Muscat Souq

So, pretty much any self-respecting Middle-Eastern city has a souq.  The word "souq" means market (more or less), and depending on the size of the city, the souq might be the main location for shopping.  Souqs are comprised of a group of stalls or nooks that may or may not sell the exact same things as the shop next to them.  Some souqs specialize in fresh seafood (often called the Fish Souq), small livestock (~the Goat Souq), gold (surprisingly called the Gold Souq), and some sell a little bit of everything except what you want at the moment.  For instance, at a souq you can buy: a 50 kg sack of basmati rice, white patent leather sandals, enough incense to fog out your Western neighbors even though both your door and their's are closed and all of their windows are open and fans are on, or even a couple of short-handled shovels to dig a 1995 Jeep Wrangler out of the desert.

If none of this seems to help, you've probably seen a souq in an adventure movie, such as Indiana Jones.  Though there are rarely crazed men running around with scimitars, you can manage to see a quality slap-fight between two grown men, but proper souq-etiquette requires that you go around the corner before you burst out in laughter.  If none of that helps, here are a few pictures from the souq in Muscat.

So Much Depends Upon a Red Pickup Truck

It was early in the evening when I arrived at the beach, at that point in the day when the sun-blanched desert sky turned from white to pink to a deep, inky blue.  As I was heading down to the water, I found a group of fishermen who were pulling in their nets for the evening.

At least ten stood at each side of the net, a mixture of men and boys, and a few others were assigned to each truck.  There were more than thirty, in total, and as they bustled about up and down the lines and from one side to the other, it was easy to observe that each one knew his role in the operation.  In the midst of this group were a couple of ancient men who had been fishermen so long that they were more leather and salt water than flesh and blood.  I decided to call them Peter and John, and I'm sure that if I spoke better Arabic, they could have given me an eyewitness account of when the Portuguese landed in Oman. 

These two  energetically trudged from place to place, pulling in the line, admonishing young boys, or looking into the sea to watch the end of the nets.  After watching for a few moments, I took out my camera, chose my lens, and approached with a slight feeling of timidity, as I planned to photograph them until they asked for money or told me to stop.  I wasn't certain if they were completely accustomed to tourists or engrossed in their work, but for whatever the reason, I went by unnoticed.

Standing to the side, I watched as two old pick-up trucks carved ruts into the beach, mimicking the waves as they moved up and down the sand.  Each time they backed into the sea, I wondered if they had made their last run, but then they would power their way out, dragging more of the net in with them.  At the apex of each pull, a young man standing in the truck bed deftly stacked the new lengths and gave the order to reverse. 

On more than one occasion, the nets caught on the bumper or the exhaust pipe and threatened to tear.  These were the best moments for some opportunistic boys to remove some of the smaller fish from the sides of the net and place them in plastic grocery bags with their other gleanings. 

At some point during this process, a young man toward the end of the nets captured a sizeabale fish.  He held it aloft for approval, and then passed it to the shore.  Once examined, it was placed in a pile with a few other large fish that were being closely guarded.

After several zig-zags across the beach, the trucks were quite near each other, and the nets were almost fully retrieved.  The trucks made one last pull, side-by-side like a pair of mechanical draught horses, and the nets were in. 

A whooshing sound came from the fish as they floundered and flapped their tails in the old green nets, the last bit of the sea escaping them and spraying into the face of a boy positioned to keep them from fleeing.

Of course, all of this activity drew in a number of onlookers, and before I knew it, there was quite a crowd gathered about the fishermen.  Peter and John, the two ancient fishermen, continued to bustle about, opening or tying the nets, examining fish, and giving directions. 

With the nets collected, the men were free to evaluate their catch and talk with prospective customers, and I decided to leave in search of my own dinner.

Hello Goodbye

So, something amazing happened last week. It. rained.  Not only did it rain, but it rained for at least a solid fifteen minutes.  We came about this freak desert rainstorm whilst we were out "wadi bashing," a term that makes insurance adjusters and my mom cringe.  As my friend Brady and I were heading out from town, he mentioned that if one didn't know better, they might think that it was raining off in the distance.  We both responded to that comment with various hmms and other sounds that intimate one is considering whatever was just mentioned, but we both knew that it wasn't really raining.  Because of this, we diverted our attention back to trying to find the appropriate wadi to bash (according to Emily Post's fourth edition, bashing the wrong wadi is considered a great faux pas).

As we approached our turn-around point (read blew past), we noticed that the "rainstorm" was still going on in the distance.  We came to the conclusion that it must be a sandstorm, something I had never seen in person, and decided to experience the desert's version of rain.  The only problem was that our sandstorm theory quickly disintegrated when Brady saw a lightning bolt.  It was actually raining.

First, the breeze picked up, and blew the smell of rain across the blacktop and through the jeep.  Then it started to sprinkle.  This only lasted for a couple of seconds before we were being pelted by giant drops of water.  It was great.  One humorous thing that accompanies rain, or any sort of liquid on the road, is watching the locals panic.  The man in front of me slowed down to less than five miles an hour, and another one pulled off the road completely.  It's not unlike that day each year where the roads in Dallas are "icy," and so the state shuts down.  It was also around that time that something with windshield wipers decided to go on strike.  Apparently, they had grown quite accustomed to their time off, and didn't really feel like going back to work.  This was circumvented by turning the wipers on and off again (if the relay was bad, why not break the switch as well?).

The storm was over shortly, and within about the same time frame, half of the town had driven the 25 minutes (though they made it there in 7) to join their friends in panicking over road conditions, getting their suv's stuck in the mud, and having an all-around good time.  Sadly, because I was driving, I didn't get to take any pictures of the storm proper, but I took a few that show the tail end and the after effects.

This was the valley that we drove through (you can see the road on the right) and the tail end of the storm.

 

Brady decided upon a walkabout after the storm.

This was after the tornado and the creepy woman on the bicycle.

It still amazes me that anything (or anyone) lives here.

To the best of my knowledge, wadis are a lot like arroyos (sometimes they even come in color).

Brady had to sneak in one last John Eldredge moment before we went back to town.