Daily Diary: I kicked off Muscat Festival in Qu'rum Park and traditional Omani architecture facts to do with mud bricks and sarooj

So, last night I headed out to Qu'rum park to kick-off Muscat festival with a visit to the Omani heritage village there.

My intention was to learn to do half-tanjeem's for my Omani Kuma embroidery (I suck at these little traditional knotted stitches), to weave a palm mat to the embarassment of some, and to learn how to restore a traditional Omani house that is falling down.

I know, not your AVERAGE Muscat-Festival go-er, but this was my OPNO agenda.

First off though, I did the tourist bit and got some yummy traditionally made Omani food, and bought some freshly made laban. Not a fan of it, but some of those I was with totally are. I also nearly bought traditional Omani dresses from Dhofar, Al Wusta, and Ad Dakliyah because the prices were good, and an Omani silver anklet. But I resisted. I will be back so do not waste all my pay check at once was my thinking.

I also watched the (minscule) firework show, and strange laser neon thingies parade. I had to, because I wanted to leave at the time of both and was stuck in the traffic.

At the heritage village I plopped myself down with some Omani ladies weaving blankets and embroidering kumas. If you want to learn traditional crafts, Muscat Festival is the free-est tuition for the old arts that you can get.

After my kuma half-tanjeem embroidery was improved, and I was espousing my favourite abaya shopping haunt in MQ to a group of women "MashaAllah-ing" my abaya, I headed to the area close to where they had some rather skinny donkies pulling the traditional style well. Don't they usually use the ox for that?

Here, I found Omani men making bricks the traditional way.

First off, I learnt that once the grains were stripped from the wheat shafts, the straw was put in a pile hacked and whacked by men in a circle with heavier date frond tips smacking it into small pieces.

To make a traditional mud brick, the kind used to build the houses in Al Hamra in Ad Dakliyah region for example, you take this hay, and mix it with mud, about 60% straw and the wet clay-like mud. This is cut with a mould that slices the bricks into squares. While still wet, these mud bricks are stacked on/and with stones and they bake together in the sun, to make your structure. I need to go back for more on this, because my structure skills are weak, and I neglected to ask the precise ammount of time before another layer of bricks is added/ ie how dry do they have to be?

I also learned how to make the stronger building component in traditional Omani architecture, sarooj. Sarooj is made by making mud into cakes and burning them a series of times between coals of searing palm bark. After the mud is baked and the fire is out, it is smashed into powder and then water is added to it to make the right consistancy and thus you have a cement stronger than cement to be used to secure stones together. This is what is used to repair old falaj systems and to make Omani fortresses. I intend to diagram/sketch and label the process, as I will be, within two summers, working on repairing some old village houses belonging to MOP and his wife.

Who were with me at the festival, BTW.

MOP threatened OPNOother with divorce if she jumped on a donkey with the kids, so that SERRIOUSLY tempted her to do so, but all was well, since she was wearing a designer abaya and she didn't want to get donkey on it, and MOP would never divorce my girl.

Afterwards, we got icecream, and played with street cats in Al Qu'rum since it was a long, long walk to the car. By Omani standards anyways.

Daily Diary: AN accidental evening at the Seeb Exhibition Center

Last night I was #400 plus something at the ROP registration office in Ghala/seeb-ish area that I can't describe any better.

So, I went to the Seeb exhibition center. It was promoting everything his Majesty had accomplished for Omanis.

The place was "almost" empty of Omanis [no shopping I teased MOP] except the ones manning the exhibition and those whose works made an effort to frequent the stalls pertaining to them.

"Why would this interest us a great deal?" MOP remarks. "This is nothing new for Omanis. EVERYDAY our government is telling us what it does for us."

Which, I suppose, I would know, if my Arabic were better. Alas, there was also a lack of expats due to most of the exhibits signage being arabic-only.

My favourite booths: Oman Women's Association because they gave us helwa and qhawa and had traditional Omani dresses on display. Oman Air, because they had free candies. Oman education ministry (also free candies). Oman Agriculture ministry also had an awesome greenhouse model FILLED with huge strawberries, that were they to be to scale, would be the size of bicycles. This amused me greatly.

