(photo by M. A. Al Awaid)

This is the first in a series of short essays about the shock of moving back to the states from Oman, with musing about how (writ large) the two cultures work.

When I realized I had to leave Oman, I talked to a man (X) I had known for years who helped me get through everyday life. X had a wide range of friends and acquaintances with various jobs so when I needed work done, I talked to X and he brought someone to my house, e.g. a plumber when the pipes were clogged with algae, an AC repairman, a man to repaint the walls, a man to charge the gas cylinders, etc.

I asked X if he knew someone who worked at a shipping company and of course he did. A few days later X came with supplies and we put together 4 boxes. After I had filled them, X came with the shipping company representative and a worker. I explained that I wanted door-to-door service as the boxes were mainly full of books and too heavy for me to lift.

The worker set each box on a scale; the rep calculated the weight total/ cost on his phone, gave me a price and I paid him in cash. Then I tipped the worker who carried the boxes to the truck and handed everyone a bottle of water.

Business concluded without any paperwork, although the rep did send X a photo of the bill of lading a few days later, and the whole basis of the transaction was my trust in X.

When I arrived at my apartment building in the States, I was amazed that, despite the fact that I had paid for door-to-door delivery, the 4 boxes had been stacked (2 on top of 2) in the 10-foot space between the (unlocked) door to the street and the (locked) door into the building. The apartment building had a large trolley (like bellhops have) for general use, but the space between the doors was at an incline; the trolley would not stay still while I tried to load the boxes unless I found something heavy to brace it with. The bigger problem was that I could not lift the lower boxes up onto the trolley.

I was 3 days in country, jet-lagged and at a loss. I had no one to help me and there was no way I could pick up 35 kilos of books to set up on the trolley. At least I could take the 2 boxes that were on top (resting on the other 2) as I could push them down and onto the trolley but I needed help holding it still.

There was no one in lobby, so I walked out onto the sidewalk. A young woman was walking towards me so I put my arms in front of me, palms up and asked, “Could you please help me?” She agreed so I asked her to hold the trolley in place while I pushed the 2 top boxes onto it. I pushed the boxes into my apartment, pushed them off the trolley and onto the floor, then went back to the lobby.

If I was in Oman, I would have just called X and asked for help, paid him and given him a bottle of water as I had for many years. But in the States, there was no one to call. I had no idea what I could do – asking a stranger to brace the trolley for a moment was one thing, asking them to pick up very heavy boxes was another.

I maneuvered the trolley next to the boxes and stared at them, trying to think of a solution. A man walked in from the street door, saw me, asked, “Do you need those on the trolley?” and before I could respond, he set his backpack on the ground and walked over. I sputtered thanks as he lifted each box up, then held the building door open for me. Problem solved.

As I pushed the boxes to my apartment, I thought – this is a perfect example of the difference between Oman and the States. In the States, all sorts of small public actions are easy. If I saw someone weaker than me struggling to lift something, of course I would immediately help. Strangers, especially in a city with so many transients as Boston, hold the elevator door and do general courtesies. There are endless repetitions of “please,” “thank you,” “no problem,” and “go ahead.”

In Oman, you can’t trust on that kind of minor help; people don’t hold doors open or pick up something you dropped. There is no chit-chat in the elevator.

I call this marble theory: people have only so much time/ energy/ bandwidth to give others and in Oman most of those “marbles” are given to family, so there are few left over for people you don’t know unless you see someone in great distress.

Several times I was with the research guys at a beach when someone got their car stuck nearby. “Aren’t you going to go help them?” I would ask the first few times this happened. “No, we are close to people [meaning: a town]” or “No, if they need something, they will come and ask” I was told. But when I got stuck in sand miles from anywhere, the three cars that came by all stopped. The first driver was a man with his family. He saw me, drove about two blocks on, stopped, all the passengers got out of the car, then he drove back to help me.

I stood as he tied the tow rope on, then I looked down the road at the group of women and children huddled by the side of the road in the heat. When the next car stopped, that man insisted on driving my car out of the sand, so I took some boxes of cookies over to where the women were waiting. They smiled and greeted me; standing in hot sun for 10 minutes while their relative pulled my car out of sand was nothing to complain about.

Neither way of life is better. If I approached a door with my hands full in Oman, there was zero chance of someone opening it, but there were other compensations such as being able to send all my possessions across the world without filling in forms, signing paperwork or sending e-mails. In the States, I can trust that strangers will perform simple acts of kindness, but mailing a small package involves pressing button after button on the touch-screen at the post office and a signature.

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Ending and Beginning

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

Foodways: Cultures, Food Selfishness and “Could I Have a Little Bite?”

Teaching: Reflections on Culture Shocks