Massage Parlours with Happy Endings

I haven't been able to write this week for a variety of reasons .. but I found an extra few minutes to get my daily dose of blogs, and I found Muscat Confidential's recent post rather interesting. Kudos to the Times of Oman for highlighting this issue again.

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A few years ago (I think it was 2007), the Dhofar Municipality shut down many of these so-called shady 'Health Clubs' in Salalah after discovering most of the masseurs were pretty Moroccan women who come from poor families and who are desperate for more money. Sometimes you can't blame them. Blame the men. I met the wife of a senior official at Dhofar Municipality and she told me about it in detail but wasn't able to answer all my questions.

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I was with some friends yesterday and one of them mentioned transvestites working at these parlours. Eek!

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Has anyone been to one of these massage parlours in Muscat or Salalah? (And no, I don't mean hotel massage parlours with harmless little Thai women/healers). What did you think? What have you heard?

Salalah News Bulletin

Weather: Greetings from windy dusty Salalah. The past two days have been absolute hell for anyone with asthma, allergies, etc. There's a sandstorm everywhere you go, and everything is covered in a fine layer of dust. Cool, huh? the winds were so strong yesterday that four electricity poles fell over in Dahariz yesterday (thank goodness not onto the road, but into a banana plantation). This morning I noticed that one of the NEW lamp posts down the major highway looked like it was about to fall onto the road. Is the wind really that strong or did someone drive into it? In both cases, the thing weighs a ton so it shouldn't be tilting a couple of weeks after being installed firmly in the ground.

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Traffic: I've been having nightmares lately, and it only dawned upon me this morning that the reason for these nightmares is the number of car accidents I've witnessed over the past couple of weeks. It's serious. I don't know what's happening in this town, but I'm figuring one of the main reasons are that there are too many cars and not enough roads. Traffic is congested most of the day, and police officers are controlling traffic on the three major roundabouts twice a day during rush hour. This can't continue. The Government is going to have to find a solution whether to build bridges or build another highway. The situation is getting worse by the day, and the number of vehicle accidents have increased horribly over the past few months. I've seen about 5 accidents over the past 10 days where drivers were actually killed or seriously injured. It's depressing, sad, unnecessary, and are caused mostly by speeding. A woman was killed in her car last week because the guy behind her was speeding and his breaks weren't working properly so he hit her car and she (trying to avoid him) drove into the other lane and ended up flying over the median into oncoming traffic. May she rest in peace and may Allah guide other drivers to a safer path in life.
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Missing Bride: A friend of mine (victim of an arranged marriage scheme) was scheduled to get married during January. She has never spoken to her husband-to-be and her father would probably murder her (kidding) if she even expressed interest in getting to know him before the wedding. She's been trying to keep herself busy these past few weeks getting herself ready for the wedding. She's worried, and can't even sleep at night thinking about the stranger she's going to share her life with in a few weeks. Well, lucky for her, the plan was for her husband-to-be and his two brothers to get married on the same day (cost-saving techniques?), so the family searched for three brides. The brides were found (hurray!) and the wedding was scheduled. HOWEVER, bride number three decides she doesn't want to get married anymore, and the engagement was broken. So .. the current dilemma is 'Wedding Postponed Until Third Bride Found'. There's talk of the wedding being postponed until July. My friend is in ecstasy. Family frantic trying to find another bride. Do you know anyone up for grabs? 18- 20 years old (groom is 23)? Plump? White? Tall? For more details do not hesitate to call groom #3.

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Business & Whatnot: A certain Brokerage manager at a top capital markets company visited me in my office today and proceeded to pull out forms and booklets and brochures explaning the importance of investing in the stock market and other forms of investment. 'Why come to me?', I asked politely. Turns out they're targeting women. Yes women. Interesting move. Target women in their offices, brainwash them into thinking they should invest money in your company, and bribe them with tales of profit. I wonder how many women fell for it.

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Proposals: A friend of mine works at a bank. She's young, pretty, independent, and a workholic. Along with her father, she's the main provider for her family (young siblings). She drives, and is working on her MBA via correspondense. Last week an older gentleman approached her at the bank. She assumed he was a customer so she invited him to her office to see what he wanted. This is the exact speech he gave her "My dear girl, I may look like an old man but I'm only 55. I have two wives, one bedouin and one from the mountains. I have 8 children, most of them grown up. I want to know where your house is so I can come and propose officially. I will give you 50,000 Rials as a dowry as well as a new car of your choice, and I will give your father 25,000 Rials. I will give you your own home and you will be free to raise your children as you wish. All I ask is that you agree to marry me. The years are flying by and I need to feel young. I've seen you around town a lot and I feel you're the perfect person for me. So where is your house?". Can you even begin to imagine what she was feeling? The horror? She told him simply that she was engaged and Insha'allah he will find another bride then she pretended to be busy and went to her manager's office and hid there until he left. She called me immediately in hysterics. I laughed my head off obviously. I love Salalah.