So did the chap from the Minstry of Housing who told me expats can buy and own land anywhere in Oman that Omanis can. Which is wrong information, but then, they wouldn't send the expat guy, since the signs and info pamphlets were all in Arabic too.

The exhibition also had the world's longest card (made for Omani women's day) on display. The pic from above was taken for that event to commemorate Omani Women's Day. MOP encouraged Princess to sign it but she didn't want to since she isn't REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLY Omani.

WHAT WAS INTERESTING THOUGH (And she spoke english) was the plans for making a garden/conservatory/ plant natural biodiversity and heritage village in Al Khoud to showcase all Omani plant environments and their growths, and to preserve the traditional uses for plants and the knowledge thereof. Interesting to me.

Well, it was still, like 200 people in front of me still to go at the registration office, to I went to Mutrah and bought 40 (yes, you heard that right) samboosas for 1 rial. I ate 20 and was so stuffed with greasy yumminess that a walk on the Corniche was required to cure the guilt.

Returned to registration with the Shorta, only 50 people in front of me to go. Allllllllllllright!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Muscat Festival start this 27th????

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Muscat Festival start January 27th???? until Feb. 24rth?

I am soooooooooooooo excited:)

MOP isn't because, well, you know, there's crowds, and men might accidently bump into women, and he is rather adamant I wear a veil over my face but at night I find that hard to, in the day, I don't mind, because my eyes suck. But other than the fact that MOP will be the most grumpy chaperone EeeeeeeeeeevEEEEEEEEEEER, I LoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooVE Muscat Festival.

See ya'll there;)

Movie Review: The Tourist

I like Alfred Hitchcock movies in general, like "To Catch a Thief", "Gaslight", "Infamous", ect. Anything with Hitchcock and Grace Kelly, or Ingrid Bergman, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

I only wish he'd done a film with Audrey Hepburn, but she said no, and as we know, Hitchcock only used blondes in his movies, and perhaps Hepburn refused the bleach?

We shall never know.

So I went to see the movie "The Tourist" at Al Bajha.

Well, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "The Tourist" was AIMED to be Hitchcock-esqe, with Angelina Jolie playing Elise Ward, an ice maiden/femme fetale whose ex-lover, the mysterious Alexander Pearce, is wanted for stealing billions from an English Gangster who surrounds himself with Russians.

Interpol is trailing Ward, a. because she is sexy, and b. because she is the only link to Pearce that they've got.

Stereotypically, the Hitchcock blonde/Henckel von Donnersmarck Jolie has the veneer of the icy seductress, who attempts to pull Interpol away from her lover Pearce, by seducing an unwitting tourist making his way to scenic Venice [Depp, who plays a math teacher from Wisconsin] to make the Interpol peeping toms think they've got their man Pearce.

And while we expect her to explode like an ice covered volcanoe at the end of the film, all the while being glamourous and ravishing through out, in Hitchock grande cinematic style...

[I love the standard of perfection in old cinema.

Which honestly, I like the idea of. They never do that in movies anymore, especially American movies. Thus I had hope from this European director]


...AT LEAST...

That is what we are waiting for, but it never happens.

We barely get a vapour, steam or fizzle.

This movie has got the clothes, and the hotel rooms, but none of the mystique or restrained elegance of the old Hitchcock era.

And the thing I hate most is, they could have TOTALLY done it with Depp and Jolie. it could have worked. The script, while albeit NOT the ending, had it in there, but somehow it was lost.

Ward screws it all in typical exploding volcanoe ice maiden style (we the audience are meant to believe) by falling in love with the boring math teacher from Wisconsin. Which is TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE because there is no sexual tension whatsoever in the film [a must of the hey days of Hitchock's thrillers] but close ups of Ange's body, and weird fantasy scene for Johnny Depp's character that doesn't fit with the ending very well. Which is not typical of this genre of cinema.

Johnny Depp and Jolie, well looking quite stylish together through out the film, have no real chemistry.

