A Dhofari friend recently posted these older photos of houses in the Dhofar region.
Houseways: Doorways – Design and Culture/ المداخل
Houseways: Entrance Ways – Form Follows Function; طرق المداخل – الشكل يتبع الاختصاص
Selected references related to Houseways in Southern Oman, Oct. 2022
Reflections on Houseways Research
I am happy to announce that my chapter “What a Frog in Boiling Water Knows: Oman, Before and After” has been published in Emanations 12. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2026: 304-311. link to book
excerpt
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts I like ‘Woman and Flowers’ by Alma-Tadema, one of my favorite painters, but the painting I love most is ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ by Luc Olivier Merson, such a quiet, graceful scene.
I bought a membership to the museum and within a month I was back. I paid a visit to the Egyptian section, then ventured further out, into the American and impressionists exhibits. Two weeks later, I spent another morning walking around without a map. It was nice to come across Paul Revere’s silverwork and the painting of flowers exhibit, but the only places I really wanted to be was in front of Merson’s painting or anything Middle Eastern from before 1500 CE.
Walking into a room in the Ancient Egyptian section that I hadn’t seen before, I suddenly understood why the museum brought me such serenity. The cases were full of small, wooden boats full of men in white sarongs. Oh, I realized, they look like the research guys.
Most of the Omani men I did ethnographic research with are full- or part-time fishermen. And they wear a wazar, a piece of fabric wrapped around their waists that falls to their knees which is often plain white cotton or white with a light checkered or striped pattern.
And the man in the painting ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ sleeps as the research guys sleep when they are camping, directly on sand next to a fire with a blanket underneath and a blanket over which is pulled up to cover the face. For everyone else, the man in the painting is Joseph; for me, it’s one of 15 different men who I was friends with, went fishing with, had hundreds of picnics with, asked questions of and who I miss terribly.
My grief is much smaller than most people who have been displaced by wars and hatred. Relatives co-signed my lease so I have a place to stay; my mom helps me get through a Boston winter by gifting flannel sheets and sweaters. But I stand in front of that painting and cry as it seems to hold all the harmony that I have lost.
Then, as so often happens, the book I needed to understand how I felt appeared at the right time. Amidst the postcards and scarves in the museum shop, I saw ‘All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me’ by Patrick Bringley. Although my favorite museum is the Frick, I also love the Met and the cover mentioned something about grief, so I thought it would be interesting.
I read it in one morning, crying all the way through. What Bringley gets so right is how a loss, even when you know it’s coming and you have a pretty good idea how much it is going to hurt, stops the forward motion of your life. His book isn’t ‘feel-good’ or & ‘how to’; after his brother died, Bringley walked away from his career and became a security guard at the Met for ten years.
Marriage and Peace/ Marriage and Joy in Dhofar
Houseways: ‘Homespaces’ Away from Home
Living Expat, A Remembrance of Happier Times on the Arabian Peninsula
Handout from discussion at Boston Athenaeum, April 25th
Lawrence Durrell – https://lawrencedurrell.org/wp_durrell/
known for fiction: Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea) and The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx)
Gerald Durrell – https://www.durrell.org/visit-jersey-zoo/
known for autobiographical books set on Corfu in his childhood: My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives; The Garden of the Gods
Other texts
Marriage and Peace – essay published
(photograph by Onaiza Shaikh)
When the publisher of my forthcoming book about marriage in Dhofar, Oman asked for a short article about my book to put on their webpage, I didn’t know what to write [ blog.anthempress.com/2026/04/17/marriage-and-peace/ ]. In literature, marriage is the ending for comedies, but the Arabian Peninsula and Arabian/ Persian Gulf are now enveloped in tragedies. It feels wrong to be writing about joy in the midst of such grief. But perhaps that is the point: hoping for the return of joy by remembering and explaining that joy when everything is bleak, like Samwise talking about the Shire when he and Frodo are on Mount Doom.
