I have been shopping around Muscat for the perfect wardrobe/armoire. Most of the nice ones are purchased in full bedroom sets I LIKE ranging from 720-1500 rials. Ones I don't like, are of course, and tragically, less. I have just started checking used, like the boards at Al Fair, and I found fair Al Fahmy wardrobe for 50 rials. I like but I am waiting for my friends to drive me out to Wadi Adai, a few places in Mutrah, and Seeb.
I am a fan of the ones from Morocco and Syria (inlaid, painted, ect). I also like dark wood ones. I am a more traditional girl, so I can't pull off those modern laquered things (which you can find at better prices here).
Few houses in Oman come equipped with closet space so buying a good wardrobe is essential. Since most of the clothes I wear day to day have to be hung (jalabiyias, party dresses, caftans, and abayas) I need a lot of hanging space so the wardrobe is perfect!
Unfortunately, I am picky, and everything I like costs a fortune, and some things are just waaaaay to tacky here. Pink sparkly glitter on dark wood????? WHY?!!!!!!
Most 5aleeji hairstyles involve alot of volume and hairspray (and often fake hair, yuck). The hair raised at the crown is a usual feature, with jewels and hair accessories complimenting the style. I like the use of hair bands. From curly... Too sleek... From purposefully messy... To refined... Or dramatic.. ...the key is always volume.
Many have asked me why I want to come to Oman and work when they are trying to come to my country and work.
Well, in general in Oman, expats with a passport like mine and a good degree get paid more than an Omani National with the same education. At LEAST $2500 Omani rials and above. LOL, I am one of those people who took off from college with certificates but no B.A. So I am not one of those. Everyone is like, it's just three more years of school OPNO, BUT I AM LIKE, I don't know how many years I have left to live (no, I am not dying, but you never know right?) and I don't want to spend my last days in school, LOL.
So I am left to work with the rest, 5-6 days a week (we get Juma off). We can work from 8-12 hours a day but have long lunch breaks. Slave labour! my father would cry.
I have more work experience than most Arabs and Omanis in my fields (yes, fields, I am one of those people who cannot make up their mind and get bored very easily) so I can make from $400 (don't want to take that)- $670.00 which is more than enough for the lifestyle I AM content with. If you wanna rent a villa and have no nice Omani connects to hook you up with one they don't happen to be using, well then, you gotta make more. The average salary for co-workers that are from other Arab countries is $320-$400. I have an Omani friend though, who only makes $260.00. Live-in maids from India get paid around $80 rials a month. Despite my low wage, my household still has a maid who visits six times a week, and I can afford lovely clothes and pretty furniture and good food. I have a few women as flatmates.
I don't know WHY the bloody work week is so long though, because I used to get just as much work done at a nine to five five day a week job as I do manage to here. I think people just use the internet more at work (free internet is great and no one kills you for facebook!---which was a firing issue back in MY COUNTRY). And I think, of course, that working more than five days a week is a crime. I like two days off in a row. It has been conditioned into me as my unconditional right as a North American. But I gave that right up to come here and work.
A friend visiting from another Gulf country was SHOCKED to see Omani men driving cabs, and Omani girls at grocery checkouts. This is unheard of in places like the UAE (unless they get a good discount at Gucci, LOL). It makes me happy because I think Omani people are more humble than some I've met from other Gulf states (nothing is worse than a Gulf-snob). But I despair for some, the young men who don't make enough to save for a house (at least $400 to rent waaaaay out of Muscat, and most families prefer that you own), two cars (one for the wife, one for the husband, the lowest costing $950 each), the maher (at least 500 rials but as much 40, 000), furniture, new clothes and gold gifts for the bride and her family, and food for the wedding. They have to take out HUGE loans to finance the marriage, then have to spend the rest of their lives paying their debt, just to fulfil their Islamic duty to marry, and take care of their children. Some work the day for their $125-300 jobs and then drive a taxi at night, all just to meet the basic requirements of marriage and children. So some cannot afford to marry, and end up staying with their families, and I find this just sad. The kids can end up having to work to help pay the debt (Oman has few Islamic banks), and for girls, this can be the additional pressure to make a marriage with money, which doesn't exactly involve prostituting themselves out, but it can pressure them into less-than Islamic means of meeting their future spouses for wholly good intentions of saving their family and helping themselves. It makes me sad for some Omanis!
