Hello from Salalah

Well, I have been here in Oman for almost 3 weeks now, but I am just barely getting around to starting this blog. We arrived first in the capital of Muscat where we spent a couple of days before flying down to Salalah where we are spending the rest of the program. The difference between Muscat and Salalah is quite stark. The first thing that jumps out is the weather. The day we left Muscat, the temperature was 47 degrees Celsius (about 117 degrees Farenheit) and that was at 11:00 am. The temperature here in Salalah is much more pleasant. Today it is 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Farenheit). We are here during the monsoon season, which means that it is almost constantly cloudy and there is quite frequently fog and a constant mist. The humidity here is much higher than in Muscat, but the weather here is much more pleasant than in the rest of the country, and the rest of the peninsula for that matter. Every year at this time, people from all over the gulf and from other Arab countries come to Salalah to spend the summer and escape the heat in their home countries. A few have started to show up already, but next week we should start seeing a lot more of them.



There are also cultural differences between Muscat and Salalah. Salalah is a small town and as such is much more relaxed and runs at a slower pace. Almost every night I go down to a coffee shop on the beach with a couple of friends I met on our first night here in Salalah, and we sit around and talk for a couple of hours while I drink juice and they smoke sheesha (sheesha is basically just a fruit flavored tobacco that is smoked from a water pipe). For me it is good practice of my Arabic, and it is nice to sit right on the beach with the waves crashing in.

Every night, the entire area is filled with people sitting at tables all along the beach, some drinking tea or smoking sheesha, and some just sitting around having a picnic on the beach. Weekends (Thursday and Friday here in Oman) are especially busy, and there can be maybe 100 people at the coffee shop that we always go to all just sitting around, talking and relaxing.

Another thing that people like to do here is go up into the mountains, which are about 10 minutes away, and have picnics or visit family. The mountains have started turning green and they are amazing. We just returned from a trip to the desert and as we were driving back to Salalah and entered the mountains, in about 10 minutes time we went from a dry, hot desert with almost no vegetation and very little sign of life, to green rolling hills with cows and other animals grazing and it was amazing. As we were approaching the mountains you could see a wall of clouds ahead of us and once we entered the clouds, the temperature dropped 30+ degrees from well over 100 to somewhere in the 70s with a pleasant mist and beautiful green hills. It is difficult to describe the abruptness of the change, but it was quite an experience.

Salalah has been really nice so far. Our first night here we went to watch a soccer match in the European Cup, which is where I met a couple of guys, Ahmed and Salem, who I sit with almost every day and practice Arabic. Classes are nothing to rave about, but the atmosphere of being here and studying Arabic all the time has really improved my language and hopefully will continue to do so for the next 5 weeks or so that we have left.

Well, I don't plan on this being my one and only post, so I will finish now, and add more later. I hope you enjoy, and let me know if there is anything you would like me to write about or include in future posts, and I will do my best.