Long awaited post!

So, I haven't written a blog post in about a month, and I've officially been in Oman for a month and three weeks! Wow! It both feels like I've lived here forever and like I got here only a few days ago. I'll just do a quick recap of what has been happening, then hopefully I'll get back into the habit of blogging.
I've had a bit of a rough first month and a half. Of course, there have been outstanding good parts. Going to Dubai for visas (and subsequently having a blast with both yes and nsliy girls), making Omani friends, moving into a great host family with many young siblings, picking up snippets of conversation in Arabic and adjusting to a school have been among them. And yes, I did switch host families. My first family were great people, but for various reasons it simply didn't work out. I am currently sharing a host family with Mae for a little while, and they are simply awesome! I have three sisters ages 2, 10 and 12 and a brother who is 7. We have a blast all the time, and the three weeks I've spent with them will certainly be a time to remember. Pretty soon, though, I'm scheduled to get my own, permanent family. I can't wait to find out who they are!
School has been a challenge as well. As a life long homeshooler it was certainly an adjustment to sit in a class all day long. I think I am starting to fit in more now, though. Plus, it is very fun to make Omani friends in my classes!
Stay tuned for another blog post, hopefully with pictures! (My laptop has been malfunctioning and won't allow me to upload pictures. Inshallah that will get sorted out soon!)

Chabatis and School

So, remember when I said I was going to catch up on things? Well, since that didn't happen then I'll take care of it now!

 

About a week ago my host mother and I made a type of flat bread called chabatis. They are very tasty and now, because of my helpful pictures, you can make them too!

I missed most of the preparation stage, but I believe that you simply combine water and flour and a little oil until a dough is formed.

 

 

Next sit on the floor of your kitchen and knead for about five minutes before dividing the dough  into several small balls. Squish each ball, then roll it out into a nice circle. You want it to be very thin so that it will cook evenly!

 

 

Turn the stove on to the lowest temperature and drizzle a little olive oil into a pan. 

 

 

Add a circle of dough and poke it while your host mother cracks up about how you can't turn on the stove.

 

Eventually you will get big bubbles, as shown in the picture about. Don't worry, this is normal!

 

Use a spoon to check for golden brown spots on the bottom. When there are a satisfactory number you can flip it over, but I don't recommend burning your fingers on the edge of the pan while doing so!

 

Once the other side has its fair number of spots you can place the completed chabati in a container or on a towel with the rest.

 

They are very tasty!

 

So, what else have I been up to? School! Here I am in my lovely uniform.

 

School has been really interesting. It seemed a little overwhelming at first, but I made some friends and have some really informative classes. It will probably take some more getting used to before I'm completely comfortable, but we're definitely getting there! 

Grand Mosque

Hello hello!
I'm currently at Amideast, where I can finally upload my pictures. So, I'm going to try to catch up on what I've been doing.
A few days ago we had a tour of Muscat. One of my favorite stops was the Grand Mosque, a beautiful and expansive area including separate prayer rooms for men and women, an Islamic library and many gardens.

 

Almost all of the areas were connected by outdoor hallways, sometime I truly appreciated due to the extreme heat we were facing that day.

 

Before entering the prayer rooms we took off our shoes and put them in these cute little cubbies. If anyone is curious, my shoes are on the left. :)

 

We also covered out hair, which was an entertaining feat. In our day to day life we only have to cover our shoulders and knees, but that day we all wore long sleeves and pants to be appropriate for the mosque.

 

First we went to the women's prayer room. Here are Mae and I in front of some really amazing woodwork. It have beautiful patterns as well as passages from the Koran carved into it.

 

 

Next we went to the men's prayer room. I had thought that the women's one was big, but it was nothing compared to the men's!

 

 

As you may know, mosques almost always have lines on the ground to mark where to stand, as in this picture:

 

 

The lines face towards Mecca and are often are worked beautifully into the tiles on the floor. For the Grand Mosque, however, it was very important to the designers that there be a genuine Persian carpet in the men's prayer room. They were so caught up in creating a beautiful floor that they entirely forgot to put in the lines! This caused a problem involving crooked lines and complaints, but the carpet had been made and so it was kept.

