#OmanPride: Omani heritage, people impress American couple

More sports Tuesday 13/December/2016 00:18 AM
By: Times News Service
#OmanPride: Omani heritage, people impress American couple

Muscat: From celebrating weddings and Eid with the locals to speaking Arabic, this American couple has set an example in integrating into Omani culture.
Alex and Kim, 28, have made many Omani friends during their year in Oman, their “second home”, and they attribute that to their ability to talk and write Arabic without having ‘any mushkila’.
“How can one make friends and live a normal life in a foreign country without learning the language?” Kim asked.
She said that Oman is an “open and friendly place where it is easy to meet people.”
Alex, along with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, arrived in the Sultanate in 2015.
Awed by the local heritage and the people’s hospitality, the couple decided to stay in the country for “a long time.”
“I came to help to contribute to the insurance industry here, which is fairly new to the Middle East,” Alex said, explaining that Oman is a “good place to start learning Arabic.”
Asked about her view about people who live in Oman for years without learning the language, Kim asked, “I wonder if they are interacting with Omanis? People can enjoy life a lot more and learn more about the culture when they know the language.”
Last April, the couple met an Omani friend at a park in Muscat.
“I just said ‘salam alaykum’ and had a nice chat with the man, as our daughters were playing by the swings. His reaction was overwhelming. He took us in his vehicle to tour throughout Muscat,” Alex recalled.
“We could have moved here and never learned Arabic, but we want to feel like home and be able to talk to our neighbours,” she added.
Kim said she is planning to send her daughter to an Omani kindergarten next year so she can learn the Omani dialect.
Coming from the US state of Iowa, the young parents are part of a group of 37 students from 14 nationalities who joined the Arabia Experience Institute in Al Mabela to learn Arabic.
The multi-cultural classrooms are made up of students from the United States, Canada, Germany, Brazil, China and Nigeria.