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An American experience in Arabia: All warmth, no pain
Published on Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 13:55, Updated on Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 14:51 in Lifestyle » Books section
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My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During The War of Terror, By Matthew D Heines,
Trafford, Canada, 559 pages, INR 325, $32.76
Dr Terry O'Brien
What happens when an American shows up alone in Arabia in the middle of The War on Terror? Constant fear, safety worry, ethnic profiling, cross-cultural clashes and what not. Right? Wrong.
The answer, surprisingly, is laughter, romance and high adventure in the Sultanate of Oman. And for Matthew D Heines - a former American paratrooper - it is more than just a cultural shock as he goes on a thrilling ride through the heart of the Arab culture as a teacher, adventurer and all-around wise-cracker.
For him, the Saudi Arabian peninsula resembles a sadistic Christmas stocking - On the right, or eastern side of the stocking is a spike pointing at the softy underbelly of Iran... Half of the spike, the toe and half of the thick sole of the Christmas stocking is the Sultanate of Oman.
In the second of a three-book series, My Year in Oman: An American Experience in Arabia During The War of Terror Heines breathes the warmth and humour and the heartaches of an American with the backdrop of the lifestyle of the 'expatriate’.
It’s also about the struggles, adroit schemes and maneuvers - sometimes humorous and sometimes nefarious - of an expatriate to maintain a sense of belonging (and sanity) in a world that he doesn’t belong to, in the first place,
The writer with an element of American humour even predicts: "It will not be long before having an expatriate relative will be as common as having an alcoholic bigot in the American family.”
The book is based in Oman - the Middle East which he finds ‘extreme and exotic’. Heines is pleasantly surprised as he discovers Oman - the land of the legendary Sindbad the Sailor - as a paradise full of interesting places and people.
“This Sultanate is neither the West, nor the East. This is the Middle East, rich in Arabian culture and heritage, where things like schedules, time-tables and the individual are considered peculiar foreign concepts,” he declares.
Just as he is beginning to come to grips with the culture shock(s), his life starts taking a downward turn when his home country, the USA, begins to gear up for the Iraqi invasion, and everyone regards him with suspicion. Despite the cold shoulder, Heines gets immersed in the culture of Oman and finds that in a world populated with lies, deceit and hatred, there are still honest and kind people in the unlikeliest of places!
The war has its element of romance even when it comes to the 'land of Legend'. The writer gives an apologia pro vita sua - “how much do we know about the people we are fighting now?”
The book is an attempt by Heines for the world to understand the ‘Muslim culture a little bit better’ perhaps thorough his eyes, one "who lived with and learned to love these people". The book is an attempt to tell a story until the story tells another story: 'I hope my story will also help you to understand their stories'.
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