 

 

(an incongruous picture of a door to break things up)

 

Recently, a mosque in Dubai decided that they wanted the same carpet in their mosque. However, they learned from the Grand Mosques mistakes and added invisible, raised lines of knots to the carpet to distinguish lines.

 

This is a chandelier in the men's prayer room. I believe that is was built in Iran and shipped over in six pieces, but don't quote me on that. It was really hot!

 

Well, that's it for now! I hope you enjoyed reading about the Grand Mosque.

1 Week

Hello readers!
Well, I have officially been in the country of Oman for one whole week. It seems a little like I have lived here forever, but also a little like I only arrived yesterday. I suppose that is what life it like!
I have done so many amazing things this week I can't believe it. Lets see what I can fill you in on without the use of pictures (as wifi in Oman is a little spotty and I haven't been able to upload any yet).
For most of the first few days we did orientations. Most of them were actually very interesting, though some had already been gone over to the point of exhaustion at the PDO. A very exciting thing happened on my first day in Oman though, and that was meeting our host families! I live with a young woman and her husband and two year old daughter, though I haven't met my host father yet. They seem very nice and accommodating of the crazy American living in their spare room, for which I am very thankful!
On Wednesday we went on a tour of Muscat. I saw the grand mosque, mutrah souq and a museum of Omani history and culture. All were very interesting and I did actually take pictures but I have been unable to upload them as I mentioned before.
Yesterday we went to visit my host mother's family in here village. It was really great to meet my first few Omani teenagers and to see a different slice of life in Oman.
On Monday I'll start school, so stay tuned! (By the way, the week in Oman is Sunday-Thursday, but I am starting school on Monday in the same way the Americans might start school on a Tuesday)
Sorry about the short and jumpy post, but I better go take care of a couple things!

Well, this seems to really be happening

I am in Oman! We stayed last night in a hotel in Muscat, which was wonderful after the 30 odd hours of travel it took for me to get here. My first impressions of the country:

             It says "Muscat".

• It is really hot. And HUMID. I'm talking the camera lens fogged up when I tried to take a picture and my jeans stuck to my legs after about 30 seconds exposure.
• It is SO pretty here! The building are beautiful, especially when I saw them in the dark last night.
• The plugs are, indeed, different. Luckily I have an adapter and am, of course, brilliant so I figured it out. I even figured out how to put pictures on my computer! (Are you proud of me mom?)
• There are a surprising number of trees, in this part of Muscat at least. There is plenty of desert stuff too, but when I look out the window of my hotel room I mostly see green. That's nice, as  Portland has lots of trees and I like seeing them.
  
  

Is this not the prettiest city you've ever seen?

 

Here I am with one of our first views of the city. Yep, I do look exhausted. I have reason, I promise!

 

 

Landing in Muscat!

 

Alright, hopefully I'll do a more coherent post later. For now I'm a little too tired for my words to sound good! We'll see how I do meeting my host family this evening.

 

Maa'salaama!

Flight info

So, I'm ridiculously excited about something that happened today. I got a letter from YES Abroad (my first actual paper letter from them) with tips for checking bags, how early to arrive at the airport, etc. for my journey to Oman. That's a little mean, I thought, as I don't actually have my flight info yet. Then, through the page I saw the familiar grid that heralds flight information from YES. I removed the top page so fast that it flew off into the distance and excitedly scanned the paper, while yelling for my parents to come and see.

