Expat Home

During all my years as a happy expat, I've never ever had a "proper home" in the sense of a place with only my own things. Not until now, that is.

I'm not sure what happened, but last year I just got so sick and tired of having my things in storage that I decided to ship it all  here - all 96 boxes. And it took quite a while to upack everything, but now I have what I've never had as a wanderer around the globe: my own proper home.

Just having access to all my books, for one thing. That's absolutely fabulous. I just can't get over it.

Or being able to arrange my study exactly the way I want it, with my own furniture.

I don't know if I've always had this idea that if you like travelling and living the expat life, you automatically exclude the option of having your own place. Like it's a choice of either, or. But sitting down with my calculator last summer, I worked out that the cost of shipping all my stuff from London to Oman was equal to 19 months of storage, which means you're in the black if you stay two years in one place.

So, now I've got my beloved Ivar shelves and tiled mirrors.

My copper pot from Lapland, my antique books, all my VCRs, tapes, CDs and DVDs in one place - I mean, that has been like almost decades since that happened last. And being able to connect my TV to my super-duper speakers. I mean, I knew that this bit here could be connected to this bit there, but with most of my stuff perpetually in storage, it was just a theoretical idea. Until now.

And being surrounded with stuff I've chosen myself. I know that's the norm for most people, but for an avid globetrotter like me, this is a new experience, I tell you.

It's almost like I don't know if I want to go to Europe for a visit this summer. I'm happy here. 

And, yes, I know! My home looks like an IKEA show room - but that's the way I like it.

Birthday

I had a fantastic birthday - though I actually got sick the very next day. My sister asked me in a text if it was old age setting in.

I stayed in Muscat the night before my birthday, camping on the beach. Since it was the holiday of the Prophet's Birthday the following day, there were people absolutely everywhere. I stayed for a while at Qurum Beach, sitting under the full moon and listening to the waves, but instead of people leaving as it got later, just more people arrived. When I saw some people starting making a fire for a BBQ after midnight, I realised these people were in a different time zone from me.  I drove over to a stretch of beach closer to the airport, thinking it would be less busy - and it was. Here's sunrise on 22 March.

I had the entire beach to myself.

How can you start a birthday in the end of March better than this? It was lovely and warm - both in the air and the sea - and I went for a birthday swim. My nieces Alexandra and Jasmine had sent me a birthday present, which I opened. Great gift, hey!?

Amazingly, even the little candle in the clay model I received had not been damaged when it was sent through the post. It says, "A home is a place where you can drink tea whenever you want." That is exactly how I feel.

Anyway, this is the birthday boy in the first shot of the day - i.e. me holding the camera.

I went back to Qurum Beach later in the morning. I have this thing about the sea. I just can't get enough of it. Since it was my birthday, I decided to treat myself, so I just sat there, looking at the waves.

At some point during the morning, I wrote in my diary. Now, I better be upfront and honest about this before going on here. This was actually my big five-oh. I might not look 50 and I don't feel like 50 - I don't think I even act 50 - but that is what it says in my passport.

I was contemplating this in my diary, and the following extract probably expresses what I feel about that first digit, that f-i-v-e:

"I find it hard to believe it applies to me. I mean, other, older people turn 50. I guess I was under the illusion that people at 50 were...a bit like a different species. And the chocking truth is that I feel exactly the same. I must have changed, I'm sure, but I don't feel any different".

The first social event of the day was lunch. I had lunch with some friends at a Mexican restaurant called Pavo Real. The food was great, the perfect place for a birthday lunch. I tried the fajitas and they were excellent.

After lunch, we went bowling, but by that time the batteries in my camera were flat.  

And I came last.   

On my way back to Nizwa, I bought myself a birthday gift at Borders bookshop - in Currently Reading below - and then I bought ingredients for a Swedish strawberry and cream cake as well as for a banana and chocolate cake. About 25 people came for an improvised cake & tea + wine birthday party.

Since the public holiday had just been announced a couple of days earlier, I hadn't really had time to plan much (the official birthday party, arranged by my friends and colleagues, had been moved to 24 March because of the public holiday). This is what I like about Nizwa, though. With lots of expats living in a foreign country, any excuse for a get-together, on however short a notice, is usually well attended. Anyway, we had a great time - though I've got no pictures to prove it.

