My Year in Oman

By Matthew Heines

Is Oman Arabia's best kept secret?

My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During the War On Terror

A Dreamy Journey to the Beautiful Oman

"As I sat reading "My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During the War on Terror" by Matthew D. Heines, I dreamt of a land yet unexplored by

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heinessight Enterprises
• Release date: Jan 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088060209

Book preview

My Year in Oman

An American Experience in Arabia

During the War On Terror

by

Matthew Heines

My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During the War On Terror is available at heinessight.com, as well as Amazon.com, its subsidiaries and commercial partners. It is also available at iBooks on the Apple Store and eBooks From Kobo and Ingraham Spark as well as Amazon in Print and in Kindle format. For more information about books by Matthew D. Heines, or the Middle East, visit www.heinessight.com.

•       Print CreateSpace

•       ISBN-10 : 1548582255

•       ISBN-13 978-1548582258

•       Kindle ASIN : B00OJE7QLY

•       The Heinessight Bookstore

•       Paperback ISBN-978-0-9908793-0-5

•       ePUB ISBN-13 978-0-9908793-3-6

eBOOK ISBN-13 978-0-615-41038-8

Copyright © 2005, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2020, 2023 by Matthew D. Heines

All rights reserved. No part of My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During the War On Terror may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by  any  means-whether  auditory,  graphic,  mechanical, or electronic-without written permission of both publisher and  author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Front cover: Wahiba Sands, Sharquiyah Region Sultanate of Oman.

www.heinessight.com

Dedication

For Priya

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DESERTED

THE TERROR IN SEPTEMBER

MIDDLE EAST MEETS PACIFIC NORTHWEST

NO ABSENT, NO CHEAT, NO UNDERSTAND

THE SHEIKH DOWN

FOR A FISTFUL OF BAISA

THE PEOPLE OF OMAN

YES, SUR

FIRE AND RICE

THE NOT-SO-DEEP

THE GARDENS OF EDEN

THE SERBIAN WOMEN

RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK

A GLIMPSE OF PRIYA

ON TO THE EMIRATES

THE SNOOPY ISLAND DEBACLE

KHASAB

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE COLLEGE

MUSCAT LOVE

A TASTE OF THE WILD

THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE SUN

TANUF ENOUGH

TO SUR, WITH LOVE

DON'T TOUCH ME

SEPARATE WAYS

MASALAMA AND MASALA DOSA

THE AMERICAN BEDU

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DESERTED

The plane lifted off and flew into London's early morning drizzling, overcast skies. I had not slept since leaving Seattle. In a row of seats by myself, I watched the clouds outside of the window turn from dark and threatening, to gray. After a few hours of flying south and east, the clouds turned white and then finally, began to dissipate.

The world I saw as I looked out of the airplane window at the ground thirty thousand feet below was no longer green. It was predominantly the light brown color of the desert and the dark brown color of the mountains in between.

The plane flew for six hours, arriving at the airport in Dubai around ten p.m. local time. I remember passing over what looked like a city on an island, with a bridge of lights connecting it to the mainland and another city I later learned was Abu Dhabi. Surrounding the lights was a vast empty darkness.

As I watched the scene unfold below me, I knew I was in one of the most strategically important areas of the world. Almost everything below me was there because of the huge reserves of oil and natural gas hundreds and thousands of feet beneath the surface of the desert. There were pipelines, refineries, and lighted tankers waiting off the coast. The same yellowish white lights silhouetted the motionless vessels below me.

We made a short stop in Dubai, where we offloaded the few remaining Westerners except me before continuing on to Oman. The lights remained on during the short hop to Muscat, accentuating to me I was the only one on the plane with white skin and Western clothes.

The other passengers wore what looked like white nightgowns or robes. They wore red and white cloths wrapped around their heads or they wore circular blocked white hats. They were wearing sandals instead of shoes. I felt out of place and truly alone. No one but me seemed to notice.

Being alone did not scare me. Rather, it heightened my sense of awareness. I was in the heart of Islam. This was the land of the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and the land of the legendary Sinbad the Sailor. All I was doing was the stuff of my own childhood fantasies of travel, danger and adventure. It was exotic. It was different from anything I had ever known.

Sure, I thought it was odd, when others were fleeing the Middle East, I was charging headfirst in all alone, but it was exciting.

The approach into Muscat, the capitol of Oman was similar to the approach into Dubai. The glow of streetlights broke up the darkness of the desert. As the plane approached the city of Muscat, it dipped, allowing me to examine the city.

I expected to see camels and donkeys traveling in caravans along dirt-covered streets. Instead, I saw a large, modern-looking metropolis. There was a six-lane highway with cars speeding along. Neon signs that seemed to go on forever lit up a multitude of stores along its sides. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Well, I thought, so much for the Arabian Nights.

A few minutes later, the plane touched down, slowed and finally came to a stop some distance from the terminal. The adrenalin was flowing as I grabbed my carry-on and made for the exit. I was unsure what to expect.

Of all the things expected, the one thing I didn't expect hit me first. A bus waited below the stairs to take us to the main terminal. As I stepped off the plane the air was thick, hot and wet. I almost couldn't breathe. Even in shorts and a t-shirt, I immediately began sweating.

It's after midnight and it's this hot? What’s it like here during the day? This is November, is it winter or summer here?