The movie is totally about the clothes of Depp and Jolie, and touristy footage of Venice streamed in. [If you are a fashionista, it is TOTALLY worth seeing for the clothes alone and Jolie's hairstyles.].

So, our fallen in love pair, the glamourous femme fatale, and the pure hearted but simple minded math teacher, face a second rate gangster (who even I am not at all afraid of), and we wait to see if Alexander Pearce will step in to save his love, or will it be the math teacher from Wisoncsin?


Johnny Depp seems to be trying to channel Peter Sellers but nothing he says turns out to be very funny. The Omani audience laughed anyways, but, it wasn't that funny. Have you seen "The Party" or the original "Pink Panther"? THAT'S funny toned down acting. Depp utters about a dozen lines throughout the whole film. In fact, he’s so terse he hardly seems to be in the movie.


[I won't ruin the ending, but to be honest, I think it SUCKED majorly. NOT CREATIVE AT ALL]. I didn't feel suspense, I was just looking forward to see what Jolie and Depp would be wearing next.

The only funny lines in the movie came from an Interpol agent obsessed with catching Pearse, played, I believe, by Paul Bettany (the guy who played the albino demon monk from the Da Vinci code?).

Mr. Bettany, who are the ONLY thing, beyond Ms. Jolie's stylist, that kept me munching my popcorn, instead of heading to the mall shopping, to pick up the trends from Jolie's looks. Thank you, and I commend you. You were given a VERY unbelievable part, and yet you made me believe it. Kudos to you.

That folks, is acting.

Jolie is on auto pilot, and Depp is trying something that doesn't seem to be working for him, though if you hated 'Cap'n Jack Sparrow' you'll maybe prefer him this way. I don't know.

It wasn't a bad movie. I could watch it again, though on rental. Worth seeing in the theatre once. "Meet the Focker III" seemed the only alternative the night I went. I loved the clothes. Bettany was funny. But to steal lines from another review I googled that I didn't save the lin to "the film makes no mistake of it's identity as a “thriller.” You have several aspects found in Hitchcock thrillers here: mistaken identity, hidden pasts, the elusive femme fatale, an original score that just won't stop (seriously, not one second of silence) and the big reveal at the end meant to make the audience scratch their head in awe. If you're in awe, it'll likely be along the lines of saying out loud, “that's it?”

I did appreciate that they didn't try to replce Jolie with Megan Fox (deeeeeeeear God!) even though she's getting older and has some wrinkles on her face now. I like the cinema that used an older Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, ect in film. Very Catherine Deneuve. Women can age and still be very striking, and beyond the glamour of a pale imitation of such.

Anyways, I am bored of my review now.

To sum it all up without ruining the ending: A boat-chase scene is so slowly edited that it quickly becomes boring, and no one knows the code to crack open the safe, or do they? Finally, Jolie dresses up and takes a motor launch. So does Depp. They look spiffy. Venice looks beautiful. Jolie and Depp cruise around in a sleek motor launch.

And that's.... about it.

Plus some gloves. Jolie makes me crave to wear elbow length gloves for day. And I found my next hair style for the next wedding I am going to.

Until next time I have nothing to do and head out to the cinema...

-Love OPNO

For all you Fashionistas or brides... you missed it because I am a horrible blogger

BTW, I forgot to blog about it in the daily diary, but Oman's French Museum in Old Muscat just hosted a totally awesome collection of historical & haute couture bridal wear from France, and French Designers. http://main.omanobserver.om/node/29248 & http://gulfnews.com/mobile/life-style/beauty-fashion/trends-that-shaped-the-evolution-of-the-french-wedding-dress-1.726793

Thirty luxurious dresses from prestigious collections were exhibited to retrace the history of matrimonial fashion between 1810 and 2010, featuring the innovations of the most famous French designers including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Guy Laroche, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Chanel, John Galliano, Karl Lagerfelt, Paco Rabanne, Marcel Rochas, Jeanne Lanvin, Jacques Fath and Christian Dior.

It's not there anymore, but it was totally worth checking out. I loved loved loved the chanel one, and I remember finding the Victorian era dresses in Vintage shops in my city, as well as the vintage parasols and gloves.

