Coffee, tea, or me?

Something I will definitely miss about Oman is the afternoon qahua.

After lunch, nap time, and some dilly-dallying about (no one can accuse the Omanis of being rushed or hasty) a typical weekend activity for women is driving to someones house to sit and chat with family.  Female family, of course -whether they be blood relatives or in-laws.  The location, occasion, and motivation can vary, but inevitably, we are served Omani espresso (qahua) and dates. 

Sitting on the floor, chatting and relaxing, holding babies; the women sip their coffee, snack on dates, fruit, and other sweets, and take advantage of their free time.  It's not unusual to visit a few houses in one afternoon and have the same spread at each, or to sit down at one, only to have another group of women walk in the door.

Conversation (as far as my limited Arabic permits me to tell) runs from family life to travel to politics to story-telling.  Other times there is no conversation, we just sit and relax and enjoy someones hospitality.

Thankfully, as both an honorary family member and an obvious westerner, I've had the chance to sit down for qahua with men a few times, too.  Just in the past week, two of my peers (a man and a woman) and I were invited to qahua twice while doing a field assignment -the first time in an old man's shop, the second time in his home with his nephew.  Both times the men were served first, (as was the case when I had coffee with a group of mixed family members) and I was even given an explanation as to why.  You serve big people, then smaller people, apparently.

Qahua can get a little awkward, as when a group of women realized that I can understand snippets of the conversation and abruptly stopped talking about the recent protests, or when the shop owner told me that it is good that I am dressing like an Omani woman, because then an Omani man might see me and decide that he wants me as his wife.  But I love Omani hospitality, and the ability to drop in, unannounced, on a friend with the knowledge that they'll have hot coffee waiting for you.  If I show up at your place sometime wearing a head-covering and bearing dates and oranges, now you know why.