Muscat Festival - the best place to explore Omani culture

Writing in one of the previous posts about my two-month work in Oman, I mentioned that I participated, both as an artist and as an art recipient, at the Muscat Festival. In today's post, I will describe how the Festival looks like and write few words about my feelings when I was there. I hope that I will encourage you to visit this not very touristic country, preferably in January or February, so you could participate in the described extraordinary cultural event too.

Every year Muscat Festival invites artists (mostly circus artists) from several countries around the world. In 2013, apart from us, Poles, there were also French, Germans, Turks, and probably a few other nations, that I didn't meet or don't remember after such a long time. Always, however, all these foreign artists are only an extra attraction. The most important theme is the Arab, or more specifically Omani, tradition, and culture.

There were plenty of national accents during the festival: traditional music and dancing on stage, delicious food... I remember such sour and spicy balls made of potatoes and meat... or fish, I think? Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I would give a lot to remember what it was called and try to recreate it at home, but it's difficult when your memories are covered by fog. I remember that they were delicious though!
Besides, all those fritters prepared on a fire, those hot stew in a huge pot partially dug into the ground! The variety of tastes and the smells in the air were overwhelming!

In addition to food and stage performances, there were plenty of stalls on the local souk - the festival is a phenomenal shopping opportunity. In the stalls, you could find clothes, jewelry, carpets, ceramics, some small souvenirs that you may already know from my previous publication about the local bazaars. But there were also more modern things, like modems with high-speed internet or the latest generation electronics. These electronic devices, located between the donkeys and the shops with hand-embroidered scarves, looked a bit like from another planet. It did not quite fit the character of the place, and yet it aroused one of the greatest interests.

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My eye, however, wandered towards more traditional things. Instead of looking at televisions or reading brochures about the internet, I preferred to look at a gentleman weaving ropes from some undefined grass. I was looking at men who had previously beat this grass with special sticks to the rhythm of the melody sung such beautifully that my heart was thrilled. I observed woodcarvers - a profession that in Europe has already been almost completely taken over by machines and automated...

I was very interested in the process of making carpets with a loom - the same machines were used in Poland before industrialization and I had the opportunity to use them myself when visiting the ethnographic museum in Krakow.

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My fascination did not end when I saw camels. I do not know if they were there only for show or for sale. I would not buy a camel anyway. I doubt it's allowed to transport it by plane (:P). I was visiting them quite often though. Each time I was there, these majestic animals were looking at the crowds lazily and chewing another portion of food. It was probably the first time in my life that I saw camels, and certainly the first time I saw them outside the zoo.

When the sun was setting, in my half-hour breaks between the shows, I just liked to sit on the bench and contemplate where I was. Sometimes I was sipping sweet tea, sold by a man wearing a cosmic-looking dispenser (maybe I should call it a thermos?) on his back. He was looking just like taken from the cartoons about Aladdin's magic lamp. I often ate the aforementioned sour-spicy balls. I had bought in these two months so many of them, that the saleswoman, seeing me from a distance, was smiling and packing them for me in a paper bag before I opened my mouth to order them.

I watched old men sitting on stones playing a weird board game I had never seen before. And all those women in colorful costumes. Some of them were with completely covered faces, others only with headscarves or with uncovered hair. I don't know how it looks right now, but in 2013 it was not compulsory to wear headscarves in Oman. Men and women were obligated to cover only their knees and shoulders. I was watching people bargaining with salesmen to buy beautifully decorated jewelry a little cheaper... I looked at the artists preparing their performances behind the stalls, where they counted that no one sees them, and the kids running around, absorbed in joy so much, that they were forgetting about the whole world.

Two cultural curiosities were brought to my attention. Both were related in some way to gender in society. In Arab countries, including Oman, homosexuality is illegal (in Oman it's punished with up to 3 years in prison although the law is rarely respected. I assume the Sultan was gay - no kid, one wife quickly divorced, introducing progressive changes). On the other hand, a culture where men and women spend time separately, and any form of extramarital affection between them is stigmatized, makes this affection to be present in same-sex friendships. It would be highly inappropriate for a man to kiss a woman friend on the cheek, but two male friends kissing in greeting or walking by the hand like a couple is quite acceptable in Oman and generally perceived as heterosexual.

The second cultural curiosity related to the role of gender in society is the division of the police into male and female officers. The policemen walked around the festival camp and the capital city in pairs. Always two men together or two women together. Men did not talk to women, women did not talk to men. If you were robbed, you had to find an officer of your gender to help you. I have no idea if this division is standard in Arab countries, I don't have enough experience to write about it, but seeing it for the first time in Oman, I was honestly surprised.

With these "curiosities" I end the long description of the Festival. I hope you liked my post, enriched with quite a lot of photos (all photos that I published were taken by me). I will write about Oman again, for the last time, in a few days. Soon after, I will take you on a journey to another continent.

Softening the straw to make the baskets

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Donkeys are even more popular than camels

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The souk, part with jewelry and clothes for women

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Sunset - the view from the Festival village entrance

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