Thirty-six years ago, in 1981, I was in the first group of English teachers from Sri Lanka recruited by the Sultanate of Oman to teach in their primary and secondary schools. I returned to Oman in November, 2017. This narrative of the trip is preceded by an account of how I survived in Oman from 1981 to 1984.
1981-82,
at Liwa, on the Al Batinah Coast
Only ten years previously, Oman had been a near medieval state.
It only had three primary schools, one
hospital, and ten kilometers of paved roads for the entire country. The average
life expectancy was just 50 years. Under the new ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said,
the country was developing rapidly. Hundreds of schools were built, and, with
no qualified Omanis to staff them, teachers had to be imported from Egypt,
Jordan, and Sudan. English teachers had already been recruited from Pakistan
and India, and, finally, it was the turn of Sri Lankans.
Why did we go to Oman? Mainly because our salaries in Sri
Lanka were paltry, and some of us were actually poor. I left Sri Lanka as a
university English instructor, earning more than a school teacher. Yet, the
salary offered by Oman was about eight times what I earned at the university.
After a few days in Muscat, the capital, we were sent to
schools throughout the country. Conditions were primitive those days. Public
transport was non-existent, the main mode of travel being Toyota pick-ups that
sped across the rough roads at suicidal speed. Seat belts were not known. The rear
of the pick-up was covered with a tarpaulin, and the passengers rode on two
long, facing seats. Wrecks from horrifying accidents – head-on collisions and
over turnings - littered the highways.
The
secondary school at Liwa, November 2017
I was sent to a secondary school in Liwa, up the Al Batinah
coast, not far from the border with the Emirates. The school, newly built in
the middle of a dusty, open field, was the largest building in the area. But
the teachers’ quarters, to which those unaccompanied by their families were
confined to, were appalling. Electricity, much needed in the desert climate,
came from a tiny generator which operated for a few hours in the evening. Without
cooling fans, sleep came only with a struggle. Cars and pick-ups raced past the
quarters, beeping their horns and raising clouds of dust. My roommates, both
Egyptian, chain smoked, and had no sense of hygiene and cleanliness, either. I
dreaded using the toilet. The only consolation was an English teacher from
Pakistan, Abdul Kaiyoom, who probably took pity on me and became my friend.
In
the teachers’ quarters.
The students were first generation school goers and the parents were not role models, being in no position to guide them. One, a grade six student, drove a beat-up cart to school, disregarding every traffic rule. Some rode donkeys. The concepts of schooling, obtaining an education, social and economic mobility, were unknown. To be confined in one place for five or more hours, under supervision, was the hardest task for many students. A few would actually escape through the classroom windows and wander into the nearby date palm plantation. Corporal punishment was liberally dispensed.
Every morning, school began with the raising of the national
flag, singing of the national anthem, and exhortations from the headmaster, all
in Arabic. I knew no Arabic, and my students were new to English, so
communication with them was minimal. I ignored all the teaching methods I had
been taught at teachers’ college in Sri Lanka – the Direct Method, the Grammar
Translation Method, etc. - and resorted to recitation, because the students
didn’t even know the sounds of English. Remarkably, they did have good
textbooks designed and written for Oman, with Omani figures and locales. Amazingly,
over time, some English learning did take place. In the primary grades, male
and female students were taught together, and this helped somewhat in
maintaining discipline.
With
Abdul Kaiyoom. Rare rainstorm inundating the main Muscat – Emirates highway.
February 1982
Most teachers came from Egypt, on release for two years to
serve in Oman. They were generally disliked by teachers of other nationalities.
For one thing, the Egyptians could not understand why teachers from other
countries were brought in, when they could monopolize all the subjects. Some were
also known as exploiters, out to make the extra buck during their two year
period, sometimes taking bribes from students during exam time. They treated
the Omanis, their paymasters, with contempt. The students were all “hamar”
(donkeys). One elderly teacher ranted, with barely suppressed rage, that the
Omanis were begging in Mecca when the Egyptians went there on pilgrimage, not
many years ago. Arab teachers also came from Jordan (mostly Palestinians) and
the Sudan. They were a cut above the Egyptians.
I am an avid reader, but there were no books. So, how did I
spend the long hours at the teachers’ quarters, sometimes in semi-darkness, before
succumbing to a sweaty, restless sleep? Almost the first item I bought in Oman
was a small transistor radio, and I roamed the world, finding exotic stations
and interesting programs. I listened mainly to the BBC and Voice of America,
not exotic but reliable, keeping me up to date with the world beyond Oman. I also tuned into the Hindi service of Radio
Ceylon, not only for the wonderful music but also for the smoothing, sexy voice
of a female announcer!
