twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?"

Month: January 2020

  • january: florence, then regional politics

    Getting up and getting dressed for work, driving there, having it together, it was so easy in say early December. Now after weeks of the main work being presents and ribbons and plane reservations and figuring out the train from Milan to Florence and which panettone to buy, and orienting ourselves by the Christmas tree in front of the Duomo, figuring out how to work just seems so unreasonable. January after the break is always such a weird time. 

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    I thought this was my work. 

    Our first Christmas half a world away from Camille is still unimaginable, even though it happened. What made it tolerable is that 1. she didn't have to have a brutally long flight for a short visit, and 2. she was with Peter's sisters and her cousin in Monterey. Stefan left school in mid-December and went to Germany and stayed with a friend for week. Then we met up in Florence for Christmas. I had to work Christmas eve and didn't fly in until Christmas day, but it didn't prevent it from being glorious. Somehow we convinced the Luhmann's to join us for New Years, so having friends help us buy wine at the mercado and eat the extra panettone and play poker one night made the time even more sweet. Our apartment on Via Porcellana, near Santa Maria Novella, and even closer to the Santa Maria Novella Purfumery, had tile floors, heavy old furniture and bell-tower view. After visiting the Uffizi and seeing Botticelli's Primavera again after 20 years, all I wanted to do was stay in the apartment, wear socks and sweaters, and copy the painting in charcoal onto butcher paper. But we also rode the train to San Gimignano, had dinner one night on the campo in Siena, and saw the tilted Christmas tree in Pisa. The flight home was brutal, low-cost airlines are low cost for a reason. 

    Went back to work for a week, at a definite January pace. 

    On the 7th, the president had an Irani general assassinated, so the Embassy here was pretty spun up. Contingency plans were made, then things calmed down. After this, uh, excitement, we settled back into a routine. 

    Then over the weekend, the Sultan of Oman died. I've already written at length about him and his 50-year devotion to this country, but his death is a mournful call to prayer. And because of this, we got an unexpected three days off. I can't remember a five-day weekend ever. With no real plans, and not much open, it's been sweatpants, and movies, and trying not to snack all day. What bliss! It's okay to sometimes not do anything!

    I did things like researched natural bristle hairbrushes, and stalked the internet for a tea pot I'd seen in Florence and I regretted I didn't buy, in spite of having bought two other teapots at my favorite silly store in Florence (and Riga), Tiger. I made us chili, drank a lot lattes, finished one book and started another, decided on my next two reads, cleaned out the bookshelves, and unpacked our week-old luggage. Peter fought with the internet about an online course he has to take, and watched football. I like the sound of football in the background, it's very cozy. I found three bottles of wine in Stefan's suitcase that I'd forgotten we'd brought home!

    Now I have to get use to working again for two days, then we have a three day weekend!

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    One of my many coffees, and candle from Santa Maria Novella.

    When does life feel normal, ever, I wonder? Maybe in February. 

  • “friend to all, enemy to none”

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    Yesterday we woke up to our phones pinging that the Sultan of Oman had died. Since his cancer scare ten years ago, this is the day everyone had been anticipating and dreading. And the sky  poured rain, which felt appropriate. All the roads in Muscat were closed–my colleague couldn't get into Embassy row even with a diplomatic ID and plates–as a slow procession drove the longest-ruling leader in the Middle East's body to be buried.
     
    He came home from Oxford in 1970 and took over the family monarchy business. Since then, the Sultan's life's work was to establish oil production, and later the tourism sector, to move Oman from an economy based on subsistence farming and fishing, with nine miles of paved road and 900 students, to a prosperous, polished, and peaceful country. He united a diverse society that included descendants from India, Pakistan and East Africa. With an incredible eye for diplomacy, he helped broker the 2015 Iran deal, provided for the safe exchange of hostages, and supported struggling Yemenis while maintaining a good relationships with Iranians, the Saudis and the U.S. He created the Switzerland of the Middle East. 
     
    His photo hangs in the dentist's office, his portrait is painted on the sides of buildings, when you go to a performance at the royal opera house, his photo is on the inside cover of the program. He is the father of Oman. The freeway: Sultan Qaboos Highway.The ring road? Sultan Qaboos Expressway. He controlled the media, and insisted that all professors at the not-surprisingly-named Sultan Qaboos University have PhDs. He dictated the consistent "dreamy Arabia" architecture style that makes Muscat such a beautiful city. For 50 years he led with wisdom, teaching tolerance always, with an eye for beauty and an enormous vision.
     
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    The Royal Opera House, one of the Sultan's many projects. I'm sure he okay'd those light fixtures.

    It's like that assignment from 5th grade: create a country. I think mine had free ice-cream?

     
    Early on, the Sultan gave a speech promising schools, hospitals, transportation systems, and communications. He did it all, while traveling the country and meeting people face to face. Every Omani has either met him, or knows someone who has. One of my Omani colleagues has a photo on her desk: he is handing her her university diploma. The literacy rate is now 96%. No one pays more than $1000 a year for all medical needs. You can choose to go to university in Oman or overseas. The Ministry of Education will chose your school and your major, but university costs, including a stipend to live on, is free. There are no homeless people. The beautifully-lit roads are in perfect shape. Rude gestures are illegal. Driving through a red light will land you in jail. The air is clean; the water is clean. (I'm getting this info from Omani sources, but it doesn't feel too far off.) There aren't enough freeway exits, and I kind of wish he'd gone to school in the Netherlands, then maybe he would have set up more of a walking/biking city, but wow, is the airport ever a shiny and calm oasis of efficiency. 
     
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    Ever so elegant. Top photo Al Jazeera, this one, State Department.
     
    "What will happen when the Sultan dies?" has been a question on everyone's mind. He had been married for only a short time back in the '70s, and left no heirs.
     
    After his passing, his family council was to select a replacement, and if, after three days, they couldn't agree, they would open an envelope holding the name of the Sultan's preferred successor. Would there be days of indecision, anarchy, and destabilizing in-fighting?
     
    Yesterday, after the Sultan's passing, demonstrating incredible loyalty and grace, the council chose to forego discussion and go directly with the Sultan's choice. The entire country watched on TV and their phones as a council-member sliced open the wax-sealed envelope. He withdrew a paper on which was written one name. The Sultan's cousin, the former Minister of Arts and Culture, is now His Majesty, the Sultan of Oman. 
     
    Today someone referred to the Sultan's wife and I did a "What? Huh?" Sultan Qaboos was so famously single that just the phrase "Sultan's wife" sounds strange. I guess there is a Sultan's wife now, and children, too! It's a new era. Like his cousin, this new Sultan Haitham will have challenges. Young people, especially women, are frustrated by the lack of jobs, the oil economy won't last forever, and the Chinese are trying to buy all the ports. But today, after that moody storm, the sun is shining, and the air is so mild. We wish Sultan Haitham the same peace and success as this unprecedented and calm transition of power.