The official birthday party two days later - which I shared with another teacher, Leila, turning 60, so it was a double big oh - was absolutely amazing. Partly because I had got sick the day after my birthday but miraculously felt OK that night (I got sick again the next day!). Partly because so many people came to the Turkish restaurant for the party - over 50 people! - and I don't think Nizwa has ever seen a huge crowd of foreigners from every corner of the globe wearing birthday hats and singing loudly to an accordion.

Some of our Omani students joined in, though, and totally got into the spirit of things. Homaid certianly did (picture below). Though, chatting with them, it seemed that they had never seen anything like our birthday bash before. I don't think they do birthdays here in Oman in the way we do them.

And I wore my birthday crown with great pride.

And here's the birthday girl - Leila from Tunisia - next to the birthday boy.

We had basically taken over the entire restaurant.

Janine went for a more dramatic look.

Some people would argue that the high point of the evening was when Leila and I sang an Arabic song by Um Kalthoom, the famous Egyptian singer (personally, I think the accordion was the icing on the cake).

One of the younger party-goers, Noah from the USA/Peru, with Salah, a student at the college.

Here's Noah with mum and dad - Natalie and Nathan.

The party was arranged by wonderful Wendy. She did an absolutely fantastic job: hats, cakes and, above all, presents! I don't know how she did it (carrot or stick?), but both Leila and I got a huge number of presents.

Here's Wendy and the birthday girl in a famous five photo opportunity.

When one of my students, Abdel-Salaam, gave my a birthday present, I didn't recognise him at first because he wasn't wearing his kumma - the traditional Omani cap!

Gail from South Africa, and Amir and his family from Egypt.

The cakes were fabulous. Apparently, one of them dispatched in a car all the way from Muscat as special delivery.

And I think it was a good thing to stick to numbers and give the candles a miss.

I think I have to go back to 2001 for a birthday that I enjoyed as much as this one.    Blog here.

Summer's early this year, I think. Apparently, it's going to be 42 C (108 F) in Muscat today. Well, I'll find out when I go there later this afternoon.  The forecast for Nizwa is ''only" 39 C (102 F).

It takes a while to get used to these movable Islamic public holidays that are announced only a couple of days before they happen. This announcement I really liked, though. They've just announced that 22 March - my birthday! - will be a public holiday!!    This is fabulous. I don't have to work on my birthday. 

Here's the announcement from today's paper:

Prophet’s birthday holiday on March 22

ONA
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:11:02 AM Oman Time

MUSCAT — The ministries and government departments will remain closed on Saturday, 14th Rabie Al Awal 1429 AH, corresponding to March 22, on the occasion of Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) birthday, according to a decision issued by Sayyid Ali bin Hamoud Al Busaidi, minister of the Diwan of Royal Court and chairman of the Civil Service Council yesterday.

Visitors

Just at the beginning of the New Year, my friends Sten and Irene from Stockholm came to visit me here in Oman. I had been planning for what to show them for months, and when they landed at Muscat International Airport at 4.00 am, I was ready with a picnic basket - including fresh strawberries for breakfast - and an assortment of beach equipment. I took them straight to Qurum Beach in Muscat, for breakfast and a lazy morning in the sunshine. And a swim, of course.

However, it just so happened that Sten and Irene arrived on the very night summer turned into winter here in Oman (I'm not joking!).  So, all in all, this relaxing start to Sten and Irene's visit turned into a heroic attempt at having a morning picnic on a freezing beach. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

Anyway, we managed to fit in quite a few things in the week they were here. We did Nizwa Fort, or course. Nizwa Fort is just that large monument I see behind the car park every time I go to Nizwa souk. But with prominent visitors from as far away as Sweden, this monument suddenly becomes (what it actually is!) a premier tourist attraction.

We also walked along the corniche at Mutrah, which is near the older parts of Muscat - though the weather wasn't the best that day.

And, of course, we had to have a look at the Sultan's Palace (which is that colourful building in the distance, just to the right of me in the picture).

It's kind of funny, because Muscat isn't really a tourist destination for me, since I go there most weekends just for shopping and things. But suddenly, when you've got visitors, you see everything with different eyes.

That said, we took the opportunity to drive down to Sur, on the eastern coast, over the weekend, to have a look at the famous turtles at Ras Al Jinz. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time and suddenly I was also a tourist in earnest. We drove the 330 km down to Sur as soon as I finished work on the Wednesday afternoon.