I'm flying to Dulles in the early morning on the 24th of August, then from there I fly to Zurich. That in and of itself is very exciting, as one of my best friends happens to live in Switzerland. But, the next part is even better. From Zurich I fly TO OMAN!!!!!!!
Muscat, here I come! Now I just need a host family. :)

Arabic and reality

This blog post will come to you in two lovely parts! Are you ready?
Part one: Arabic.
Do you remember when you where first learning to read and you would sit with a big book full of pictures sprawled across your lap and slowly trace the words, making each sound  carefully and individually? Finally you would end up with a cluster of letters, rrrrrr and uuuuuu and nnnnnnn but  despite the encouragement of teachers or parents you still couldn't quite understand that those little black marks were the same as the action of running?
It's okay, I don't really remember either, but if you can imagine how that would feel you can begin to imagine what it is like to learn Arabic. My typical reading pattern goes a little like this: first I painstakingly sound out each letter, sometimes flipping to the pronunciation guide for a little help. Then I finally figure out the sounds. Yay! But unlike reading my native language the battle doesn't end there. Instead I simple move on to figuring out what in the world the word means. Saa'iq? Did I even read it right? Could shubaak actually be a word? Once I've discovered the meaning of the word I have a little celebration. Yes! I am so awesome to have read that word in less than two minutes! Woohoo!
As I'm sure you can tell, I am totally a language prodigy. Watch out Arabic!
Part two: reality.
So, I'm leaving for Oman in about three weeks. Sitting here in my grandparents house, surrounded by family it doesn't seem real. Sometimes i still can't believe I even got the scholarship. Often I'm out of my mind with excitement, but in the back of my head there is a niggling seed of doubt. I know that by the end I won't want to leave Oman, but here and now  it just seems a little too hard to say goodbye to this family.
So that's my life right now. I am totally thrilled and completely terrified. I'm annoyed that I still have so much trouble pronouncing Arabic words and super proud that I've come as far as I have. I'm ready and I'm not. In short, I'm I little bipolar, a little hesitant and I lot excited. Stay tuned!

PDO!

Hello readers!
Have you noticed that all my blog titles so far have an exclamation point in them? I guess I am a little overly enthusiastic about this whole thing.
I have another vlog for you today! This one is about the stupendously exciting phenomenon scheduled to occur tomorrow. What is this thrilling event? I'll give you a hint: it's what happens when one selects 120 American teenagers, allows them to bond for a weekend (well selecting 65 to receive scholarships) then sends them home to grow closer while waiting somewhat impatiently to hear the results. Then, one informs the 65 finalists of their status and brings them together for a packed few days in DC to learn about exchange protocol and other topics. You may imagine that these teenagers are a little excited to see each other again. Well, we are. That is the topic of this video!

Look, I can put an actual video on my blog! Aren't I all tech savvy and stuff?

Vlog!

Two of the other YES Abroad Oman students (Shanaya and Quinn) have made some very entertaining and educational Vlogs about their experiences so far, and they have inspired me to try my hand at a quick video. Believe me I am no where near as eloquent on camera as they are, so I hope you can enjoy the video despite my random stumbling. I had a lot of fun making it!
I'm not very computer savvy, so you'll just have to follow a link for now. :)

http://youtu.be/-GCrdz8GtVw

IPSE!

After receiving my acceptance email for semi-finalist the first thing I did (after jumping up and down, of course) was to start looking up information about the IPSE. I found a lot, but I still promised myself that I'd write a blog post about my experience if I was accepted. So, here I am about three months later finally making good on that promise! This is mostly targeted towards next years semi finalists, but I hope that others will find this interesting too!

First of all, I had an amazing weekend. All the bloggers say that, but I was still worried about whether it would be true for me! In the end though, despite being sick, jet lagged and extremely nervous I managed to have a wonderful time and meet a lot of great people. Even the flights to and from the event were great experiences, thanks to my flight buddies of awesomeness. (Shout out to Amelia, Carly, Katie and Camille!)

Okay, I'll stop touting the overall wonderfulness of the event and get down to the scarier topics! First of all, The Interview.

The Interview: Every semi finalist has an individual interview. I think that was the most stressful part of the weekend for me, but it turned out to be much less frightening than I had expected.  I was interviewed by two adults affiliated with YES abroad, both of whom were very friendly and understanding. They made me feel comfortable right away.

I think the most important thing to remember for the interview is to be yourself. After all, if you act like someone you aren't you might be accepted, but you also might not really be a good fit for the program and could end up being unhappy while abroad. I would definitely recommend practicing a few potential interview questions, but other than that just take a few deep breathes and answer naturally. At least, that seemed to work for me!

