Rain, Clouds, Sandstorm - Rain at last

Hello my friends,

I'm living and working in Oman for 6 months now. Who could have imagined that?

And it is the first time that I see rain in Oman. It might seem as nothing special for the most of you. And it was even for me, coming from the European climate. But being here, rain is something extraordinary. In average it rains about 3-4 days in a year. When the dark clouds appeared in the sky, many people ran out on the street to feel the water on their skin and to thank god. And I have to admit, that it was something special for me, too.
After the rain came a sandstorm. Within 5 min, the sky darkened, a strong breeze came up and suddenly there was wind and sand all over the place. For 10 min, my whole office was at the windows and watching the phenomenon. It was interesting to watch, as the air became sandy and dusty and then it was good as quickly as it came. The onlt leftovers was sand all over the place and cars covered with a thin film. When I went home in the afternoon, the streets have become a dangerous place. Water spots everywhere that enforced hydro planning. But as a rain proofed European, I made my way home. Sometime I had to left the asphalt and pass a waterpot on the side.

Now, the rain is gone again, and insha allah the sun will stay out for the rest of the winter.

Hope you all enjoy the christmas time at home. My next post will be about my christmas time here. Unfortuately, my camera broke, so I won't be able to show you many pictures. But we'll see.

Hajo

Being Omani resident now

Hello friends,

Hope you all had a good summer in Germany.

After a hot summer full of activities, life in Oman has become more calm and the temperature levelled on comfortable 30 degrees.

And finally, I am an Omani Resident now :-)) I took me almost 6 weeks to go through this process of taking pictures, filling out many forms, giving a blood sample, my fingerprints, and a lot of time and persistence, I got my labour card. And now I am officially an Omani resident :-)

My next step is to open a bank account, get an Omani driving licence and enjoy my life even more.

Work wise things are going well, too. After Ramadan business speeded up a bit and I#m able to work on some interesting projects.
Additionally, I started ny Arabic classes last week. Over the next 10 weeks I'm gonna have 25 classes in total from 7pm to 9pm. As the language institute is next to my office, I go directly after work. Although it means, that I#m not coming back home before 9:30pm during these days, it is fun andI'm eager to learn this language. Be suprised how much I can speak when I return to Germany :-)

During the last weeks, I applied to some jobs in Germany, at PwC, Deloitte, ThyssenKrupp. we'll see what will be the results. As a backup, our PwC Country Patner for Oman already asked me, if I would like to stay for longer to help building up the Business Advisory Department. Let'ssee what next year will bring, insha allah.

Have a good weekend

Hajo

Ramadan Mubarak - the holy month

Hello my friends,



How are things? I hope life is treating you well.



Today I want to tell something about Ramadan. When people think of Ramadan, they might think of Muslims fasting the whole day. This is actually true. But in order to understand the reasons behind it, you need to look deeper into this practise.



The objectives of Ramadan are basicly:

+ Solidarity with the poor people - go through what they go through

+ Spiritual enlightment

+ Mental discipline



So it's very similar to the fasting practised in Christianity or by the Jewish. And from my experience it is very true. During Ramadan, the lines between the social classes become smaler and hierachy level become lower, as everyone is going through the same tough feeling and experience of starving. It is also very common to give donations to the poor during these days.



In practise, the typical daily cycle for Muslims here in Oman is as follows:
+ breafast before the morning prayer at 4:30 am
+ praying - After the prayer no eating and drinking is allowed any more
+ start work between 8:30 am and 9:30 am. The government has reduced the working hours for Muslims during Ramadan to max. 36 hours per week. At PwC Muslims have to work min. from 8:30am - 3:00 pm.
+ working
+ shops usually close around 12:00 pm and don't open before 7:00pm. It is not possible to get food anywhere all over the city except of large supermarkets.
+ after work many people go to sleep, because they are eithre tired from being up late or it's just because of the low level of energy in the body.
+ after evening prayer at 6:22 pm Muslims are allowed to eat again. Some don't stop eating for the whole night and some jsut eat a bit. Both has advantages and disadvantages.
+ after dinner the life in the street becomes alive again. From 7:00 pm until far later then midnight people are on the steet, cafes or at friends, houses.
+ Some people go to bed around 11:00pm and some maybe at 2:00 or 3:00 am.

