There weren’t many Americans there, mostly Canadians and such.
When my mother had foot surgery, Rainbush, the house boy would cook dinners and clean. Oman has a very large East Indian population. Indian food is a staple to this days in my home, I roast and grind my own spices even. My brothers and sister and I to this day will have conversations with each other with an East Indian accent.
The PanAm Compound was oval in shape surrounded by a cyclone fence. It had a ‘gate guard’, a tall Omani wearing his dishdashah who enjoyed taking naps in the little shack next to the gate. The gate was just this long two by four that he had to push down on for it to raise…high tech! There were 5 original apartment buildings with 4 stories each, 2 apartments on each of the 3 top floors. Each apartment had a foyer, a living room, a dinning room, a small galley kitchen, off the kitchen was a tiny semi bricked in porch where my Mom would yell...
…."Stefy, Leonard, Kristin, Thor….!” …and we knew it was time to come home.
It also had 3 bedrooms and 1 and 1/2 bathrooms. The floors were terrazo and the walls the same colour as the outside of the building, concrete grey. My Mom fought and argued with the management to be able to paint or wallpaper the inside. She finally won several years later. Our house was decorated with macramé hanging tables and hideously coloured loaned furniture. Macramé that caught on fire very quickly when brothers and their friends were left alone in an apartment with matches and a lighter!
Parking was under the building. Where we children were often found roller-skating on the smooth surface till our fathers came trotting back in their shared vehicles from work.
From our living room we had views of rocky, jagged mountains, dirt, rocks and thorn trees that dotted the barren land. Thorn trees that had brightly coloured fabrics drying on them. We would run to the windows or outside whenever a camel train would come by, always fascinated by what we saw.
These buildings lined one side of the Compound. There was one difference between building One and the rest, our had a patch of grass. It was probably four feet by four feet. My father had planted it and tended to it with great skill, and a lot of water. He would trim it with scissors.
On the other side were also a few houses for the ‘higher’ ups.
In the center of the Compound, where the rocks had been cleaned away we had volley ball nets up. We would also celebrate major Holidays, like Guy Fawkes day with a massive effigy that we would burn every November 5th. We also celebrated July 4th there with cookouts and fireworks.
On the far side from building One, next to Building 5 were Tennis Courts. I don’t even know if anyone ever played Tennis. They were usually used once a year at Halloween for a MASSIVE party. (Another Blog.)
Eventually they built 1 more apartment building, in all our childish originality, we called it ‘The Big Building’. It was cool and modern, it even had elevators.
We weren’t in the middle of nowhere, the RAF Compound was right next to ours.
My Dad would give us a few Baisas and we would walk over to ‘Tony’s’ to get candy. Tony’s was the closest thing to a convenience store. A ruckety wooden building, painted orange or yellow, my I can’t remember it was so long ago, with beaten wood floor boards. In the center of this tiny space was a trough of candy for us to choose from…I liked the Smarties. If you walked a little farther you would reach the Church/School. The Church all denominations shared and the school was for the ‘older’ kids who took correspondence courses, like my brother, sister, Rachel, Charles, Rob…and all the rest of them.
Us young in’s either went to boarding school or to the local English school, Royal Flight. At that time it consisted of two rooms. We played rounders, painted and Mrs Brown taught us, in her very strict manner. We learned French, the pound the pence and in-depth history of the United Kingdom.
Royal Flight is now a substantial school, with multiple buildings, a pool and sports teams.
I’m a member on an FB 'Royal Flight Group' site. I am THE oldest person on there. I’m looking for one of my best friend from those days, Rebecca Tilly.
Once the Queen came to visit us at our little school, yes, the Queen of England! She wore a brown dress with white polka dots. Her hat was also brown and she had a string of pearls draped around her neck. We were instructed not to talk to Her unless She spoke to use and we learned to curtsy. How COOL is THAT!
I shook the Queen of England’s hand.
We had a pet donkey named Clarence. He was brought up to our apartment on my little brother Thor’s birthday. Clarence had been found wandering on the runway and the Dad’s captured him for us.
A corral was made and I swear there were 4 of 5 donkeys before we knew it in the corral. The corral was lined with forts for us children, made from the containers goods were shipped over in. They were not one story forts but two! Our parents spent a great time building these two story forts for us.
My Mother was always making sure my tetanus shots were up to date because I would run around with no shoes. Rusty nails are NOT my friends, in my feet and forehead. They called me Scar Face because I had/have so many scars on my face from stitches. Mrs. Batstone, one of my Mom’s best friends was a nurse and I saw her often as I was stitched back up.
Excitement for us was when a U.S. Navy ship was nearby and we would get real pork hot dogs, bologna and maybe even a Coke product. We had to keep it quiet though, we lived in a strict Muslim Country where Sharia Law was The Law.
Motorcross was huge in Oman. We would go to races on weekends. Ian Ash...I rooted for him every time. I can’t believe I remember his name! My sister and brother shared a bike, I was WAY to young to ride:( Once my sister went out riding alone, a big, no, no. She came back hours later, on foot, pushing her bike along side with a terrible case of ‘desert rash’ all down her side.
The TV we watched was very limited; Star Trek in English and Sesame Street in Arabic. That’s ok, we missed nothing, we had something better….our imaginations.
My father had a collection of Reel to Reels…My parents would invite the kids in the compound over and we would lie on the dinning room floor on our bellies, our elbows resting on the floor and our chins planted in the palms of our hands. My Mom would make popcorn for us. I remember ‘The Lone Ranger’ and ‘The Shadow’ the best. I am sure he had more….but really…’only the Shadow knows….” It was like reading a book, you saw the story in your head, it was better than TV!
It was a safe place to live and run around barefoot and carefree.
I am friends still with people that shared this most amazing, magical time and place. We had a limited amount of people to interact with and because of that the families that lived there are closer than normal, the friendships stronger.
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