Omanis are the kindest Arabs, my father informed me over the telephone when I told him I'd be taking a trip to Muscat. They are happy people, they are generous and don't have an arrogant bone in their body, he said. "Have you visited Oman, Dad?" I asked. "No, no need to," he replied. "I just know." As most people realise, Arabs stereotype each other to death, labelling some with good qualities and branding others with not so good qualities. But while I thought my dad was exaggerating, I'd actually never heard a negative thing said about Oman when I was growing up, or when I moved to the Middle East.
Indeed, latest statistics show that Omanis are the happiest Arabs, content with their government and leader, and working hard towards bettering their society. Having booked my flight, I was ready to witness this for myself. An old friend from Canada, who now teaches English at a college in a town called Sur, about two hours from the capital Muscat, was putting me up. Sarah and I had never really moved in the same circles when we lived in Ottawa but after both starting our own expat lives, we grew closer through e-mails and chats on social networking sites, keeping abreast of each other's adventures and experiences. As a result it felt like I would be seeing an old friend when I landed in Muscat.
One pleasant surprise about Sarah's job was that, unlike expat teachers in Egypt, who teach mostly upper class Egyptians and tend not to socialise with them, in Oman, she teaches a range of Omanis, from Bedouins to village and city dwellers. After a few days taking in the breathtaking rocky mountain landscape and spotless beaches around Sur, we headed down to the home of one of her pupils in an area called Jaelan. We were met by the student and her brother who took us in their SUV to a family date palm farm. It was a serene spot, humid because of the irrigation stream, shady from the long palm leaves weighed down by the heat, and with the air sticky sweet from ripening dates.
Clean and well-kept by an Indian farmhand, the farm contained 300 palms which ranged in height and girth, but all of which boasted bunches of yellow or green fruit, promising a juicy harvest. The farmhand deftly swung a rope around his waist then around a trunk, and using his bare feet began to climb it. A few minutes later, after a little swinging around under the leaves of the tree, he was back down and offering us a freshly picked date.
Back at the pupil's home, the women of the family came to greet us dressed in long colourful dresses and thin scarves, used to cover their hair and face if a man walked through the house. In the large living area, the matriarch walked in, kissing our faces, and for the first time I touched noses in greeting, in the style of the Gulf. We were then force-fed fruit, cake, sweets, rice and chicken (in that order) and drank delicious Omani coffee in small cups. The mother kept pressing food into our hands as we begged for mercy, saying our stomachs couldn't possibly fit in anything more.
Most of the women were married and had several children, all of whom were excitedly scurrying around the living room intrigued by and a little in awe of the foreign guests. The girls told us about their lives and were curious to hear whether or not we were married and why we didn't live with our parents or had no children by our grand old age. The next day, we were treated to a taste of Bedouin life. Two of Sarah's Bedouin pupils drove us to where they live in the desert, an area called Bidiya.
Bedouins are known for their generosity and open-heartedness, and these boys were no different, entertaining us with their dune-bashing techniques, or their funny tales, and letting us ride their camels. Their white dishdashas made a stark contrast against the orange sand dunes and you could sense their absolute comfort in, and adoration for, the harsh conditions of the desert. It seemed like a member of the family to them. Visiting their home, we were offered coffee and dates and welcomed warmly by one of their mothers. The Bedouin boys then brought us to the top of some sand dunes from which you could see the town of Sur twinkle below us and fed us rice and chicken, which we ate with our hands like real Bedouins.
Between the village families, the attractive Muscatites and the generosity of the Omani Bedouins, the sweetness of these people shone through. My father was right. Hadeel al Shalchi is a writer for the Associated Press, based in Cairo