As you can see, the daily life cahnges completely during Ramadan, because of the eating habits and the opening hours of shops.
Me, I decided the best and most fruitful way to go through this Ramadan period is fasting, too. Currently, I have 10 days of fasting behind me inluding a little break while I was in Germany. Everyday I get up at 5:00 am, have a little breakfest, be at work at 8:00am, leave around 4:00 pm and kill time until 6:30 pm for dinner. The first week was hard to adjust to the rythmn. But it's getting easier now. I realised that I'm actullay eating smaller meals and more fruits than before without loosing significantly high amount of weight. So fasting it has also a good health aspect :-) I even still play football two times a week, of course after dinner ;-)
Beside this reason I think it is good for your character to be reminded from time to time how privilaged we are in terms of having enough food, water and luxuries avaialble. Last but not least having this Ramadan experience gives me a different access to the Arab culture whihc hopefully gives me new insight into their way of thinking.

I hope I could give you some nice views on Muslim fasting. And I'm already looking forwards to the huge "Eed" festival at the end of Ramadan (prob.1st of October) where everyone celebrates the achievement of successfully practising Ramadan and the joy of being allowed to feed the hunger during the day by having a wonderful lunch.


Ramadan Kareem

Hajo

A glimpse of Abu Dhabi

Dear all,

hope you all are in good health.
My last two weeks have been quite busy with work travelling and moving in our new home.
You'll find pictures from my trip to Salalah (06.-09.08. - south of Oman) and from my trip to Abu Dhabi (13.-15.08.) in my web album.

Let me tell you a little bit about Abu Dhabi. The emirate Abu Dhabi makes 85% of the total territory of the United Arab Emirates and has the majority of the oil reserves of the country. That makes Abu Dhabi to the richest of the emirates. From a appearance in the public media perspective,Au Dhabi doesn't get as much attention as Dubai. But this will change soon.

Actually Abu Dhabi has much more to offer than Dubai regarding culture, life style, living conditions and vision for the future. Additionally, although the Abu Dhabi Emirs are much more richer than Dubai counterparts, they are not exaggerating it. Take the Emirates Palace as an example. It is absolutely huge and overwhelming, they all allow you to live in one off the suites in the palace. There offer three different room categories and you can rent the top suite for less than 1000 EUR a night in the high season.
Beside the emirates palace they have many parks, shopping malls, a very nice corniche and beach road and much less traffic than Dubai.
On top of that they are planning to realise some huge projects. One is the carbon emission free city, means that a whole city is operating sustainably by emitting very few CO2 gases and having enough green areas to filter the remaining CO2. It's going to be the first project of it's kinf in the world. Secondly, they are going to build a huge island dedicated to culture. The Guggenheim museum, the museum of Arts and the Martime museum will be located there. That's how Abu Dhabi is investing his money into.
Another masterpiece is the Grand Mosque. Luckily, they let us into the prayer room. It looks really awesome and majestic. Check out my pictures.
So generally, people from Abu Dhabi are more relaxed than people from Dubai, the price level is lower, but if you want to party and entertainment than Dubai is still the place to go. It's only 1.5 hours away by car, so easy to reach.

My living environment changed, too. As many other interns already left Oman we merged two households into one. So now I'm living in Mawaleh, which is 20 min further west - out of the city - than I lived before. So my way to work is now 35 min by car- if there is now traffic - which is 45 - 50 min during the peak times. It is not that far, but unfortunately, we are more depended now on having a car and there are less people living nearby who cold give us a ride to somewhere. But therefore the house is much nicer :-) I'll how you some pictures soon.

Take care

Hajo

about the deadly desert and the generous beduins

Asalam*alaykum,


I hope this post finds you in good times. Today I want to tell you more about the country Oman.

Last weekend we went to the Omani desert - 50 degrees, endless rocks and sand, camels and still a beautiful place. Jihad (one of our Omani friends) got an invitation from his Beduin friend Hamdan, that we are all welcome to visit him and his family. So we did :-)

After several hours car ride, several time that we got stuck in the sand, that the wind blew sand in our eyes we reach the Barsma, an Beduin village in the desert. The Bedins gave up their nomad life quite some time and settled. But still they are trying to keep their traditions and way of life alive. So are hospitality and generosity major pillars of the society. Although we were 14 people, Hamdan's family invited us all for dinner, breakfast and lunch without hesitating and presented us amazing meals. They even slaughtered one of their goats for us for dinner. And they took their best one. I never met these people and still I didn't felt like a stranger.

Having some fruits as a starter for dinner and selecting our main dish (the goat) -we build our camp in the desert under a beautiful sky. Lightening up a camp fire we shared stories and drinks and enjoyed the mild 25 degrees :-) Who wanted to have an extra experience could watch some of Hamdan's friends slaughtering and preparing the goat.