Right now I working on sewing some traditional Omani wedding dresses, two of them, and eventually I will post pictures of different regional bridal dresses and customs. A virtual gallery of my own.

I totally understand WHY alot of Omani girls, especially my Muscati ones, forgo the traditional Omani dress in favour of the white wedding dress, as I wore one for my wedding here in oman, and it weighed a tonne. After a few hours in the warquiya (heavily bejewelled shawl) my headaches, and the embroidery and beading on the bodice was too much to move other than ceremoniously. And despite the dress being designer, designer as much as one can get in Oman, it had tacky sequins on it in places. I mean, the dress was nice, but not all that.

So decided to make my own. That LOOK as nice the Hindi tailored ones, but are COMFORTABLE AND BREATHABLE AS THE WHITE DRESS.

I was saying to my Omani friend S, "This dress, the embroidery and beading looks gorgeous, but in the end it's cheap hand work, and highly uncomfortable. If the same embroidery and beading was done on the dress by Lassage using French couture techniques, it would be comfortable."

Second quote of the night. "And sequins! No one but Chanel and Armani REALLY do sequins with class."

OPNO is a bit of a snob, she will be the first to admit, when it comes to clothes.

A review of the exhibit:

"...The genesis of the exhibition occurred with the French Embassy's desire to commemorate through the medium of fashion — one of France's greatest cultural exports — the 40th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos Bin Saeed's reign in Oman.

It was thus decided that the wedding dress would be the theme, for the very nature of weddings and wedding dresses conjures up an atmosphere of gaiety and celebration....

The ground floor is thus largely dedicated to dresses from the 19th to the early 20th century while the floor above contains haute couture wedding fashion 1970 onwards.

One of the most striking aspects of the exhibition is that the wedding dresses do not exist in isolation. While the dresses are narratives in themselves, as in the actual dresses and fashion that dictated their appearance, the team also incorporated them into being part of a greater social narrative occurring over time. The decision to do so was in keeping with the exhibition's vision of playing with the idea of time. The specifically named rooms, such as the Cinema Room, indicates the impact moving images had on the world, allowing a moment to be relived, rather than be frozen in time, through the inclusion of a Lumiere brothers film reel.

Another room is dedicated to documenting the pictoral representation of wedding dresses over the past two centuries, etchings graduating to print and 20th-century glossy magazines. One also gets a glimpse of a doll that was used as a marketing and advertorial tool, with designers dressing it up in their creations and sending it to potential customers. The room reveals the preoccupation with the wedding dress, predicated upon the assumption that it would be the most important dress a woman would wear in her life, given the sanctity of the wedding ritual and marriage and the attention dedicated to it, albeit in changing media avatars over time."


Anyways, if you've never seen the French Museum (exhibits in french, arabic, and english) it open from Saturday to Wednesday from 10 am to 1 pm and from 5 pm to 8 pm and Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm.


-Love OPNO (who loves many things, like fine French food, and haute couture---not the stupid niqab ban.)

Daily Diary: Sumail Stretch, doing the touristy thing

So my weekend, before the food poisoning incident, was actually a wonderful one, besides the fact that yet again my visit to my husband's village was delayed.

Arab families have way too many politics.

But we stopped by friends' in Nizwa, and had qhahwa and dates (yummy with tahini dip and sesame seeds), and then, well, MOP had promised to take the girls of OPNO to Izki, since it is one of the oldest places of Islam in Oman, but MOP missed the half a dozen turn offs to Izki (not a fan of the place apparently) so the girls went and saw a small village in Sumail where a little local Omani girl in village dress played peekaboo with one OPNO and other climbed up a hill to see a fort that was NOT THE fort, but turned out to be BETTER than the fort in Sumail.

Sumail seems an awesome place to see crumbling village houses, and a genuine felaj system that was solely used up until the last ten years [recounts MOP, our not-overtly-interested-in- anything-crumbling guide].

Also there was this famous Omani house in Sumail whose name escpaes me, restored for tourists, but it was closed. Only open in the morning. So the OPNO girls saw that from the outside, and one of them pried the door open half way enough that she could fit in the through the crack, but the others were far too fat (HEALTHY!) to make it.

