Thursday, September 24th - had a good holiday and learned a lot!

As mentionned in our previous post, we have been off since Tuesday, Sept 22nd. It is so nice to leave school on Monday afternoon and hear people say "Have a nice weekend" - how can you go wrong; we get five days off!
It's Eid al-Adha, the second of two religious holidays celebrated by Muslims. Jacqui and I decided to visit parts of Oman instead of travelling abroad; Oman is such a beautiful country and there is so much that we haven't seen yet - might as well try to do as much as we can while we're here. So we went for a 3 day road trip, first driving to Duqm, then coming back up following the coast while spending a day at Masirah Island. It was an amazing road trip. The diversity in scenery and landscape from place to place is unbelievable - one minute you're driving in a rocky environment and the next, you're driving in sand dunes, or you're driving in mountains and the next thing you know, you're driving in a desert valley with nothing around. It was so cool to see. You also have to watch for wildlife as camels and goats are roaming the area and cross the highway at will. Speaking of highway, most of them, as you get maybe two hours away from Muscat, were not monitered by radar and there were no cops around, so even though the posted speed limit was 100 km/h, we would get passed while driving at 140! That seemed to be the standard speed, and the roads were fine for it; it wasn't dangerous.
We went to Duqm (maps below) on the first day (Tuesday); left Muscat at about noon (way later than we planned - but sleep is good!) and got there around 6pm. We stayed at Crowne Plaza Duqm (there are only two real hotels in the place); actually Duqm isn't very big - type of New Liskeard type of place, but they have a sea port and are counting on that to promote their business (Insha'Allah). The hotel was fine but I wouldn't go out of my way to get back there, Even the beach was not as nice as I expected (maybe my expectations are too high).

We left the hotel in Duqm on Wednesday morning and drove to Shannah (about 250 km), hoping to catch the ferry to Masirah Island without having to wait to long. The thing about driving is, it doesn't matter how fast you drive (I drove a lot at 140 - 145 km/h), but it's still takes the same amount of time to get there as if you're driving at an average of 100 km/h. I really don't get it (I prefer fast to slow - I like the 140!!). Fortunately, we got there and could hop onto the ferry right away (after we had to go back and buy our tickets, which was a slight delay!). We ended up on the island at about 3 pm, went out to book our hotel; after visiting three of them (ranging from 25 to 150 rials - multiply by approximately 3.4 to convert into CAD). We booked a cheap one (30 OMR) then drove around the island (about 170 km); we found some nice beaches, others not so nice, and there were even beaches we couldn't find! (we don't have a 4X4 so it cuts down on the number of roads we can access!)

On Thursday morning, the day of Eid al-Adha, we checked out of our hotel and went out to get our ferry pass (first had to get coffee for Jacqui in a male oriented society - there were NO women in restaurants or coffee shops). As we had time to kill between the time we got our tickets and our departure time, we drove around the city. As we saw many families performing the Eid al-Adha rituals, we asked one of them if we could take a picture. They obviously accepted and offered us to come in for coffee afterwards. It was so cool; one of the women in the family who spoke very good english explained to us what their ritual was about; it was so instructive. We had a short chat with them but it would have been so nice to spend the day with them (they would have had us for the whole day; we would have lived parts of the Eid experience with then). Even though we couldn't stay, as our ferry boat was leaving in less than an hour away, it was very nice to see the friendliness and the openess of the Omani people (and that is something we have been saying all along - they are some of the nicest people we've met on the planet!! It was also nice to understand a bit more of their culture and of the Muslim religion.

Our trip - the island is Masirah Island

Driving through the desert

Wonder how these plants grow in this type of environment

Sand blowing across the road

Desert has turned to rocks and small plateaus

Back to sand

Beach at our hotel in Duqm

Crowne Plaza - Duqm

The white stuff is salt - sea water got trapped and evaporated, leaving the salt behind

Kids and goat coming off the ferry

On the ferry

Beach on Masirah Island

Fishing boats

Another beach on Masirah Island. The beach is made of small black rocks, like pebbles, not sand

A dhow, coming home

Coming back to mainland

Back on mainland - sand and vegetation

A sign of things to come!

Back in sand dunes

It would be a perfect beach if there was water around

Jacqui on the beach

Getting back to a mountainous area

Like the sign said; "Camel crossing!"