After a few hours of sleep we got up at 6:00 am to see a camel race nearby. I have to admit that not all camels have an elegant running style :-) The most funny part for me were the Beduins who followed the Camels on their pick-up trucks to cheer / horn for them.
After that we had a nice breakfast at Hamdan's place and went on to hunt lizards in the desert. The Beduins developed an interesting technique. They search for holes in the sand, where the lizards live. Than they pump the exhaust fumes into the hole to suffocate the lizard. After a few minutes the lizards comes down by himself or you can easily pull him out. But the meat didn#t taste that good.

Having a nice lunch nap at the Beduin house and some chicken and rice we headed back home with full of memories between extreme heat and wonderful generosity.

Having arrived at home I decided to watch the new Batman movie (The dark night) in the movie theatre and had a great ending of the weekend by doing that.

So I hope you guys had a great weekend as well and hopefully the you some time here in Oman.

Hajo

Wadi bin Khalid - finaly I found cold water

Dear readers,


today comes another post about the countryside of Oman, Wadi bin Khalid !

This place is a drained riverbed in the mountains of Oman. It was an approx. 3 hour car ride from Muscat. If there would have been highways with more than one lane each direction, it would have probably only been around 2 hours :-) Because instead of driving 140 kmph we continuously got stuck behind a "slow" 100 kmph driving car.

Whatever, back to the Wadi. The Wadi itself is located in a deep canyon in the mountains. Because the whole riverbed is drained you'll find smaller stones and the end of the Wadi and huge rocks the closer you get to the spring. So, it turned out to become a nice hiking experience, as you can see on the pictures.
But the Wadi is actually not completely dry. From time to time you'll find some nice water pools between the rocks. After approx. 1.5 hour hiking trip we'll reached one of these. It was sourrounded by cliffs which were around 5-7m high at one end, And it was so deep that we couldn't see the ground. SO -> a great spot for cliff jumping. :-)))
And so we did, jsut right in the blue water and it was heavenly refreshing. It was not too cold, so that we didn't shiver but felt cold enough so that we didn't want to leave it any more. And it was fresh water, means drinkable.

After some nice jumps and fun, we headed back to our car, following some local boys who played chasing in the water pool and the surrounding cliffs.

So, if you ever have the chance to go to a Wadi, do it (not all of them are dry by the way :-)

My next post is going to be about my work at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Hajo

My people :-)

Hi all,

what's happening?

Today I want to give you some ideas of the people I share my time with.

There are several groups.

Group 1: the other AIESEC interns

Group 2: the AIESEC Oman national committee

Group 3: the local AIESEC Oman members and their friends

Group 4: my colleagues at PricewaterhouseCoopers

The interns

The AIESEC interns are the guys a spent the most time with. These are John (US), Elina (US), Celeste (US), Mufaddal (US) and Mikael (FIN). Muff is working with me at PwC and the rest are working at the HSBC bank here in Muscat. After work we are doing mostly the following, get some food at some nice place (mendhi, shawarma, hommuz, foul, chineese :-) or we spent some time at home chatting and making plans or we go out to a bar or cafe and have some drinks and shisha and/or we meet with the Omanis and play football and other activities. At the weekend we usually go to some place around Muscat (Beach, Souq, Diving center, etc.) or go around the region (Dubai or some place in Oman). Sometimes AIESECers from other countries drop by and then we go our with them.

The interns are all cool people and it's really nice hanging out with and I'm glad enjoying my time with them.

AIESEC national team members

the national team here consists of Lynn, Brett, David and Kate (all from the US). I know Lynn from the International Presidents Meeting in Macedonia in February and he is actually one of the main reason why I came to Oman. Until August they have their office in our house so we see them every day. They often organise some activity for the weekends and they are really helpful

for daily matters. Along with them are Amy (US and Lynn's girlfriend) and Susi (Colombia and Brett's girlfriend).

The Omanis

So far I met quite a few. There are Ghassan, Adham, Yaseen, Jihad, Hassan, Ahmed, Janid, Asma, Hasna, Tamira, etc.. So, these people often join us for our activities and it's great to experience their culture. Tonight we are going to play football. I just hope that I don't make a fool out of myself :-) I also try to learn some Arabic from them. But as almost everyone can speak English here which is mostly business language as well, it is not so easy to continuously improve on that.

My colleagues

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures from them yet.

But there are really nice. I share the busines advisory office with Vidya (India) she is the one I"m working most closely with, Absher (Omani), Jocelle ( India), Ahmed (Egypt), Lina (Oman) and the director for busines advisory services Abdulelah Salih (Oman) and the new partner Susan Daniel (Iraq).

