Depressing Tuesday

Another rainy day in Salalah. Kids happily playing in puddles, and others mourning their parents. Yes, more horrific accidents yesterday in this town. Our roads aren't ready for this kind of traffic and most so-called 'adults' out there aren't qualified enough to be sitting behind a wheel in my opinion. Omanis blame the Emiratis. Emiratis blame the Omanis. I blame everyone.  

The number of accidents in Oman this year is just horrific. From January 1st to August 24th, there were 5562 car accidents in Oman, resulting in 740 deaths. That doesn't include the dozen people (at least) who've died in Dhofar since August 24th with the insane tourist rush.

Yesterday a horrible accident near Al Mughsayl in Dhofar killed at least 9 people, 7 of whom were UAE nationals. From the photos, it appears that four vehicles were involved in the collision, a UAE car, an Omani car, and 2 trucks. How fast were these people going? Who was the one irresponsible idiot who caused it? (some say it was the truck drivers, others say it was the UAE driver - in either case the person who caused the death of all those people is either dead himself or will suffer the rest of his life from guilt I hope)

How many dead bodies do you need to see before you realize just how irresponsible and dangerous your driving is?

You being a good driver means NOTHING. It doesn't justify speeding, driving while talking on the phone, not wearing a seatbelt, zooming in and out of lanes without indicating. One TINY mistake and your life (along with the lives of others) is gone. Does life mean nothing to you?

"Inshallah everything will be fine" is complete BS. God is not going to help you if you dont' help yourself. Why should God care about you if you are unable to care about the wellbeing of your fellow humans? Every single time I leave my house, I prepare to die. I drive on the right lane and never go above 80 or 90 Km/per hour. I am constantly checking my mirrors and mentally bracing myself for a collision. Is the driver of that little silver Camry going to be my murderer? What about the young guy in the brand new Toyota Land Cruiser who is tailgating that poor old Indian man? Look! There's an ARMY officer in uniform driving without a seatbelt and holding two phones, each in one hand while trying to manage the wheel with one palm. Surely he's going to kill someone today.

Am I paranoid? No. I've just seen enough dead bodies to remind me that my life is in danger the minute I get on any road here in Oman. Shameful but true. If you are one of those animals who doesn't give a damn about the lives of others on the road, F*** you and your attitude. You are worthless.

Pissed off Gucci.

Funerals

I am back from the dead and I apologize for leaving my loyal (and not so loyal) readers hanging for the past ten days. I'm afraid it's been slightly crazy at my end of town, with wedding preparations for this coming Thursday (shivers) and sadly ... a funeral. One of my elder relatives passed away. She wasn't old and wasn't sick. I believe she may have been in her early fifties (but it's hard to tell in Oman really). She was sitting in the mountains drinking tea with her family and then she fainted and that was it! Declared dead upon arrival by the doctors on duty at Sultan Qaboos Hospital's emergency room.

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It was a great shock to the family and to everyone who knew her. Coming from a Muslim society that doesn't believe in autopsies, she was buried immediately after sunrise the next day and we will never know what killed her. I suppose in some ways it's good, but in others it means no closure, especially for her grieving children and husband.

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In Dhofar, people tend to deal with death differently than other societies. We do not encourage breaking down or crying or depression. It's an event thagt the entire community gets involved in and you can be sure that if you've lost someone you love, you will never be left alone to grieve. Within hours the entire tribe knows about the death and it 's common that the close men (for men) and women (for women) wash the body of the deceased and wrap it in white cloth. Often the body is buried before the next prayer. So, if a person died at 2 p.m, they'll try to bury him/her before sunset. This is why it is of extreme importance to spread the word when a person has died so as many people as possible attend the funeral. Thank God for cell phones!

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In my case, the woman passed away around 11 p.m so it was impossible to bury her by sunrise since nothing was open and it would be hard to find people, so they buried her at the noon prayers. Women don't go to the graveyard in Oman; not on the funeral day. Funerals last for three days in Salalah (some mountain tribes make it shorter) but the purpose of the three days is to read the entire Quran from cover to cover. On the final day, called the 'khatam' or the end, it marks the last chapter of the Quran and the end of the funeral. Life must go back to normal after that.

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I went to the funeral for the entire three days. I wore my brightest thobe buthail (as it's taboo to wear black to a funeral here) and joined the hundreds of other women in the house of the deceased. I sat with her daughters and comforted them. I helped serve tea and fruit to women. It was all very peaceful and quiet except for the bloody funeral wailing.

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I'm ashamed to say that some families here still practice funeral wailing when someone dies. A group of women (who hardly even know the deceased) will sit in the middle of the funeral gathering and wail like banshees for an hour or two then leave. It's an ancient pagan way of mourning and is anti-Islamic but these women aren't educated enough to know that. I personally found it very disturbing and so did the children of the woman who passed away, poor souls. Anyway, I don't have much time to write but I'm interested to know what funerals are like in your families (if you're from Salalah), your village/country/culture? How do you mourn the dead? What are your rituals? Do you feel it's taboo to discuss the dead person at their own funeral like they do here? TELL ME!