As I was writing the book, I focused on trying to accurately describe the information I knew connected to marriages of Dhofari Omanis and the stories I heard. It was only later I realized that, in focusing on being exact, I didn’t talk about how wonderful it is to attend women’s wedding parties.
An ethnographer is supposed to participate, understand, record, interpret and, if need be, replicate. Maybe there is fun along the way, but I don’t remember reading in any of the anthropology texts about the Arabian Peninsula: I had such a blast at the party, I want to go one every week!*
But I told the research guys that, for me, a perfect month meant two weekends camping, one weekend at home and one weekend with a woman’s wedding party. They rolled their eyes. The research guys are always glad when a brother, cousin, friend or colleague is getting married, but their wedding parties are not very relaxing. First of all, men usually need to give money, which means budgeting finds to make sure there is enough to give (see Risse 2015). Women only give gifts to very close female friends and relatives. If a woman does not work, other women will pay her share.
Second, Dhofari men have wider circles of acquaintances whose wedding they need to attend. Men are usually expected to appear at the wedding of all cousins (which can be mean 50 or more people), aunts and uncles (who might be younger than him), neighbors and friends. Both brothers and sisters gather to figure out who will go to which wedding parties on any given weekend but men often end up with 5 to 15 parties on one weekend, while women will attend one. For example, if a set of brothers and sisters have 6 close relatives who will marry in one weekend, all brothers usually go to all 6 male wedding parties and each sister would go to one of the brides’ parties. The brothers figure out the order in which they will visit the parties; the sisters will divide the parties between them.
If a man works in an office with ten men, he will often go to the party if any of the men, or their sons, marry. If a Dhofari woman works with ten other women, they will often be a party in the office (sometimes subsidized by the company or each women bringing one item), but not the expectation that all women will attend each other’s weddings.
Men only need to stay at the party for 15-30 minutes, but given that the events might be in 4 different towns, they can spend from 9am until 2pm on a Saturday driving and visiting. Plus the ‘system’ of every party is the same so there is almost no variation. Every man is in a clean dishdash; there is tea and coffee to drink, rice and meat to eat.
Also men need to make sure they comport themselves carefully when they are in public: recognizing and greeting each other, appearing serious, speaking well and listening to elders. A wedding party can be a chance to catch-up and chat, but there are so many people around, it’s not wise to have private conversations. I always think of men at gatherings as being at ‘parade rest’ in that men are never really relaxed. A good man in public is always looking about him, noticing who is there, who is talking to who, etc. Only with their own group, men he has known for years if not decades, can men let down their guard.
But Dhofari female wedding parties are fun. If it is at the bride’s house, there are plenty of women to share the work. I have gone to several in which I was invited by a sister of the bride, who was busy ten minutes an hour or so; the rest of the time she chatted with me or greeted other guests.
All women walk around and greet all the other women when they arrive, so you know who is there and it’s fine to ask someone as you shake their hand, “who are you?” or introduce yourself. Everyone is happy, chatting and (oh so important!) wearing what they want. Some women go all out with the make-up, jewelry, fabulous up-do and a dress that reflects hours of work getting the right fabric, the right design and the right trim. Or you can show up in a cotton dhobe (loose housedress) and a bare face. Sisters of the bride and groom and a woman who was recently married often need to be in fancy clothes, but there is lee-way for a woman who doesn’t want to have an elaborate presentation.
So you show up in a long, loose dress; get warmly greeted; choose what to drink from trays of coffee, tea and juice that are offered; and sit surrounded by girls and women in colorful dresses. There’s lots of perfumes, lots of finger-food, dancing and plenty of time to chat, but you can also pull out your phone and tune out for awhile. What’s not to love? (Well maybe if you are allergic to perfumes…)
The first one wedding I attended was a little awkward. I didn’t know the bride that well and I was with several other ex-pats; none of us knew what to do. And I left one wedding party early because the person who invited me wasn’t there and women were unfriendly. But the other 17 parties were wonderful.