I got on the seatless bus and found trying to keep myself upright by holding the stainless steel bar nearly futile because the sweat on my palms made it nearly impossible to get a firm grip. Since the university told me they would send someone to pick me up, once I entered the terminal, my next and last objective was to pick up my luggage and find that person, or so I thought.

I gingerly approached the immigration desk.

It's midnight and it's dark. If I were a terrorist, this would be my time to strike, I thought to myself.

Clearing customs was uneventful. I threw my luggage onto an x-ray machine. The guards, who I expected would tear open my bags and rifle through everything, looking for copies of Playboy or bottles of whiskey, hardly seemed to notice me. I then proceeded through a pair of large double doors to the reception area of the terminal.

It was just after midnight. At that hour the airport was, for the most part, deserted. I looked around for someone who looked like he might be looking for me. I went and asked a person who looked like he was looking for someone, if he was looking for me.

Sur College? I asked him.

No English, he replied.

I pointed to myself and said my name.

No English, he repeated.

I assumed then he was not waiting for me.

Soon, the terminal was empty except for the few souls who were staffing the rental car and money exchange offices lining the side of the room. I was beginning to feel quite uneasy.

I came from halfway around the world and no one had been sent to the airport to pick me up?

In my new and unexpected situation, my imagination began to get the better of me. What if this was some kind of terrorist plot to lure me into the country and then massacre me in the airport to send the U.S. government a message?

I looked around the lobby for some Death to America or Yankee Go Home placards. There were none. But there were signs in Arabic.

Maybe they don't know how to spell 'Die Yankee,' in English. Maybe that was why they brought me here, either to kill me or to teach them English so they can make better signs for the Western news cameras.

I waited pensively for twenty-minutes, but no one burst through the lobby spraying machine gun bullets or throwing grenades. Neither did anyone come into the lobby asking if I needed a ride to the college in Sur. It was just quiet and incredibly hot.

Great, I'm stranded in the middle of the night at an airport in Arabia.

I seriously began to doubt the efficiency of the institution for which I had come so far to work. The term Mickey Mouse outfit began to roll around inside my head.

What are my options? I asked myself. I had been flying for over a day. It was dark, and I had two hundred American dollars in my pocket.

It probably wouldn't be too safe to sleep here just in case any would-be terrorist came in, looking for easy pickings.

Once, when I was in the fourth grade, I had been left at little league baseball practice inadvertently by one of the parents whose turn it was to pick me up. We didn't have a telephone so, with nothing else to do, I waited until it was dark, then I crawled into a piece of playground equipment to try to sleep. I felt a sense of being abandoned then, and the same sense of abandonment was beginning to overtake me.

Should I try to find a playground?

Near the airport terminal entrance, I saw a tall man with pale, white skin. He was wearing glasses and he was dressed in Western clothing. He looked like he was waiting for someone. I approached him.

Sur College? I asked him.

No, he answered with a British accent. Are you waiting for someone to give you a lift?

Yeah, I said, frustrated.

He looked around the terminal. It was devoid of passengers and picker-uppers.

Did you try calling them?

Yeah. My phone card doesn't work.

Where are you going?

A place called Sur.

That's quite a ways away. You should get a hotel tonight and try to get there in the morning, he advised me.

He began looking at me with either curiosity or suspicion. It seemed more than apparent to him I knew very little about where I was or where I was going.

How much is a hotel here? I asked.

About sixty, U.S.

I looked at the rental car places. They were still open.

How much for one of those?

I don't know, I can find out, he offered.

We walked to the counter and asked. The rental agent told us a rental car for two days was about forty dollars U.S.

I had two options. I could stay for a night in a hotel for sixty dollars and wake up in the morning and still not have anyone to pick me up, or I could rent a car for twenty dollars less and try to make it to Sur that night.

I think I'm going to rent a car, I told the man.

Do you know how to get to Sur?

Nope, I've never been in the country before.

Do you have a map?

Nope. Do you know how to get there?

Yes, I can draw you a map. But it's almost four hundred kilometers and if you make a wrong turn, you're going to go way out of your way.

Well, I'll take my chances, I said. I wasn't exactly sure how far four hundred kilometers was.

He looked at me with a curious expression. As he sketched a map, the person at the rental agency gave me paperwork to fill out. When all was finished, I took the map and started outside with my luggage.

Just make sure you don't miss the Nizwa exit, he cautioned from behind me. It comes up kind of fast.

The what exit? I asked.

Nizwa, it's on the map.

Oh, yeah, okay, I said over my shoulder as I lugged my suitcase toward the car.

When you get to Sur, take a right at the roundabout. I don't know where the college is but someone there should be able to help you! he yelled after me.

I dropped my luggage and turned around.

The roundawhat? I asked, wrinkling my brow.

He was really looking at me suspiciously.

You sure you don't want to stay in a hotel?

Yeah, I'll be okay, I reassured him.

Americans, he mumbled.

He shrugged his shoulders, turned and walked back into the terminal. The glass doors shut behind him.

By that time, it was almost one o'clock in the morning. I was starting to feel punchy. I put my luggage in the rental car's trunk. I wanted to look at the map one last time. I felt my pockets for it but it wasn't there.

Crap, where is that friggin' map?

