Whatever is true
whatever is noble
whatever is right
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-
Think about such things.
PHIL 4 verse 8
Joe, the South African friend of the whiskey, drove me up the mountain yesterday to see the roses. I have been moonlighting most Thursdays and have not been doing my usual escapes to the sands or camping with my geologist friends, so was really in need of a short escape.
I was feeling tired and sore and in need of finding a place of peace inside. We drove out of town with some soft Mozart and not too many words, and as we left the city behind, I immediately started to feel lighter.
There is something about a trip in a car that makes me want to go and go and go to the end of the road. There is something about the leaving of a place, and the anticipation of arriving somewhere new, that really revives a part of me. It reminds me of the long road trips with my parents, with my grandparents, uncles, aunts.. singing songs, stopping for yummy picnics on long open roads with a sign before to signal the shade of a tree, playing "I spy with my little eye". Road trips are imbedded in my South African culture, and my love for them is inherent to who I am.
I love my car here in Oman. His name is Ollie, named after Oliver Twist, always asking when we stop at the petrol station, 'Please,Stefani, can I have some more?'
After the Cyclone Gonu, I refused to write him off. He was completely flooded and it took months to get him fit and well, but he has been going well ever since. He is always polite and has only ever broken down twice, once withing spitting distance from home and the second within spitting distance of the town where my bedu family live.
It is already quite warm and humid in Muscat, I noticed 31,5 degrees Celsius this morning, so it was pleasant to get up into the foothills and then higher into Al Jebel Al Akhdar, the Green Mountain. It is not really green as we would imagine green. But when you get to the top of the plateau and squint your eyes like crazy, you can imagine when the Omanis would name it that.
There are beautiful views over to the terraced villages, where the people grow different fruits and of course the roses.
It is quite late in the season, and I half thought we might have been too late, but approaching the village of Al Aqr on foot, I was really happy to see some pink splotches still on the bushes. I was also expecting the place to be inundated with foreigners, but it was almost as if it was booked just for us. There is a path along the mountain with lovely views, past a pool down a little wadi, on by a small picturesque mosque with a sky blue minaret.
I love the roses here, they are not pristene and pruned, they are a bit raggedy and windswept and a wonderful pink. The pure fragrance hits you and one can wander down one side of the main rose garden treading carefully along the top of a falaj, water way. I sat for a moment in that shady place watching the bees enjoy the sweetness of the petals, listening to the small birds and looking at the small red dragon flies flitting over the water. An wiry wizened old man who reminded me a little of my oupa, my grandfather, came jaunting along the wall with his stick, happily chatting to himself. He gave us such a friendly greeting and had such a glint in his eye, it was difficult not to share his enthsiasm for the day.
We left that place and had our own picnic at one of the lookout points. An Omani family stopped in a pick-up truck and all piled out, children, women and all. They proceeded quickly into the hills, one woman carrying a couple of small plastic bucketlike containers, I am still curious to know what they were collecting. Joe took out his pocketknife to cut neat slices of chicken and I reclined on my purple pillow with the sun in my face, able for a moment to feel a deep kind of rest.
It was a good Friday.
whatever is noble
whatever is right
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-
Think about such things.
PHIL 4 verse 8
Joe, the South African friend of the whiskey, drove me up the mountain yesterday to see the roses. I have been moonlighting most Thursdays and have not been doing my usual escapes to the sands or camping with my geologist friends, so was really in need of a short escape.
I was feeling tired and sore and in need of finding a place of peace inside. We drove out of town with some soft Mozart and not too many words, and as we left the city behind, I immediately started to feel lighter.
There is something about a trip in a car that makes me want to go and go and go to the end of the road. There is something about the leaving of a place, and the anticipation of arriving somewhere new, that really revives a part of me. It reminds me of the long road trips with my parents, with my grandparents, uncles, aunts.. singing songs, stopping for yummy picnics on long open roads with a sign before to signal the shade of a tree, playing "I spy with my little eye". Road trips are imbedded in my South African culture, and my love for them is inherent to who I am.
I love my car here in Oman. His name is Ollie, named after Oliver Twist, always asking when we stop at the petrol station, 'Please,Stefani, can I have some more?'
After the Cyclone Gonu, I refused to write him off. He was completely flooded and it took months to get him fit and well, but he has been going well ever since. He is always polite and has only ever broken down twice, once withing spitting distance from home and the second within spitting distance of the town where my bedu family live.
It is already quite warm and humid in Muscat, I noticed 31,5 degrees Celsius this morning, so it was pleasant to get up into the foothills and then higher into Al Jebel Al Akhdar, the Green Mountain. It is not really green as we would imagine green. But when you get to the top of the plateau and squint your eyes like crazy, you can imagine when the Omanis would name it that.
There are beautiful views over to the terraced villages, where the people grow different fruits and of course the roses.
It is quite late in the season, and I half thought we might have been too late, but approaching the village of Al Aqr on foot, I was really happy to see some pink splotches still on the bushes. I was also expecting the place to be inundated with foreigners, but it was almost as if it was booked just for us. There is a path along the mountain with lovely views, past a pool down a little wadi, on by a small picturesque mosque with a sky blue minaret.
I love the roses here, they are not pristene and pruned, they are a bit raggedy and windswept and a wonderful pink. The pure fragrance hits you and one can wander down one side of the main rose garden treading carefully along the top of a falaj, water way. I sat for a moment in that shady place watching the bees enjoy the sweetness of the petals, listening to the small birds and looking at the small red dragon flies flitting over the water. An wiry wizened old man who reminded me a little of my oupa, my grandfather, came jaunting along the wall with his stick, happily chatting to himself. He gave us such a friendly greeting and had such a glint in his eye, it was difficult not to share his enthsiasm for the day.
We left that place and had our own picnic at one of the lookout points. An Omani family stopped in a pick-up truck and all piled out, children, women and all. They proceeded quickly into the hills, one woman carrying a couple of small plastic bucketlike containers, I am still curious to know what they were collecting. Joe took out his pocketknife to cut neat slices of chicken and I reclined on my purple pillow with the sun in my face, able for a moment to feel a deep kind of rest.
It was a good Friday.
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