It was quite a long drive, and we arrived at Ras Al Hadd, where we were going to stay, way after sunset. I don't know if it was because it had been such a long drive - I'm desperately looking for an excuse here - but when I approached Ras Al Hadd, I actually drove the wrong way through a roundabout.  I know! I know! To my defence, I can say that this is the only time in my life I've driven through a roundabout the wrong way. Though, that is not much of an excuse, is it?  However, in the daylight the next day, I actually had to stop and have a look at the layout of the signs leading into the roundabout. With this kind of arrangement of traffic signs, I might actually be forgiven. No? Anyway, I was going left. Which arrow would you have followed if you were going left and it was pitch black?

Visiting Ras Al Jinz at night to see the turtles is something I'll never forget. The turtles come up onto the beach at night to lay eggs and they have quite an amazing system going when covering the eggs with sand, which results in the deep hole they leave in the sand when they're finished covering the eggs ends up being several metres from where the eggs actually are hidden. Incredibly clever. Our guide found turtles in the dark and we had the opportunity to see them lay eggs, cover their eggs with sand and return into the sea. Unfortunately, all my pictures came out like this.

Early the next morning, we went back to the beach at Ras Al Jinz to see the baby turtles come out of their egg shells and try to get into the sea (I think the guide said the eggs hatch after about two months). Here's a baby turtle we saw on its way into the sea just before sunrise.

Since many of the turtles are caught by seagulls or foxes before they reach the sea, the authorities encourage tourists to catch the baby turtles and take them to the people at the turtle centre. They are then put into large water tanks and get the opportunity to grow a bit before they are released into the sea. A French tourist we met had caught two baby turtles.

Apart from the turtles, Ras Al Jinz is also an amazing place just to visit for the scenery.

The rock formations are pretty spectacular.

And with the sun just rising, you get this beautiful morning light.

We stayed at the Turtle Beach Resort in Ras Al Hadd, and we managed to squeeze in a bit of snorkelling before we left the area.

As we set out on our way back towards Muscat, we saw some flamingos near Sur, the major city in this part of Oman. I don't know if they show up very well in this picture, but anyway: there they are.

Our first stop on the way back was Wadi Bani Khalid.

Wadi Bani Khalid is a beautiful oasis, high up in the mountains. Reaching this place, we had to do a few 360 degree turns on the sides of the mountains. It's a popular destination, both for Omanis and tourists, and the local lads seem keen on throwing themselves into the lakes (I don't know how easy it is to see this bloke who's just thrown himself off the cliff in this picture).

After the oasis, we stopped near the edge of the desert - at the Wahiba Sands - and we just walked straight up among the sand dunes. Suddenly, Sten had oodles of energy and he was always way ahead of Irene and I. So, this is the desert. And this is Sten.

Sten has a better camera than I - with a decent zoom - so this is me, taken from his vantage point.

After the Wahiba Sands, we drove straight to Muscat Airport for Sten and Irene's flight back to Stockholm. Within a few hours, they were walking through the snowy streets of Stockholm - and I was back at Nizwa College.

 New Supermarket in Nizwa 

They've opened a new supermarket in Nizwa this morning. It's called the TSC Discount Store and the concept is the same as for the Lidl supermarket chain in Europe - everything is prepackaged and the customer puts the food in the shopping bags themselves (that is a completely new concept in Oman, I tell you!).

A new supermarket might not be much to write home about - unless you regularly drive 150 kilometers to go shopping in Muscat for all those things you can't get here in Nizwa (which almost all teachers here do).

We've been speculating about this new supermarket for almost a year now as they've been working on the building for ages and ages, and mostly it has gone something like this: Wouldn't it be nice if we had a really good supermarket in Nizwa so trips to Muscat would be for relaxation and fun, not for buying stuff like fresh meat and cheese? So, with much anticipation, I went to the TSC Discount Store this morning with the list below. These are the things I can't get (or are difficult to find) here in Nizwa:

• fresh meat
• fresh fish
• muesli
• fresh wholemeal bread/French sticks/ciabatta
• pasta sauce
• soy milk
• cold cuts
• cheese
• margarine
• Diet Pepsi
• fresh veg (esp. broccoli, asparagus and decent tomatoes)
• fresh fruit

With meat, they do sometimes sell fresh meat in the supermarkets here, but generally that means that they have half a lamb kept in a lukewarm deli counter. With cheese, they seem very fond of this pre-sliced rubbery processed cheese, but you can't get normal cheeses like cheddar, emmental, brie, camembert, stilton or gruyere in Nizwa (occasionally, I've seen Edam).