I couldn't go back and tell the guy I lost it. That would make me look like even more of an idiot than someone would go driving across the desert in the middle of the night in a country where he had never been.

Oh well, I thought, there are only two turns. Now what was the name of that exit?

I got in the driver's seat and put the transmission in drive. I was heading off into the desert in the middle of the night. I had no idea where I was and less of an idea where I was going except for the penciled map I had managed to lose. I had no idea what the political climate was or what kind of feeling the local population had for Americans. I didn't even know if there was really a road that went as far as Sur and if there was, what shape it was in.

If there isn't a road, will the car make it through the desert? I wondered.

I began to think some would consider what I was doing insane. Maybe so, but the reality was someone left me stranded at the airport. I needed to check these people out and if they were really that primitive, I was going to be on the first flight out in the morning.

I followed the man's directions and got out onto the main road. I was surprised at how nice of a road it was. It was wide and straight. Traffic was light.

Due to the late hour, I needed to make up time and get as far as I could as fast as I could before I fell asleep at the wheel. I punched the accelerator to the floor.

The rental car was a newer Toyota Camry. I got up to one hundred and sixty kilometers an hour quickly. Having no understanding of the metric system, that seemed a good speed.

Almost as quickly, I saw I was heading for a large structure or building standing in the middle of the roadway.

What is this?

I stepped on the brakes. It appeared the road went around the structure in a full circle. I drove through it halfway and saw a sign that said, Nizwa in English. I followed that road.

Once again on the straight wide road, I pressed the accelerator to the floor. Soon a sign overhead once again read, Nizwa. There was an arrow pointing to the road on the right side of the highway. I remembered the foreboding tones of the man when he said not to miss the Nizwa exit, whatever that meant.

Once again, I stomped on the brakes and veered off the exit, barely missing the side of the tunnel I was entering. I made my way through the tunnel and then came to another building in the middle of the road with the roadway again going in a full circle around it.

This must be something the British thought of, I said as I slammed on the brakes for the third time in as many minutes. I read the signposts as I approached a turn off. I saw Nizwa  on one of them.

That must be it.

I turned down that road and once again punched the accelerator. Once I reached one hundred and sixty kilometers an hour I eased back a little bit. One hundred and sixty kilometers an hour, I reasoned, was probably around sixty-five or seventy miles an hour.

The street was wide and well lit. There were no cars anywhere. I pulled a cassette out of my carry-on bag and inserted it into the car's cassette deck. The beginning notes of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir began to reverberate throughout the car.

I looked at the roadway speeding past at the bare brown desert lit by the speeding headlights on the side of the road. I was living the Kashmir song.

This is great, I thought to myself.

I was very concerned about being spotted by a police officer in the event I was exceeding the speed limit. However, I was more concerned about going to sleep at the wheel and dying in a fiery car crash. If, by some chance I were pulled over by a police officer, I would simply explain that I was an American and Americans don't use the metric system.

Then I thought about that. I was going to tell an armed Muslim policeman in the middle of the desert that I was an American? I had to think for a second. I did and pushed the accelerator a little closer to the floor.

Let's just hope there aren't any coppers out tonight, I said to myself.

I had driven for some time, when I saw a sign that said Sur above the roadway. Once again, I applied the brakes. I turned off at that exit and came to another circle in the middle of the road. I drove around it and found that it just went back to the highway. Must not be the one, I reasoned.

I got back on the highway and remembered the man saying there was a gas station and a restaurant at the Sur exit. So, on I went, looking for a gas station and a restaurant near an exit.

 I crested a hill. I appeared to be steadily climbing into the dark mountains. As I came down the far side, I saw a restaurant and gas station lighting up the side of the road. Above the highway was the sign I was seeking. The sign said Sur.

I veered off the highway. The road then went through an almost hairpin turn and then wound out onto a two-lane roadway that, unlike the highway, had no lighting at all.

All I could see was what was illuminated in my headlights. The road looked straight. Once again, I punched the accelerator and got the car back up to one hundred and sixty.

With no street lighting, I began to get a better sense of where I was. I was in the middle of the desert with no map. I had less of an idea where I was going than I did when I started out. My only consolation was that here and there were old, darkened buildings. At least I felt comforted knowing the area I was passing through was probably inhabited.

Then I began to think about cops. I looked instinctively into my rear view mirror. Way back, I could see something flashing. I looked a little more intently. It was a flashing blue light. It was the cops.

Oh sh--, I said out loud.

Then and there I had to make a life and death decision. The flashing light was at least two miles behind me. I could try to outrun them. Or I could try to hide by turning off my lights.

Whatever, I did, my worst fears were coming true. A Muslim policeman in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night was chasing me. I was an American. He most likely had a gun.

I knew I was an American. He didn't.

I'll just tell him I'm Australian. Everyone loves the Australians.

I practiced a couple of, G'day mates, and slowed the car down.

Much to my chagrin, the blue light kept getting bigger in my rear-view mirror. I was the only car on the road. I couldn't use the excuse that I didn't know he wanted me.

I pulled the car off the road and brought it to a stop. It took a few minutes for the blue light to catch up but, inevitably, it did.

G'day, I practiced. G'day, g'day, g'day.

Then I realized it was night. G'night?

Do they say, G'night in Australia? I wondered.

That sounded like I was going to sleep or something. It just didn't sound right at all. The blue light was flashing right behind my car and it had stopped. I took out my documents, passport, etc. only to present as a last resort.