We are following these guys on the highway, driving at about 110 km/h

Some of the buildings we see along the way

Monday, September 21st - We have a nice long weekend - Eid Mubarak

By the time I write this, our workweek is over (2 days) while most of our Ontario colleagues haven't even started their workweek. It is Eid in Muslim countries, which means we have a holiday from Tuesday to Saturday - back to work on Sunday. We kind of like these two day workweek. Our past week was pretty typical; not much happening, except for me moving my office from building 7 to building 10 on Thursday, then getting in trouble with my principal because I didn't have her authorisation to do that (the VP had told me I had to move my office by the end of the week), only to find out this Sunday morning that most of my stuff had been brought back to my old office. Lack of communication, you say? Ya.

The weekend was nice - went out to the Irish Pub on Thursday, did a bit of shopping on Friday and walked on the beach, and went in the water, on Saturday. The water temperature must be at about 88 - 90 degrees F; it is so warm. We had lunch at Dolphin Village (there are no dolphins!), a gated community with a nice little restaurant by the pool in their complex. It was nice to discover another place that meets all of our criterias for lunch or dinner!!

We had thought of travelling somewhere for Eid, but there are still so many things we want to do in Oman. Our summer was pretty hectic so we decided that we would just take it easy and do whatever we wished around here. So Tuesday, we are driving to Duqm, a small town with beautiful beaches, about 600 km south west of Muscat. We'll check out the sites as we drive along, maybe even sleep on a beach one night as all beaches are public beaches and you can camp on them anywhere, anytime (we might also end up in a hotel!). It should be fun to discover this beautiful country. There should be more pictures in my next blog next weekend!

Jacqui's Google page on her birthday - so cool

The mountains, seen from the beach

The beach at high tide - not the same as before - the sand is soft and harder to walk on

Saturday, September 12th - A Wonderful weekend, and the reality of others

Another week gone by; we have one more full week before we get five days off for Eid (religious holiday). Work was fine, as usual. We got our satellite dish moved from one end of the roof of our building to the opposite side of the roof, so now we have TV again. Somehow, the news are still the same!?! Nothing changes.
Jacqui had her birthday on Friday; she was very glad to have it on a day off. She went for a massage early afternoon, then we went to the Crowne Plaza for a bit and ended up at friends for the evening. It was a very nice day.

Our cleaning lady comes in on Thursdays, and we drove her home this week. It was quite interesting talking to her, as her life is so different than ours, so different than what we know. She is a very nice lady, sweet as pie. She left her native India 8 years ago, when her two kids were 5 and 7 years old. The kids are still in India, living with family, while she is here working. Her husband is also in Oman, but in Sohar, which is about 200 km away. It's when we talk to people like this that we realize how good we have it. I cannot imagine doing what she is doing (yes, we are away from our kids, but they're all grown up), but for her, it's all part of normal life. That's just the way it is. Something to think about when we see our glass as half empty.

At school, we'll be getting our third timetable in three weeks on Sunday morning. They say change is good; I hope so!! One good thing is that students will now be done at 12:45 on Thursdays; gotta like that!!

Saturday, September 5th - It rained in Muscat

Our first full week of school is over. We had a progressive entry, with kids coming in on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. They would leave by noon each day, which gave us the afternoons to finish getting ready. Everything was fine; I've got two groups of grade 10 math (boys and girls) and the same thing for grade 11. I'm fine with that. Jacqui ended up with two groups of grade 4 girls; it will be a drastic change over last year when she only had boys (and they were no angels). We are looking forward to a good year. It is so much easier starting a second year: we know the routine, we had a cleaning lady 16 hours after we landed, our phones and Internet connection are functional, we have a car and don't get lost when we go somewhere ... life is good!!

We missed out on a rain day as it poured on Friday afternoon (school would have been cancelled for sure). That was the first rain in Muscat since February 28th. It really came down for a while; we have a flower pot on our balcony and it received about 15 - 20 cm of water in a little over an hour. Rain ouotside also means that we had water coming in the apartment and that a lot of places around were flooded. Part of the roof of a mall collapsed because of the water on it (all roofs are flat), there were mudslides (I couldn't fill up this morning at my regular place as the gas attendants were cleaning up the area by the pumps which had a few inches of mud on top of the pavement), some trees were uprooted, the beach get torn to shit - the running water from the rain removed up to 3 feet of sand in some places and carved it into something we haven't seen before. The forces of Nature at work I guess. I imagine wind will restore it to what it was, with time.

Big black clouds over Muscat - can hardly see the mountains in the background

Quote from Gordon Lightfoot's song "The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" - We've got water coming in!!!

This pot had been empty for a long time - now 15 - 20 cm of water

The storm is over

The beach has been reshaped - dropped by up to 3 feet

We used to walk straight across, now we have this new little river

The beach used to be where my water bottle is

A lot of sand has been moved back to sea

There is still some parts of the beach that are OK

Inside our apartment - great piece of design, if you need to multitask in the morning!