The Group Evaluations: I really enjoyed my group evaluation! First, you are split up into groups with a few other semi finalists. I had a really great group and we seemed to work well together, so I suppose I was lucky on that. Anyway, the group evaluation itself mainly consists of playing various games! We laughed a lot and had a really good time, plus we were probably the whackiest group ever to attend an IPSE. However, that seemed perfectly acceptable.

Free Time: There is a lot of free time at the IPSE. I recommend bringing a few card games that can be played with a large group, and maybe a book or an iPod. The 4H center where my IPSE was held was very big and interesting, so exploring is also a fun activity. Mainly though, free time is spent meeting other semi finalists and having conversations ranging from very silly to very philosophic. It was really fun to meet so many people that I just clicked with right away.

As a side note, don't treat the other semi finalists as competitors. Sure, you all want the same thing, but everyone is really friendly and interesting and the best plan is to make friends with everyone, then even if you don't get the scholarship you will have had an amazing experience.

Finally, don't let the awesomeness of the other semi finalists make you nervous. You will meet a lot of eloquent, intelligent, well rounded people and that can be a little scary. What you need to remember is that you wouldn't be there if you weren't an amazing person too! Believe me, after meeting just a few of the other semi finalists I got really worried about whether I was up to par. But, by some amazing happenstance I did get the scholarship and I am going to Oman!

Shukran wa ma'asalama!

A little bit about me

I'm guessing that most of you already know who I am, but in case anyone is new out there I'll give you a quick overview.
My name is Davan. (You say Dav-in)
I'M GOING TO OMAN NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm a little excited about it.
I'm 15 years old.
I'm home schooled. In Oman I will be attending school, of course, but here I get to learn math while wearing pajamas! Home schooling is especially nice now that I'm learning Arabic, because I can devote a good portion of my time to learning random Arabic words (such as shajara, which means tree) and learning more about Oman. I am by no means an expert on either though!
I do aerial dance. It is a little like Cirque Du Soleil, if you have ever seen that. I am part of a troop called the Zig Zags and we put on a show every year using acting, tumbling, dance, fabric and trapeze.
I am really interested in foreign cultures and international relations. I guess that one isn't very surprising! I am especially interested in African and Muslim countries because I feel that they are often misrepresented. 
Here at home I am vegetarian, but I will probably have to be flexible on that when I'm in Oman.
And there you have it, I little bit about who I am! I hope you enjoy following along on my great adventure.

School Time!

I have some very exciting news! Yesterday all of the YES abroad scholars going to Oman got our school assignments! Suddenly, it all seems so real. And I love it!

I am going to a school called Al-Ibdaa, located, rather obviously, in the city of Muscat. Another of the YES abroad scholars, Mae, will be attending school with me and I'm very excited that things have worked out this way!

I have been told by YES graduates that Al-Ibdaa is one of the more Omani schools, and I have read on their website that the school is very focused on knowledge of Arabic. It sounds like a great school for me!

Speaking of Arabic, I am slowly but surely working on learning the language. I know most of the characters and have a miniscule vocabulary, but hey, I'm progressing! I can say such necessary words as hello (ahlan), thank you (shukran), book (kitaab) and tea (shaay). The last one is inspired by a friend of mine who is off to Turkey next year, since her first word in Turkish was tea!

I also have a very exciting Arabic related story for you! I was in California a week ago visiting family when I spotted a little whole in the wall felafel shop that I obviously had to check out. My family and I ordered some food to go, and while we were waiting one of the chefs got a phone call, which he answered in Arabic! I picked up a few words, I believe, one of them being hello, and the other being table (I could be wrong about the second one!). Then, I gathered my courage and when the food came out I thanked the man in Arabic! He was very surprised and promptly asked where I was from. When I said I was American he was even more surprised! He wanted to know why I was learning Arabic, so I told him about the YES program and my impending exchange in Oman. He seemed very excited about everything and offered to help me with Arabic whenever I wanted. Sadly, the felafel shop is in California and I live in Oregon, so it seems a bit far for me to pop in for tutoring. Still, I am very excited that he was able to understand me! I am hoping to find a place in Portland where I can practice my Arabic on a regular basis.  

