This is a rant I've always wanted to make.
How come anytime an Omani (and you can prove he is an Omani, not an Indian or whatever) does something screwed up, another Omani will always: "well, he's not a real Omani." As if that will make it better.
I've had people imply to me that when I saw girls going to nigh clubs (Omani girls) it was because they were Zanzibari. They weren't, but hey. When I can prove that someone is not Zanzibari, say, like, they are from Sharqiyah/Sur, well, it is because they are Bedu. Or their ancestors mixed with Africans. Oooookaaaay, some of the bedu have been the nicest ever but what do you know? And skintone denotes nothing of societal behaviour (from an all-white town with gangsters and thugs that would be toted as educated British in Oman due to their accent and skintone by some, I LMAO at that.).
But you know what is EVEN MORE screwed up? If I CAN 100% prove the doer of wrong is Omani of Arab-Yemeni descent, like, in Nizwa back thousands of years, someone WILL STILL SAY to me, he's not a real Omani. His great great great great great great grandfather was only a maker-of-such-and-such and came from here.
A REAL Omani is a citizen of Oman. [OPNO is only Omani in her heart and soul], and real Omanis can do some pretty screwed up things too, so why don't you just apologize instead of saying they're mixed with slaves or lawatti or bedu or whatever.
In my country (the one I am a citizen of but abandoned because I love Oman more), when my people (same passport as me) threw boiling water on an Arab-looking woman in a headscarf, I felt shame, the deepest shame. I personally, before Islam, and definately after, would NEVER ever do such a thing or ALLOW another to do so. But still, I wanted to say sorry to the girl on behalf of my people, on behalf of my county. I didn't say, that idiot wasn't as [insert nationality] as me. I can say sorry.
And like Omani standards, when people refer to me, they usually refer to me as a "real [insert nationality]" from a "good family". I laugh at that. My people took the land from the natives, and yes, archeologically, remains indicate people were there before even them, and then the British took it back from us, and we integrated and built a Capital city, ect, ect, but none of that matters. None of that MAKES ME ANY MORE A [insert nationality] than a Chinese or Bangladeshi man who swore allegience to my country the same. (Less, actually, they swore allegience, and I was born expected to carry on that way. One means a hell of alot more).
I know I don't have to be sorry, but I am. I am sorry on behalf of my country. I am deeply, deeply ashamed of the silent racism in my country, which I never saw until I put on a headscarf, decided to dress modestly, and to say to hell with you to the racists, wore niqab. It RIPPED ME APART from THE INSIDE to see someone taunt a woman walking down the road by herself, threaten to rape her if she didn't take off her clothes (her face veil). Tell her she's ugly because she covers her hair. DEEPLY, FOREVER SCARRED WITH SHAME. Not afraid of that man, I would have spat on him and ripped his eyes out, for sure, if he tried to take from me my right to practice my beliefs. But ashamed of myself, because by a passport I am related to him. I may have been the woman told to "go back to her country" by some fool, but that fool is my brother in the nation, and so his actions make me ashamed. That shame is part of the reason I can't stand my own country anymore. When I see wrong in Oman, it does not cut me the same, because these people still don't accept me as "their people" though I love them in my heart more than they can imagine.
As a Korean, far more [insert OPNO's nationality] than me once said to me in terms of the individual citizen and value of a Nation's population "It is one grain of rice tips the scale."
The "real" Omani loves Oman and all the people in his/her country. Where they are from, doesn't make them "any less real" to him or her. Their actions affect the whole of the country, for better or worse. The "real" Omani, to me, is the one that realizes this, and act accordingly.
When I build my house (I will build it here, God Willing), I want a traditional wooden carved door salvaged from an old home, and I am going to have it painted green. This I know already:)
I also know where to have the iron doors made for the gate of the property. If I find an old one, even better. 
Probably the most overdone art subject IN Oman, but...
A Saudi man once told me the reason people painted their doors such bright colours is so that people could give directions to their homes in the days before street addresses. This could be one of those myths that he told me but...
Aren't they just lovely? I have friends who salvaged one from a house being torn down and they fashioned it into a lovely coffee table.
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For M, who makes the best (or at least, let's me drink the most) qhawa lol. & I love the colours.
