The final icing on the cake for this year's fiscal achievements includes my leasing of a white 4-door 2010 Mazda 3. Although I wish the engine were a 1.8 or 2.0-liter instead of the 1.6 standard that it is, it's a good set of wheels and has a really good sound system. Now, I'm not like some people (ahem, my sister) who build a relationship with their cars by naming them. Nor am I like others who correlate their personal net worths by the make and model of a car. The Mazda 3 is a reliable form of transport for me to get from point A to point B and big enough to include 3 other people in such an excursion.
That being said, my Omani students have come to use my car as a means to talk to me in the parking lot of the building where we hold classes. If they are in the parking lot and see me laboring under a heavy book or bag load, they help me to load and unload the things in the car. One student in particular is a little too enthusiastic about doing this service, but it's important for him to feel helpful and wanted, so I indulge him.
Because of the frequency in which my students see me coming and going from the parking lot, they've become familiar enough with my car to know my license plate number. I swear, some of these boys could be recruited for military intelligence because a student from last semester now knows where I live in town because he saw my car parked in the drive. "Creeeee-py!" you may be saying to yourself; however, this individual is sweet enough to not use this knowledge for ill intentions or share it with the other boys. However, it makes me wonder how many others have picked up on this detail since they are all very detail-oriented when it comes to knowing people.
An answer to the above wonder came this afternoon at the beginning of my writing class. "Mu" came up to the desk and said, "Miss, I saw you this weekend."
Me: Oh, really? Which day?
Mu: On Thursday. At Al Seeb beach.
Me: How do you know? (I was not wearing Western clothes -- I was wearing exercise pants and a t-shirt, yet fully covered by an abaya and hijab)
Mu: Your car. I was with my friends for football.
Me: (Mentally remembering which group of boys this was that I had passed on the walking pavement on the way to my car.) There were many boys playing football that day.
Mu: Yes, but I saw you with (makes hand motion of covering his hair)...I saw beautiful face.
Me: (Slightly perplexed) Oh, thank you. Yes, I was wearing hijab -- so people wouldn't bother me.
Mu: Very good, Miss.
This is the second time in which a student from my writing class was able to identify me fully clothed in abaya and hijab from afar. In both situations, the student's general knowledge of my body shape and seeing me near a white 2010 Mazda 3 gave away my identity. If only they could be that attentive to detail on their reading quizzes...
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