The Muscat Festival is a month long celebration of Omani heritage that is held every year. There are special events like Fashion week or the Taste of Oman food festival, but even the normal nights are fun. It’s like a big county fair with exhibits, shows, and food.
Admission? 800 baisa total. It only cost 25 cents for the younger two boys and 50 cents for the three “adults.” Crazy cheap.
This is overlooking the park where the festival is held. The big dark space behind the stage is a man made lake/water feature with fountains and the ring of lights around it are the food booths. The festival covers a huge area.
One thing I love about living in the middle east are the warm evenings, even in winter. It’s one of the things I’m most excited about staying the same when we’re in Bahrain.
gun tossing Omani boys — I’m assuming they’re fake guns. I hope they’re fake guns . . .
They have displays set up to demonstrate the bedouin way of life in Oman. This guy is demonstrating using livestock to “pump” water out of a well. He drives the animal down the hill, the animal pulls on the ropes and a system of pulleys brings a bucket of water out of the ground. I’m not so sure that people aren’t still doing this in parts of the country.
Who knew watching a bucket travel up and down a rope could be so fascinating?
Camile loves camels. They’re her favorite animal. She talks about them every chance she gets.
It looks like the men took over the Women’s Folklore Group
This guy is making halwa. Halwa is a traditional Omani dessert that is made of eggs, sugar, flour, and fat. This mixture is boiled over a fire for 3 hours while the guy with the big stick stirs it constantly. It is seasoned with cardamom (it tastes similar to cloves if you’ve never had it) and the result is a gelatinous, sticky, smoky and spicy tasting sweet. Omanis eat it for all occasions and non Omanis either love it or hate it.
I’ve had some that was ok. The texture is gummy and strange to me and the smokey/sweet combination tastes like someone added beef jerky to your dessert (when it’s good). Or as my dad described it, “It’s like a chain smoker mixed this for 3 hours with his hands” (when it’s bad).
They serve it in huge bowls with slivered almonds sprinkled over the top.
Can you imagine doing that for three hours?
This version was one of the better ones I’ve tried, although it had a bit much rosewater in it which made it taste like a sweet beef jerky garden.
The boys and Camille were happy to devour it after I had my taste. It’s eaten by spoon or more traditionally, scooped out of a communal container using your fingers.
Women in traditional Omani dress (what they used to wear before the abaya became the fashion here) walking and singing. They sound fine, the guy on the megaphone was a little hard on my ears.
There were trinkets and handicrafts for sale. This inspirational banner reads: “I am busy. U R ugly. Go way.”
Time for more food. The large metal circle in the center is a hot iron — she takes a handful of dough and rolls a paper thin layer around on it (thinner than a crepe).
Then she cracks an egg and, using her spatula, breaks the yolk and spreads the egg all over the top of the bread.
A few flips of the wrist as she folds it into quarters and adds a drizzle of honey.
I have a general rule of not eating street vendor food. I also don’t eat samples from Costco or any other food freebies except for the ones from “my” Trader Joe’s where I know all the people working in the sample kitchen. I know my heebie jeebies are irrational/unreasonable so I let the kids eat to their hearts’ content and they never get sick. So I wasn’t going to try this weird bread/egg/honey concoction, but as Josh was offering me a bite I saw an Omani man eyeing me and I didn’t want to look like I was rejecting his food so I took a bite — and it was really good. So good that I had a few more bites even after he wasn’t watching me any longer.
Yes, they were fighting over it. We had to go buy a second one.
Cotton candy? Of course.
A sweet Omani woman stopped us so she could give Camille a balloon.
Waiting for “Happy Corn.” Yes, that’s actually what it’s called. They take regular frozen corn, put it in a pot with butter and spices and it’s really good. Or so they tell me. Remember? Street food cleanliness issue.
I know it looks like we ate our way through the Festival, but we also saw a parade, a fountain/lights show, a trapeze act, and several musical performers. Too bad we don’t have time to come back during fashion week. I want to see if it’s abaya fashion or the clothes that are worn under the abaya on display. “Make it work designers!”