So the group ended up praying Al Asr prayer in a ruined Masjid adjacent to the house (which was slipping off the hillside) to the amusement of one local family who came over to say salaam and informed the group they may have been the first persons to have prayed in that Mosque/Masjid in the last 150-300 years. Kind of cool.

In the evening they saw the Barka souq (traditional vegetables and fish, better in the morning), and headed off into Muscat for a firework show. They ate cotton candy, and popcorn, from a very happy coffee chop with more customers then it could handle, and on the drive back stopped at the camel breeding center to ask about the price for an Omani camel.

OPNO petted some camels and fed them palm leaves, and were told the camels were not for sale, so I guess that leaves another road trip to Sinaw in the near future.

DAILY DIARY: Fireworks and Asian Beach Games Opening Ceremony

Well, this long weekend hasn't been "kroob". The Omani word that denotes something that is mind numbingly boring. I saw the firworks, the opening ceremonies of the asian beach games, was attacked by my sister-in-law (albeit with a bottle of olive oil and a hair comb---but the tears were real!!!!), climbed a mountain which is apparently a shocking thing to do, and witnessed the most awesome Omani Cassanove. You will love his tale. But first. The fireworks.

I would describe the fireworks first, but since firworks are REALLY something you should see for yourself (though it DID involve me climbing a giant wall with neices and nephews attached like glue to my back with my SIL [sister-in-law] and her husband wondering how well I could possibly ever adapt to their family but liking me anyways).

There are more fireworks tonight should you have never experienced the blasted colourful, loud, smelly, jubilant things that result in neices and nephews going "Ala! Jameel!" while you cling to the metal rail of someone's villa gate and wish that the tailor who wripped you off for your lendli [Omani woman's colourful floral printed village dress] had tailored the bottom hem of it a little bit wider so that you could swing your leg up and over that tree branch yonder without wripping it in half. 5 rials for a three rial tailoring job! Really. And your "mafi engleez" was not at all convincing. You're lucky I don't speak hindi.

***I prefer Pakistani tailors EVERYTIME over Indian ones because I have NEVER been ripped off by one yet*** Honest Indian tailor offended by this, as soon as I meet you, I will dedicate a huge apology post to you, and your nation, and offer you free advertising.

Anyways... moving on since I have seen fireworks since the age of two and don't find them as thrilling as I used to, the opening ceremonies in Al Mosanah (past Seeb and Barka for those who don't leave Muscat) were pretty spectacular for Oman. If you missed them, I am sure Omani tv2 will play it again, and again, again, so no worries;D

I honestly would make a very horrible reporter. Please forgive. I also do not own a camera, so I steal ALL my pictures on this blog. Yes, yes I do.

DAILY DIARY: Another long weekend in Oman

Yay! Go red white and green (and khanjar). We have another long weekend in Oman to look forward too, resplendant with a fireworks competition. [MOP keeps calling it a 'fire show' which I find kinda adorable].
...And almost perfect weather. Now me, I am not always a fan of long weekends, because, a. sometimes there aren't nearly long enough:)... ....to go running through the grass under the shade of the trees on the farm behind my house, or read under the lemon and mango groves....to lazily swing on the swing of the old house that is now a barn for the cattle, feet in the sand, under the palms... ...wading at Al Thawarah.

...maybe go ride along the beach (no bikini for me though) in Seeb....enjoying sweet afternoon daydreams...

AND SOMETIMES, I HATE LONG WEEKENDS because they are tooooooooooooo long:...full of boring social committments that numb and rot my mind away with stupid talk about how to treat maids or how much money someone spent to show off....cooking for myself by myself. Sometimes, welllllll.... it isn't so glam and verges on a trashy classless affair lol. ...traveling by myself. I like to have a partner in crime. Bonnie is not anything without her Clyde:'(

DAILY DIARY: Hmmm, who do I get to meet today??? Maybe.

And in case you didn't know, apparently king Abdullah of Jordan has been in town, and alas, the roads are closing AGAIN.

