week or so to garner a little social interaction (as if those of us in the "South Carolina" delegation don't see each other enough!) is cook dinner on a rotating-kitchen basis. We've partaken of delicious bryiani, thai, breakfast-for-dinner and veggie lasagne, among others. Those fine selections owe a bit to their cooks' personalities. Leigh headed up spicy bryiani with a tomato and cucumber yogurt salad as a nod to her obsession with all things Indian. Miriam provided delightful pad thai and coconut soup, demonstrating her devotion to diversity in cuisine. I offered a childhood favorite with a twist: breakfast for dinner, including oatmeal pancakes with homemade orange-banana syrup and egg casserole (just not the same without ham, but you know...)All this to say that we had all been looking forward, with great anticipation, to Cinco de Mayo as Dave Martinez had been promising for months to make some Mexican food. Having sampled Dave's mole a couple of weeks ago, I was geared up for the fiesta that would include food and entertainment--a pinata committee was formed to compliment the evening.
What happened this evening (photos to come, I promise!) was a throwback-ed-ly radical and hilarious combination of the Diwali episode of The Office, America's Funniest Home Videos (unlikely pinata contestants and predictable pinata hijinks clips) and every kindergarten Cinco de Mayo party...ever.
Unaware that the party had grown beyond our small group of about ten to include the students of the GAP school as well as teachers, friends of friends and everyone's children (an
d here there are a lot of children), I was stunned to step into the school's majlis (sitting or living room) and barely miss setting my foot down on a small kandura-clad child who looked up from his water-bottle maraca craft with curiosity. Then, there was Dave, seated like Barney in the middle of a shopping mall, surrounded by children clamoring for popcorn kernels to finish their maracas. Though there was a small amount of instruction on what, exactly, this new and foreign holiday (not relating to Allah or Muhammed, strangely enough) was about, I'm pretty sure they were just pleased to be the proud new owners of noisemakers.The food was amazing: baked nachos heavy-laden with cheese, jalapenos, chicken and olives, chicken mole with rice, tortilla soup, homemade flour tortillas, sweet and savory chips, mango-peach salsa, green chile salsa, fresh guacamole, refried beans. The only thing missing was a few Dos Equis, but we made do!
The real excitement started after dinner when the pinatas were unveiled. Now, a pinata bash can be a perilous and entertaining undertaking in the most mundane of circumstances, but a pinata bash in Oman with a crowd, 90 percent of which have never even heard of a pinata...you get the idea. Except that's not even the half of it. The unlucky effigy of a Camel hung in range of the children whose eyes were blinded by a red-and-white checked traditional headress, lent by one of the men. They were armed with a cricket paddle and took their best shots. They ran in after every hit gathering parts of the massacred camel and lording them over the other children. The head, a leg, the tail--almost a greater prize than the candy they ran for.
After the camel, though, real pandemonium ensued. The second pinata, a bust of Matthew
(Jacob's old roommate and a student with us here) was assigned to the lady-teachers of the GAP school. They enthusiastically accepted. In a near-child-like excitement they grasped the cricket paddle as the headdress was dutifully tied around their already-veiled heads. Their abbayas drug a bit in the gravel and they were turned three times before being allowed to let loose. Huda and Wadha took their best shots, everyone cheered them on and directed them in Arabic, English and other various languages, but it was Thuraiya who really did it in. She squinted as the headress was tied and pursed her lips as she gripped the paddle. She was turned, released and cheered on as she began the violent attack.Her sheyla flapped, the glittering sleeves of her abbaya slid up just slightly and he
r feet slipped in the gravel as she swung the paddle like a major-league slugger right at Matthew's head. Contact! Home run! Matthew's paper maiche head separated from the shoulders and pulled off from the line as it went sailing, spilling candy like dummy-brains the whole way, across the school's parking lot with children following closely behind. The pinata bounced off the close wall and rolled back toward Thuraiya (still swinging), who narrowly missed the children as those of us standing by attempted to restrain the agression of this normally sweet and reserved Arab woman.When she'd been stripped of her weapon and realized that she'd completed the task, she pulled at the headress and looked up with flushed cheeks and a big smile, framed by her veil, quite pleased with her stunning victory.
I thought, when I woke up this morning that I wished I could be in Lexington for the Cinco de Mayo street fair, but on second thought...this might be one of the best I've had!
Photos courtesy Miriam of Arabia
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