The landscape was stark, without a blade of grass, a difficult
adjustment coming from a lush Sri Lanka. Even the far off mountains, with jutting,
storm-gouged gorges, held no beauty. In the Liwa area, thorn bushes grew
everywhere, only the goats feeding on them. Everything, buildings and trees,
was covered in a thick layer of dust. The only greenery were the margosa (neem)
trees, which appeared to grow healthily in the harsh climate. At times, the
glare from the landscape could be unbearable.
Cooking was a challenge. In Sri Lanka, neither my mother nor
my wife had allowed me anywhere near the kitchen, so my choice was between
eating bread and cheese or a cooked meal, taste not being the priority. Lentils
(dhal) was the first curry I cooked, with cow’s milk being substituted for
coconut. It turned out to be a foul tasting concoction, and had to be dumped.
The Egyptian teachers, adapt at eating canned ful medames (fava beans), watched my kitchen disasters with glee.
But, within a few weeks, I had managed to come up with tolerable dhal and
chicken curries, and that kept me going.
At
Liwa fort, with teachers and students. December 1981
I was not prepared for the desert winter, underestimating its
ferocity. The daytime hours were still warm, but the cold crept in at night, and
I would awaken with a stuffy nose. Living alone, missing the gentle and loving
care of a spouse and a family, I neglected my health, and the poor diet added
to my weakness. Delirious with a high fever,
I was admitted to the hospital at Sohar. The diagnosis was pleurisy and malaria.
I later realized that I must have been near death. Three Sri Lankans at the
hospital, Dr. Jayawardena and staff nurses Perera and Dodangoda, saved my life.
The Omanis were gentle people, generous and easy going. Many
appeared to be bewildered by the rapid changes happening around them: paved roads
instead of dusty dirt tracks, electricity, motor vehicles instead of camels and
donkeys, modern schools and well equipped hospitals, and hundreds of thousands
of foreign workers, many of whom did not speak Arabic. The fundamentalist types
of Islam, practiced mainly in neighboring Saudi Arabia, were not evident in
Oman. A Catholic church was even allowed
in Muscat. Few Omanis were well off, or even literate. Many worked as drivers,
subsistence farmers (a few date palms), and fisherman. Some worked in the
nearby Emirates, where salaries were much higher, mainly as soldiers. Perhaps
the saddest Omani was the single male who could not afford the bride price, and
was doomed to eternal bachelorhood. One result was the prevalence of
homosexuality.
In Oman, almost every shop, garage, and medical clinic was run
by Indians. At Liwa, they were from
Mangalore, and Roman Catholics. In fact, a priest would occasionally come from
Muscat to conduct service. A friendly Mangolorean owned the single grocery
store, the garage, and a few other shops and services. He opened his home to
Abdul Kaiyoom and me, where we occasionally watched Hindi movies. I curious
fact I learned was that Indian doctors (always male) insisted on giving shots
to women only on their buttocks. They may have gained a perverse pleasure by
making the women, clad in abayas from
shoulder to feet, expose their intimate areas to male eyes!
Compared to teachers from Egypt and other Arab countries,
teachers from the subcontinent had one distinct disadvantage. Oman’s domestic
servants (the house maids), farm laborers, and construction workers, all in low
paying jobs usually with abysmal living conditions, also came from the subcontinent.
I wonder how my students reacted to being taught by a Sri Lankan, but they
never showed any prejudice.
Five Sri Lankans had been posted to Al Batinah. Emil Fernando
to Suwaiq, Jagath Soysa to Bidaya, and two ladies, Kuresha Jamaldeen and Khadija.
I saw the ladies only at teachers’
meetings, but Emil and Jagath visited me at Liwa once and survived my cooking.
We also traveled to Muscat together and stayed with Sarath Jayawardena, who had
been posted to a school in the capital.
With
Emil Fernando in Muscat, before leaving for the airport, May 1982
The school year ended in May, 1982, and we all gathered in
Muscat for the return to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was facing shortages in almost everything
those days, some items even being rationed. So we went on shopping sprees and boarded
the flight home with bags overflowing with gifts. Good saris were unavailable
in SL, so I brought home 46 saris for the ladies in my immediate and extended
family. The men got Polo-style shirts. In my bedroom today, there’s a photo of
my parents taken in 1982, my dad in a colorful shirt and mother in a lovely
sari, brought from Oman. They pose proudly, and look very happy.
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