Supernele

If anybody of you might have thought about taking the morning bus at 7 -which is advertised as going every Saturday morning- I have to tell you: it is not going:( So it is not worth it to get up at 5.30 to make sure all visa issues are solved before you enter the bus:)

Religion is a difficult subject and I usually try to avoid it but sometimes it is not possible. The other day when Lotte and me bought a Quran in Sharjah we also received a lot of information on Islam and women and Islam and science for free, just to have a look. I can since I arrived in in the Gulf I already got four free Qurans in three different languages for free. I never before received so many. Often I get asked why I did not converted to Islam yet or if I am planning to do it. Usually I reply that there are many ways to get close to god and that there are always good and bad people in every religion and in every country. Today I went to Sohar for work and was confronted with some obstacles. As I arrived at the al-Ain border to get an exit stamp for my Emirati visa, I was confronted with way to many people in the waiting room who were all handing in several passports at the same time. Some of them even had not less then 30 passports with them for all the people that were waiting outside in the buses. In addition, just one guy was working on his computer, unfortunately the computer that was usually on the second desk was gone and so was the other officer. So I went to one of the taxis and asked a driver that I new if he could take me to another border. Everything worked out fine but on the Omani border there were about 5 buses packed with Omanis waiting. I still wonder why locals have to stamp out of their country but there must be a reason for it. Apparently all of the people I saw at the different borders today, are on their way to Saudi Arabia to do their small pilgrimage. Hamad, my driver, already went four times and will go again next week. He was complaining about his destiny to drive there and instead of taking the plane. I always had the impression that in Christianity pilgrimage is somehow connected to a hard and maybe unpleasant way of travelling, for example walking for some days or even crawling on knees. That is why I told Hamad that I thought a pilgrimage needs to be connected to suffering , at least a little. Here I have to admit that I never went on a pilgrimage -that is just the picture I have in my mind. Immediately he invited me to come a long so we could go through the process together he would pay for all costs. I found that a very tempting idea but due to research responsibilities it is impossible for me to join in. After that I got a long speech on how it is not good for me to not convert to Islam because I really need to find the right belief if I don’t want to suffer the pain of burning in hell. I heard this many times before from different people belonging at least to two different religions and I am very happy that people are caring so much about me. I guess if god wants so I will turn one way or the other one day.

Since I am in Oman it rained three different times. Once it rained for three days. People are very happy when it rains and call it a gift of god, nothing to complain about. If Europeans start complaining about heavy rain in their countries people here sometimes get angry because you should not complain about gods gifts. As far as I know the water in companies, house and for gardening and even 40% of the drinking water is desalinized water from the see. I feel it is better quality then the water I had in Jordan or Egypt even if the water there is fresh. It is not as bad for my skin. For drinking I still prefer bottled water but for cooking the desalted water is all right.
In my house I have a rather personal problem with rain but as soon as figured out how to solve it temporarily I don’t mind the rain that much. Every time it rains I have to unplug the water pump because its socket is outside the house and if it rains on it the electricity goes off and I have to rearrange the fuses. Yesterday suddenly in the evening it got very dark in the house because it was raining. For me it was suddenly because I did not hear the rain because I was listing to music with my headphones (stereo!). So it got very dark but luckily my laptop was lighting the way to my torch and from there I could deal with it.

Here is an article about water in the area

http://www.timesofoman.com/innercat.asp?detail=32120

I am a big fan of teamwork. I don’t mean one person is working and everybody gets credits for it. Moreover I like if people are cooperating. Since I am working on my thesis I recognized how important it is to have a group of people around who manage to inspire each other and help each other if needed.
In the Emirates I found a really nice way of team work. Since the all taxis in the Emirates can drive you to all other cities within the Emriates it sometimes happens that the driver is not sure about direction. In this situation the drivers are either asking the next driver who always replies friendly and gives directions. In other cases the drivers have friends in the other city and asked them over the phone. Sometimes a driver tells me that he is happy to be able to go to the other city because then he can meet a friend for a short period of time. All drivers that I talked to arrived in Dubai and immediately went to drivers school- after one month they got their license. One guy needed two month because he did not pass the first time. I guess if you meet in Dubai at the beginning of your stay as a driver this is bonding. Usually they work seven days a week for about 16 hours every day. Considering this circumstances I am always surprised how awake and friendly they are.

Sometimes the wind blows sand storms to Buraimi. I am in the middle of the desert so that seems to be normal. For me this a totally new experience since I have never lived in the middle of the desert before. This morning for example I woke up and heard a heavy wind outside. I went to the kitchen to make some tea and discovered that everything was very dusty. This is very normal if you live in a house with windows and doors that are not meant to shut as they would if isolation against the cold would be needed. I went to close all the windows and doors in the house because I know if something is left open there will be a lot to clean. Since little dunes grow in front of all the doors that lead outside, the house needs to be cleaned after a sand storm anyway-but still.
So I was sitting in the kitchen with my computer near the window and after a while I realized that the dust and sand is still coming into the room. My touch pad was very dusty and on the top side of my netbook I could see red sand dust:) The next time I switched on the computer it sounded very funny as if it had swallowed lots of sand… We will see what happens, I saved my data today. It seems like a tough book would be very helpful now- but actually is to heavy to transport-
The nice thing about sand storms is that you can see a lot of “American Beauty” moments outside. Things, especially plastic bags, are flying everywhere. So today I decided to stay inside and enjoy the view.

Now that I have to work harder and do less mini trips I can start writing for the blog again.
Today I want to write about foreigners in Oman and how the locals deal with language. A big group of foreign workers in Oman is from India and Pakistan. They are here since a long time and a lot of Hindi and Urdu words found ways into Omani language. Most of the word that describe tools are Hindi. The word for pliers for example is ‘baka’ in Omani dialect and instead of the Arabic word for straight people say ’sida’. What I find most amazing is that most Omanis know some Hindi and Urdu but people who work with Indians and Pakistanis, for example in tourism, are fluent. I did not see anything like that in Europe. Neither in Germany nor in Norway did hear people try to speak some Turkish or some Urdu. Here instead it does not seem to be something special to try to understand the foreigners. Since Oman was colonized by the British for a little while some English words are part of the language too. For example the reverse gear for the car is in Omani dialect “re-was” and the drivers license is ‘lay-san’. I did not hear any German influence yet but maybe if Vollkornbrot will find its way to the Omani ‘Food Stuff Sale’ I can hear something like ‘ful-curn’….