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LGBT: Anyone noticed that all the gay dudes who worked at Centrepoint disappeared? Wonder why...

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Behavior: I was a little surprised this morning when I met with a manager of one of Salalah's leading energy companies, and he extended his hand to shake mine. I smiled at him and thanked him but refused to shake. He looked a little puzzled and asked why? I was thinking to myself "what do you mean, why? I'm Muslim!", but I simply said 'Oh, I prefer not to. So how are you? What's new on the scene?". He didn't give up. Need I mention that he is a Dhofari from the mountains? Yes he studied abroad but has he seriously forgotten what Salalah is all about? he proceeded to lecture me on work ethics, etc. His logic was that in a work environment, I should shake men's hands when extended because it's purely professional. I argued back that no man had extended his hand in over two years (since my former manager, an expat, which is understandable). Anyway, we argued for a bit then I forced him to change the subject and get on with our meeting. P.E.S.T.

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That's all for today folks. I'm exhausted and over-worked. Coffee.

Hyenas

I really am a sad excuse for a Dhofari. How have I managed to spend 22 years in this town without realizing that we have packs of hyenas everywhere? I guess I'm never out late at night! I was told by a fellow blogger that when she was out camping, an unusual hyena almost attacked them in Mirbat. Most people say it was a Jinn because the behaviour was rather odd. Check out her blog for interesting comments on Salalah/Oman http://absolutetrygve.blogspot.com/.

Allow me to confess that I don't have anything terribly interesting to write about, so I've decided to complain. I'm not really one for complaining, but my complaints may amuse you, so here goes:

(1) I hate the way some Omanis treat Indians and other Asians. I almost walked over to the office next door to throw my coffee mug at a colleague who was rudly insulting the teaboy because his tea wasn't 'perfect'. Well go make your own tea, jerk!

(2) The new guy in my office (yes, dammit, I have to share an office now until he leaves) is too nosy. He asks too many questions about my personal life, and thinks everything is a conspiracy. This morning the CEO of a contracting company dropped by to give me documents and chat (I studied with his son). My roommate immediately bombarded me with questions when the guy left. He thought the guy was a spy. Or maybe he thought I was having an affair with a 60 year-old man. God only knows. He just thought it was outrageous that a CEO would visit me, a girl! To those of you out there who are thinking 'Why don't you just tell him to mind his own business!', I tell you: he's a relative. You can't tell a relative to bugger off rudly. I might cause a tribal war.

(3) I always tell myself that I'll never drive into town during the last five days of everymonth because of PAYDAY. Yup, payday. Every single vehicle in the whole of Dhofar seems to be stuck on the two main roads during payday. Everyone is shopping. Everyone is spending. Everyone is honking. People here are so predictable.

(4) I have a sore throat.

(5) a senior manager at my company is very gay. This morning he's got pink nail polish on, a white dishdasha with a brown tassle and a BLUE cap (kumma). Has no one approached him about colour coordination?

That's it for today, folks. As you see, I have nothing serious to complain about. Life is good. Today is Wednesday!

Transvestites in Salalah!

Well I'll be damned! Never thought I'd live to see the day. This is not New York! I remind you, Salalah is a small Muslim town in the middle of nowhere with a population of 120,000. Most women wear face veils, everyone is stuck to their traditions, and yes ... WE ARE CONSERVATIVE and proud of it! Where was I? Oh right, so I walk into Salalah's one and only shopping centre, and yet again witness the gay dudes who run the place. We've gotten used to that over the past year or so, but I was a little concerned about the outfits today. A young Omani guy wearing a skin-tight version of the shop's uniform, in addition to red hair ribbons and matching hair clips, long hair, pink nail polish, lip gloss, makeup, and high heels? I'm not even going to mention posture and body language. I've seen plenty of that in South-East Asia, but Salalah??Transvestites aside, I spent a lovely evening on the beach under the full moon with friends. Love Salalah!