G'day, g'day, g'day, I kept repeating.

I heard the door of the car behind me open and close. I would say that I was a little frightened, but that would be an understatement. As the expression goes, one could have built a pretty solid structure from what was almost passing through my bowels at that moment.

G'day, g'day.

The flashlight came up to my window and stopped. It shone in on me. I then realized I should roll the window down in order to facilitate conversation.

G'day, g' day, g' day...

Hello, he said.

Hello, I answered.

Did I just say hello?

American?

Truth be told, I am proud to be an American. I realized then I could never say I was otherwise, even if my life depended on it. Then, at that moment, I was fairly certain that might be the case as I looked at the holstered gun on his hip.

Yeah, I said. Look, I may have been going a little fast, but I don't really know the met…

Passport? the policeman asked.

He didn't seem at all angry that I had been speeding. I gave him my passport. He looked at the picture and then he shone his light in my face.

Ah, American friend, he said, smiling. For some strange reason, he seemed quite pleased to have pulled me over.

American friend? Yeah, uh sure.

This is a strange twist.

Going where? he asked.

Sur, I'm going to teach at the college there.

Good, good, he said.

Then, he said something in Arabic. I realized there was a person standing on the other side of my car. The policeman then pointed to that man.

My brother. Can you give him a ride? he asked.

I was in the middle of the desert at around two o' clock in the morning. An armed Omani policeman had just seen me going, I later realized, at least a hundred miles an hour. He was asking me if I could give his brother a ride home.

Have I stumbled onto Mayberry R.F.D. Arabian style?

Whatever it was, I was not about to say no to an armed policeman in the middle of the night.

Uh, sure, I said, somewhat confused.

The policeman then said something in Arabic to the man standing on the other side of the car. A second later, the passenger door opened as a large man in a white nightgown and a red and white cloth around his head got into the passenger seat. He smiled and shook my hand.

He will tell you where to go, the uniformed policeman said. Thank you, my friend.

Uh, you're welcome, I responded.

The policeman gave me back my passport and then returned to his car. Now that the flashlight was gone, I was sitting in the dark car with a man in what I thought was his nightgown.

I guessed it was probably a good time to leave, so I put the car into gear and pulled onto the road slowly. Suspecting the worst, I watched in my rear-view mirror as the police car also pulled away and began to follow me. I began to suspect at any instant, the man next to me would pull out a gun, or a knife and then, that would be it.

It was one of those moments in my life I would classify as tense. I was alone, unarmed and quite helpless. I had a Muslim policeman behind me and his accomplice in the seat next to me. As crazy as it may sound, my plan was simple. If they were going to try to kidnap or kill me, I was going to take the man in the passenger seat with me on the quick trip to the hereafter.

In the glow of the dashboard light, I kept one eye on the hands of the man next to me, and one eye on the road, waiting for some quick movement. The moment anything unusual happened, I was resolved to pull the steering wheel to the right and force the car to roll off the adjoining embankment.

I waited for something to happen, but it never did. After about a mile, the police car behind me stopped and turned around. I watched in the mirror as it headed back in the other direction. The man next to me just watched the road. We continued on into the night in silence.

Finally, I turned to the man and said, Speak English?

He shook his head no.

Great, I thought. I have who knows how many hours to drive and my company is an Arab in a white dress I can't even talk to.

I needed something to keep me awake. I reinserted the Led Zeppelin cassette into the deck and the notes of Led Zeppelin's, Kashmir reverberated through the car. The man turned his head and looked at me.

Rock and Roll, I said.

We approached a winding portion of the road, which was a series of wadis that lead to a higher desert plateau. I still was trying to make up time expecting a jaunt through the desert before I reached my final destination. As we approached each curve, the man would wave his hand in front of me, which was his way of telling me to slow down. Each time he did, I applied the brakes until he stopped waving his hand.

The ritual was repeated a number of times until finally the road straightened out. I began to feel exhausted. I turned the music down to communicate with my companion. I asked him if he was a policeman by putting my hands together as if they were in cuffs and I pointed behind me and then to the man. He nodded his head yes. I wondered if he would give me a ticket for speeding. I was getting tired and every time I tried to accelerate over a certain speed, the hand began waving in front of me again.

A little while later he looked at me.

Coffee, tea?

Coffee, I said.

It was after two in the morning. I was wondering where we were going to get coffee.

We drove until we came to a series of old buildings that looked uninhabitable. We had passed a number of similar buildings already and I assumed they were old, deserted villages. They were old villages, but not deserted. Ahead on the right was a lit red neon sign. He pointed towards it.

I pulled off the road and drove up to the building, which had a sign that said restaurant in English. The man next to me opened his window and called out to one of the men working there. The man wore western style pants and a shirt. He approached the passenger window.

The two spoke to each other in Arabic and then the man from the restaurant asked if I wanted milk, in English. I nodded. He disappeared inside the restaurant for a few minutes. He came out with two plastic cups. The man took them from him and handed one to me.

Ouch! I said. The cups were not Styrofoam and the plastic was no thicker than a sheet of paper. The water they used was near boiling. I put the cup down as fast as I could.

That's hot! I explained to the man next to me. He just smiled with his steaming hot cup in his hand.