I have many happy memories of chatting with good friends and laughing with new acquaintances. I was always asked if I was married and sometimes when I said no, women would offer to marry me to their husband. So we would run with that joke for a hour, me asking how much money I would get as dowery, if I would get my own house, etc. or we would talk about where I worked, or they would explain who all the other women were. It was all relaxed and, as one friend said, “no protocols.” If you needed to leave early, you left. If you didn’t want to eat, as long as you had a token amount of food on a plate in front on you, you could avoid pressure from your hostess.
Sitting in a bright pink velvet dress festooned with rhinestones, which had been sprayed with glitter perfume, an armful of colored bangles and bare feet, I was as happy as a clam. I don’t think I will ever have an occasion in the States to wear that many sparkles.
At picnics with the research guys, I was in drab-colored loose pants and long tunic, no make-up and no perfume but the feeling was similar. For the people in the hakli (also referred to as qara) groups of tribes I do research with, communal events means people working to create a positive atmosphere. The goal is always no drama. If you have a bad day or are in the middle of a personal tragedy, you do your best not to show it.
I have written about how this emphasis on staying positive is sometimes not seen as work by non-Omanis, but if you have ever had to attend a celebration in the midst of a personal struggle, you know how difficult it is. I joke that there is no TMI or over-share in Dhofar as the people I know keep their emotions in check. My male and female friends are in their 30s, 40s and 50s so self-control is of paramount importance.
Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies
Food Essays – Grocery Stores, Recipes, Expat Food and Littering
Risse, M. “Generosity, Gift-giving and Gift-avoiding in Southern Oman,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45 (Oxford: Archeopress) 2015: 289-296.
* Some of the accounts about Yemen had a little of that attitude, especially about qat chews but there was always a need for justification. Qat fields take up water that could be used for growing food and fodder and explaining that sitting around and chatting for many hours every day is a necessary part of life can mean sidestepping the issue of what structures and supports are in place that allow for certain groups to spend every afternoon and evening relaxing.
I will be leading a discussion about Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals and Lawrence Durrell’s Prospero’s Cell at the Boston Athenaeum on April 25th. It’s interesting to come to the books by the two brothers again so many years after first reading them. I went through all Gerald’s books in middle school and Lawrence’s when I was in college.
On rereading them, Gerald’s book stands up: it’s charming and erudite. Lawrence’s is still excellent, but now the sexism is clear and, in a way, debilitating because you can now see what he missed. He wrote best in and about Greece. Although Caesar’s Vast Ghost is wonderful, nothing he wrote in France is as good as what was sparked by the more difficult landscapes of North Africa and Greece.
Rereading them makes me wonder, when is the best time to find your Ithaca? Both autobiographies recount their days on Corfu. But as Gerald is 12 years younger, he experienced Corfu as the background of a magical childhood. Lawrence, newly married, had the magic of first love in a perfect little beach house, complete with sailboat, good friends, excellent food, splendid weather and the time to write.
So is it better to have an enchanted childhood, and have those memories to fall back on, or perhaps lead you on, for all your life? Or better to have your glorious golden years in your early twenties? Cavafy famously urges you to arrive late in life:
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy –
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
When I read My Family I wished I lived on a Greek island, although I had a shorter, but similar, experience: as a child, I spents three weeks every year in the ruins of a sugar mill in the Caribbean. Reading Lawrence’s books in my late teens and early 20s helped pull me out into the world. I wanted to go to the places he described so I managed to get myself to Cairo, Alexandria, Athens, Corfu, Cyprus, Rhodes and other Greek islands, as well as his house in Sommières. But I didn’t find my Ithaca, the Dhofar region, until I was 39. Then I had to move away so I now agree with Cavafy. Arrive at your Ithaca late, so you never have to leave it.