BTW, for the weird anonymous. I am NOT really a Princess from the Al Said family, lol. I do not really get to meet these people on a personal basis almost EVER. Sometimes I see them in the same room throuogh work but that is it lol. It's a pen-name derived from a nickname.

Please people, read. Don't lecture me about insulting my family, the Al Saids, when, I am not Al Said.

BTW, Your Majesty, if you want to adopt me, you can. My parents won't mind one bit;p

Daily Diary: Al Bustan Fashion Show

The Omani Women Fashion Trends 2010 was a unique fashion event focussed (as everything was this year) on the 40th National Day celebrations. The event showcased Omani Women's Fashion over the last 40 years, and the latest trends in regional dress, from Dhofar's father-of-the-tail, to Sharqiyah's suris.

Daily Diary: The Royal Horse Show

Omigosh, omigosh, I am soooooooooooo excited. Dec. 1 st at 8 pm is the Royal Horse Show in Al Seeb [oops, for some reason I wrote Wattiyah before dummy me!]. Which, I mean, would have actually been the opposite of "yay!!!!" for me, since I did not win the seat tickets members of the commonwealth are eligible for. I hope I have better luck at Muscat Mutterings Bryan Adams draw.

But luck of all luck, a member of my adopted tribe happened to have been given tickets to all events and was like, I am thinking I cannot stand to be near crowds and go to all of them...

And OPNO is like: "I've seen His Majesty and the Queen AND her mother, and really I don't care. But I LOVE horses, and LOVE the royal horse show. I KNOW those horses by name. I remember when SOMEBODY accidently let them escape. If you find it in your heart to let me...."
And I was given the ticket. And not just any old ticket, a VIP one in some box area.

Alhamdulilah.

BTW, the highway is closing now, as of 4pm I imagine for Queen Elizabeth and Sultan Qaboos.

DAILY DIARY: A New Home

I can hardly believe it. ALHAMDULILAH!!! Next week (or the following) I am moving into my new home, a villa next to a farm (close to the city) where I get to keep camels (yes, until I can save for horses, and because I promised my friends from back in the West if they come to visit me they can ride camels to their hearts' content), where I can ride close to the beach. Though my husband said he WILL divorce me if I insist on riding into town on a camel to get my groceries when I have an Omani driver. Which I ONLY JOKED about doing. I never would. I am not THAT majnoonah lol. BTW, I am no rich spoilt girl, I worked hard, and pay for this MYSELF:D praise Allah. Kh and B will likely remember the girl who came to Oman bearing one suitcase stuffed with two ballgowns, one feather pillow, one blanket, a pair of rollarblades, one box of photos, many lipsticks lost to an Omani man's insistance that OPNO looks better without lipstick, and a toothbrush. She stubbornly subsisted on schwarma, raman noodles, and lemons (the lemons she pinched off of her neighbor's trees stealthily) until she found a good job, with much thanks ado to the couchsurfing community in Muscat, Y, C, KH himself, and Al F clan who mistook me for a forgotten cousin last Eid. Also Suburban for cheering me up with her wonderful posts+CB;). All the shebab, for ur wasta, lol, that got me this far. Yes, I would have lived in a tent situated on Seeb roundabout rather than go back to my country:) such is my love for your land that you would trade passports with me anyday for, would our governments allow.

Daily Diary: Sultan's Chair's Contributions to the Development of Human Knowledge

Today was the Symposium on the Academic Chairs of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said and their contribution to the Development of Human Knowledge in the conference hall of Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) [continuing also tomorrow, and the next day] and the subjects were fascinating to me.

All the chairs were selected because of their works' support of cultural, scientific and economic development for world civilizations, and as Chairs, received funding from His Majesty to better carry out the endeavors of their academic disciplines.

This morning started with Professor Francis Robinson of Oxford University (UK) bringing all those in the hall from the 13th century to the present in an Islamic history lecture about security, resources, and influence for West and South Asia, his concluding thought that as China vies globally in trade, the GCC will become increasingly important to India, and this will affect future politics, and maybe even Islamic scholars and their works.

