(photo by Onaiza Shaikh, Instagram: Onaiza_Shaikh)

One of the interesting linguistic differences between the US and Oman is with the word “drug.” In Omani-English, “drug” is always a negative, meaning an illegal substance.

“In the States, ‘drug’ has two meanings,” I would explain to my Omani students. “It can mean something illegal, but it is also used as another way to say ‘medicine.’ So, for example, a pharmacy can be called a ‘drug store.’ If you are at work with a Western person and someone asks you, ‘Do you have drugs?’ Don’t get upset! They are asking for an aspirin.”

That statement opened up new issues to explain as the common word for a headache-reliever in Oman is Panadol, so I would sometimes have to clarify what ‘aspirin’ meant.

When we were talking about a pharmacy, in such stories as O’Henry’s Love Medicine, I would explain the difference between pharmacies in the Arabian Peninsula and North America. On the Arabian Peninsula, pharmacies are only for medicine and almost all the items are kept behind the counter. You tell the clerk what you want, but you can also say what’s wrong and ask them to suggest something.

In North America, pharmacies are like small grocery stores, with drinks and snacks as well as candy, make-up, magazines and household cleaners. Almost all of the medicine is on the shelves. Just prescription-only drugs are kept behind the counter and if you want one of them, you must have a doctor’s approval. There is no way to sweet talk your way into buying antibiotics as I often did in Oman.

The difference is store set-up is the answer to a much larger question: who is in charge of your health?

In Oman, the answer is usually God. If you are sick, you pray. You might also go to a doctor or a traditional healer. You might take the prescribed medicine, but you don’t usually engage with the process by, for example, looking up information about the medication. Over and over, when I asked Omanis, “What did the doctor say?” the answer was, “I got a shot.” What kind of shot? They didn’t know.

In North America, the first answer to who is in charge of your health is you. Training starts early with parents modeling appropriate behavior by either standing in a drug store, looking at the types of medicine and making their choice or doing their own research, on-line or by talking to other people with questions such as, “My symptoms are x and y, what do you think I should do?” Many children grow up with the idea that they are responsible for their health care. For example, moving out of your parent’s house means gradually building your own medicine cabinet. You learn that when your body feels like X, you take Y pill.

These are generalizations but I want to highlight this difference as a cultural shock issue because most Americans carry their own personal pharmacopeia in their head. When they have joint pain, they want X medicine; if it’s a stomachache, they want Y. Moving to the Arabian Peninsula, means walking into a pharmacy and announcing your symptoms to the clerk and being given a choice of 2 or 3 products. Or you can go to a doctor and get an unexplained list of drugs to buy. Instead of your old standby (which comes in 4 flavors, 3 sizes and as a pill, powder and gel), there is a smaller range of options and fewer chances for you ask questions to a medical provider.

And the reverse is just as jarring. Someone who is used to the limited choices on the Arabian Peninsula stands aghast in an American pharmacy staring at 4 by 8 feet section of treatments for a sore throat: sprays, lozenges, gargles, antihistamines, and hot drink mixes. You have a huge variety of manufacturers, sizes and flavors, not to mention the organic and natural types. If you haven’t been trained for making this type of choice, it’s overwhelming.

When you move somewhere new, it’s all different – fun, new, exciting and, sometimes, overwhelming.

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