My friends and I joke about pooling a sadaqah fund for the single boys we know to help cover their mahers, LOL. I know a lot of families do this.
This is really NOT a comprehensive article by ANY means, but its my most pervasive thoughts on the subject.
The other day we went to the exhibition centre in Seeb near the Golden Tulip for the shopping festival thing there: i.e there is a lot of booths selling perfume, cosmetics, African carvings, shaylas, jalabiyias, (the UGLIEST weddings dresses you ever saw---one looked like it had glittery rhinestone spiders taped to it), curtains, bedding, toys, shoes, purses (fake Louie anyone?)... All in all a rewarding day/evening. My friend came up with souvenirs for her family (she went with striped galaba men's robes for her male relatives and henna tubes and jalabiyias for her female friends and relations), other friend got a clingy jersey dress from a rip-off Egyptian vendor which we screwed over likewise as he tried to rip off Omani women, oh and she got a purse, I got shoes (yes, I never spend more than five rials on shoes), and two shaylas. I COULD HAVE bought a 20 rial jalabiyia for parties for 3 rial (I am THE QUEEN of bartering BTW), but hey, yeah know, it is easier to barter when you DON'T CARE. And I am broke so "it don't matter" LOL.
I know, I know, shopping experiences are boring to document, because no one REALLY cares WHAT you bought, but... I also had men randomly walk by and say that they thought I was Syrian (which I knew enough Arabic to understand!!!! YAY!!!!), and a bunch of women grabbed me by my arm and held me (I'm serious) and told me in Arabic how pretty I was (kinda creepy) and one Egyptian man told me and my friend that we were cats. I like cats, so this may be good, but then, people kinda get offended when you call them anything related to animals here so... he might have been implying something else entirely? Also, little children kept bopping me in the head with Mickey Mouse balloons, and shooting babies with toy AK-47s. Kinda disturbing.
To ask how much something is at one of these things, say "kam hatha?" Be able to count to ten in Arabic. 1 is wahid, 2 is ithnayn, 3 is thalatha, 4 is arba, 5 is khamsa, 6 is sita, 7 is saba, 8 is thamaniyia, 9 is tisa, 10 is ashra. For thirteen, people will ashra, and then they'll say thalatha right after. If they tell you something costs 10 rials, it costs three, and five is a fair price. If you wear a very expensive blingy abaya, you will get charged more. If you say you are Canadian, they usually give you a discount. IF YOU KNOW HOW TO BARTER!!! Otherwise, you shame your fellow Canadians.
Yes, and our cab driver drove us to Muwalla instead of Seeb so we had to phone an Omani friend to tell the fellow where to turn around. If we hadn't mentioned anything, we think he would have just kept driving.
Omani cab driver (ABOUT 80): "I am very good with the ladies. I only take ladies in my taxi. Can I marry you?" My friend's reply: "You can, but I won't!"
Guy from Salalah: "I want to make a friendship with you." My friend's reply: "I don't know how to make a friendship, I'm sorry."
A friend of ours: "Women expire at 25." "So we are like milk?" "I mean, um, uh, Arab women." My friend: "I'll start collecting my cats now then, thank-you." Her response didn't translate, but he got it from our glares.
Random Arab guy: "L'smat ya ukti! Blah blah more arabic and something to do about asking my name." Me: "I don't understand you. I speak English." "Are you Morrocan?" "Yes, that is why I am speaking English instead of French or Arabic!"
A friend of ours: "The job of Omani men is to save women!" It was just the way that he said that made it so funny.
A doctor: "You are from Kenya?" My friend: "No, Canada." "Is it easy to immigrate there?" "I don't know, I was born there." "It is a nice country yes, I want to know, do they need doctors?" All before asking my friend WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER ON OUR VISIT TO HIS CLINIC!!!!
