Oman today

On March 1st I searched the internet and tuned into every channel imaginable that could have news on any more protests in Oman but there was nothing. I called friends around the place and no one heard anything interesting. There were supposed to be a gathering at the grand mosque at 4pm in support of the Sultan but I didn't hear anything about it. My son and I went to visit a sick friend and everything seemed normal on that side of Muscat that we planned to go to Shatti beach in the afternoon for our kids to play.
We went to Shatti Beach and found it as usual. It was easy to find a park so I guess it wasn't as busy as usual. So we set up on the beach with out mat, chair and toys for the kids. We'd been there about half an hour when I saw and Omani guy in football gear amongst the many that were there drag a goal post to one side of us. I realised that we were then sitting in the middle of a make shift football pitch. I started to fume and anticipating the confrontation with the person that was going to ask us to move. Eventually this English guy(judging from his accent) out of all the Omanis that were there came up and said "could you please move up the beach because we're about to play" before we could say anything he added, "we've been playing here for 25 years so there's nothing you could do about it". I had enough, I said " well we got here first and there's more beach for you to play on" and he said we've been playing here for 25 years. My friend was saying so what man, we're here to enjoy the beach in peace, and I added "it's not our fault that we weren't here 25 years ago but this is a public beach." I couldn't be arsed so we started to move away and this one English guy is basically helping/forcefully moving us along. I was voicing my unhappiness loudly and he kept saying sorry, it's just the way it was. Hilarious. It was like the one token white guy was used to come approach the other outsiders to move away from their chosen spot. And to top it off they're just amateur footballers killing time in the arvo. Grow up guys, your respectable countries ain't going to call on you to come represent your countries any time soon, that boat sailed a while back! Anyway needless to say quietly I was thinking if all these guys are here playing football then they're not out there protesting!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Samaga Pe'a

Image
The time came when the completion of the tattooing sessions were near. We went to Samoa for three and a half weeks and we were hoping that it would be done well before then but by the third week we were not so sure we'd be done well before or in time. You see in Samoa there are a lot of unforseeable circumstances that arise. One of those was the tattooist's family from ovearseas showed up for family meetings and all. So there had to be days off while the tufuga dealt with his family duties. On top of that Mother's day followed and then the final week was full on tattooing everyday until it was completed on Saturday. On this Saturday I dropped the two victims off to the tufuga's house, hung around to serve breakfast and then went back to our host family to help with the preparations for the samaga ceremony. Samaga is the ceremony that formalises the completion of the tufuga's work and where he lifts his taboos and bans and let's the new pe'as out into the wor
Read more

Fagu'u / Samoan oil

Image
Samoan oil in Fanta and tobasco sauce recycled bottles at Fugalei market. The bottle caps are made of coconut husks wrapped in plastic to keep the husk in place. You've got to love the recycling sense. Samoan oil is used as moisturiser, hair gel, ointment, antiseptic and mosquito repellant oh and used as 'glitter' when dancing. I remember going to school covered in it when we were little. I'm sure I had nightmares for years after whenever I smelled it. But then it was okay because everyone else at school was covered in it too. Oh and we made our own too. My grandma who was blind and paralysed sensed it was going to rain and would yell out to us to come bring the lolo (process or state of making Samoan oil) inside the house because water pollutes the pure oil. So I must attribute my smooth skin to the fagu'u that grandma used to remind us every morning to make sure we had covered our bodies with. Choo hooo fresh off the island ow:)
Read more

Jebel Sifa beauty

Early 2018 post We went to Sifawy Boutique Hotel last week with the family and we found it was quiet there. What a breathtaking set up they have there. Just beautiful with marina out front for the kids to ride their scooters and skate while we adults lounge around the pool and breeze bar. We ran into our friends there so the kids had friends to play with so it was lovely.
Read more