Festival of the Negroes 2015

Although I find the name of this festival quite offensive, this is what it's called in Salalah whether I like it or not. The festival, otherwise known as "Mahrajan Al Zunooj" is a gathering of all former black slaves and their families to perform dances and displays of loyalty for His Majesty. The date is this event is never known in advance. An order comes from the palace, Oman TV is informed to come record it, it's never on TV but as far as I know is recorded for the party mentioned above. The event I believe starts with a visit to a grave, followed by rituals, following by this gathering of thousands of people. They all wear purple indigo wraps and go crazy for a couple of hours. 

Today the festival took place (as usual, on a random date at a moment's notice. I was privileged enough to be able to go and enjoy it up close. The history of this event is ambiguous and even creepy (hint: involvement of djinn? magic?). I don't have time at the moment to post photos but I'm re-posting photos from 2012. Same exact scene.  Enjoy!

More Photos: Festival of the Negroes

Thank you Mahfaif, over at Tahyati Blog for these photos. And our dear friend The Dragon is back with a post on detained blogger Muawiyah Al Rawahi. Check it out here. (PS - I'm mourning Whitney)

PHOTOS: Festival of the Negroes

Thanks to a reader (who wishes to remain anonymous), here are some photos from the festival yesterday. I received mixed reviews from my readers (read the comments on the previous post). I still find the whole festival bizarre.

Festival of Negroes this Friday!

Yes, there's actually a festival in Salalah called 'Festival of the Negroes' or مهرجان الزنوج. And it's happening this Friday. I hate the name and feel it's derogatory. Sometimes it happens once a year, other times twice a year. Sometimes years will go by without a festival. In all cases, it only takes place following a royal order from the palace. The festival basically is a gathering of hundreds of former slaves and their descendants in the centre of Salalah to perform traditional dances (influenced by their African heritage). I find the whole thing disturbing because it has 'slavery' written all over it. The dances are beautiful. It's absolutely fascinating to watch. That entire area will be extremely crowded, so if you want to watch, get there early.
. Location: The huge empty parking lot (at the intersection that joins Al Nahdha Street and Al Montazah Road). Keep driving past the Family Bookshop on Al Nahdha in the direction of the ocean, and the huge parking lot is on your left (opposite the Shell petrol station).
. Time: It starts after the afternoon prayers (4 p.m).
. Photography: allowed of course. Oman TV will be filming. If you're taking photos and want to send some to me with your name on the corner of the photos, I'll publish them on the blog. I'd love to see the dances, but it's definitely taboo for a Dhofari girl to go.

End of December

So you haven't been hearing from me as often as I would like, but what can I do? After the laze of summer, monsoon, Ramadhan and Eid Al Fitr, things got crazy at work and in my personal life. Everything was postponed till 'After Eid Al Fitr'. And so I've been killing myself trying to get my life (and my colleagues) back into shape. Just as things began to get organized, we were hit with yet more holidays and we have another week of holidays next week. I know holidays are great for everyone, but this is just insane. You do realize we'll be holiday-less all the way to July 23rd, right? (unless some GCC king or prince dies and we get 3 days to mourn of course!).

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(1) I've been helping one of my relatives through an ugly divorce these past couple of months (which means spending 3 or 4 hours with both sides of the marriage two or three times a week trying to figure stuff out). It's ugly, sad, and uncalled. He's only been married six months but his idea of marriage is totally screwed up. As much as I respect and love my cousin, I think he's crazy. If you're contemplating marriage, don't make mountains out of mole hill.

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(2) Everyone seems to be outraged about the 'most expensive Christmas tree in the world' that has been revealed in Abu Dhabi. Instead of raising hell about a symbol of the Christian holiday being up in a Muslim country, I suggest you raise hell about the cost instead. Evidently the total cost of the ornaments is 11 Million. WTF? Seriously WTF. Dear UAE, If you really wanted to do something to celebrate Christmas, why not do something useful with the 11 million? Like a Charity campaign in the spirit of Christmas or SOMETHING worthwhile.