Boston Athenaeum – April 25, 10am – https://bostonathenaeum.org/whats-on/discussion-groups/
Join us for a discussion of two very different books which feature the same landscape and main characters. Most people know only one of the Durrell brothers, but each one has his own brilliance. Lawrence writes about the historical and literary landscape in an artistic and serious manner, while Gerald focuses on the local wildlife, a group which includes his older siblings. The juxtapositions between what each one thinks is important and noteworthy makes reading the books in tandem a delight. Gerald doesn’t deign to mention his brother’s wife; Lawrence ignores the fauna. Gerald has nothing to say about Greek myths; Lawrence pretends he is not with his family. Read one book or both and join a short visit to the gorgeous Greek island of Corfu. If the conversation leads to a wider discussion of Lawrence’s fiction (The Alexandria Quartet), Gerald’s impressive improvements in how zoos are designed and the Boston area’s best Greek restaurants, all the better.
Back from Ubar or What to Read if You Insist on Staying Home
Research on Travelers and Tourists in Dhofar
Marriage and Peace – essay published
I am happy to announce that my essay on ‘Marriage and Peace’ has just been published. The photographs were taken by Onazia Shaikh.
It is difficult to write about my book, Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman, given the current war in the Middle East. The anthropological study of people’s lives seems unimportant in the face of such terrors and tragedy. Also it’s hard to understand why such a peaceful country as Oman has been pulled into the war, given that for over 50 years its unofficial motto has been ‘Friend to All, Enemy to None’. Salalah, the city in southern Oman where I lived for 19 years, has been bombed twice.
Anthropology in war is a fraught undertaking; the Human Terrain project, the American government’s attempt to merge military logic with ethnography, did not work.
Anthropology is more along the lines of ballroom dancing. You need peace now, peace in the recent past and the expectation of peace in the future to get started; you also need a group of people who are willing to learn a new way of movement. I like the analogy because people who haven’t done ballroom dancing can dismiss it as frivolous but learning when to turn, when to cross, how to follow the music and how to move in clothes and shoes that are unfamiliar while making the right kind of small talk is excellent training to become an ethnographer.
And marriage is a peace-time activity; you need peace and food security to think of adding someone to the family and for people and goods to travel to the celebration. So my book is a peace-time book. It reflects my thinking about how Omanis in the southernmost region go about finding someone to spend their life with and how to create a peaceful life together. I cover how men and women decide to start looking for a partner and all the following steps, including the dissolution of a marriage and old age. I did most of my work with people from the hakli, or qara, group of tribes whose first language is a Modern South Arabian language called Gibali (Jebbali/Shahri /Shehret).
The full essay is here.
Living Expat, A Remembrance of Happier Times on the Arabian Peninsula
Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions
plans by Maria Cristina Hidalgo, https://www.mariacristinah.com/ – first published Oct. 20, 2021
This essay focuses on areas which are perceived as a home. For both picnics and camping, all the general understandings of etiquette followed in houses apply although usually everyone takes on the role as host to some degree. For example, rather than the host pushing people to eat or drink, when any person opens the coolbox, they will act like a host (asking each person what they would like) before they take something to drink. Food that is opened is passed around before the person who opened the package takes any. The man who is cooking might ask a man who comes late to bring fresh bread or more supplies such as water although no one would ever ask a “guest” to bring anything to one’s house.
Further, the cook decides when to eat, but unlike inside a home, in which the hosting family must do all the work, all the people should share by clearing space on the mat, setting out a plastic cover, getting the hot sauce, cutting the limes, etc. And people should, of their own accord, help with the clean-up.
In general, picnicking in open space means creating a private salle. Dhofaris on picnics see themselves as inhabiting a homespace which is inviolate. The space is always clearly defined either by bodies (a group of women sitting in a tight circle) or mats; if there are women, the space must never be approached unless there is specific, immediate need. Men will approach other groups of men to ask for information or share food, but not a group of woman. Cars are always parked to block the groups from view.
