Back after a long absence

We are very poor at this blogging thing. It’s been awhile since we posted anything. I’ll go ahead and blame that on returning from vacation, catching up at work, etc, etc. The real reason is probably a combination of factors, lack of motivation perhaps being one of the larger ones.

Things have been going well here for the past two months. We’ve made a few more friends (its amazing how people can be influenced by repeated offers of food and booze).  Before we knew it, we had things to do practically every weekend. We also went on another vacation at the end of October – back to Italy with the Netherlands and Croatia thrown in or good measure. We got a passport stamp going through Slovenia and stopped by the side of the road to talk to a guy selling cheese, so we’ll count that as a country visited as well (which brings us to 10 on the year for this little adventure). All in all, the last two months have been fairly packed with excitement.

As this adventure draws to a close, I’m only just now getting the hang of living as an expat, and only just now starting to understand this little country we’re living in.

I’m particularly fond of the Omani countryside, once you get outside of Muscat. As I’m driving around between the various project sites I visit on a regular basis, I’ll occasionally stop and try to capture the sense of the place. Its difficult. Nonetheless, here are a few pictures of the roadside attractions:

Its my contention that the ratio of goats to people is easily 10 to 1 after you get outside of Muscat. I don’t even know where they find food. My Omani friend Khalid tells me that every goat is accounted for. He says if you touch one hair on the goats head, the shepherd will know (he also says that goats from the countryside are the most delicious, on account of all the roaming around they do).

The landscape in Oman is very dramatic, and dictates how the Omanis live to an incredible degree.The top picture shows the desolate plains that lie between the mountains and the sea. No one lives here. The bottom two pictures shows a wadi in the foothills and one of the falaj that deliver water. Although looking pretty desolate itself, the wadis are where most inland Omanis live, and the falaj are the systems by which they survive. Water from natural springs is collected throughout the mountains and transported great distances to the people that make their lives down in the wadis.

A very typical Omani house. The Omani government grants citizens land to build a house, with the land being selected on a lottery system. Notice the walls surrounding the house? This is very typical for Oman. Behind the walls, women can dress freely around their other family members, so they don’t have to be covered all the time. Its all part of a strange dichotomy about the people here. They’re extremely outgoing, friendly, and generous; but they’re also very private. An Omani I was talking to said something to the effect that “hospitality only extends so far amongst a people that surround their houses with high walls”.

It just so happens that we are in the waning days of this leg of our little adventure. We have tickets booked to return to Denver on December 4. We’re trying to squeeze in as much as possible in these last few weeks. We usually explore every weekend as it is, but we’ll be kicking it into overdrive. We’re trying to make it to a camel race, visit some more of the interior mountains, and get together with our friends here more often. We’ve promised our expat friends an authentic Thanksgiving dinner (we even found a place to buy a turkey). As our days here draw to a close, I am reminded of an apt quote by the great Aldous Huxley: “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” Perhaps never truer than this day and age in the Middle East.

And we’re back….

We’re back “home” after a pretty fantastic 8 days in Europe. Our trip coincided with Eid (end of Ramadan) here in Oman, and appears to be well timed (or well planned, in this case), as pretty much the whole country was shut down last week anyway (http://www.omantribune.com/archives/index.php?page=news&id=55430&heading=Top%20News&archdate=2009-09-16):

“His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, it has been decided that Eid Al Fitr holidays for the government sector will be from September 19 to September 23… private sector it will be from September 20 to September 24”

Since the government and private sector have different weekends here, that basically equates to the entire week off for both public and private sectors, plus weekends (9 days). Where are our holidays like this back home?

HM’s decision was backed up by the heavens:

“The main Committee for Moon Sighting…”

And we agree with the newspaper on this:

“The private sector employees extended their heartfelt greetings to His Majesty on this happy occasion, praying to Allah the Almighty to protect His Majesty and grant him good health, happiness and long life”

We made the most of our time. The short list of activities includes: cooking class in Italy, bike riding through the Piedmont wine country, wine & cheese festival, museums and the massive gothic church in Milan, Oktoberfest in Munich, and last but not least – lots of good food, wine, and travels with mom & dad.

More pictures:

All photo credit goes to Bree who documented all the festivities magnificently. Will post more soon….

