User:(WT-en) Prof tpms/Oman

Going from one place to another is difficult here as there is no regular bus service. You have to depend upon taxis or share-taxis. Taxi drivers are very nice in Oman. All of them are Omanis as this profession is reserved for nationals. As all the Arabs have their own vehicles, the taxis are always used by the foreigners. From Biladishuhoom to Ibri I can hire one taxi for 10 Riyals or if I am lucky I can share one for only one riyal. As I am well known in the area I frequently get free lifts too. But all these village cars are very simple and take grass and goats inside. Omanis carry one of their cattle when they go to Ibri because they consider it a sign of prestige. Coming back from Ibri to Biladishuhoom is often a problem because taxi drivers simply refuse to go there. Most of the Omani teachers drive their own luxury cars for coming to the school. But they come only upto Mokhniyath village and park their vehicle under the trees. Then they share a four-wheel-drive Toyota cruiser and come across the wadis(=mountain waterflow) and hills to Biladishuhoom. It is possible for them to drive all the way to Bilad but they don’t want to spoil their new cars. I went to Muscat three times but couldn’t see all the city because there was no facility for city sightseeing tours. But at the Nizwa town I was given a free city sightseeing tour. I got into a sharetaxi going to Ibri and they wanted three more passengers to start the trip. They went around the city and shouted ‘Ibri’, ‘Ibri’.. but noone dared to enter the car because only one passenger was filled. After three rounds around the city, I lost my patience and went for shopping. After one h our, I had the great privilege of going around the beautiful city once again in the same taxi, this time with only one passenger to fill. The driver went on shouting 'Ibri.Ek.Admi’ Ibri.Ek.Admi’.



Biladi Shuhoom is a small village with only a few hundreds of people. There is a Juma mosque but Friday prayer is a new thing here as the mosque is of recent origin. Formerly, it was customary to have the noon-time prayer during Fridays as the long trip to the next village of Mokniyath was a difficult exercise.Even now, my school, the Zaid bin Al-Kathab senior secondary school, is the only building here showing off the green, red and white national flag. Unlike in India, all government establishments have the privilege to carry the national flag. Mokniyath is a little bigger village with one more flag-bearing building, a public clinic. But even there there is no post office or public telephone machine. For all these higher services, you have to travel another 100 k.m. to Ibri which is the nearest town and the headquarters of the wall who is the district collector here. Ibri itself is 500 k.m. or so from Muscat hut it is only two hours by car to Dubai across the border.Biiadi Shuhoom is a village without roads, telephones and other modern amenities. Electricity is there, but it is a recent development like the Friday prayer. During the annual mountains floods, the village is totally marooned from the outer world and essential food supply is provided by helicopter. The viilagae Bedouins are engaged in wheat cultivation, sheep rearing and there are plenty of wheat farms. You need a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach there and you can drive across the mountains in an as-you-please manner. The houses are quite small and the biggest house is my own quarters which is leased out by the Ministry of Education from the village sheikh. The sheikh also provides water pumped from a wadi or mountain steam.Sending letters is a big task here as there is no letterbox to drop hem. You have to entrust them with some Omanis going to the Ibri market. Incoming letters end up in the post box of the Ministry in Ibri and the principal brings them during his weekly trips. Some visitors carry their mobile telephones to the village but it is impossible to make or receive calls as the signals are blocked by the mountains surrounding thevillage.



From Khaboora I ate Pakistani Porotta. They are double the size of Indian Porottas and look like pappadams. But they taste like our porottas and are much thinner and declicious. Three porottas are available for the equivalent of Rs.11-00. Omani Khubz is not tasty and it is made up of maida. I also visited an Indian restaurant in Sohar and they gave me excellent lunch with Ayla curry, Ayla fry and Payarupperi. They charged only 400 Baisa (Rs.44-00) which is considered very low lunch price here.

Poverty has different shapes, and not having the power to choose your breakfast is one of them. I have completed six months in this alien Omani village of 'Biladi al Shuhoom'. The people are generally good. Both Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are behaving like angels. But Indians, especially Keralites and Biharis, are really bad. Arabs bring breakfast in turn. It is eaten in two small groups in the courtyard. The Egyptians come to the eating place to please the Omanis. But they won't sit and eat with them as they consider the Omanis as inferior people; still they come to Oman for making money. They simply take a few dates and walk away.. The Jordani teacher Ahamed Al-Soradi dislikes both Omanis and Egyptians and so he never leaves his staff-room. I am the only foreigner who eats with the Omanis almost everyday. Breakfast is important matter to me here. Here I want to eat well because the breakfast time comes after teaching two hours in the circus ring. But on many days they bring strange liquid food (why don't they bring idli and sambar?) and so I open my shelf and eat one packet of potato chips sharing it with the hungry and angry Jordani who says, "I am fed up with Oman, I am leaving this year, do you want my AC, my fridge, my washing machine.." One some other days I share the Omani breakfast when they bring the 'Omani Kubz' looking like our Ghee Roast. But this is much larger than the Tamil Ghee Roast. It is not at all tasty as it is saltless and ultra-thin. Ocassionally they bring chicken which is eaten with small kubz (tasteless, colourless, odourless). Mutton is a rarity and it is presented only once in a month and everybody seems to enjoy them. Everyday I am worried about the breakfast because I don't know which Omani is in charge of it on that day. Sometimes I also bring some sweets or cakes which is eaten happily not only by Omanis and the Egyptians but also by the lonely Jordani. He won't eat with the Egyptians or the Omanis because he hates them all but Indians, he thinks, are very agreeable. On many mornings, the today-me- tomorrow-you arrangement between the Omanis gets confused and and I am left hungry. That is why I wish to repeat --Poverty has different shapes, and not having the power to choose your breakfast is one of them



Omani English teachers like Yusuf are a rare species.Mr.Yusuf is a person with a dichotomous approach to things. He wants to follow the methodology meticulously and he wants to punish each and every miscreant severely. He cannot tolerate even a little noise inside the classroom. He is strongly against teachers cracking jokes inside the classes. ( But I do it like putting thenga in the puttu-kutti.) Yusuf al-Majrafi is a wonderful man. He goes to the classroom like a soldier going to the battlefields carrying the text book(Acthivithies book), the non-detailed text (kissa), the students' work book('Bubils book'), the tape recorder, different cassettes, visual stimulus cards, Flash cards, the teachers' guide("Moo dalika usthad? What is that big book you always look?", "shut up boys"), etc. etc. He doesn't carry them all himself. He gets two boys to walk on either sides of him like president Narayanan entering the Parliament hall. Yusuf opens is “Acthivithies book” and teaches for exactly seven minutes and asks all the students to close their books and listen to the tape-recording of that lesson. He then asks them to open the Bubils book and teaches for exactly eleven and a half minutes as directed in the teachers' guide. Then he arranges the visual stimulus cards on the blackboards and 'motivates' the students to write paragraphs. He doesn't utter a single word of Arabic and follows the instructions to the last point. I, on the other hand, secretly tell the students that 'harar' means hot and 'baradh' means cold and so all these teaching-aids are not necessary. But the inspector asks the students whether the teacher uses the teaching-aids as they are compulsory. So I take one item once in a month and uses it the whole hour so that the students are totally fed up with that item. When I take the tape recorder I play it full time in all the classes and tell them that they are audio versions of lessons for September, October, November and December. Last time, the inspector asked the students: Does Mr.Shareef use the taperecorder, and Ahamed al-Shuhoomi, the buffoon replied:" Yes, Usthadh, Wajidh(=very much)". Yusuf doesn't like my free methods and always makes fun of me by saying,"today is tape recorder day for Shareef"