مرحبا الى سلطة عمان

After two 8-hour red eye flights, and an 8-hour layover in London, I arrived in Muscat's Seeb International Airport at 7 am. I was speedily escorted through customs (thank goodness for a previously obtained visa, and the general friendliness and helpfulness of airport officials!), I headed on over to Al-Khuwair, to the home of my fellow Fulbrighter Meredith (Fulbrighter no. 3 arrives tomorrow evening).

Today, September 14th, is the second day of Ramadan, and also is the weekend (weekends in Oman are Thursday-Friday). In general, shops and restaurants are closed in the afternoon and open later in the evening when the weather is cooler; during Ramadan, working hours are shorter, and very very few restaurants are open before sunset. So today was spent quite relaxed-ly and I was lucky to squeeze into two glorious naps. The morning was spent in good company and conversation with Meredith and her husband, Anthony, about the challenges and general adventures it is of living in Oman (they arrived at the start of the month). In the early afternoon, Meredith, Amelia (her adorable daughter) and I ventured into the mecca of shopping:

Lulu Hypermarket.

Think Wal-Mart but bigger. And brighter. And more colorful. With higher quality products (it seems), slanted escalators to accommodate shopping carts and elevators if you so desire the privacy. Lulu's size itself is quite overwhelming but not as much as the sheer number of people shopping there at all hours of the day (it's open from 9am to 1am during Ramadan, and Meredith says the crowd we experienced today was rather typical, maybe even less than usual). The hypermarket itself is 5 minutes drive away from Meredith's apartment, but it took us about 15 minutes to search for a prime parking space in the lot (preferably under the coveted shade of the canopy). Today, it seemed like all of Muscat was there, shopping for food supplies probably for tonight's iftaar (breaking fast meal after sunset).

Shopping is a family affair, with 3 kids (the boys dressed in the national dress of the starch white dishdasha), mother, father and sometimes baby carriage in tow. The aisles are constantly crowded, and it's always a game of chicken being played with all present ... who's going to make the move first? I crash the cart into a small child, a woman perusing the spices or the spice shelves themselves? The shining linoleum floor doesn't really help in the endeavour ... Things are sold in both tiny individual sizes as well as huge "in-bulk" sizes.

One thing that I loved about shopping at Lulu's (despite the crowdedness) was experiencing Oman's diversity in its people. Historically, Oman is a seafaring trading nation, with empires stretching from East Africa (Mombassa and Zanzibar -- the latter was a former capital of the empire, next to Muscat) to South Asia, so Omanis are used to interacting with people from all sorts of lands, which lends them to be quite tolerant and peaceful. Today, I saw Omanis of all colors, sizes, genders and classes), as well as South Asians, Filipinos, Japanese, Westerners, like us Americans, British, Germans ... Everyone minding their own business, just trying to get all their shopping done for the day or week.

Another thing that I noticed was that most (or maybe even all) the employees at Lulu were Omani. Unlike its Gulf neighbors, Oman has a pretty low percentage of the ex-pats/foreign workers population (500,000 out of 3 million are from the foreign community; I had read that the UAE has about an 85% - !!! - foreign worker/ex-pat population) and there has been a continued effort of Omanisation - putting all Omanis in the continuously growing workforce.

And the last thing I loved about Lulu's: the face of Sultan Qaboos smiling down at you as you search for a cart and weave your way in and out of the crowds of people. It was the same portrait that hangs in the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in DC; the same face that looked benevolently upon the executive director and me, day by day ...

Other first impressions: Oman is hot hot hot (hello, Captain Obvious) ... the mountains are majestic and make a great background for expansive date palm plantations ... and there is relatively little light pollution so all the stars are visible and shining with all their might ...

Tomorrow's adventure plans include: visiting the Embassy, getting a cell phone, looking into renting a car (!) and searching for housing ... I'll let you know how it goes.