Beautiful moments in the neighborhood

When returning home from the university, I can take the main road north two roundabouts and then turn east directly onto my road and go through two more roundabouts. This is, essentially, the most direct way to my apartment; however, the road in which I live on intersects with the main commerce road in the town, a town which comprises mostly male university students and Indian and Pakistani laborers. There are, of course, regular Omani families in the neighborhood, but not on the commercial strip. The point being, many single men = many cars just cruisin' on the commercial strip, causing a bottleneck of traffic at the roundabout intersections.

A more relaxing way for me to return home is to go east at the first roundabout on the north/south road, then angle north through the more family-friendly area of town. I enjoy this route for two reasons:

1. Less traffic
2. I never know what I'm going to see on the side of the roads

Reason number two offers glimpses of people just living their lives, and I share with you two beautiful images that I experienced yesterday and today:

Yesterday: An eight-year old Omani boy struggles to pedal and keep his balance at the same time on his size-appropriate small bicycle. He had one hand on the left handlebar to steady himself and steer while the right hand held a 2-liter Tiger thermos of tea (or maybe coffee) wrapped inside a translucent blue plastic bag with the handles of the bag tied succinctly on top (something his mother probably prepared). With the weight of the drink, the awkwardness of steering with one hand, and the physical effort it took to push the pedals whilst keeping an amazing 10 km per hour top speed, the finesse of his movements and clear determination in his face to cycle to whichever house his mother had asked him to deliver the drink was commendable and also beautiful as the sun set and spilled his shadow onto the dirt sidewalk area.

Today: On the corner of two streets that intersect at a roundabout section, there is a small goat holding area. I assume it is part of a family's farm, yet I'm not sure. Either way, a 1-meter tall concrete brick fence is all that separates the holding pen from the main road. With nearly 40 goats in the pen and such a low height for the fence, these creatures are bound to get curious and jump the wall, which they did today. Some of the goats stand on top of the fence, teetering as they balance their hooves and attempt sniffing the air, noses up, at the same time. The more gregarious ones stand on the outside part of the fence, milling about in the hard-packed dirt that separates the paved road and the pen. Along the wall of the farm, two of the farmers sit, in their white dishdashas and muzzars, on a bench in the shade with one foot on the ground and one knee pulled up to rest the flat part of the other foot on the bench, supervising the goats.

I pray that these moments stay in my memory, for they are so beautiful to me in their simplicity and provincial nature.


The photo for this post is from Photographers Direct, not my own observation or what I saw in the neighborhood.