Afterwards, I confess, due to excessive socialising [I love my chai and samboosas] and a tour of the art department to inquire for a friend if she can attend the Arabic-only classes if she hires a translator, I missed the beginning of the next speaker's work, which was a short history of Arabic as a language and of Islam in China by Professor Xie Zhirong from Peking University [China]. This lecture was entirely in Arabic (though we had headsets and a translator) as this man created the first complete Chinese-Arabic dictionary. Fact alot of Omani MIGHT NOT know about their history, China and Oman have been ancient trading partners, up until the Ming dynasty.

The last lecture was Professor Mauritus S. Berger of Leiden University [the Netherlands] on the subject of religious tolerance as a rule or a virtue. Of course the Danish Mohamed cartoons were brought up. Prof. Berger explained the difference between the Muslim and Western concept of freedom to be that for Muslims, freedom is communal, and for the West, freedom is individual, and thus each approaches the idea of what makes an identity differently, and thus comes to head over tolerance. He had come to the historical conclusion that tolerance is either a pragmatic necessity, or a higher principle, that agreeing to disagree was too passive and solved nothing, but that learning how to change abusive criticism [the limit of tolerance] into positive dialogue by avoiding taking offense an essential to tolerance with a forseeable result in eventuality. I liked that he noted, that tolerance is only the option of those of the majority, who also have the option not to tolerate.

Tomorrow's lectures include Professor Abdullah Saeed of Melbourne University [Australia] on Islamic Scholarship with Australia as a case in point [how scholarship in the religion began with a focuss on history, litterature, and language, and is now more focussed on political and social concerns], Professor Barbara F. Stowaser of Georgetown University [USA] on Time in Islam [about how a Muslim society organizes their civilization around the five daily prayers], and Professor Yaser Suleiman of Cambridge University [UK] on the subject of Language, Inter-cultural Communication and Conflict.

DAILY DIARY: Weekend Recap

OPNO weekends in Sharqiyah. This is a well known fact. Well Thursday last minute we decided (me and friends, no, lol, not the Shebab that used to drive us B;)) to go to the traditional souq in Sinaw, Sharqiyah. Even though we had absolutely no money, and nothing packed. [Sounds like old times with the Shebab, doesn't it B???? he he he]. Being last minute, we scrambled around my basement looking for anything tent-like. I asked Z if she knew how to make a traditional tent. Z is Omani so you never know.

Z: As long as we have rope and sticks, yep.

OPNO: [appears very impressed, as Z is a village girl, not a Bedu-type]. I've always wanted to learn, you'll have to teach me. But won't it be hard in the dark?

Z: Not really.

Alhamdulilah we found C's old tent, as Z REALLY meant she could hook a tarp up over a car. Yeah.... Not really what OPNO meant AT ALL, as OPNO is PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF THAT as well but...

We would have ended up camping out under the stars on the traditional woven picnic mat, and we'd gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes as was... Next up was food. UNLIKE trips with the Shebab (and it being the end of the month for Z and OPNO) spreads like above pictured were a dream. We ran down to the store down the street from my house and picked up hotdogs (I prefer mishcocks but we had no grill or coals) as I insist on roasting something on a fire on every camping trip and this fit out budget, almariai spreadable cheese wheels, pears, oranges, dates stuffed with almonds, milk, water, juice, arabic beans spread in a can, houmous, Chips Oman, Cheetoes, Americana cakes (which I ate the whole package of so no one even knew we had those), and chocolate bars. We stuffed it into the car along with a picnic mat, my traditional bedu couch/musada [that was my bed for six months!], and a traditional lantern and candles. We forgot C's maps, so we kept just following all signs to Qurayat and then Sur. If we HAD had a map, we would have known going up from Seeb is faster. Anyways, it was pictch black at night and I was looking for a camping spot like the one above after Tiwi and before Qurayat (totally private so Z and I could swim in the morning) but we drove all the way to Qurayat and through the village and past there to the round abaout to Sur, so we turned off from the road to Sur and found a quiet little village near the beach and camped right on the sand.