Some families share one large mat; other families might make two seating areas, one near the car and one at more of a distance. The two spaces act as salle and majlis; as in a house, small children will act as messengers and carriers and have freedom of both mats and the space between them.
The exact amount of space depends on the landscape. The zone under temporary control of the family might be very large or, in crowded places like beaches on the night of the full moon, might only encompass a few meters more than the mat with the car at an angle chosen for privacy. In open areas like the desert or near-desert open spaces, people should camp out of sight of others.
Government- and hand-built straha (“hut”) are important in that they are roofed; shade is essential in Dhofar for most of the year. Both kinds of shelters are first come-first serve. Even if a man made the structure himself, if someone has parked in front of it and set up camp, the builder has no recourse and must wait until that person has left. Sometimes, men will leave bundles of wood, their blankets and some supplies in a shelter and go fishing; no one will take the space or steal the provisions.
Once the car is parked in front; the shelter is treated like a person’s house whether it is occupied for a few hours or days. As with picnics, the car acts as the bab, the gate in the wall around the house. No one will come nearer than the car without calling out loudly and waiting to be greeted. Normally, even if the person is invited to come closer, they will stay on the far side of the car and explain what they want, to ask for something or give away food. Since there are no internal divisions in strahas, the space is like a salle and a man will usually not accept to sit down or come close unless he is a close friend.
Camping is slightly different as there are three layers while strahas and picnics have only the dichotomy of being outside (the far side of the cars, mats or circle of bodies) and inside (where the people are sitting).
The first layer is where the cars are parked, an area that functions like a hosh. Anyone can walk on the far side of the cars without acknowledging/ being acknowledged. On beaches, the area below the high tide mark is see as a free passageway. The passer-by might lift his hand or call out, but a man walking next to the water or beyond the cars is like a man walking on the far side of a house wall. A stranger who approaches a camping area and needs help will not come closer than the cars. For example, he will stand on the far side and call out his request for a tow or a tow-rope.
The second space, like a majlis, is the public area for friends and family, usually delineated by mats in the space bounded by the cars and whatever natural features are used such as the ocean, wadi walls, rocks and drop offs. Once a man has approached, called out and been invited “in,” he may join the group and sit on the mat. If he is older, younger men will offer him their chairs or pillows to lean on. The new-comer, as in a majlis, will be offered whatever there is to eat or drink.
The third space, corresponding to the bedroom, is the area used for sleeping. This can be all or part of the inside of the shelter or the area closest to the overhang and is delineated by either piled or set out sleeping mats, pillows, bags of clothing, etc. This zone should never be acknowledged or approached by anyone who is not spending the night; sleeping bags, blankets and personal gear are treated as invisible. A man might reach over and take his blanket to use as a pillow to lean against, but no one else should touch it unless the owner offers it although food, juice, soda, water and the accoutrements for tea are available to everyone.
Safety on picnics and while camping is first and foremost about wild animals: scorpions and snakes in sandy and rocky places, wolves and hyenas in unpopulated areas. The site has to be chosen with care and a fire needs to be lit after dark. Foodstuffs need to be put in cars or well-packed and placed near the fire/ sleeping people to keep them safe from foxes. Animal attacks are very rare but keeping a fire going is essential in areas away from towns.
Example of set-ups for picnic on a beach and camping. Note cooking fire is away from mat and sited in reference to prevailing wind; cars are parked to provide privacy.
Houseways: How to “Read” a House for Information about the Occupants
Photos of houses in the Salalah area
Houseways – Balancing Privacy and Hospitality within an Apartment
[this essay is part of a series about the practicalities and pragmatics of one-, two- or three-story houses built within the last few decades on one or two plots of land in the Dhofar region of Oman; extremely expensive houses often take up three or more plots and have very different architectural styles; first published in Spring, 2021] – photo by Onaiza Shaikh
In Dhofari-designed houses the roof is accessed by an internal staircase; this necessity creates certain ‘rules’ about house architecture and space use. First, because the floor, roof and steps are from poured cement and there needs to be space for the support poles, there are always landings and an empty space next to the main staircase (see below 1). Even the back set of stairs (in large houses) are wide with an open area at the bottom. As stairs aren’t built narrowly between two walls, it is easy to get large pieces of furniture to the upper stories. Further, because there is always open space on at least one side of the main staircase, there are always banisters [handrails supported by balusters].
