has quieted down for the day… not quite done, though, a few businesses
yet stir, like the last stretches of a young kitten settling down to sleep.
I look
to my left; I see rooftops clustered close together, huddling towards the
inviting promise of a cool coast and inviting Arabian Sea, which nonetheless
seeks refuge from the eye under a cloak of dark wool. In Oman, even the
notoriously fickle Lady of the Deep shelters under the anonymous modesty of an
abaya.
I look
to my right; the mountains, too, remain hidden from the eye, though their cloak
is not yet so dark as to hide all memory, leaving me to revel in reminisced
images of a tucked away Omani town, not far away and yet secluded by a wave of
hazy heat and sand. Its name, Nakhl, is belied by the numerous palms which line
our way,[1]
and yet its fronds conceal more wonders beneath them. We drive a bit further,
rocked along the not quite even roads, until our trip’s path is interrupted by
an impossibly large mass of sandstone looming above us. We have arrived; it is
the fort, built hundreds of years ago by the sweat and ingenuity of a desert
people come to settle. Dwarfed by the jagged mounds of rock face framing the
landscape and limiting the mind’s eye, the fort nonetheless stands proud,
defiant.
We
enter; along the wall hang a rusty sword and khanjar, the bent Omani knife
hailing from days of sailing and pirates. Snuggled in the corner, forgotten
amidst all the tools of violence and glory, lies a pottery tea set, its orange
blaze baked beneath the watchful eyes gone long ago. The steps below, crossed
by countless pairs of dusty sandaled feet, seem almost to play with one and
invite him to dare step into an era from ages past. Inside, the masculine,
strong lines of the fort are softened in their closet niches of rooms: “Girls
Room”, one reads. “Date store,” another. Within these checkpoints away from the
sun’s ever watchful glare, Moroccan carpets soften your step; colorful pillows
in bright splashes of color coat the sides of the walls. In the Girls Room, a
rickety bed, its bedclothes browned and tired by uncounted years, nonetheless
provides an image of the bright laughter and life that once decorated this
room… in the silence of an Omani day, those echoes seem almost to come alive
once more.
I look
out below me. I am atop the tower, all of Nakhl laid out below me like a picnic
blanket on an idyllic summer’s day. The date palms lay out, ordered and neat,
plotted in precise rows of tens and twenties, watched over by their mountainous
counterparts above. To my right, the town seems almost to disappear as the turquoise
shell of the sky demands my attention, its unrelenting color capturing the
mind’s eye in a contrast of sand and bright, heat and expanse. I look at all
this, take it in. This, I think, is real. Harsh, uncompromising, beautiful.
This is Oman.
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