Italia

A post full o' pictures from Italia:

Weekend excursion

Without diving on the agenda for last weekend, Brian and I decided to do some trekking around Oman on Thursday.  We found a description of a nice wadi that was only 80 km from Muscat and we planned to hike around, take some photos, and maybe go for a swim.  This sounded lovely to me – I was in dire need of some fresh air and exercise.  However, since we never actually got to the wadi, I could not take pictures of it.  Hence, an illustration from our friend google is provided below.

But, back to the beginning.  We selected a wadi as our destination, donned our REI hiking clothes, slathered on some sunscreen, packed a small cooler of beverages, and hit the road.  We followed the directions to the wadi exactly and ended up here:

Note, not only the distinct lack of water and plams, but also a road.  This is not all that surprising in Oman and we go off-road for awhile hoping to find something, but alas, it is not meant to be.  We return to the closest little village and ask for directions, which we follow, but still cannot locate this elusive wadi.  At this point, I am starting to get a little cranky.  It’s hot and we have been driving around for almost four hours.  Finally, we give up on the wadi, but are determined to do something.  We see some coastline and decide that we didn’t drive all this way not to at least get out of the car and explore a little.  So, we park near the end of a dry wadi that runs to the ocean and find a lovely beach:

Sadly, as with many places in the world, people can’t seem to “leave only footprints.”

 

We didn’t have much time to linger, primarily because we were melting, but also because we had to get home to get ready for a little party.  That’s right!  These social butterflies are slowly emerging from their Omani cocoons.  Soon we’ll be parading around the sea on His Majesty’s yacht instead of bumping around Oman looking for wadis on the weekends.  Don’t worry, we’ll post pictures of HM’s yacht, too.

Day and night

Ramadan continues unabated, and the restricted activity is starting to takes its toll a bit. Things in Muscat would never be described as fast paced during the best of times. Now that its Ramadan, this town is bordering on comatose.

I try to remain as respectful as possible to our Omani hosts during their holy month. I refrain from eating or drinking in public, even though it get pretty absurdly hot driving around construction sites, inspecting things, and generally running around. I try to take sips of water only on open stretches of the highway or in my trailer when I get back from work. They still serve lunch at the project offices, so the food/drink side of the holy month really hasn’t changed things too much (at least for me).

What has changed is the general flow to how you go about your daylight hours. Stores are closed for the bulk of the day, restaurants don’t typically open until 8 PM or so, and everyone acts and dresses a little extra conservatively… Bree and I had a real, actual conversation this morning about whether her work outfit showed too much ankle. I asked her what the other women wore. She said they all wore abayas:

Mostly without the face cover I presume, but still, so much for that as a basis of comparison. She did mention that they are a little more strict with the abayas during Ramadan – the top moves further down the head (covering any hair that may be revealed other times of the year) and women tend to tuck the scarves up tighter such that only the face shows (whereas they may show some of the neck other times). More women also seem to be sporting the full face covering this time of year as well…

Desperate to get out of the house last night, we went to the mall to go to Chili’s for dinner. Everything was open and the mall was packed (during Ramadan night is the new day). I took out my frustration at the general lack of access to food/drink/recreation on my arteries. We commiserated about our horrible suffering over sugary drinks and fried stuff.

Perhaps it was my recognition of the absurdity of the situation (complaining about relatively minor inconveniences despite knowing better), or perhaps it was the rain (thats right I said rain), but by the end of the day today, things were lookin up.

For the first time since I got here in May, I actually saw it rain today (Bree is jealous). I got stuck in a serious downpour, complete with high winds and pelting rain and everything.

It was fantastic.

I stopped the car and got a (not great) picture of the water cascading down the mountain sides:

It was like a thousand rivers sprung up on the mountain side at once. I got out and walked around in the rain for a minute. The temperature dropped by 25 degrees. The air was cleared of dust. On the way home, Bree called to tell me that one of our new friends was coming over for dinner and bringing wine.

Things are lookin up.