Second, there is always empty space under the stairs which can be used for storage or decorated with a piece of furniture. Third, there is always a landing at the top of the stairs which is usually used as a storage space. This landing space can look like, from outside, a small, four-sided “hat” or cupola. Normally the cupola has windows on several or all sides which, depending on the house design, brings light into the hallway below. The roof of this small space is accessed by a ladder and often holds satellite dishes and the round, white plastic water tank. Water comes from the municipal supply or a well and comes into the house using gravity, although some houses have a small pump to increase force water up into the tank.
In some larger houses, there is both a square room at the top of the stairs and a decorative cupola which is round and is entirety made of glass.
Another aspect of house patterns is that while almost all modern houses have flat roofs, looking at roof accessibility can tell you if the house is Dhofari-designed [meaning either the architect is Dhofari or a Dhofari is planing to live in the house.] While Dhofaris don’t necessarily use the roof space, it is always very easy to enter. If one can only get on the roof by a ladder, the house is not Dhofari-designed.
When cement block houses started to be built, roof-lines often looked like battlements with the edge wall as a parapet with crenellations, sometimes fashioned to look like the distinctive local style of incense burners, majmar (see below 2). Now there are many choices including closely spaced decorated balusters, glass inserts, metal railing, etc. (see below 3).
By law, all roofs have some sort of wall around the edge for safety. The most common type is plastered cement blocks up to waist height. Sometimes there is no discernible difference between wall of the highest floor and the roofwall, e.g. there is a smooth facade until the top of the roof wall, which often has a cornice with a dentil pattern. Sometimes there is a clear division in that the roofwall protrudes slightly and is painted/ decorated. Some newer houses have a flat roof that is smaller than the footprint, a wall at the edge, then a slope of three to five courses of clay tile which meet the wall of the upper story.
Most roofs have a series of lights, often looking like small lanterns, placed at intervals along the roof wall (see below 3).
Roofs are not seen as part of the living space although there might be a metal or poured cement roofed area for women and children to sit outside, instead of sitting on the front steps. If there is not enough room in the hosh (courtyard), there might be a clothesline (as clothes dryers are rare) and miscellaneous objects which wouldn’t be damaged by being outside, such as leftover tiles. Sometimes there is a laundry room, an extra room for the maid and/ or small room for storage, either free-standing or sharing a wall with the small room at the top of the stairs.
A roof can be finished, meaning that the homeowner does not mean to build another story, or unfinished, meaning although the roof might be tiled and/ or have decorations such as crenelations the owner might build an additional story. This type will have distinctive short, poured cement pillars which cover reinforcing bars, aka rebar. When an upper story is added, the tiles, decorations and tops of the short pillars are broken. [I will discuss the cement/ rebar pillars in a later essay about house building.]
Two personal notes about roofs:
– Hurricane Mekunu (2018) and roofs: Given the infrequent, but heavy, water accumulation after rainstorms, there are often holes drilled at the bottom of the edge wall to allow the water to drain. One neighbor did not have this and after Mekunu hit, his roof looked like a swimming pool for over a week. The day after the storm, I told my landlord who called the neighbor, but he did not come and fix the problem, perhaps because he would have needed to climb up a ladder carrying a pump. Opening the roof door would have meant all that water coursing into the house. As the water very slowly evaporated, I could see the damp seeping into the cement blocks, eventually reaching halfway down the side of the house.
