Know your market

All over Salalah, posters for a long distance phone company cover the sides of pay phone booths. They boast of 25 cent per minute rates to the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India. The promotion clearly caters to the guest worker population hailing from these respective countries, featuring versions of the ad in what seems to be Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Hindi, and, of course, English.

It goes without saying that no matter what faraway place is called or what language is used to call that faraway place, this good looking man will answer and smile while holding his hand up to his ear mimicking a telephone.

Although marketing to the migrant population as consumers takes place in several languages, the labor market depends largely on English. Nearly all high-end jobs require English and it functions as something of a lingua franca in transactions between Arabic-speaking Omanis and Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Tamil speaking migrant workers.

It also seems to be the language for labor recruitment. I found this advertisement on the corner of my hotel. It is clearly aimed at migrant workers; despite the government's Omanization program, in which all workers of a certain sector must be Omani (all taxi cab drivers, for example, are Omani), the construction workers that are building the roads, the office buildings, the banks, and the gigantic new Sultan Qaboos Mosque in downtown Salalah are South Asian. And for those of you who are wondering, 5 Riyals a day equals about $12, more than the maintenance people in the university at which I'm studying make.

Another interesting dimension to labor and migration in Oman is that as South Asians are traveling to Oman to work as unskilled laborers, some Omanis are traveling to the Gulf to work as unskilled laborers. They usually spend a few years there saving money for marriage before returning to Oman.

I wonder how migrant labor influences culture. The South Asian influence in Oman is clear. Every restaurant carries biryani and the cinemas in town only screen Bollywood movies. Do migrants bring Oman back to Kerala or Peshawar or Dhaka?

Reading the Newspaper in Salalah

Some excerpts from the 17 July issue of Al-Shabiba, one of Oman’s daily newspapers (brought to you by KFC and Hardee’s):
Front page headlines include stories on the results of end-of-year school exams; a meeting between Omani and Iranian officials seeking to “establish joint cooperation;” increasing numbers of foreign fighters in Afghanistan; the King of Saudi Arabia's speech at a religious dialogue conference in Spain; and the Sultan sending congratulations to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on the occasion of his country's national holiday.

In the “Government Officials Shaking Hands and Sitting in Oversized Chairs” section of today’s paper, Al-Shabiba covers the Iranian Foreign Minister’s visit to Oman. Almost every newspaper has a section devoted to this, but I feel like it’s especially pronounced in the Middle East, where the appearance of government hospitality is an important marker of legitimacy because of its cultural significance. The officials no doubt went a lot farther than posing for pictures; Oman shares control of the Strait of Hormuz with Iran and a potential U.S. attack on Iran would have huge (and catastrophic effects) on both countries.

In the “Rising from Humble Beginnings to Pop Music Superstardom” section, a story on Egyptian heartthrob Tamer Hosni, who admits, “I lived a hard childhood and borrowed from the doorman.”

“Announcements of Flight.” The main Omani newspapers all carry notices like this, which amount to wanted posters for migrant laborers (mostly from south Asia) who have fled their jobs.

“The Curse of California: After the Fires Come Mud Slides.” Looks rather like the end of days. Luckily, California has a man for the job.

Luckier still, I can keep up with other happenings in that cursed state despite the fires and the mudslides. There is, for example, a blurb on the tribulations of Lindsay Lohan, whom the article describes as a “young lady of American society.”

The paper carries a number of syndicated columns from Oman, other Arab countries, and the rest of the world, one of which is a translated New York Times Op-Ed from Paul Krugman, entitled “Ted Kennedy's Big Day.” Between everyone’s favorite bearded economist (take that, Bernanke), the Governator, and Lindsay Lohan, I could mistake this paper for an American one. But I probably won’t due to a number of reasons, one of them being the fact that the picture accompanying the article isn’t Krugman; it’s Nicholas Kristof. Another reason is that in Arabic Paul is transliterated as bool, which means urine. I wonder if Krugman is pissed.

Imagine for a second what kind of image of America this creates. And now remember the fact that on most days the image of America consists not just of the damnation of California, the tribulations of party girl socialites, and the opinions of Urine Krugman, but also military occupation in Iraq, movies filled with a sex and violence, not to mention a President whom most of the world would not trust to successfully execute the Shriner’s mini-car section of a 4th of July parade. America is a strange place. But the way it seems from the far side of the world is even stranger.

An Omani Wedding

Some parts of Salalah remind me of West Amman. Both consist of dusty open areas interrupted by 1) recently constructed white buildings that are so bright that they make you squint at noon and 2) soon to be constructed buildings covered in scaffolding. Neither place is particularly pedestrian friendly. But I, undaunted in my cheapness, continue to walk. And one of walks last week brought me into contact with some cultural heritage I most definitely would not see in West Amman.

As I walked west on 23rd of July Street (in my professional opinion, streets named after dates are wicked), I noticed a group of men gathering on a street corner. I continued to walk but couldn’t help but notice the steady stream of men and boys headed to the street corner. Looking regal in their white dishdashas and colorful muzzar, nearly all of them wore ornate khanajir (the traditional dagger common in Yemen and Oman) around their waists. Some even balanced rifles on their shoulders.

I decided to figure out what was going on so I walked to the side of the street opposite the corner where all the men were gathering and I loitered, not sure if what I was witnessing was an Omani street theater production of West Side story or just a lazy Friday in Salalah. An Egyptian teacher named Mahmood, who probably was not wondering if the Sharks and the Jets were about to break into painstakingly choreographed musical combat, informed me that this was a traditional Omani wedding, or ‘urs. In his eight years in Salalah he had never seen anything like this.