Coffee, dates, & conversation

Dates

As a westerner coming in to the Gulf, I had no idea how important the date was to Middle Eastern culture. They come in all sorts of colors and textures around here:

You can get them stuffed or covered in chocolate, or both; they show up in breads and sweets; or they are just eaten plain with coffee. I am a particular fan of the half-ripe ones, which are sort of sweet and sour, chewy and crunchy all at the same time:

Bree is a fan of the ripe ones stuff with candied orange peels – also quite good. 

There’s not really an equivalent that I can think of in western culture. Dates are not just food, they are a the sign of a shift from business into a more relaxed atmosphere. Or, if the atmosphere is already casual, its a sign that you should get comfortable, you’ll be conversing for awhile. I’ve had business meetings where we would wrap up the meeting, then the coffee and dates come out.

Coffee

The other half of this little ritual is the serving of coffee:

The coffee is served in tiny cups with no handles, and it usually pretty weak but contains saffron and cardamom.

 

In Oman (and I hear the ME in general) it is considered very rude not to accept hospitality that is offered. This goes double with coffee (literally). It is generally accepted that everyone will accept at least 2 of the tiny cup fulls. After the 2nd, you won’t offend anyone by not having more.

Problem is, they usually keep the coffee in thermoses, and it is served REALLY hot. The tradition is to just drink it down in one sip, which usually results in me burning my tongue. The things we do to participate in the culture…

As per the custom, once the coffee and dates come out, the conversation switches to casual topics. As with everywhere, the weather is always the most popular topic of discussion. Topic #2 is usually where everyone comes from. For whatever reason, Bree and I are almost never pegged as Americans going into these conversations. There aren’t many Americans here to begin with, and although most people speak English, they can’t pick out the American accent per se. I’ve been asked if I’m Dutch, German, British, among others. When I tell people that I am an American, they often tell me that it is their dream to go there one day (I hear this alot), or they ask what its like where I come from (I usually pick Colorado for these discussions, for brevity). By the time the weather and places of origin have been covered, the coffee and dates are usually packed away, and the meeting is over….

Kindly refrain from eating… or else

Today, the holy month of Ramadan started. Ramadan is a big deal here. Huge. Others have warned me that as we get further into it, the driving gets particularly crazy. The prospect of driving becoming actually more dangerous here is fairly terrifying to me. I already spend almost 2 hours in a car or more per day, usually along the main highway, which is harrowing enough as it is.

Several weeks ago I got caught in an insane traffic jam. It started out normal enough, with cars backing up on the highway…. but soon, people started looking for every possible means for gaining forward progress. For the first 10 minutes of this spectacle I was getting pretty annoyed with all the people cutting me off, driving in the median, driving through the landscaped barrier between highway and service road, passing illegally into oncoming traffic, and generally ignoring the rules of safe driving.

But I admit it. I gave into the chaos. I adopted the “when in Oman” ethos. I drove over curbs, through freshly-planted landscaping (I was only following the others!), into oncoming traffic. Notice how in the first few pictures I am on one side of the highway and in the third I’m no the other? There wasn’t any exit.

Its no excuse, but the ends justified the means. It only took me 2 hours and 30 minutes to navigate this traffic nightmare. My less-bold coworker, who was in a car right behind me at the beginning of this debacle spent 4 hours in traffic following the “rules”. The next day, I saw them re-planting the landscaping (no word on whether they’re planning to tend to the large-scale highway design and traffic law enforcement issues though).

In general, Oman is a fairly open minded place, but there are limits. The government is not really too concerned whether you are muslim or not when it comes to Ramadan: everyone follows the rules. No one, muslim or not, is allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight hours. You can actually be arrested for such offenses as, say… drinking coffee in your car while at a red light. For real. mostly they just give fines though….

The risks of these indiscretions are tempered by the fact that it is more difficult to get food or drinks outside of your house during daylight hours anyway. Restaurants, fast food joints, ets are all closed and not selling food during the day. If you are in an office with predominately muslims (I am not), you can’t eat or drink there during the day either. And perhaps most cruelly of all, alcohol sales are banned during Ramadan – even in restaurants and bars, even at night.

In order to deal with the dehydrated, starving masses, there are official laws allowing muslims to work reduced hours during Ramadan. Most offices switch to a 5 hour per day schedule. The majority of people leave by 1:30 or 2 PM and sleep until the evening prayers that signify that they can break the fast. Once so authorized, they do so in style with big iftar (breakfast in arabic) parties where everyone gets together and makes up for the lost time with huge buffets and such. With any luck, Bree and I will get to check out one of these parties….

