I usually write about education and its importance. But let us not forget that education goes beyond the formal institutions as well. I am referring to the learning that takes place in other contexts, including at a family home or across cultures.
Let me explain. This week, I learned from articles published in this newspaper and posts shared on social media that His Majesty the Sultan is currently visiting the Netherlands. My Omani family and I are currently visiting the Netherlands as well, but unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to watch His Majesty visiting a monument in Amsterdam.
Instead, we have been mostly staying at a house on a street in Amstelveen, a municipality near Amsterdam, where I was once born and raised and where my father currently resides while we take care of him due to unforeseen circumstances. Let me simply sum it up as the ‘best of times and the worst of times,’ as we get to spend a little bit of quality time with someone facing a challenge we wish he did not have to.
My father lives on a street opposite a village called Ouderkerk, which means Old Church. His street and the village are separated by the Amstel River, which also runs through Amsterdam, which is famous for its canals. The Venice of the north of Europe.
Mind you, two famous Hollywood actors were born and raised in Amstelveen as well, not just little old me. From his house, my father can see two Churches, one Protestant and one Catholic. I have a special memory that relates to one of them. Both churches still have bells that they ring.
In our street in Oman, we have a mosque and I miss the call for prayers.
So, earlier this week, we could not attend the ceremony that involved HM the Sultan in Amsterdam as we had to do homework for school, a formal institution in Oman and I had to work from this Dutch home for the Oman government organisation to which I currently contribute. As always, it is an honour to serve a great nation like Oman.
My husband is an Omani national, while my parents are both Dutch. Given the visit of His Majesty the Sultan to the Netherlands and my own experience, I could go on and on about the unique relationship and areas of cooperation between the two countries. However, the truth is that today, many Dutch people still ask me why I feel more at home in Oman than in the Netherlands.
The answer is that I feel a bit more like ‘myself’ in Oman, not primarily because of what the two countries have in common but more because of the differences between the two. I love the gentle and family-comes-first approach of Omanis, the amazing natural beauty; and the norms and values that derive from a beautiful religion.
I do appreciate the story about a ship called ‘The Amstelveen’ that Salim bin Mohammed al Mahrouqi, Minister of Heritage and Tourism, once told me. In 1763, the Dutch ship ‘Amstelveen’ set sail from the Dutch East Indies for Muscat. Through a combination of human error and rough seas, the ship never made it to port, sinking off the southern coast of Oman. The 30 surviving crew members then faced a challenging trek across a desolate desert landscape to Muscat.
After hearing this story, that was again the theme of an article that appeared in this newspaper earlier this week, I started imagining that I might have ancestors who were on that ship. One of my late grandmothers grew up as an orphan, so you never really know. But I guess this was my way of explaining why I have always felt such a sense of belonging in Oman, a sense that I could never feel at home to that extent in the Netherlands, which is my birth country that I love and respect, but, as it turns out, is not my home country.
The writer is a consultant and former expert in government undergraduate scholarships
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