Much domestic architecture in Muscat is overtly modern – the recent increase in construction projects has been dazzling. But many houses and buildings also display elements characteristic of traditional Arabic architecture. One such example you will see is the proliferation of openwork decoration, which is used widely – to cover window openings and encase air-conditioning units, for example. It adorns mosques, too. Openwork produces a pattern, often geometric, of interweaving spaces. Positioned over windows, the arrangement of holes acts as a filter, reducing the amount of light – and therefore heat – admitted
to a room while still enabling air to circulate. Traditional Arabic courtyard houses usually present plain façades to the outside world; it is the interiors – furnished
with rugs and elaborate ceilings perhaps (like that of the Bait al Baranda, shown above) – that are decorative. But in 21st century Muscat, openwork adds textural and visual interest to the exterior of many buildings, and enlivens the cityscape as a result.
G A R D E N I N G The cruel beauty of oleander
One of the most widely grown plants in gardens in Muscat should come with a health warning. Nerium oleander, commonly called oleander or haban in Arabic, is extremely poisonous – even the smoke from its burning wood is toxic, and as a result it should never be used for firewood (nor for barbecue skewers). So why, given its deadly properties, do gardeners from here to the
States continue to plant oleanders
with abandon? The answer, predictably, is its showiness – like many other commonly grown plants that are poisonous to humans and animals, oleander can be very pretty. All parts of the plant are toxic – the milky-white sap, the leaves, flowers and so on – and even drying does not remove its toxins; but being fast growing,
sun loving and drought and salt tolerant, oleander is suited to
conditions in Oman (a form even grows wild in wadis). An evergreen shrub, its leaves are long and leathery; the flowers, both single and double, come in white or shades of pink, from palest rose
to carmine, depending on the
cultivar, and are held in clusters on the tips of branches. A bushy, well-pruned specimen in flower
is a lovely sight – just remember to wash your hands if you touch it. For further details about this and other sultry-flowered plants that illuminate the streets of Muscat, turn to page 60.
C U I S I N E Pizza for queens
The pizza known and devoured the world over owes its name
to a queen of Italy: Margherita of Savoy (1851–1926), wife of King Umberto I of Italy and mother
of Victor Emmanuel III. In her
lifetime she was a popular figure: during the war she turned her palace into a hospital for soldiers wounded in battle, and at her death in 1926, Time magazine recorded that Benito Mussolini recalled her “majestic beauty,
her venerable silver hair, her untiring charity, her austere
composure in sorrow, her fervent love of the fatherland and her exquisite sensitiveness as a queen and woman.”
Her eponymous pizza alleg-edly came into being in 1889, when during a visit to Naples, a sun-soaked city of southern Italy, the Queen was presented with a pizza that depicted the colours of the Italian flag, made with fresh green basil leaves, milky-white mozzarella and red tomatoes. Today, Pizza Margherita is often embellished with other ingredients such as oregano, Parmesan and garlic; the last, that strong-tasting, pungently scented bulb, was considered by the Queen’s contemporaries to be unfit for her delicate regal palate. The classic and unadorned Pizza Margherita is widely available in restaurants across Muscat.
D E C O R A T I O N Mountain rugs
Unlike the more complex, knotted rugs from countries such as Iran, tribal rugs are flat weaves. They represent the oldest form of
carpet making, constructed by weaving together vertical (warp) and horizontal (weft) threads. Flat-weave carpets are thought
to have developed in nomadic societies, which since time immemorial have reared sheep or goats, animals with wool or hair that can be used for weaving. These rugs would have been used on the ground or as coverings, providing warmth or insulation when the temperatures dropped. Woven into striking, graphic patterns, flat-weave rugs are usually boldly coloured and often roughly textured. The carpets shown here were made in villages around Jebel Shams, Wadi Ghul and Wadi Nakhr, and can be bought directly from the craftsmen in places such as Al Khatim, as well as in souqs and shops in Muscat. Hung out
for visitors to buy atop the Grand Canyon, they form colourful flags in the stark, rocky landscape.
P O R T R A I T One man in the desert
At the southern extreme of the Sharqiya desert coast, 400km from Muscat, a lone wooden hut is your only point of reference in a land of endless horizons, where the road caves into sand. Haji Amir has been sitting here for years, in a painstakingly tidy room, between a few pots and pans and a bed. Next door is his little workshop, and a compressor to fill tyres deflated for the sand. His most frequent customers are the Bedu fishermen, who stop when coming out of the desert. They’re usually from isolated
settlements like Ras ar Ruways, their pick-ups loaded with fish. They’d race over desert beach, get Haji to fill their tyres, and then continue over tarmac. Some might go over to Masirah Island, where ‘fish factories’ would sort their catch according to type, size and weight, before carrying on to markets hundreds of kilometres away, across borders, deserts and roads. Now, for the first time, a new road is being built, which will connect Haji, at Naqdah, to the northern end of the desert, at Al Ashkharah. The last time we were down there, road-maker Strabag had finished the first phase from Ashkharah to Khuwaymah; the part south of there was still under construction. Soon, you can rejoice in a new road that straddles desert and sea, opening up the area for tourism and bringing services to residents. For many others, though, like Haji Amir, it will mean a change of life. He will no longer be alone, nor will he be needed to fill tyres. And the hundreds of Bedu racing over desert will eventually stop crossing the sands, turning to tarmac instead.
B O O K S Coins and camels
Issa and the Coin tells the tale
of an Omani boy whose father gives him an old coin, a mandoos, that formerly belonged to Issa’s great-grandfather. Issa stows the coin in his room, but a cat knocks it off the windowsill and into the street. Various adventures then befall the coin – it is seized by a beady-eyed crow, for example – until, happily, it lands back in Issa’s bedroom. A charming and colourful story, Issa and the Coin is intended for children of four to seven years old, and is the work of husband-and-wife team Sean and Shannon Butler.
Sean and Shannon met one another in 2002 in South Africa. They married two years later and have lived in Muscat ever since. Issa and the Coin is “a reflection of everything we love about Oman,” says Shannon, an illustrator and teaching assistant who studied children’s book illustration in Cape Town. It is her engaging pictures that form the counterpoint to the lively text written by Sean, who works as an English teacher.
“We had always wanted to write a children’s story together,” recalls Sean. “We were sitting in our house one afternoon when we came up with the idea of an adventure about a coin. We wanted
to include camels and cars and the beach, and to convey Issa’s joy when he is reconciled with his coin at the end.”
Shannon’s illustrations took rather longer to complete. They portray elements both traditional and modern, and are peppered with carefully observed details –
in one scene, the background characters include a distant man slicing meat for shawermas and a miniature cat licking its paw. On another page, a parade of barely visible ants mounts an attack on a plate of sandwiches.
The book is published by Stacey International, a London-based publisher that “seeks to
foster mutual understanding between contrasting peoples and cultures.” It has produced other children’s titles inspired by the Middle East, too, including A is
for Arabia and Saluki, Hound of The Bedouin, both written by
Julia Johnson.
Issa and the Coin is Sean and Shannon’s first book. They have ideas for other stories under
their hat: last summer they came back from visiting their nephews “full of ideas and inspiration,” Sean says.
Issa and the Coin is available
in Muscat at shops including the Family Bookshop (24 564391). It costs RO4.900.
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