My companion paid the man from the restaurant before I could offer to do so.

Thank you, I told him, looking at my hand for visible burn marks. He nodded and smiled again.

I was in a quandary because I couldn't find a cup holder and I was not going to pick up that cup of scorching hot brew and try to drive.

Can you hold onto this? I said pointing at the cup. The man picked it up without flinching and off we drove into the night.

After I finished the coffee, I was wide-awake. I don't know what they put into it, but it sure did the trick. No longer tired, I decided to pick up a few words in Arabic.

First, I pointed to the car and said, car.

In Arabic? I asked,

Siera, The man said.

Siera? I thought. That was easy enough to remember.

It was then I saw the reason for the man's concern for my excessive speed on the road ahead. There were two camels crossing a few hundred yards away. They were big, in the same category as a moose. I remembered what damage a moose would do to a car in Alaska in an accident. Its huge body flipped onto your hood and went right through the windshield.

In English, camel, I said pointing to the animals on the road ahead. What do you call it in Arabic?

Camel, he replied.

Oh, I said. That made sense.

The rest of the drive was quite uneventful. After about two and a half hours, we approached another group of buildings, which I assumed to be a town, and the man next to me made his slowing motion once again. He pointed with his finger at a road on the left and I slowed, turned on my signal, and made the turn. We drove down the road for a few hundred yards and then he motioned for me to turn again. I turned and drove down another road for some time. It was a very narrow street.

On each side, were old stone buildings with tiny windows that reminded me of something from the Middle Ages. We turned down another road and then another. We went around a curve and there, the man motioned for me to stop.

Your house? I asked.

He nodded yes, opened the door and got out.

Hey wait. How do I get back? I asked.

The man pointed silently back in the direction of the curve.

Oh, thanks.

I figured I could remember how to get out of there. All I had to do was go in the direction of the main road.

Of course, the trip back to the main road turned me into a rat trying to find its way out of a maze. After ten minutes of that, I gave up. I couldn't find a road that led to the main road and I was getting very tired.

Sitting at a shop on one of the streets I passed was a group of old men in Arab clothing. They were talking and drinking coffee. It was almost four in the morning. As I got out of the car to ask them directions, I no longer had a sense of fear, but I became quite conscious of how out-of-place I really was. I was a white American in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt, in the middle of an Arab town in the middle of the night. I was about to ask someone for directions as if I were looking for Pismo Beach. I hopped out of the car and approached the men.

Sur? I asked.

They didn't give me a second glance. They pointed to the intersection at the end of the street.

Thank you, I said.

I went back to my car, got in and drove to the intersection. They were right. I remembered it was the first turn I had made. I turned left there and soon, I was back at the main road. I drove back onto the deserted road and continued in the direction I had been traveling before the detour.

I drove along for a little while longer, seeing signs that said, Sur, in English, with kilometers noting the distance. As the minutes turned to hours the numbers of kilometers began to get smaller on the signs I passed in the darkness. Finally, after another long stretch of zigzags in the road, two things happened. The first rays of sunlight began to appear over the horizon, and I reached Sur.

I remembered then what the man at the airport had said.

When you get to the roundabout in Sur, take a right.

I came upon another building in the middle of the road with a circular road going around it.

This must be the roundabout in Sur, I thought.

Of course, there were no signs telling me that I was in Sur, but it was the only roundabout I had seen for almost four hours.

Having arrived in Sur at dawn, I was able to see a little bit of the town where I had agreed to spend the next two years teaching English. One of the first things I had seen before the roundabout was a very large sports stadium on my right. On it were the words, Youth Sports Complex in English. It rivaled any small college's stadium in the US, and it was modern looking in its design. The rest of the town, in contrast, looked old. The buildings were all white. Around me, were brown, dirt-covered hills, with little or no vegetation.

I continued down the main road and soon climbed a small hill where I came upon a hotel and a Toyota dealership. They appeared to be the only modern buildings in town besides the sports complex. The road I was driving on had two lanes going in each direction and was separated in the middle by a series of dividers. It was rapidly getting light as I sped along. I rolled down the windows to get a better feel for the place.

The first thing I noticed when the outside air rushed into the car was the smell of the sea. The second thing I noticed was the heat and the fact the sun hadn't even come up yet. I continued into the town. If I had a plan, it was to find the college and hope someone was there to meet me. It wasn't much of a plan, but having been left stranded at the airport, there wasn't much else to do.

The town seemed to go for a long distance. There was definitely a sense I was in the desert, but the closeness of the sea seemed to offset that. I still planned to get back on a plane home if the people at the college seemed as inept as when they left me at the airport. I figured with nothing else to do, I would check out the town. That would help me make a final decision. I approached my fifth roundabout and there I saw a sign with the words Sur University College and an arrow pointing down the street to the right. This is a stroke of luck, I thought.

I drove down the street. On my left was a bay of sorts. It was about a half a mile wide, but it was devoid of any water. The bottom was obviously muddy, which was evident from the darkness of the sand compared with the light brown sand around its edges. On the other side of the bay were more white buildings. On the edge of the bay, beside the road, was a dumpster. Around that, was a small herd of goats picking through it and eating the garbage.

A hundred yards down the road I found another sign on my right with Sur University College written in English. Following its arrow, I turned down a narrow alley with a very old looking house on each side. The houses were square, made of cement or mud, and they had very small windows with iron bars on them. Ahead of me was the college at the end of the alley.