My roof had holes for the water escape and the roof door had a ledge in front of it but the huge amount of water from Mekunu meant that rain came into the landing at the top of the stairs. However, the stairs were slightly canted so that the rain ran down the left side of the stairs and at the first landing spilled over the edge into the stairwell instead of continuing down the stairs. For several hours there was a waterfall in the stairwell but no roof water entered my apartment or the apartment downstairs as the water seeped out in the gap under the front door.
I wonder how the neighbor’s roof door was so watertight. The water was at least two feet deep and took many days to evaporate. I don’t know that neighbor well enough to ask if I can prowl around his house but it is an interesting question.
– When I lived in my previous house, I paid a gardener to keep the roof clean and water various plants in pots. When I looked at the area where I lived on satellite maps, I realized the mine was the only house with a clean roof. (Which begs the question of the tradeoff between having a lower electricity bill because a clean, white-tiled roof reflects heat and wasting water to keep the roof clean.)
Examples of staircases: photos from social media (newly-built house for sale) and an informant
Examples of recently-built roofs: photos from social media (newly-built house for sale and rental house)
Examples of typical Dhofari-designed rooflines: photos by Onaiza Shaikh
Photos of houses in the Salalah area
Crafting a Home: Interior Home Design in Southern Oman
originally published, July 12, 2019
The monsoon season (finally) started yesterday so, in celebration, I went for the first time to a small, cute shop which sells food made by a local woman. I had driven by and seen it but never gone in. With the drizzle coming down at a steady pace, I decided to have a small party, support women who are selling food, and, of course, continue my food research!
As I viewed the sandwiches, cooked food and cakes on display, I discussed the food in a mixture of Arabic and English with the expat man who was working. “Is this strawberry cake?” I asked, pointing to a cake with a pink layer of what looked like jam. He said yes. I repeated the question in Arabic to make sure, then moved on, “Is this cake with coffee flavor? Is this chicken? Is the chicken spicy or normal?” etc. I bought a selection of things, went home and produced them for my guests: this is non-spicy chicken, this is strawberry cake, this is coffee cake.
Wrong. All of it wrong. The chicken was fiery hot, it wasn’t strawberry and the brown cake was ‘Lotus’ flavored, not coffee. Sigh. Last week it was at KFC, I ordered 4 chicken strips and Dew with ice; I got someone else’s order and was told that the Dew, which had no ice, has “ice inside.” Sigh. In these kinds of example, it’s a mixture of linguistics and culture. I would not think of a ‘biscuit-flavored cake’; a white cake with medium brown frosting looks like ‘coffee’ to me. ‘Ice’ to me is cubes the size of cherry tomatoes, not that the soda is cold.
Sometimes it is an issue of what you ask for is not what you get but sometimes it’s a visual and cultural problem, as in the photo above – I enlarged that photo several times, tilting my head, thinking “WHAT is that in the little bowl?” Finally I decided it was walnuts and date maamoul (dates with spices cooked into a paste, surrounded by a heavy sugar cookie dough and baked). I don’t think of walnuts as breakfast food so I had to wait until my eyes could “see” them. Several times I have seen shallow bowls of dates and assumed it was pieces of meat and vice versa. One trick I learned is that if there is a coffee dallah (traditional Arabian coffee pot) it is dates; if there are cups of tea, it is probably meat. [Or in the above photo, the piece of wood doesn’t look like what I expect ‘camp fire wood’ to look like: it’s dark, full of holes, almost insubstantial looking. But from camping in the desert, I know this is typical of wood you can find or buy and it serves as a marker, “we are very far from town.”]
There is another level of difficulties: seeing various food items and not understanding how they fit together. A friend remembers being in a grocery store with me when we were in grad school. As we came around the corner of an aisle and the end cap had: cans of tuna, cans of peas, cans of sliced mushrooms, egg noodles, salt and canned cream of mushroom soup. I looked at her and said how this combination of food was a culturally-bound signifier of middle-class American in middle America, an implied recipe without stated recipe. Everyone who saw that display would know that all these items should be bought and cooked together to create a tuna casserole. But someone from outside that culture would see a collection of disparate items. Such as the photo below: chips, processed cheese and bread. This might be read as “put cheese on bread and eat with chips.” But Omanis know, you open the bag a little then crush the chips. Put cheese on bread, sprinkle on chip fragments and then roll up into a tube.