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(3) If you've got a lot of negative energy and anger that needs to be released, I suggest you send it in the direction of the asshole I'm going to tell you about. A highly education Omani acquaintance of mine (actually, my brother's colleague) decided he wanted to get married. He's 32, so he figured it was time. He owns a house, a business, two cars, 2 degrees, and a cat. He cooks, cleans, and irons his own clothes. He's smart, relatively good looking, and not too short. To sum it up, he's a good catch (or so I thought). I would have considered him myself if it weren't for the fact that I'm .... .... anyway, so he searches high and low for a bride. My brother helps him of course. Finally, the perfect girl is found. She's 26, highly educated, 3 degrees, pretty, smart, independent, and from his hometown (Salalah). Everything is perfect. She is willing to meet him at her office before he comes to officially ask for her hand in marriage. Everything sounds ok up to know, right? So he decides to mess it all up because it's too perfect. He was supposed to visit her in early December. He 'postponed' the visit until mid-December because he claimed he was 'Still asking around about her'. I'm NOT KIDDING. He actually told her family that he couldn't come to ask for her hand in marriage yet because he was still asking around about their reputation. Oh. My. God. Loser. Alert.

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Adding insult to injury, a couple of weeks later he informs her brother-in-law (the initial mediator) that he is not longer interested in her because he discovered her great-grandfather was a slave. I am not kidding, I swear. He decided it was more important to him that his kids come out 'pure'. PURE. He believes if there's any history of slavery in the family, his kids will not live an honorable life. I sat staring at my brother with my mouth wide open as he told me the story. He was as shocked as I was. Has Mr. Asshole looked at a calendar recently? Does he realize WHAT YEAR WE LIVE IN?!!!

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I'm sorry to say I'm still in shock. I haven't fully digested the story yet and I can only hope the poor girl has a sense of humor and is able to laugh at his stupidity and arrogance. What a loser. I was so upset after I heard that story that I stayed awake all night thinking about it. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of murdering the guy. Thankfully, I know what he looks like so my dreams were realistic enough. My brother invited him over to the house once a few months ago and I ACTUALLY COOKED SOMETHING FOR HIM. Ugh. I'm outraged. Beyond outraged.

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What do you think?! Is it just me or can this guy be nominated for 'Jerk of the Year Award'?

Extra Note on Slavery

Back to everyone's comments on slavery, I'm no expert but as far as I know, the Zanzibari population in Oman at the moment is in no way related to the slaves we had in Dhofar pre-1970. I think the slaves were brought from poorer countries in Africa. Zanzibaris are another story. They helped build this country in the early days! Yes, they're African but they were not brought here as slaves and they have different features; paler skin, different bones. So, do keep in mind that we have two sets of Africans in Oman; the Zanzibaris (in the North) and the former African slaves (mostly in Sur and Salalah). Our African-Omanis are as black as the night and very African looking. Zanzibaris are more Arab-looking.

Slaves in Dhofar

I've been thinking about an incident that occured in Salalah recently (few weeks ago) regarding the use of the word 'slave'. Evidently a young nurse (whose family were former slaves) got into an argument with a patient over something. The patient was from one of Salalah's so called 'high class' tribes or 'Assada' (that's another story that needs to be told). He ended up calling her a slave. She took him to court and he was forced to pay her a large sum of money (10,000 Rials?). He was also sentenced to six months in jail but was bailed out by his tribe.

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This incident brought tears to my eyes. This is the first time I've heard of a former slave or descendents of slaves fighting for their rights. And to be honest, I had no idea that the Omani law protected slaves like this. When I was young, one of my closest friends was the daughter of slaves. She was the sweetest girl ever and I remember being made fun of by my classmates for befriending a 'slave' just because she was black. In fact, my older brother asked me to stop being friends with her because I was ruining the family reputation. This hurt me a lot, and I know it hurt her too, but we remained friends and she ended up moving to Muscat and is now studying abroad to become a lawyer.
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Former slaves (African Omanis) aren't as visible in Muscat as they are in Sur and Salalah. A large percentage of people in Salalah are black and to be honest, I hardly notice anymore if a person is 'black' or not. Do keep in mind that slavery is still very fresh in the memories of locals in Dhofar. It was not abolished in Oman until 1970 when His Majesty Sultan Qaboos overthrew his father in a bloodless coup. In fact Oman (and Muritania) were the last two countries in the WHOLE WORLD to abolish slavery, with Muritania finally ending the world's slave era in 1981.

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When slaves were freed in Dhofar in 1970, many of the palace slaves chose to remain in the palace and to continue working there. They remain very loyal and are treated royally by His Majesty. Slaves that worked for families chose to either remain with the family and take on the family name (yes, this is why you may sometimes see black Amris or Ghassanis or Shanfaris) and others broke off and created their own family names. They remained very hardworking and sometimes I envy their women because they're more liberal and independent than the rest of us in the tribal system. The first women to throw off the face veil were black. The first women to go out and work. The first nurses in Dhofar. The first women to become cashiers in supermarkets. The first to start driving. There are a lot of firsts. They are proud and successful and wonderful people.