I had flown halfway around the world to teach at a college at the end of an alley?

With nothing else to do but wait, I decided I would try to sleep for a few hours and hope for someone to show up eventually to unlock the gate.

THE TERROR IN SEPTEMBER

(Referring to the 9-11 terrorists)

 "Why do the FBI and the CIA keep saying,

‘Yeah, we know these guys?’"

Chris Matthews, NBC's Hard Ball,

September 13, 2001

A few months before, the sound of the rain dripping onto the roof and the tree leaves outside my bedroom window, caused me to awaken from a dream. I felt the chill of the cold September air on my bare legs and neck. I kicked my blankets over my feet and pulled the comforter around my head.

The warm days of another summer were gone. The rains had begun and the world of the Pacific Northwest was evolving into another wet, clammy, autumn and winter. The rains would continue until the middle part of June with very few breaks. Seattle is an endless cycle of cold and rain, followed by a few months of glorious warmth and almost unmatched natural beauty and then it was back to the cold depressing rain.

I lay in my bed hoping to return to the warmth of the dream from which I awoke. In the dream, I was with friends I had never met. We were enjoying a wonderful dinner next to a glowing fireplace.

In reality, I lay in my bed, still chilled from the cold, drafty air that was drifting into my slightly opened window. I knew if I didn't reach up and close it, the room and I, would continue to grow colder. I also knew that as soon as my bare arm felt the chill damp air as I reached for the window, I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.

Finally, I gave in. I reached up and extended my arm until I felt the pane. It was freezing. I pushed against it with my fingertips and slid it forward until it shut against the frame. As I predicted, I was awake.

I lay there for a few minutes knowing I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. I felt around my bed until I found a small rectangular black box hiding near my pillow. I hit a button long since memorized by feel. Then, the white blue light of my tiny television lit up the room.

That early in the morning, there seemed to be nothing interesting on the History Channel, so I began flipping through the other channels. I came to the CNN channel and stopped.

Anchorman Aaron Brown was standing on the top of a building speaking into a microphone. Aaron had once been a news anchor for KIRO-TV in Seattle before he became an anchor at ABC, and then CNN. He usually had something interesting to say, so I paused for a second and focused on the scene. Behind him I could see the World Trade Center with a gaping hole in one tower.

That isn't something you see every day, I thought.

I began going over possible explanations for the gaping hole and the smoke coming out of the World Trade Center in my mind. I remembered in 1945 an Air Force B-25, flying through fog, had crashed into one of the upper floors of the Empire State Building. Initially, I suspected a similar mishap. However, it was a beautiful clear September morning in New York City. I started to wonder if there might be something else afoot.

By then I was fully awakened, almost horrified, by the sight. I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to be accused of not telling anyone, if it was, in fact, one of those where were you, moments in history.

I called a girlfriend of mine in Portland, Oregon.

Turn on CNN, I told her.

Just a minute, she said. There was silence and then she spoke back into the phone, but from a distance.

Oh my god, what happened?

I don't know. I'll call you back, I said and hung up.

Then I called my brother and told him to turn his TV to CNN. At that time, the second plane flew into the picture for a split second and then it too crashed into the other Trade Center tower.

Holy s---! I'll call you back, he said and hung up the phone.

I put the phone back down on the receiver and watched and listened.

Someone was flying our airplanes into the World Trade Center, I thought.

Who was doing it, why were they doing it, and when was it going to end? We now know it ended a few hours later, when one plane crashed into the Pentagon, and another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers unsuccessfully tried to regain control of the aircraft. By eleven that morning Seattle time, both towers of the World Trade Center had been reduced to heaps of rubble and over three thousand people were dead.

That day, I sat horrified as I watched those innocent people die. I was even more horrified as I listened to the subsequent rhetoric and the finger pointing that went on immediately afterwards and continued for the next few weeks. The President was crying havoc and unleashing the dogs of war on whoever was responsible. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden's terror network in Afghanistan was going to be the first stopping point in America's new, War on Terror. At least that answered the question of whom.

What I found somewhat odd was, that in all the discussions, commentary and rhetoric, nobody asked why it had happened. Anybody who asked how it had been allowed to happen was labeled un-American. We were at war, they said, and it was not the time for difficult questions yet, the difficult questions remained.

Why did a group of seemingly intelligent young men decide to end their lives and the lives of thousands of people in such a horrifying way? What did these people or whoever incited them to do what they did have to gain? Why did the government let these people whom they knew were terrorists into the country in the first place?

If you listened to the rhetoric of the politicians, the terrorists did what they did because some people hate America and freedom. They, and whoever sponsored them, were going to have to be dealt with accordingly. I didn't disagree that those people needed to be found and stopped. I just didn't buy that explanation.

My reasons were simple. I have spent most of my life reading and studying history. I have been to Egypt and Israel. I knew better. First of all, except for the French and the British, most people don't hate Americans at all. If they don't like anything, they don't like the policies of the American government when it comes to the way it conducts foreign policy.

In spite of the attempts of the bureaucrats and politicians to paint the world in black and white, with heroes and villains and connect-the- dots, anyone with the intelligence beyond that of a twelve-year-old child, knew it just wasn't that simple. If intelligent people are going to end their lives in a horrific manner and commit mass murder in front of the world, they usually have a reason for doing so that goes far beyond just not liking somebody.