When over a hundred men had gathered, the group began to walk down the middle of the road. The group – all men – sang and danced their way to a nearby wedding hall. And lest you fear, dear reader, that I’d forgotten words of wisdom about rifles and the bullets that come out of them, a week ago I luckily visited the Bayt Zubair museum on Omani culture in Muscat, where I learned this great bit of information as part of an exhibit on rifles:

Although no one fired their arms in the air, I can attest to the fact that their presence certainly added excitement to the proceedings. As Mahmood and I trailed the procession, he encouraged me to take pictures, lamenting the fact that he’d forgotten his camera phone at home. The wedding party had hired musicians, dancers, and marchers for the occasion. Notice the women carrying incense - an Omani specialty - on their heads.


As they neared the wedding hall the men began making laps around the front of the building. Thinking they were finished and ready for sitting down time, Mahmood and I moved to get a better angle. All of the sudden the wedding party made another lap around the wedding hall and Mahmood and I found ourselves facing this:

Notice the groom in the black garment, known as a bisht, with a look of Kevin Garnett-like focus on his face. He maintained this level throughout the proceedings. I imagine he acted something like this later in the night.

After nearly bringing Mahmood and me into the wedding party, the men sat down in plastic chairs around the outside of the wedding hall. The musicians played and small groups of men danced. I had trouble understanding the Omani dialect in the songs, but judging from the actions of the dancers the words were probably “put your khanajir in the air and wave them like you just don’t care.” Or something like that. Although it should be noted that waving of said khanajir was done with ample care because, as everyone knows, putting a khanjar in someone’s face is just bad manners. My other favorite dance was when the dancers threw money in the air and men close to the dance area quickly picked it up.

All of the women were inside the wedding hall and they watched the events from windows and the roof, asserting their presence with frequent ululations. You can see a few women in black here. (more on gender in Oman to come…which is not to say that this piece shouldn’t be read as an examination of gender)

Mahmood informed me that this ceremony cost some thousands of dollars. And that leads me to an important point. These men were not uneducated peasants but rather the business elite of Salalah. They closed the doors of their Toyota Land Cruisers and Chevy Suburbans and engaged in some of the traditions that have stayed the same even as much has changed. But this is not to suggest a stark dichotomy between tradition and modernity. Like people everywhere, Omanis blend tradition and modernity into a synchronized whole, with men carrying a khanjar in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

I watched the celebration from the outside of the seating area. But I wasn’t the only curious observer. Oman is a diverse place and it has been said that Salalah resembles Mombassa more than any Middle Eastern city. Alongside me, Pakistani and Indian guest workers watched the proceedings. The South Asian men handing out Pepsis to the wedding attendees even brought a few boxes to our group of onlookers. The relationship between Omanis and migrant workers will be explored in future posts, as well, and it’s not always a rosy one. But for now this image of a curious coexistence will suffice.

Qaboos and lassies

I’m back, friends. And by back, I mean away. Between now and August I’ll periodically post on my thoughts and experiences in Oman this summer. I’ve been fortunate to spend some time in Egypt and the Sham so I’d especially like to use this place to apply the comparative lens to Oman.

I’ve been here about a week now, having spent a few days in the capital of Muscat and since moved on to Salalah. One of the first things I noticed about Oman is the cultural diversity. From the mango lassies to the samosas, the South Asian influence is particularly pronounced. As I walked around Muscat, I found my Arabic was no use in many cases, whether with a Kashmiri shop owner, a Baluchi internet café attendant, or a Tamil waiter. According to reliable sources, the population numbers 3,311,640 with 577,293 non-nationals included. I've heard much higher estimates of the number of non-nationals on the street.

These disparate flows of culture and people are nothing new for Oman. The Sultanate’s power once stretched from Zanzibar in East Africa to Sri Lanka and the cosmopolitan nature of Oman has been preserved under the leadership of Sultan Qaboos bin Taimur, the man who has ruled the country since taking over for his father in a bloodless 1970 coup. Subdued portraits of the Sultan hang high on the walls of most stores and homes. My favorite so far was at the Muscat airport departures terminal, where Qaboos’s leonine visage looked on, one hand raised in a solemn farewell. His pictures certainly lack the dress-up quality of, say, King Abdullah of Jordan. Instead, they reflect a stately man who, in the eyes of many, has been fundamental in navigating Oman toward development while maintaining traditional culture. (If you don’t believe me, you can check out his facebook page. I’m not a fan…yet.)

But, as I mentioned earlier and as the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque demonstrates, Oman’s traditional culture is anything but exclusivist. Completed in 2001 after six years of construction, the structure features a Khurasani carpet that was at one time the largest carpet in the world (maybe Qaboos would have more facebook fans if he boasted about that in his “about me” section); tiles from Esfahan; and design themes from different geographic areas for each wing.

You don’t see much like this in Egypt or Jordan, partly due to money and partly due to geography.

Just as the mosque underscores the pluralist heritage of Oman (as well as Islam, for that matter), the location also belies Oman’s developmental status. The minaret of the mosque mingles with cranes in the somewhat hazy skyline. Parking lots surround the complex in a location removed from the center of Muscat.

With a sprawling layout and mediocre public transportation, a car culture definitely exists, with Muscatis clogging the car dealership lined highways. All of this is to say that Muscat is Los Angeles, except without medical marijuana, Vincent Chase, or the Reverend Keegan de Lancie.

That might be an overstatement. For one, our German tour guide described the relatively short buildings of Oman’s skyline as such (in a wicked German accent): “This is not like Manhattan. It is more like Lilliput.” All Jonathan Swift references aside, what is clear is that the coming years will be interesting for Oman. Lacking vast oil resources to sink into large-scale infrastructure / weather control projects like in Saudi or the Emirates, the Sultanate must spend its money wisely so as to ensure that the mango lassies continue to flow even after the oil dries up.