The the audit site of the office are many more people, but I would take too much time to list up all the names :-)

Take care

Hajo

A day at the beach

Hello my friends,



as I have some free time at work right now, I use this chance to drop some line for you. Last weekend we went to one of the great beaches here. Unfortunetly, I don't have all the pictures to show you yet, but as soon as I receive them, you'll find them uploaded on my webalbum.



So, back to the beach. We went a few kilometers out of the city Muscat to a small village at the sea coast. There we embarked a small motor boat and cruised for a while through the sea. We, that were all the interns which are with AIESEC here in Oman (I'm gonna introduce them to you in my next post), some members of the national committee and some friends from Oman. Being on the boat and getting cooled by the wind was a real relief, because we had almost 45 degrees on that day. You can imagine how warm the water is here. I guess that the average water temperature in the Gulf of Oman is between 28 and 30 degrees. So, during the lunch and the afternoon the water is nice but it doesn't really cools you down. Luckily we had a pavillion with us so we could spent some time in the shadow.

Beside enjoying the time at the beach we had the chance to snorkel around the various cliffs around that place. There is a beautiful sea flora, many fishes, crabs crawling around and damn pointy rocks. At some spots the drift was so strong that it pushed me against some of the rocks which were covered with sharb corals and shells. It took some scratches and the salt water burned in the wound. But it was nothing serious.

Later that day we had a good traditional Omani lunch, enjoyed the drinks from the cool box and played some footbal (the American version and the rest of the worlds' version). Around sunset, which is usually around 5:30 pm, we went back on the boat and headed home. There I found out that I had a medium snburn on my back. I should have considered that when you snorkel, your back is exposed to the sun all the time :-) Lesson learned.



Alright, have a great day and my next post will be about the people that I'm sharing my time with here in Oman.



Hajo

Food in Oman

Hi people out there,

as promised I'm gonna drop some lines today about the Omani cuisine to give you some insights into this culture.
You can find some pictures in my webalbum (link on the left) and here.



So, the typical Omani food is what???
Beside the typical middle east food - shawarma sandwich, foul, hommuz, sweets, fruits - the typical Omanin food consists of

rice, with chicken, vegetables, yoghurt and some tomato based sauce.

The special thing about it is the way you eat it. In usual Omani restaurants you are not sitting at a table but you have a room (say 3m x 3m) for your group where you sit on the floor. Using some coushions or pillows makes it quite comfortable. The meals is severed on a big plate or two containing the rice and the half chicken(s). Some plates with vegetables and the sauces will be placed around it. Having the scene prepared, you'll start with the meals. Everyone is sitting around the plates on the floor. First you put some sauce on the rice and mix and squeeze it with your hands so you get sme kind of a bowl. Then you build a kind of a shovel with your right hand and take the food portion on the top of your "finger shovel". To push it into your mouth you can use your thumb.
It is actually nor that complicated as it sounds. But it's definitely fun :-) hamdu'lill*allah
Going through that for the first time, the questions that came to my mind first was: Where do they get all these chickens from if 3 million people eat chicken everyday? If I have the answer, I let you know.

After the meal you can wash your hands at one of the many basins in the restaurant.

If you don't want to have one of these meals you can also spend your in any fast food restaurant, or you can have Indian, Mexican, Pakistani and all these kinds of food. In all of the many supermarkets (they call them hypermarkets here) you'll even get all kinds of Western food.


So that was a short intro into the Omani food culture.

My next report will be about our trip to the sea on Friday and hopefully about a great snorkelling experience.


Take care

Hajo

Dubai - I can't see Dubai

Hi Ladies and Gentleman,

how is life going around the world? As I mentioned last time, we, means the interns here (Mikael Finland, John US, Elina US, Mufaddal US, Celeste, US and me) plus some of the AIESEC Oman national team (Lynn, Amy his girlfriend) went on a 3 day trip to Dubai.

We left on Wednesday evening by car and we arrived really late, around 00:30 am. It took us so long because we there was a long cue at the border station. We had no complications receiving a UAE entry stamp but it took just long. We had to pass 3 "control" stations. The Omani one, where we got the exit stamp and some kind of paper. Then we stopped at a small border point, where we had do deliver this sheet of paper and then we finally came to the UAE visa station. But it was fun, and at least we still had over 30 degrees :-)

So, waking up in Dubai the next morning i was totally confused. Due to a sandstorm in Saudi Arabia, the whole air was dusty from the sand so that we couldn't see the Dubai skyline properly. It was ok when we were close to a skyscraper. But as you can see on my pictures that I took from the beach, you can hardly see the skyline, Burj Dubai or the palm island in the back. Whatever, so I have to go back then one day.