As far as I could tell, the reason for what the terrorists did on September 11th had something to do with History. Americans don't remember a lot of history. Any Americans who remember history are either called professor or conspiracy theorist so nobody except an undergraduate is expected to take them seriously.

In contrast to Americans, most of the other people on the planet do remember history. They remember it because they or their parents or grandparents lived through brutal regimes, bombings, holocausts, murders, wars and genocides. Most Americans don't remember who lost the last presidential election.

As the world's superpower, America is expected to referee the world's fights and usually, most Americans can't find the fights we referee on a map, unless the map happens to have a general with a pointer standing next to it. Whenever our government has to make a decision on which side to take in a conflict, the decision is based upon factors that have little to do with wrong or right. Inevitably somebody has to lose.

For fifty years, the Palestinians had lost and lost again, and their struggle had become a rallying point for those in the Middle East who would choose violence over peace to achieve their political goals.

So, there we sat on September 11th, 2001, and watched over three thousand innocent people die at the hands of people who allegedly were working for Osama bin Laden of the billionaire bin Ladens, who used to work for the CIA in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union. It appeared to me that America's foreign policy chickens, in the words of Malcolm X, had, come home to roost.

In the words of Patrick Henry, "I smelled a rat." The Bush Administration was busy rewarding those who had been asleep at the wheel with unlimited budgets to spy on Americans in the new Fortress America, while at the same time, they were stripping the American people of their Constitutional rights, not to mention our children's and their children's money.

I grew up wondering how things like the holocaust, Hitler and ethnic cleansing had ever been allowed to happen. I was thankful to our forefathers who sacrificed and died en masse, so they would never happen again. Suddenly, I was no longer so sure. I thought that before the world embroiled itself in another senseless conflagration that maybe I could do something different for a change.

Love your enemies. Do good unto those who hate you, a very great teacher once said.

I thought maybe instead of complaining, there was something I could do to promote peace and brotherhood with the people of the Middle East, instead of more fear and more hatred. After all, I had a master’s degree in education. I had spent six years in the public education system, where I found out the hard way that they didn't want history teachers. They wanted coaches and good, regular substitutes. I also found out trying to be a teacher and help my country was a financially ruinous path to follow.

The fact was, I really missed teaching. With all that was going on in my life, I had nothing to lose and quite possibly the world had something to gain. Soon after September 11th, I put my resume online to teach English in the Middle East.

If I could get a job there, I could show at least some people in the Arab World that Americans are good, caring, peaceful people. Possibly, I could find out why some of them have resorted to using terror against us. By finding out the real answers to their problems, maybe we, as a people could find an end to the War on Terror without using the Neolithic tactics of our political and corporate leaders.

One night soon after I put my resume online, I awoke in the middle of the night. My roommate was knocking on my bedroom door.

Huh? I said still asleep.

Phone call.

I felt around in the dark for the telephone. After a few moments I found it and picked it up.

Hello, I said.

The voice on the other end sounded Australian or British, so I knew it was someone from the Middle East calling about a teaching position. It was one o' clock in the morning, and I was not really up for a job interview, but I did the best I could.

I had already talked to people before from Saudi Arabia about teaching positions, but they seemed, if anything, depressing. The person on the other end of this call however, talked about being on the coast near the sea in a country called Oman. He told me he was Australian and there were other Australians as well as British teachers where he was. In my mind, I could see palm trees, white sand, volleyball nets and shrimps on the barbie.

It had been raining and cold for the last two months in Seattle. I didn't need to hear any more. I asked when they wanted me there.

As soon as possible, he replied.

Is two weeks okay? I asked

That's fine, he said. We’ll email you the contract now. If you agree, sign the contract and fax it back to us as soon as possible. We will email you your flight information and visa.

Okay, sounds good, I said. I was trying to make it sound like I did that kind of thing all the time.

Okay, cheers, and sorry to wake you, the Australian man said.

No problem, I answered. See you soon, and thanks."

I put down the phone. I looked at the wall in the darkness and said, Holy sh--.

I don't remember if I slept well that night. I don't know if I dreamed of blue water and surfboards, but it sounded to me like I was on my way to paradise Anyone who has spent any time in rainy, drizzling Seattle knows a place where the sun shines at all can be most appealing, even if it is near a combat zone on the other side of the world.

The next morning, I announced that I had a job offer.

With people who don't know any better than to call at one a.m.? one of my roommates asked.

Sorry, where they are, it was afternoon.

Where are they, China?

Not quite. Oman.

Oman? Where is that?

I'm not quite sure. I haven't looked at a map yet. I think it's near Saudi Arabia.

You'll get killed.

Getting killed became a major topic of conversation over the next two weeks. Later that day, I drove to my mother's house and told her the news. I made the mistake of telling her when my nieces and nephews were visiting and within earshot. My mother nearly hit the ceiling and that brought in the rest of my brother's and sister's progeny to the fray.

Oman! my mother exclaimed.

Yeah, I said.

Where is that? It's in the Middle East isn't it?

Yeah, its south of Saudi Arabia, next to Yemen. I hoped she wouldn't know anything about Yemen.

