What do you do to be involved in the community?
Every few years I attempt to learn a new skill, which started almost 15 years ago. My first attempt at baking was a partial success I got the measurements perfect, but I had no idea how much to fill the pan to allow the cake to rise. That day, the cake rose, enveloped the pan, and crusted on the oven tray. It was an interesting lesson, but I was an impatient student. So, I did not try to bake again, until almost a decade later, when we relocated to Muscat.
This was my second attempt, and before I started to bake, I procured more cake tins in varying sizes and shapes and just to add a little more oomph to the trial, I also signed up for a crash course in icing techniques. Getting the right amount of dough in the cake tin makes a big difference to the result, and this time, the cakes were perfect. The icing left a lot to be desired because it requires patience and a cooler ambient temperature, which I cannot handle. So, I ensured the icing was always ready in the cone, and when I served the cakes, I served the cones with the nozzles, and the kids started to enjoy fooling around with the designs.
Practice makes perfect and cake baking is no different. I started to bake because accessing fresh delicious cake was getting expensive. There’s something inherently amazing when you walk into a room that smells like vanilla. It’s fresh. It’s nostalgic. It’s home. And the kids always liked it when I baked, and they could smell it from the lift. The best part of this exercise was that even the neighbors in the apartment we were in, liked the smell. So much so, that I had friends pinging when I cooked or baked. Mum always encouraged us to share, even when we had very little. Typically, I baked large batches of dough and had more than enough to share. So, every week, we tried a new recipe, and my neighbors were the tasters, everyone would give their reviews. I finalized a few recipes as being fail-proof thanks to these reviews.
Coffee or tea with a few slices of freshly baked cake makes for interesting conversation starters. Add to this an Indian chaat stall, and you have the best party in the block. Mum used to organize some of the best, Pani Puri parties and she hosted a couple while we were in Muscat. What started as a gathering of women and kids, ended up being a family get-together with the husbands joining in as well. This set off the trend of coffee mornings, where occasionally we would meet at a different home and talk over coffee or snacks and tea. Coffee mornings at my home always included home-baked goodies and a slot reserved for reviews and feedback.
Coffee is sacred, a brew that assumes layers and flavors based on how it’s had. Share it and it becomes personal and intimate in a very unassuming sort of way. Our coffee mornings were sacrosanct. This was our time to talk, without worrying about the extendable ears of our curious kids, or reactions from the husbands. These mornings were open to all kinds of conversations and discussions, no topics were taboo, and it became a way to learn and understand a different society, a good holiday destination, and share the contact of a good maid or a good travel agent. Or even discuss the supermundane but oft-talked-about, kids’ behavior, teacher attitude, and the expectations in the different schools we were interacting with. This was our time to share our dreams, hopes, and aspirations. As expats in a region that had initiated the nationalization process, we were always ready to head back to the homeland or a different location at a moment’s notice, but these meetups ensured we supported each other through these different transitions.
Although communities can be built on a lot less, ours was built around these changing and challenging times. There was a constant movement of couples and families in and out of the apartment complex going through the various stages of relocation into and out of the region. Our community, just focused on supporting each other ensuring that the transition was as smooth as possible. Holding a carton here for a neighbor for when they returned to work, hosting lunch for kids while the parents juggled a change of residence, organizing an impromptu send-off for a family relocating back to their homeland, or even just catching up on the landlord’s decision to convert all the towers in our community into service apartments for airport crew, the last six months of our stay, were more than just simple coffee meetups. They were sessions designed to enable bonding at a deeper level, the angst and chaos caused by eviction notices warranting we met often.
“Community is so much more than belonging to something; it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter.”
Just a little more 