Just another trip to the grocery store…

Well, sort of.  We woke up last Thursday without a plan for how to fill the day.  So, after some browsing through some tourist books, we decided to hit up Al Hoota Cave.  Al Hoota Cave is a couple hours from Muscat and was opened to tourists in 2007.  Supposedly, the Oman government was surprised at the throngs of Omanis (inspired by the country’s recent emphasis on tourism) that turned out to see the cave.  Now it’s one of Oman’s most popular attractions.

However, along the way (only several km from the house, actually), we got distracted by the Nizwa Vegetable Market sign and turned off the highway.  Groceries at a grocery store in Muscat (similar to an American grocery store) are very expensive.  For example, the Oreos shown below for RO 3.990 (USD $10.37).  Produce can be just as expensive and it’s hard to get it fresh.

 

Therefore, we decided to see what the Nizwa Vegetable Market had to offer.  It turns out, the Nizwa Veggie Market has a LOT to offer!  Many of the people were quite excited to see the likes of us – we stood out just a tad – and were loving the fact that we came with a camera to document the 120 degree grocery shopping experience (who doesn’t enjoy sweating while shopping for onions?).

Truck leaving the market – probably bound for a local grocery store or restaurant

The market is a large car port (if you will) with vendors filling up almost every square inch.

Limes

This guy wanted me to take a picture of him with his lettuce.  So cute!

Melons and dates

Dates at varying stages of ripeness

Now, shopping here, though it looks similar to your local weekend farmer’s market, is nothing like you local weekend farmer’s market.  In Denver, I would stroll with my coffee, have Chloe on a leash, and browse….not so much the case here.

Let me give you an example.  Say, I am interested in buying some bell peppers.  So, I walk up to a table containing boxes of bell peppers…

Vendor:  You like, ma’am?

Me: Yes, How much?

Vendor:  600 baisa/kg – then he grabs a bag and starts filling it with peppers before I can even register the price I was just quoted or begin to calculate how many peppers = 1 kilo.

Me: shaking my hand No sir, I am just shopping.  So, I walk to the next table to find out how much their peppers are – with every vendor in between shouting at me on the way to view his offerings.  Turns out, their peppers are 400 baisa/kg at the next table, but they don’t look quite as delicious as my first friend’s peppers.  So, I go back and say: I can get peppers down there for 400 baisa/kg. 

Vendor: These are better, but OK! 500 bais/kg!!  As he again starts excitedly filling a bag with peppers, but not necessarily the good ones.  He is rapidly tossing the sad looking ones into the bag.

Me:  Okay, but take all those peppers out of the bag and let me pick them.  I start filling the bag with good peppers, though he keeps trying to sneak in some sub-par ones, which I promptly remove.

At last he thinks we have filled the bag with a kilo of peppers and weighs it to confirm.  “One kilo – 500 baisa",” he says.  I pay and as I reach for the bag he opens it up and plops in one last (very sad looking pepper) and says, “for you for free".”  I smile, take a picture and carry on. 

The plan was to make ratatouille for dinner, so we basically went through the same process for tomatoes, eggplant, onion, and zucchini.  Brian also decided to go for some dates and a watermelon (“No sir, not eight  watermelon, just one.)

Finally we finished at the market.  Then, we had to take all the vegetables back to the house before continuing on to Al Hoota Cave.  Not a problem though.  We now know where to buy vegetables for MUCH cheaper than we pay at the store.  And while we are probably still paying more than the locals at the veggie market, both we and the vendors think we are making out like bandits, so everyone is happy.

Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in Al Hoota Cave. But, we had a nice lunch along the way.

Saw some goats, nice scenery, and some mosques….

And, my first Omani cemetery (you may not know this about me, but I really like going to cemeteries – all over the world).  In a traditional Omani cemetery, bodies are  buried and one stone is placed at the head and a stone at the feet.

So, until next time, we will be making the most of the last few days before Ramadan when the whole city shuts down.  Though, I expect Ramadan will provide some more interesting sights and experiences to share.