So I am safely in Muscat now, alhamdulilah. I have been living the quiet life, shopping for curtains and cushions at Centrepoint and the Mutrah Souq (I found the above majlis cushion set at the souq), and picking out some new abayas and a new balushi/Omani dress from waaaaaaay away Mutrah (best prices---do not pay 40 rials for a traditional souvenier Omani outfit unless it is for a wedding ex-pat people!---else you are getting ripped off ROYALLY). I pay 15-25 rials (that's a good price) and 25-30 is fair. You won't find this right in the Souq.
Other than that, I am also eating schwarma again (um, why OPNO?). For those of you who do not know me, I had to live on schwarma for a whole month due to lack of a kitchen and fuloos (money) last time round in Muscat. I lost 250 rials by leaving my purse somewhere and now, lol, am skimping on luxuries to make rent. Thus schwarma has replaced my other eating out habits.
But last night me and a few friends went to a handball match between two teams that had players on the National Team (and it was televised live on, like, Oman TV channel 2 or something) at the Sultan Qaboos sporting complex so that must be good right? LOL, we'd never heard of the sport previously so an Omani friend tried their best to explain the rules to us (and how the goalkeeper was related to this shirt number on the red shirt team, and how white shirt player on the other team was their cousin).
Handball as I understood it: the game consists of six players on each side of a kinda basketball court (but with soccer nets) and a round dodgeball kind of ball, and six other players on a bench, with each side typically having one dude in a dishdasha on their bench. His role went unquestioned and unexplained but this man likes to wave his hands a lot and jump up and down. I am thinking he might be the sponsor????? Anyways, so the teams have positions, the center guy is the Captain (and he has to have a lot of experience in handball), and there is, on both the right and the left of him, two fellows who play offensive forward but switch to defense when needed, and then on the side of those fellows, two wingmen who are mainly defensive. Oh yeah, and one long pants wearing (the other players wear shorts) goalkeeper. Though it seems that during the game these positions change and no one keeps them for any particular strategic reason (but I am new to handball so maybe I am wrong?). The aim is to throw the ball (not kick it) into the other team's net. This ball is bounced, dribbled, thrown, and passed, while both teams bash into one another (it is kind of a contact sport like a very tame rugby) but grabbing the arm of the other players when they go to throw it seems to result in a penalty, like two minute bench times. This is a yellow card from the refs. Three yellows cards equal one red card (out for the game) like in soccer/football.
One dude on the white team got mad at the ref VERY dramatically, and tore off his t-shirt before heading to the stands (the ones with the nice chairs and the VIPS) (we sat with the generally barefooted Omani guy-crowd set on the plastic seats opposite, LOL). Thus I am surprised there are less older expat women at the matches LOL, as admission to the games is apparently free, and they can be quite entertaining to watch, with people faking injuries (that's what it looked like to me), and very dramatic hand-waving by the dishdasha bench-dude. Plus you apparently don't have to wear shoes because EVERYONE but us had taken off their sandals and had their feet balanced on their friends chair in front of them. And the fans had drums so it made it all very dramatic.
One thing to note, there were exactly 3 and 1/2 women in the entire stadium during the match. OPNO, ODNO [Omani Duchess Not Omani], one expat blonde lady on the VIP side, and a little girl with her father.
And they made me leave my pepsi outside.
And for some reason the entire exit was covered with ripped paper which must have been fun for the blue-jumpered sweepers to attend to. Our Omani friends could not explain this to us.
And I couldn't find a vid of Oman playing handball, but this is a vid of handball clips, so if you are like me, and have never heard of the sport before, you'll know roughly what it is:
I have been shopping around Muscat for the perfect wardrobe/armoire. Most of the nice ones are purchased in full bedroom sets I LIKE ranging from 720-1500 rials. Ones I don't like, are of course, and tragically, less. I have just started checking used, like the boards at Al Fair, and I found fair Al Fahmy wardrobe for 50 rials. I like but I am waiting for my friends to drive me out to Wadi Adai, a few places in Mutrah, and Seeb.
I am a fan of the ones from Morocco and Syria (inlaid, painted, ect). I also like dark wood ones. I am a more traditional girl, so I can't pull off those modern laquered things (which you can find at better prices here).
Unfortunately, I am picky, and everything I like costs a fortune, and some things are just waaaaay to tacky here. Pink sparkly glitter on dark wood????? WHY?!!!!!!