Don't you mean Yeah-man, my fifteen-year-old nephew piped in. He and two of my nieces were gathered around, trying to interject their wit into the conversation. With an audience, there was no stopping them.

Do you know how many terrorists there are in Yemen? my mother asked.

She was a retired administrative assistant for the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Oman was going to be a tough sell.

I'm not going to Yemen. I'm going to Oman.

Is that as in O-man how I get out of this place? my nephew piped

in.

No, my niece chided. It's as in O-man, please don't shoot me.

No, I said, it's as in O-man did you hear about the teenagers who disappeared without a trace?

We had a few too many smart alecks for one family.

My mother was very worried and subsequently, was not happy about the prospects of having a son in the Middle East. When I was eighteen, I left for the Army and had been gone for four years. After I finished college, I had gone to Alaska for six years. Once again, I was talking about leaving and this time for probably the most dangerous spot in the world.

Well, I can't stop you, but I don't think it's a good idea, my mother  said.

Everyone else I told, said pretty much the same thing.

The Middle East? You'll get killed.

There were also a lot of allusions to my needing psychiatric help and there was one reference to my private parts being made of cast iron. However, I had already been to the Middle East as a member of the 82nd Airborne and the Peacekeeping Force in the Sinai Desert. I knew something about the region that most people don't.

A lot of people there say bad things about America when the T.V. camera is running, but deep down most of them would do just about anything to live in a country like the U.S., that they believed offered them freedom and economic opportunities. Their version of our reality is just as distorted as our version of theirs. We think they spend all of their time plotting against us. They think we spend all of our time plotting against them.

Be that as it may, I knew that when I was in the Middle East in the 1980's as a paratrooper, I had been treated like a celebrity simply because I was an American. Even if it was a little dangerous, I had spent four years in the 82nd Airborne Division. I figured I knew how to handle myself.

If someone was going to shoot me or blow me to smithereens, I most likely wouldn't know it, so why worry? We all have to die sometime.

The final clincher in my decision to go was that the year before I had been drug into a marriage with a woman I was dating who told me she was pregnant. I married her so that my child would not grow up as I had, without a father. However, a month after we were married, she informed me she was divorcing me, that she knew how to use the (Oregon) courts against me and that I would never see my child.

I had laughed at her then. Over the next few months, I watched in horror, as what the woman had said came true. I watched her commit perjury repeatedly in front of a female judge to get a restraining order against me and, when I protested that the woman was committing perjury, the judge had absolutely no interest in anything I had to say.

…hurry it along, I have a luncheon to attend, she told me.

I had grown up loving my country, but I found out the hard way all the talk about freedom, equality and justice had been for somebody else, not for me.

I spent four years serving my country in the Army, so I could afford to go to college to be a teacher because I thought our country needed good teachers. After I finished my master’s degree, I spent seven years watching the interest accumulate on my student loans because I could not afford to pay them. Substitute teaching didn't pay enough and every contracted position for which I applied was given to either a coach, or a someone who fit a demographic whether they could teach or not. To top it all off, a woman judge in Oregon told me I have no rights in a United States Court.

I discovered the hard way our schools didn't care about educating our kids and our courts are a protection racket that you either paid into, or you were stripped of everything. The American Dream had become an American Nightmare and there was nothing I could do about it except suffer like millions of other hapless peasants or get the hell out of Dodge.

I had few arrangements to make beyond notifying the Oregon Court System that I was taking a new job, so they would know where to send my child support bills. Packing was simple. After six years as a substitute teacher, I didn't have much to my name beyond a small stereo, a mountain bike, a computer and a 4x4 pickup.

I spent my last night in the U.S. packing what I was going to take with me the next day, all of it in two suitcases. I did not know what the future held, but it had to be better than the past.

When four o'clock the next morning came, I awoke and carried my luggage outside. My younger brother was giving me a ride to Sea-Tac airport for a flight that left at eight o'clock that morning. If someone were to ask me how I felt, the truth is, I felt great. I was thirty-seven years old, and I was going on a big adventure.

If I had any regrets, they were leaving my mother and my daughter behind, but I couldn't see my daughter because of the restraining order I sat in court and watched her mother commit perjury to get. I needed to go and do what I had to do so that my daughter would be able to have a father she could be proud of, and whom she could rely on someday. I would also need lawyers, and they were going to cost money.

I rode to the airport with my younger brother in the drizzling Seattle rain. It was still dark and the roads even that early were starting to get congested. I watched the blurred headlights and taillights through the windshield wipers on our way to the airport in south Seattle. I didn't know what it would be like when I got off the plane at my final destination, but I knew life wasn't going to be anything like it had been.

As we passed the thousands and soon to be millions of commuters beginning to clog the highways and roads within the next few hours, I felt that out of all these people with their families and routine lives, I was finally different than them. Where I was going, few would dare to go.

In the face of what seemed to be very apparent danger, I felt more alive than I had in many years. The people on the road all around me would go to their offices, stores or construction sites and do the same things today they did every day. They would sit and drink coffee, have meetings and meet deadlines. I was getting as far away from that rat race as possible. Nobody seemed to notice.

My brother pulled his gas guzzling Ford F-250 pick-up up to the curb at Sea-Tac Airport and I pulled my luggage out of the back. That was it. There was no turning back. I was somewhat nervous as I realized for the first time what I had really done. Before, it had