The TSC Discount store looked very clean and spacious, but very quickly I realised that they did not have many of the things I was looking for. From the list above, I only found:

• fresh meat
• cold cuts
• margarine
• Diet Pepsi

They did have a lot of fresh fruit and veg, but it was prepackaged in large packs - like, you know, two kilos of apples, or enough tomatoes to last a single person for six weeks.  This will go down well with the Omanis (it's not unusual for Omani families to have around ten kids), but I'm not really interested in buying four heads of lettuce. Just one will do.  They've got a good selection of fruit at the other supermarkets, but it's not always fresh. I think they keep stuff on the sheleves for as long as possible and just hope that people will buy it, even if it's overripe and starts looking decidedly unfresh.

Anyway, the cash out girl smiled at me this morning and that is a first in Nizwa! The girls taking your money here in the local supermarkets normally glare at you, like you're an intruder or something, even if you've been coming to the same shop for 18 months.

One of the store managers said they got lots of Diet Pepsi because he drinks it.  That's good news - it's often impossible to get Diet Pepsi here in Nizwa. Sometimes I wonder if some influential local person believes it's harmful to drink Diet Pepsi and for that reason local stores are reluctant to stock it. I can't see any other reason, since I keep asking - again and again - for the local supermarkets to stock Diet Pepsi but I hardly ever see it on the shelves (they've always got dozens and dozens of trays of Pepsi). What's the point of not stocking something that is sold as soon as they get it? Which is what happens, since I always buy Diet Pepsi on the rare occasion when they have it. I just don't get it.

The people at the TSC Store all seemed friendly and helpful and they said they will ask about what people want so they can adapt what's on the shelves for the local customers (they are also opening outlets in Samail and Rustaq this week). That's good news. Hopefully, I'll be able to buy muesli, pasta sauce and cheese in Nizwa soon. 

But for the time being, to be able to buy fresh meat and cold cuts locally is a huge improvement.

A Post-Christmas Wrap-Up

Exam season is finally over, and on Wednesday morning at 6.00 am I was able to send all the collated exam results to the Ministry of Higher Education (I only slept two hours that night). What a relief!!

Now, I have suddenly come to the realisation that Christmas is gone. My flat actually looked like this until last night.

I worked quite hard at trying to create a bit of Christmas atmosphere here in the middle of the desert this year.

And I think I succeeded to some extent.

Even if most of Christmas Eve was spent at the college, I managed to squeeze in a quick pool break in the afternoon.

In the evening, there was a Christmas Eve party at one of the hotels, which most people enjoyed.

Especially Seth and Lorenzo.

It was a very eclectic kind of Christmas Eve party, as is often the case here in the Gulf. We had a Filipino band singing Come All Ye Faithful, dressed in Father Christmas hats at one point. Soon, people were dancing to hits from the 70s. There was a moment when I felt it was almost too much of a mix for me. I was on the mobile to some relatives in Sweden and they decided to sing a Swedish Christmas carol to me over the phone, while, at the same time, the Filipino band had been replaced by a girl doing belly dancing. I really felt a bit dislocated with Swedish Christmas music in one ear and Arabic seductive music in the other.

Even though some of my friends did very well on the dance floor...

...it was really Seth and Lorenzo who stole the show that night.

We had Christmas Day off, and after church in Muscat, I went to the Christmas Day lunch my church arranges every year. Lots of food, including turkey.

Late on Christmas Day, I also squeezed in a quick Christmas Party at my flat.

Wine and minced pies.

And a (feeble) attempt at silly games.

Early on Boxing Day, I was back at college again, working away on exam admin.  On Boxing Day, I also finished my work at unpacking the last of my 96 boxes with all my worldly belongings shipped from the UK - just in time for when my Swedish friends Sten and Irene arrived from Sweden (the next day!). But that's a different story.