Setting up the tent was an adventure, as our TOTALLY AWESOME planning meant we used our cellphones as flashlights, and my tea-light traditional lantern scared the heck out of one Omani family down the beach.

They thought I was a Jinn-girl as I was wearing traditional dress for Sharqiyah, and carrying a lantern that is a hundred years old.

Which made Z laugh so hard she broke one of our tent sticks so our tent was the most retarded looking tent you ever saw and we had to brace it with rocks from inside, but we had the beach to ourselves. We made a fire (I love collecting firewood) and roasted our hotdogs and cooked our beads and ate them on arabic bread with dates, and slept, and were then eaten alive by mosquitoes. In the morning we drove the road to Sur, blasting Iraqi Arabic musicon repeat [there was only one CD: Z also made me sing the national anthem of my country, and some Irish and Disney songs. (I am not one of those people who remember song lyrics so this was our selection). She sang me some REALLLLLLLY old Omani songs about being in love with someone of a darker skintone, and how nothing was the same after loving them, not eating, not sleeping. The melody was really pretty. I'll leave the lyrics up to Z.)], until we got to Sur and realized, that by the time we reached Sinaw the souq would be closed. So we made it our goal to see the traditional souq in Sur.

Which... didn't take too long. It was just one open air building where they were slicing open sharks and smelled wretched (and I almost was so bold as to ask the fisherman for some qhawha but Z held me back and was like, don't you dare), but I DID see the place where the fisherman lay out the shark fins to dry. Then we wandered around the closed-for-maintenance Bilad Sur castle and some crumbling old houses which I kept claiming I wanted to live in which bored the heck of Z, but come on, this is OPNO, she loves crumbling falling down houses. Then we drove down the Corniche for a stroll (more Z's thing), and took off back to Tiwi where we stopped at my old camping spot long enough for a quick dip before heading back to Al Amerat & Muscat. So Sinaw souq, we are coming for you. But we will plan better. And I am going to buy two camels in Sinaw. Yes I am. For 300 rials, I can get two camels and keep them at a friend's farm. I just need to buy a truck or a trailer for my 4x4. So B, you WILL ride camels, for sure when you come back here.

OPNO likes horses better, but she can't afford horses, so camels is what she is going to do in the meantime. Don't tell her family![Z, of course, who grew up with goats and farming dates, thinks this idea is ridiculous, but she supports it for the fact that it will amuse her entire group of relations to say that OPNO owns two camels].

Anyways, back in Muscat, the girls decided to go get mishcock (grilled meat, either lamb or chicken or goat) at the end of Ghubra lakes park beach. Waiting for the mishcock vendors to fire the grills, the girls watched the fisherman take their boats in and waded in the water, then sat a mat out on the sand and had their mishcock picnic while a very orange and big sun went down behind them, palms blowing in the wind.

OPNO was feeling a little homesick, but sitting on the beach lodged between the fishing boats while men in their whizars dragged the boats in and their sons jumped into the bay for a swim after a hard evening's work, munching on her mishcock, she didn't feel to far away from home. OPNO knows very well there are very few places left like this one in the world.

Daily Diary: Mabruk F&F!!! and I am going camping in Sharqiyah

Mabruk F sweetie. S force her to wear the traditional gold necklace for me! OPNO is going to Al Sharqiyah, so sends her warmest regards.

DAILY DIARY: This Month is PINK for Cancer Awareness

As Andy in his awesome blog post Cancer in Oman pointed out, this month is for cancer awareness the world over, and that cancer is growing to be one of the major killers in Oman.

This same month back in my home country, Muslim girls raise money and awareness by wearing pink hijabs (and face veils).
Oman is trying to raise awareness for early detection of cancer (especially breast tissue types) through the National Cancer Awareness Center http://www.ocancer.org.om/aboutus.aspx. Oman is unique in the world for breast cancer occuring in very young women (pre-menopausal) so regular examinations are recommended twice yearly for Omani women over the age of 18.

Thank you Andy (really) for the following social calendar event.

Andy: "If you have the time and money, why not support cancer awareness by attending this special event, Parampara, at the Al Bustan Palace this coming October 21st?