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They are our best soccer players, our best dancers and musicians and they're definitely keeping the music scene alive in Dhofar. All our local dancers are former-slaves. Take a look at the Salalah's handicrafts souq. The women working there from morning to night producing beautiful incense burners and leather are black. They do not have the stupid pride that most of the other tribes carry around with them. They don't worry about 'what people will say if I do this or that'. They're just enjoying their life, and I salute them for it.

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What do you think?

Local News

(1) Sugar Crisis continues in Salalah. Evidently weather in India was so bad this year that it affected sugar production. All our sugar comes from India. According to Muscat Daily, the global sugar crisis is going to continue for the next few months until Brazil produces some. Time to change our eating habits!

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(2) Anyone heard rumors about Salalah University? No, not Dhofar University. Apparently all the construction going on behind the Salalah College of Applied Sciences is the new building they're adding on to the college. Soon the name will change to Salalah University, and it will be Oman's 2nd public university. Not too sure how I feel about that. Salalah now has Dhofar University, Salalah College of Technology and Salalah College of Applied Sciences. That's it..

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(3) Salalah World, our first huge shopping centre is going up really fast. Last week there wasn't a second floor. This week there is. They must be working 24/7.

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(4) I'm going to have to write a post soon about Facebook, and how it's changing society in Dhofar. How is it so taboo (socially) for young men and women to talk to each other at college but the minute they get home, they're all on Facebook adding each other as friends and opening up about their personal lives? I get an average of about 10 friend requests a week from men only. All Dhofari. All sending a message 'Hi, I'd like to get to know you'. What the hell? They all live in Salalah, I know who they are, I know their families, ... aren't they afraid I'm going to umm ... report them?.

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(5) Phone Stalkers: why the heck do men still play the phone game? That used to be fashionable like ... 10 years ago? By phone games I mean a strange person calling you 4 or 5 times and then sending a message saying 'Who are you? Did you call me?'. You then get confused and start thinking 'Maybe I did call them?. You then text them asking 'What's your name? I can't remember if I called you', and they'll call. You answer, realize you don't know the person, and meanwhile they discover you're a girl, so they apologize for disturbing you and end the call. Is it over? Of course not! Five or ten minutes later you get a text message saying 'You have a nice voice!' or 'Can I get to know you' or 'My name is Ali'. I always ignore such messages, but this one guy has been bugging me for four days now. Every morning I get a message from him saying 'Good Morning Sunshine!'. How do I deal with it? Ignore until he gets bored? What a loser.

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(6) Tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m is the third of the Ministry of Tourism's cultural concerts for 2010. I like the fact that they started a winter series to keep people entertained during January - March. The first concert was Spanish flamenco dancing. I didn't attend but fellow blogger Pepsi Diet wrote about it here. The 2nd one was a Moroccan singer and Elly Ashqar's band performing famous Fairuz songs. I was in Muscat but Rania went and wrote about it. I heard it was excellent. I'll try to attend tomorrow's concert. It's folklore singing and dancing from Kyrgyzstan. The singer is well-known. Read more about it at the Ministry of Tourism's website. I saw the ads up around town. So ... 8:00 p.m, Al Murooj Theatre ... Salalah.

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(7) Fellow blogger Reality in Oman published a new post on race issues in Oman 'Are Black Omanis Dumb?'. Take a look at the post and let me know what you think. It's thought-provoking. I personally believe that black people (ex-slaves) in Muscat are treated differently (in a negative way) than Salalah. In Salalah the numbers are large and they're integrated into society normally. I don't even notice skin color and I don't see an issue really except maybe among teenage boys which is normal. In Muscat, it's different. They're a minority and aren't treated as well as they're treated here. Just my opinion. Many of my friends come from families of former slaves. They're completely normal intelligent educated girls! Simple as that. They hold high positions in companies and government offices and I honestly don't even notice skin color when we're together. It's not a big issue. For me, that is. Do you still think differences between black and white are an issue in Salalah? Yes, differences will always be there, but is it an actual 'issue'?

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(8) Last but not least, if Dhofar doesn't solve the traffic issue very soon, I'm moving to Alaska. Traffic cannot move (not one inch) at rush hour without police officers at every single roundabout! EVERYDAY. What's going to happen to those poor ROP officers during May and June when it's oven-temeprature outside? What's the solution? Build bridges? Build new roads? It's chaos every morning.

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That's it for now folks. I need more coffee. The photo was taken yesterday morning.