My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During The War of Terror, By Matthew D Heines,
Trafford, Canada, 559 pages, INR 325, $32.76
Dr Terry O'Brien
What happens when an American shows up alone in Arabia in the middle of The War on Terror? Constant fear, safety worry, ethnic profiling, cross-cultural clashes and what not. Right? Wrong.
The answer, surprisingly, is laughter, romance and high adventure in the Sultanate of Oman. And for Matthew D Heines - a former American paratrooper - it is more than just a cultural shock as he goes on a thrilling ride through the heart of the Arab culture as a teacher, adventurer and all-around wise-cracker.
For him, the Saudi Arabian peninsula resembles a sadistic Christmas stocking - On the right, or eastern side of the stocking is a spike pointing at the softy underbelly of Iran... Half of the spike, the toe and half of the thick sole of the Christmas stocking is the Sultanate of Oman.
In the second of a three-book series, My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During The War of Terror Heines breathes the warmth and humour and the heartaches of an American with the backdrop of the lifestyle of the 'expatriate’.
It’s also about the struggles, adroit schemes and maneuvers - sometimes humorous and sometimes nefarious - of an expatriate to maintain a sense of belonging (and sanity) in a world that he doesn’t belong to, in the first place,
The writer with an element of American humour even predicts: "It will not be long before having an expatriate relative will be as common as having an alcoholic bigot in the American family.”
The book is based in Oman - the Middle East which he finds ‘extreme and exotic’. Heines is pleasantly surprised as he discovers Oman - the land of the legendary Sindbad the Sailor - as a paradise full of interesting places and people.
“This Sultanate is neither the West, nor the East. This is the Middle East, rich in Arabian culture and heritage, where things like schedules, time-tables and the individual are considered peculiar foreign concepts,” he declares.
Just as he is beginning to come to grips with the culture shock(s), his life starts taking a downward turn when his home country, the USA, begins to gear up for the Iraqi invasion, and everyone regards him with suspicion. Despite the cold shoulder, Heines gets immersed in the culture of Oman and finds that in a world populated with lies, deceit and hatred, there are still honest and kind people in the unlikeliest of places!
The war has its element of romance even when it comes to the 'land of Legend'. The writer gives an apologia pro vita sua - “how much do we know about the people we are fighting now?”
The book is an attempt by Heines for the world to understand the ‘Muslim culture a little bit better’ perhaps thorough his eyes, one "who lived with and learned to love these people". The book is an attempt to tell a story until the story tells another story: 'I hope my story will also help you to understand their stories'.
And then, there blooms a romance with Paula, an Indian: there was the first rule of love he writes :"I didn't know Paula and Paula didn't know me.” He confesses he, till then, had never dated anyone from another culture. He knew that Muslim women were definitely out of the ‘realm of romantic possibilities’ for him as a Christian. Paula too came from a very conservative region in India and that “the Hindu views of dating and marriage were not exactly post - Renaissance either."
It was as a teacher at Sur that Heines attended a conference and met Brenda and Paula. Of course, if Brenda had been single, and about 10 years younger he probably wouldn't have been so interested in Paula. But then he was amidst ‘good looking Indian women’. The romance, too, has a pinch of humour - they made, he writes, ‘goo-goo eyes’. They were involved perhaps in a ‘Harlequin Romance’. “Muscat, Oman is one of the magical and romantic cities I have ever seen," he announces.
The romance that bloomed was set in a place that was 'dotted with medieval style castles and forts'. No sky-scrappers please - that was the decree of Sultan Qaboos. In his romance, Paula introduced him to the Indian cuisine. Soon he became a 'Palak Paneer-aholic' and an 'Aloo Gobi addict'.
He soon graduated to be a ‘Malai Kofta- maniac’ and, of course, masala-dosa. The writer with his Irish descent had his affinity for eggs, potatoes and bacon for breakfast. Now it was Sambar. Soon she had turned him into “this wretch of a human being who craved Indian food almost as he craved her.”
What is most captivating about the book is the genuine expressions of the writer. When she was decked in her colourful Indian clothes, he would ‘grin ear to ear’. He loved her although “her manner of speech was different, the food she ate was different, her music and TV shows she watched were different. He loved her for one thing, her ‘courage’. She had pure, raw, mental and physical courage.” Living with him for her was a ‘risk’.
Towards the last chapters the author quotes from The Princess Bride: “Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something’. And so the story ends with the lines: “Personally, I also learned to never ever fall in love with a woman from a culture where the family or parents choose whom she will marry.”
The book promises to go on to another year in Oman perhaps with someone else or Paula of his dreams. Heines’ cue on his next: “At least, I should have learned that after Paula, but that is another story about another year... in Oman.”
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