Today our staff meeting was all about what we can and cannot do in Oman, and what we should and shouldn't do at school. Here's what I learned today.
1) Women should be respectful of the culture here and have our shoulders and knees covered when in public places. Shorts are ok at the beach.
2) Offensive hand gestures are illegal and if I get caught giving someone the finger, I can be arrested. Same with swearing.
3) If needing customer service some place or wanting to get something done quickly, send a woman to ask, not a man. This is the complete opposite of what I was expecting, but it's apparently true. Women get stuff done in this country!
4) I can get a ticket if my car is dirty.
5) I need a liquor license to purchase alcohol from the store to consume at home, but don't need one to drink at the few bars here.
6) Apparently bands can't have more than 3 members, and live music isn't allowed in hotels that are 3 Stars or less due to some seedy things happening with "dancing girls." I'm not really sure about this one, could just be rumours.
7) Kissing & sex scenes are highly inappropriate and you won't find any such content here. The Wolf of Wall Street was playing in the local cinema and 55 minutes of it was cut out lol. Guess I won't be going to the movies here. The plus side to this censorship is that I don't need to monitor what my students search for on the internet, because the Sultan does it for me!
8) Muslims don't eat pork and find pigs highly offensive. Books about pigs are not recommended reading material. We can discuss that these books exist and discuss differences in cultures and beliefs, but for the sake of being culturally sensitive, we are asked to not read books about pigs. Chicken Little was always my favourite book anyway.
9) Atheism is a concept that Omanis cannot comprehend. Again we can discuss the concept in class, (not something I'm obviously going to be doing in Grade 2) but we as teachers cannot claim that we are atheists or we could get deported. All expats must claim a religion to gain a work visa. Oh and all religions are accepted here by the Omani people.
There were a few other topics that we need to approach in class carefully, but they don't really apply to me and they aren't really for a public blog. If you really want to know, send me a message and I'll tell you the rest.
In general, the Omani people are extremely nice and very forgiving of us more "liberal" Westerners. But Islam is a conservative way of life and as foreigners in their country, we should be culturally sensitive and respectful.
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