Muscat Festival

Al Amarat, Oman

Muscat festal

We spent two different days at the Muscat festival. They took place in two different location on the out skirts of the city. The first festival we went to took us through the mountains into a valley. This was a sandy desert like valley.

The heritage of Oman was the main focus of this festival. There were exhibits with lady’s selling frankincense and perfumes. I am not a fan of frankincense but now it’s growing on me. The first person I came up to pointed to a bowl of small round balls of sap and said I could eat it. I was taken back by the idea because the smell is so strong I couldn’t imagine what it would taste like so I questioned her and she assured me it was edible and medicinal. All spoken in way I could hardly understand. I took the smallest piece I could find and chewed on it. It reminded me of chewing on pine sap, I did not care for the flavor. but swallowed it. A day later I spoke with my friend Mohammed about this and he said when he is starting to catch a cold he will eat some frankincense along with some other medicinal herbs and he can chase the cold away.

There are women who have their own businesses mixing the frankincense with other fragrances from the bark of a trees and oils that are natural and from Oman. You’ll see a few photos of different mixes. There were bowls of colorful creams each with a different fragrance. It was kind of like walking through Macy’s department store with all these ladies wanting to spray those horrendous smells on you. But these were not as bad as far as I’m concerned. There is a more natural, earthy fragrance to these. I wish there was a way to explain a fragrance, the words are not there to do so.I’m somewhat interested in learning more about frankincense, more on that another time. As I have explained in other blogs that perfume and incense is a traditional here. picture of women and veil and photo of fragrances. If anyone is interested in frankincense let me know I will bring some back from the mother country of frankincense.

As I was walking along smelling all these different fragrance’s I could hear from a distance drums
and some sort of chanting. And then the wind started blowing hard and the sand blew through the festival. I wrapped my scarf around me and put on my sun glasses to protect my eyes. The drumming was coming closer I decided to follow the sounds and around the corner marched towards me these men all wearing their traditional dishdasha’s and wearing a khan jar (curved dagger) while carrying a khaizara (cane stick) used for ceremonies and special occasions. I talked with a few of the men later on and found out that was a traditional folk march and dance.
Click on photo this is a video.

We came along some men selling cookies and sweet biscuits. The texture was dry but not too dry and not too sweet, they served us date nut coffee with it. I had never heard of coffee from a date nut. We bought the coffee and cookies. Of which all the cookies are now gone. I couldn’t resists.

After that excitement we went over to were there was food being cooked all traditional. And had a chance to see and eat some interesting breads and chickpeas. There are a few herbs and spices here in Oman that are distinct in flavor I have never tasted before but once again it’s hard to explain what it taste like. The flavor does stand out from others. I think it’s something that I’ll have get more a custom to it. Not such a fan right now. There was one lady that allowed me to photograph her you can see her eyes smiling. She was frying dough balls and then adding shira which is sweet syrup. It wasn’t as sweet as I thought it would be.

At the end of this long area of food some men were making Halwa in a huge copper bowl over an open fire. They use a large paddle with a metal edge and have to keep stirring for 2 hours with out stopping. Other wise it will stick to the pan quickly and become very pasty. They have different people taking turns stirring and I got a chance at it myself. If you have not had this halwa it’s another item that one likes it or not. I do like the fresh halwa but Stewart doesn’t like it at all. It is made from sugar, water, gee sometimes adding different nuts or sesame seeds. It looks like brown jello….sounds great, hun???

The sand was blowing so strong that there was an announcement about flying objects and to be couscous of it. More people were arriving and the the energy was stirring up in many different ways. All the different smells, be it food, perfumes and frankincense and who knows what else was blowing in the air, I was encouraged to move to a different location.

Sounds of men chanting in Arabic attracted us to the next bit of entertainment. What I saw were two rows of men facing each other while knelling on their knees. They where moving about and chanting some sort of an ancient prayer chant, is what I heard. We watched for 20 minutes then walked away and they kept going for some time longer I could hear in the distance. I hope they had knee pads on. I didn’t feel comfortable getting too close to them but Stewart did video it. For a little more entertainment click on photo.

While walking about the festival people kept stopping us and asking about us and wanted to know where we were from. They wanted to take our photos and the younger ones would stare at us. Four people with white skin and white hair is very curious to them.I guess we were part of their entertainment. We always stop and visit and ask about them and admire their families, I always do my best to help the younger ones feel comfortable about my presence often when they first notice me they drop their lower jaw and stare at me. Kind of a look of AWE. Most of the time by the time I walk away the younger ones are smiling and returning my wave good bye.

Next we walked into an area were camel rides were being offered and with women spinning camel hair to make thread which is used in making rugs. The craftsmanship in these rugs are impressive. The equipment they were using is very primitive and when the woman began to show me how it works the whole thing fell apart. This must happen often because it didn’t seem to bother her at all she just started putting it back together and began to weave again.
They did allow photos.

I watched other women do fine intercut needle work on the men’s caps. It takes up to 6 months to complete one cap depending on the details of the design. Stunning work.

Once again I heard drumming, along with singing and a bag pipe with lots of energy. I really enjoyed these men. Their performance was another traditional dance. After their performance I did talk with a few of them. They too were curious where we are from. When they heard the USA the response was how they’d like to visit the country. Click on photo, this is a video.

We watched men making different types of fishing nets and there was also Omani salt demonstration on shredding the salt.

A few weeks later we went to another festival with many more people there the focus was more for the children and merchants selling clothes, food, spices, cheep jewelry and toys. Stewart and David bought themselves a dishdasha and now have great looking pj’s to wear around the house. They also found for sale camel urine used to help hair growth and strengthen hair. They had to hold themselves back from buying that product. Anyone want some we can pick it up for you. It comes from Yemen.

Also from Yemen was this very cool looking sand mound of different colors setting on a plater. Come to find out it was all different spices that was built up into this mound and then scrapes it off by the spoon full. We talked with a women who buys it every year and cooks with it. She loves it. I was tempted but it didn’t seem sanitary so I passed on that. But I did buy pickles from Palestine along with some wonderful spreads. One had green and black olives, tomato with lots of parsley, oil, spices and fresh herbs. Kinda like tabooli but with lots of other ingredients that are not identifiable. Great to eat. The other spread we bought was more creamy with oil and was very, very hot. We loved it….

There were fireworks that were just like LLBeans. We have now learned more about the heritage of Oman and now ready for a good nights sleep.