Nizwa: The University, the City, and Hanging With the Students

     On Friday, October 29^th, the group and I arrived in the city of Nizwa. Nizwa is the formal capital of Oman and its forth-biggest city. After a very nice lunch at the hotel where our academic director was staying we made our way to the University of Nizwa, which is located in the near by village of Burkat Al-Mouz. Shortly after our arrival the girls went to begin their rural home stays and the guys were placed in a hostel. Mostly, it was two of us American students to a room with three other Omani students, squeezing five people in a room made for three. Now while the conditions were not exactly five-star I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the students, even though there is little to no chance that they will ever read this, for making this place so hospitable. We were greeted with enthusiasm and it was insisted that I sleep on one of the three students’, of whom the room belonged to, beds. There were two other mattresses in the room to sleep on, however, Omani hospitality once again showed up and I was not really given much of a choice. After setting up shop it was suggested to me that I get a shave and a haircut, so I did, and then the entire group, of both American and Omani students, went to get dinner together at a near by Pakistani restaurant.

Villages on Jebel Akdhar

     On Saturday the entire group met at the gates of the university in order to go on a group trip to Jebel Akdhar, which literally translates to Green Mountain (or Vermont, yes we went to Vermont, Oman). This place was high up into the mountains of Nizwa and was actually nearly as high as Denver, in elevation above sea level. It is called Green Mountain, however, by American standards this mountain was not actually green, but you must remember our standards are high and the name really refers to the incredible amount of vegetation and farming that exists on the mountain. We started out our tour with a visit to a luxury hotel that is being built there and we got to see the process of it being built as well as the facilities and the awesome view that will be available to the people staying there. We then made a few more stops where we got to witness more really incredible views as well as climb down into valleys and we climbed to an abandoned village. The weather on the mountain was the best I have experienced in Oman. The people, before I went there, were very enthusiastic about how cold it would be, however, it was very comfortable and in the low to mid 60’s, but I guess that is cold in Oman. Little towns and villages were located all over the mountain and we stopped at one in particular to see how the Falaj system works. Drinkable water is not overly abundant in Oman, especially in the interior, and the Falaj is a water transport system that brings the water, from its source, to the town, for people to use. Some of these things are centuries old and most, if not all, are made from stone. We actually got to walk along the edge of one, and listen to me when I tell you, it was the most terrifying thing I have ever done. This stone water shoot is built on the side of a mountain, and not a mountain that you can climb, but a mountain that is made of large cliffs and if you fell it is hundreds of feet to the ground. Now, the width of this water slide like structure was about two and a half feet from the wall of the mountain but we could not actually walk in the water because people drink from that water so we had to walk along the edge. Remember when you were a kid and you had to walk along the curb of the sidewalk and if you fell into the street, you lost the game. What we had to walk on might have been double the width of one of those curbs. I thought if the wind blew to hard I was going to fall over. But, I made it back alive and after a nice lunch at a park type area on the mountain we all headed back to our respective living situations.

     That night the American guys all headed to the Nizwa souq. This souq was surrounded by what looked like castle walls, giving it a real compound type feel, but it was one of the nicer souqs I have been to. Unfortunately and oddly enough the souq was not open past 9 so we didn’t get much time there but after we left we got some dinner in the city of Nizwa and then went to a hookah bar, where they were showing an important soccer game and met up some of the Omani students hanging out there. There rest of the night consisted of hookah, tea, and what they call football here, but we all know it is soccer.

      That Sunday I went to an English class with some of the students from the hostel. The class consisted of me going around the room trying to teach the students English but basically that just meant that I was giving the people the answers that they didn’t know on the worksheet they were supposed to complete. The teacher looked delighted that I was filling in for him for the day. The class had both boys and girls, but it was segregated, girls on the right and boys on the left. The girls remained mostly quiet for the majority of the class while the boys were loud and often paid little attention to what the teacher was saying. Gender segregation is something that is popular throughout Oman, although it gets more obvious and strict in the more conservative areas.  Nizwa, being one of the more conservative places, almost every where you went boys and girls were separated, and a woman was never seen out of the house too much later then 7 or 8 o’clock. Oman does this because it is a religious and a conservative state and many consider it to be an important religious and cultural aspect of their society to keep men and women separated until they decide on one, or a few more in some cases, to marry. Some people might make the argument that integrating schools causes distractions and can become inappropriate but in my opinion men and women learn a lot from one another and only benefit from having a diverse environment. Nizwa only backed up that theory.

     The rest of the week was filled with various recreations, most of them fun. I wanted to hit an economics class but sadly none of the professors allowed me in. Monday morning a friend and I went on the hike in the many mountains that surround Burkat Al-Mouz and Tuesday evening we went to watch our hostel’s soccer team play a game. The final day in Nizwa we spent visiting various villages around the city, as a group, and then spent a few hours in the evening at The Golden Tulip Hotel, relaxing and sitting by the pool. 

     Nizwa was a really valuable part of my trip. I made a lot of friends with the Omani students as well as got an excellent picture of what college life is like in Oman, or at least in the University of Nizwa. Now it is time to spend the rest of the trip focusing on research and getting this ISP wrapped up. There still, however, may be three or four more blogs to come.