But still this city is awesome. Major parts of it are exactly how you know them from pictures or TV. Huge buildings, luxury, big cars and a really good time. The Burj Dubai is almost finished and already reach a high of 800 m. The world island is in construction too as well as the next even bigger palm island and the new project: Atlantis. Guess what that is. Only 10% of the populations are originally from Dubai. Means you have a lot of diversity and mixture from culture. The night life is fantastic as well, great restaurants, bars, clubs, and the Emirates shopping mall :-) It took us 30 min to find a free parking spot and that was a real fight.Therefore we did something great, beach and swimming in the Arabian gulf in the morning and skiing in the Emirates mall in the evening. What a life :-))) What great shishas, what a good food and lots of fun.
So take the chance and go to Dubai one day. And make sure you'll have great whether :-)

Cu soon
Hajo

my first days at PwC

Hi my friends,

It's Wednesday evening and that means....... Weekend :-)
Because of the Islamic week the weekend here is Thursday and Friday. Time to give a short recap of what happend the lastg days.

On Tuesday i had my first day here which was like any other first day I guess, getting to know people, get information about the bigger picture, read information, feeling lost sometime and get use to the enviroment. My colleagues are really nice. They absoluty reflect the hospitality and warm harts of the Omanis. Professionally I am assigend to a project about a valuation of a company, which is about to be sold. But as we don't have all the becessary data yet, it will take some time until we can really work on it. Business goes a little bit slower here :-)
Today I attended a meeting with a client which we provide with a feasibiilty study about a huge project that he wants to realise. I can truly say, you can make money everywhere right now, if you want to.

Today, I had luch arounf the corner: chicken with rice, some souces and salad. Sounds nice and it tasts like that. The only thing is that you eat with your right hand here. Of course you can get a fork and a nife, but its not that much fun :-)

No, I'm going to leave as we are heading off for Dubai today to spend some days there.
I wish all of you a great week and on Saturday you can see some pictures from me from dubai.


Ma*a-salama

Hajo

My first day - 40 degrees, sun, and great food

Hey readers,

after a really convenient 10 hours flight I safely arrived in Oman. Coming out of the air conditioned airplanes I was directly hit by 30 degree heat wave and that at 23:30h. Imagine how hot it is during the day :-) Leaving the costumes I was warmly welcomed by some AIESEC members of the national team here in Oman and some from the UAE, They attended the AIESEC Oman national conference here.

The first night I stayed at the villa where the national committee members live. It's a huge house with several bedrooms and air conditions. This was a good place to take a rest.

Today, I was exploring the town a little bit. I had a nice breakfast together with the AIESECers from the United Arab Emirates and a girl from the US, and an even better lunch with all the other guys. You'll see some pictures of us eating rice and chicken with our hands soon :-)
Additionally, I bought a new sim card for my mobile phone. If you want to reach me, just dial

+ 968 96927316

the time difference is +2 hours. Tonight I'm going to meet the other trainees here, watch Germany vs Austria and move to the house where the other trainees live.

I hope you are all doing well and stay tuned for my next posts about my first day at PwC and our trip to Dubai :-)

Hajo

My first day - 40 degrees, a new phone number, annd good food

Hey readers,

after a really convenient 10 hours flight I safely arrived in Oman. Coming out of the air conditioned airplanes I was directly hit by 30 degree heat wave and that at 23:30h. Imagine how hot it is during the day :-) Leaving the costumes I was warmly welcomed by some AIESEC members of the national team here in Oman and some from the UAE, They attended the AIESEC Oman national conference here.

The first night I stayed at the villa where the national committee members live. It's a huge house with several bedrooms and air conditions. This was a good place to take a rest.

Today, I was exploring the town a little bit. I had a nice breakfast together with the AIESECers from the United Arab Emirates and a girl from the US, and an even better lunch with all the other guys. You'll see some pictures of us eating rice and chicken with our hands soon :-)
Additionally, I bought a new sim card for my mobile phone. If you want to reach me, just dial

+ 968 96927316

the time difference is +2 hours. Tonight I'm going to meet the other trainees here, watch Germany vs Austria and move to the house where the other trainees live.

I hope you are all doing well and stay tuned for my next posts about my first day at PwC and our trip to Dubai :-)

Hajo

Preparations done !

Dear friends, my bags are packed, I'm ready to go :-)

Tomorrow, I'm going to Frankfurt and stay with my sister for one night. And on Sunday I will finally jump on the plane and lift off to Oman. So, I will send my next post directly from Oman.

Yours Hajo