Eating begins with the eyes and everyone sees food through their cultures, upbringing and experiences. Learning to see again, see new, and re-see is a long process that I am still in the middle of.
Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Cultural Understandings of Water and Food
Foodways: Thinking about Uses of Plastic Bags and Bottles in Dhofar
Food Essays – Grocery Stores, Recipes, Expat Food and Littering
I wish I could use this page to concentrate on anthropology, books, cultural studies and Oman but at this point in America, silence can be seen as agreement and it is better to be clear. I do not support this war with Iran.
I condemn the bombing of the school and any Iranian school or university.
Every student, faculty member and staff member in every educational institution in every country deserves to learn, teach and work in peace.
I taught for two years at the American University of Sharjah, for one semester at University of Sharjah-Women’s and 19 years at Dhofar University in Oman. I have presented at conferences at AUS and Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, as well as Al Ain University and Zayed University in the Emirates. I have attended a conference at NYU-Abu Dhabi and visited Education City in Qatar.
Every student, faculty member and staff member in every educational institution in every country deserves to learn, teach and work in peace.
I was a student St. Mary’s College of Maryland (first year of college); Middlebury Language School (summer semester-German); Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn, Germany (junior year aboard); University of Wisconsin-Madison (BA); University of Maryland-College Park (MEd); Frederick University, Nicosia, Cyprus (semester abroad for research); the University of North Dakota (PhD) and the Center for International Learning, Muscat (two summers for Arabic classes). I have taught at the University of North Dakota, the University of Minnesota-Crookston, the Community College of Vermont-Montpelier and for the American Red Cross, Massachusetts Bay Chapter. I have presented at conferences at New York University, the University of Minnesota, Concordia University in Montreal and the Universities of Utrecht, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Wales and Warwick.
Every student, faculty member and staff member in every educational institution in every country deserves to learn, teach and work in peace.
I wish America, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula and the countries near the Persian/ Arabian Gulf would follow the example of Oman, a country which exemplifies a commitment to peace.
We continue to stand against injustice and darkness and remain on the side of justice, light and harmony. Mankind will only enjoy happiness and a sense of security if there is justice and respect for all those qualities that guarantee human beings their legitimate rights. First and foremost among these being their right to dignity, liberty and independence.
In the area of international relations, our foreign policy is based on firm foundations and principles: support for right and justice and a desire to work together with other peace-loving countries of the world to resolve international conflicts through dialogue and negotiation, so that everyone can enjoy security and stability and all the peoples of the earth can reap the benefits. Sultan Qaboos bin Said
what I wrote Feb. 28, 2026
I have always kept this website apolitical because politics is not my métier but there are times when one must nail the colors to the mast. I do not support this war with Iran. I do not support Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth or their war agenda.
One of the reasons I moved to Oman in 2005 is that I do not think soldiers should be the only Americans in the Middle East. Every day during the 19 years I was in Salalah I tried to represent the States in a positive way. I was very aware that, for many people I met, I was the first American they talked to and I wanted to leave a good impression.
I am so sorry for all the people living in fear because of American bombs. It was a joy and a blessing to live in Oman, a country so committed to peace. I hope there will be peace throughout the Arabian Peninsula and Middle East soon.
The path we have followed in our foreign policy over the past decades has shown itself to be both sound and effective, with God’s guidance. We are committed to this approach, which supports justice, peace and security, and tolerance and love; which calls for international cooperation in order to reinforce stability, promote growth and prosperity and tackle the causes of tension in international relations by producing just and permanent solutions to critical problems; which fosters peaceful coexistence between nations; and which generates well-being and prosperity for the whole of mankind.
Sultan Qaboos, 14.11.2006
Come From Away 
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