I will leave you with a picture of me (I'm sure you all know who I am) holding a sign that may, or may not, be my name in Arabic. Remember to read from right to left! By the way, Arabic doesn't seem to have a V sound, so I'm substituting TH until I find out if that is right!

Why Oman?

Well, ever since I started telling people that I want to go to Oman I have gotten some funny looks. A lot of people ask why in the world I want to go to Oman, and lots of other people seem to think I'm going to Amman, Jordan. So, I'm going to clear some things up!
First of all, here is Oman:



                                   

The star near the top is Muscat, where I'll be living next year.

So, my intrepid readers ask, why did you want to go to Oman again?
Well, I have a few reasons. One is that I want to learn Arabic. I think Arabic is a very interesting language, plus it is useful for a lot of jobs in international relations. If that isn't enough, it is really pretty when written! أهلا This means hello, at least I think it does. You say "ahlan."
Not only is Arabic interesting, Oman itself is extremely fascinating. Before 1970 it was a very backwards country run by a man named Said bin Taimur, who didn't like international trade and had let the infrastructure slip down to only three schools, all of which were for boys. And this was not the extent of the issues either. Then, in 1970 a new ruler came to power, Sultan bin Qaboos. Sultan bin Qaboos immediately began modernizing the country, but although he worked hard to open up Oman to the rest of the world, he worked just as hard to preserve traditions.   
Today, Oman continues to have a distinct culture, even while working hard to progress. Plus, it had a large number of schools for boys and girls, one of which I will be attending next year.
I am also really excited to live in an Omani family. Omani families are usually large, and it would be exciting to have siblings as I am an only child here. Plus, Omani families are often quite close knit, and since I'm really close to my American family that would be great for me.
If these aren't enough reasons for anyone to go to Oman, I'll add that it's extremely beautiful. Take a look:





 


So, who's coming to visit me next year? :)

Hello Oman!

Hi everyone!
My name is Davan, I'm fifteen years old and next year I'm going to live in Oman for nine months! Yeah!
Maybe you are wondering how this has happened to me. Well, it all started last fall with a disappointing discovery. I had my heart set on going to Ghana for a year with AFS, but when I was beginning to apply I discovered two things. One, exchange is very, very expensive and two, I was actually about three months too young. You can imagine that I was a little unhappy.
I proceeded to spend the day surfing the internet trying to find exchange programs to Ghana that I was old enough for, and that is how I found YES Abroad.
Kennedy Lugar YES Abroad is a full scholarship exchange program for teenagers to study abroad in countries with high Muslim populations, to promote intercultural understanding and peace. It actually started soon after 9/11 as a program for Muslim students to study here, but over the years it has grown to include an outbound program. 
So, I applied. The application is long, but very worth it. After clicking the "submit" button with my heart in my throat I sat back and... waited for about two months. Two excruciatingly long months. And then I heard back. I was a semi finalist! I was completely over the moon. They flew me out to DC for the weekend, along with 118 other semi finalists who just so happened to be some of the most awesome people in the whole world. (I'll write more about the IPSE later)
I returned home feeling not-so-confident, because absolutely everyone at the event deserved a scholarship. I basically talked myself into thinking I definitely wasn't going to get it and tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. That was a little tricky, since the scholarship is my dream.
Then, a few days ago I received an email with the most exciting news in the world. I'm going to Oman, which is the most exciting thing EVER! Oman ended up being my top choice, so things couldn't really have turned out better. Well, unless they could have given scholarships to everyone at the IPSE.
I'm a little sad to leave Portland, Oregon, my home for the first 15 years of my life. I'll miss my family, my friends, the studio where I do aerial dance and being homeschooled. But I'm setting off on an adventure that will give me another cast of family and friends and places to miss when I come home, and let me just say that I can't wait.