Garden gathering

We have been enjoying our garden so much lately. Being there just helps you to relax instantly and after the intense summer heat we appreciate the cool, shady, and green atmosphere of our garden even more. Recently, Marike and Matilda had a very laid back afternoon with their two colleagues, Miriam - who works with Marike at university, and Naima - who works with Matilda in finger painting, cup stacking and potato stamping at the university's day care center.

 

Miriam and Naima in the garden

Naima and Matilda exploring

Oman world fireworks championship

The world fireworks championship 2010 is taking place in Oman! What's more, we can enjoy the spectacular shows right from our bedroom balcony, as the event is held in a nearby park. For a whole week we'll have entertainment right at our doorstep. We know you are all big firework lovers, so you don't want to miss the information on the event's website: http://www.wfchampionship.com/

 Watching Australia's contribution from our balcony

Arrival of St. Nicholas

Most of us Dutch have wondered since childhood how St. Nicholas is able to meet & greet all children in the Netherlands on the streets, in schools and even at home in only a few weeks per year, roughly between mid-November and the 5th of December. How his ship is able to carry all the presents, how his horse is capable of taking St. Nicholas over the roof tops to all these homes and schools in every town and village of Holland, and what incredible time-management skills St. Nicholas must possess to plan all this in just one month a year. Our respect for the old man only grew when we realised that in his journey he also includes all the places in the world outside of Holland where Dutch children live! The map below shows what a demanding task this is:

Number of Dutch and Flemish living abroad (Source: info-graphics.nl)

– an indispensable itinerary planning tool for St. Nicholas

With this little bit of background information, you can imagine the joy we felt when we learned that St. Nicholas would visit us in Oman again this year! And similar to last year, he did not let us down. On the contrary - His entrée was remarkable and full of excitement, which is promising in the light of presents and sweets that we can expect this year.

We gathered at the beach to welcome St. Nicholas on November 10, eagerly awaiting his arrival

Waiting in shorts and swim gear instead of raincoats and winter jackets

‘hij komt, hij komt’

Matilda was more interested in the airplanes flying by

Where have I seen this black peter before? It must have been in a previous blog entry about camping at Jebel Shams...

Amidst the happy chaos, there was a brief opportunity to pose for the camera man

After the beach welcome, we all rushed to the school’s gym, where we sang songs to St. Nicholas and were treated with even more pepernoten, schuimpjes and the like.
 

Sint said he really enjoyed being in Oman, and our hearts were filled with pride! He told us about his adventures of camping in the Omani desert and dune bashing in a 4x4 jeep. If you find that too bizarre to believe, just see for yourself in the picture below!

Wahiba Sands Trips

The weather finally starts to get cooler in Oman and the last two weekends we were in the Wahiba Sands.

The first weekend, we went camping with a large group of Marike's university colleagues. What a great, diverse group it was!


Watching the sunset

Gideon installed the rooftent again for the winter camping season, a great place to sleep!

Camping in the desert

Matilda and her SandFriends Mathea and Naima



Matilda in the sand at sunset

 The second weekend, we went out with a group of PDO colleagues to one of the desert camps.

Again...watching the sunset....everybody happy?!

Everybody Happy!





A Double Espresso Please!

After a long and sleepy omani summer, there is nothing better to wake you up than a shot of Double Espresso!

These four ladies and their saxophones (http://www.double-espresso.nl/) were invited to play at the Sohar Music Festival and came a few days early to enjoy Muscat.

Marike and Matilda with "Double Espresso" in front of Casa Cardozo.

One evening, we organised a BBQ on the beach, and the ladies brought their instruments for an improvised Sunset Jazz Concert!

Loes, Babette, Floortje, and Annette playing at sunset on PDO beach

Jazz, food, drinks, sunset all mixed with a nice group of friends to make a wonderful evening. Thanks to Double Espresso for being such great guests!

An ordinary weekend?

We are looking back on a lovely weekend. It started off very nicely with breakfast on the terrace.

Then it was time for Matilda’s weekend exercise session, which usually means jumping and other wild movements on the Big Bed.

Then it was time for some more exercise, and Gideon and Matilda took a walk to the pool on our compound to go for a swim. Matilda was duly prepared with her swim gear on and her sturdy shoes to face these physical challenges.

Then it was time for some household chores, like hanging a rail in the kitchen.

Later in the afternoon, we went to GUtech (Marike’s university) where we have organized a kindergarten with a group of fellow staff with young children. We just had to finish the final preparations and now this week the kindergarten has officially opened! Matilda will go there one day a week so she can play with the other babies. One is never too young to go to university…

And at night, we had a nice dinner at the sushi restaurant with the two of us!

Although this seems to have been an ordinary weekend, Matilda makes every day a little less ordinary…

In the field, finally!

This story is written by Marike.

I cannot recall the last time I was in ‘the field’ to collect some research data. It may have been the trip to Nicaragua two summers ago. Or possibly it was to conduct the final interviews in the Dutch municipalities before writing up the PhD thesis. One thing I do know, however, is that I haven’t done any field work yet since moving to Oman. And that I was impatient and eager to change that. So some weeks ago I was in higher spirits with the two-day field trip with my colleague Heba to study the tourism development in the area east of Muscat.

This coastal stretch of land has undergone tremendous changes the last few years, with new hotel resorts under construction in various locations. We were curious to see the scope and progress of these developments and we eventually want to understand how the nearby villages and their communities are affected by it. Our first step is to map the area, here is a first rudimentary impression of what we encoutered: villages (red), tourism resorts (blue), tourism construction sites (purple) – and this is all taking place in an area spanning 40 km…

To give an idea of the type of tourism development, see the picture below. The government attracts (foreign) investment companies that develop a site, and the new destination area is usually transformed into a mixture of hotels, a marina, a golf course and residential homes. Once sufficient cash is generated by the sale of the homes, construction then takes off, and investors outsource the hotels to hotel operators such as Intercon or Four Seasons.

Above is Jebel Sifah, a resort in development some 45 km east of Muscat, that will eventually consist of luxurious villas, four 5-star hotels, 2 smaller hotels, a marina, a shopping & restaurant area. Oman tourims development seems to be grounded in thinking BIG…

Although it was hot and despite Ramadan we still managed to talk to some villagers

 

 (“what is that bulldozer doing on the other side of the bay, yet another development?”)

 
…and appreciate the local public art (definitely another subject I’d like to research!)
 

The Al Bustan village deserves some special attention here. The entire village was relocated about 1 km west to make room for the prestigious Al Bustan Palace, probably the most iconic hotel of the country. We wonder what this has meant for the villagers. Have they continued their fishing activities? Have they adjusted to their modernized, standardized homes? And to what extent do they find employment in the nearby hotel and does the hotel purchase their agricultural and fishing products? The outcomes seem promising.

Al Bustan village relocated 1 km west to make room for the Al Bustan Palace (in the back)

A rather sad story is that of Yitti beach. What used to be a popular weekend destination for the people of nearby Muscat, had become the location of a massive tourism development of a ‘lifestyle resort’ by Dubai investors. But when Dubai went bankrupt, so the Yitti project stalled. What remains is the 3 million cubic metre of rock and sand placed onside, and an unfinished marina.

Popular beach turned into a abandoned construction site

And whereas the Al Bustan villagers were relocated in 1984 to a beach setting – similar to what they were used to, the future move of the Yitti people is to what seems to be a suburb amidst the mountains:

Moving fishermen to the mountains: where do I catch my fish?

Doing field work is never a burden, but doing field work in a tourism area is especially attractive! Here are some impressions of all the beauty we admired: