Talk with Issam

Talked with my roommate Issam, who is leaving back to Oman tomorrow, to his small hometown of Salalah.

He was always busy and we never got to talk too much, so I'm glad I had a chance to talk to him before he left.

It's very intersting there.. he has 13 children his family. When they get married all the brothers stay in the house with their wives. Although the sisters go to live in their husbands' family houses, they still visit their original family house often, and so it's always very busy.

Issam showed us a video of his brother getting married. They day after they get married, they hold a celebration for the groom, and the next day, for the bride.

For the groom, they dance with ceremonial swords, daggers, and staffs.. It was very nice of Issam to give each of us each a small silver ceremonial dagger like the ones in the video.

He is planning to go back and get married too. How it works is that he uses his 5 sisters, (and also his friends) to look for girls that would make a good fit for him. They would scout them out, and then he would try to see them in a public place, where his sisters would talk to her with him waiting to the side. If he was interested, he would ask her family if it was ok to make contact, and then she would say yes or no to continue on to get to know him.

Getting to know each other, he gets to see their face, although she would always have one of her family members present, otherwise it reflects badly on both of them. however, when talking over the telephone, it's not necessary to have another family member there, as I understand it.

Issam has the most education in his family, so his parents are anxious to make sure he has a really good bride. He also has his own criteria, which he is passing onto his sisters to help him pick. But unfortunately, out of all his brothers, he is the only one who can't dance -- which he will need to do for the wedding!