Anyway, that's me wrapping up the Christmas season.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We're now entering the period for end-of-term exams and I must say that this autumn term has been an incredibly busy time for me. I've been coordinating English for the second year students, and I feel I've been working around the clock for weeks and weeks.

At the same time, all my stuff has arrived from England. And when I say my stuff, what I mean is basically all my worldly belongings, which I've kept in storage for 12 years at a storage place near Heathrow Airport. I figured I'd never get access to all my things if I constantly see myself as temporarily resident wherever I happen to be. In fact, I think my globetrotting existence is basically the only stable feature in my life.  So, in July I decided to ship everything I own to Oman - 96 boxes!  Anyway, the boxes arrived six weeks ago and when I've not been working over these weeks, I've been busy driving to IKEA in Dubai to get enough shelves to unpack all my boxes. And to cut a very long and tedious story of unpacking stuff kept in boxes since 1995 (!) short, I've now unpacked everything - just in time for Christmas - and I'm finally surrounded by all my books and things.

Needless to say, I feel absolutely fantastic.   

The Good News

Once piece of incredibly good news is that mobile 3G technology has reached Nizwa. I've measured real Internet speeds of up to 200 kbps and been able even to watch streamed high-definition TV on my laptop! A huge difference from last year, when there was an 8-month waiting list for landline-based ADSL that seldom reaches above 80 kbps.

The Bad News

After having thought all autumn that the Muslim festival Eid Al Adha and Christmas would coincide this year (Christmas and one of the two main Islamic festivals only coincide twice every 33 years or so, based on the lunar calendar). However, when Eid Al Adha was announced two weeks ago, we missed having a full week off for Eid Al Adha (including Christmas) by one day! So, the first day back at work after the holidays is 24 December. This has caused quite a lot of problems for teachers who have invited family or friends to Oman over the Christmas period - thinking the whole week was off.

 Some More Good News 

Having said that, the Dean at our college has been very kind and decided last week to give us Christmas Day off. So, while I'm going back to work on Christmas Eve, I will be able to go to church in Muscat on Christmas Day (as well as a wonderful Christmas lunch at a hotel!), which is good news. The prospect of having to work on 25 December would have been incredibly depressing.

Anyway, I'm about to put up the Christmas tree - on 23 December according to Swedish tradition.

Skiing in Dubai

When I texted my sister, telling her I had been skiing in Dubai, she asked me,"Is it like being in a big fish tank with people and snow?"

I think that is exactly what it was like. When it's 35 C outside and you are putting on a slalom kit, you have this feeling that it all is a bit silly. Anyway, John, a friend of mine, and I put on a brave face and tried to act as if it's the most natural thing on earth walking around in snow gear indoors in Dubai.

But then, when you walk into the snow and it's -4 C and the snow is just perfect for skiing, it's a pretty amazing feeling.

John did snow boarding and I did slalom. I forgot I was in the Gulf as soon as I walked into the snow, and I had definitely forgotten all about the desert and the heat as I was working on my turns. BTW, Hassan from Morocco (!) turned out to be a brilliant ski instructor.

I'm not sure what I had expected. I think the idea of skiing in Dubai is so farfetched that I expected the whole thing to be a bit of a Mickey Mouse experience - I mean the whole attempt at reproducing snow in a country with summer temperatures of 50 C. Instead, I found that it was extremely good. Very professional. Very real. I will definitely go back there.

Here's the website for SkiDubai.

I was also struck by a sense of unreality when I was driving through the centre of Dubai on this seven-lane motorway after midnight. There were cars in every one of the seven lanes. After midnight! Quite a contrast to Nizwa, for sure. But I don't even think that the M25 (three lanes) around London is this busy at midnight.

Here we are driving fairly close to Burj Dubai, which is 585 meters at the moment.

Even though it's not completed yet, it's nonetheless the tallest structure on earth. Amazing project. Not sure if I would like to live on the 156th floor, though.

All in all, Dubai was great - including the Swedish meatballs at IKEA.

After three crazy weeks of exam admin (pre-exam admin, exam admin, post-exam admin) and organising essay marking ("The World as a Melting Pot"), I have finally got some time to myself. This morning I'm driving to Dubai with a friend of mine. I'd like to have Swedish meatballs at IKEA and I'd like to go skiing at the Mall of the Emirates.  OK, I'm off!