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[kuberkat]

After hitting the highway not once but four times this weekend, a few remarks about driving may be in order.

On Friday morning I drove past a garbage dump with the usual array of goats and slowed down in anticipation. One goat looked both ways up and down the road, saw my car and waited for me to pass. True. I mention this because this is not quite as miraculous as it would be if the good womenfolk of Oman would check the road and wait when a car is passing. I have been told that this is to avoid forbidden eye contact with strange men in cars, but suspect that's just an excuse for covert traffic domination. This skill is, sadly transferred from pedestrian road use to driving. Don't be surprised to find a female driver enter the highway from a slip road without looking, only to continue straight ahead at 60 km per hour. Yes. Note that these statements apply mainly to the older generation outside the capital. Muscat's young professional women are actually rather aggressive drivers.

The areas designated for taxi stops are few and far between. The places where taxis actually do stop are not. Roundabouts are particularly popular.

The fast lane is often permanently inhabited by sociopaths who keep their headlights on in daylight all the way from Muscat to Dubai and back again, all the while rapidly approaching the speed of light. Fortunately they disappear on the horizon quickly, but they do not suffer law-abiding citizens gladly.

Roundabouts are there so you can make a more or less graceful recovery after missing poorly indicated turnoffs.

Although an increasing amount of women are learning to drive, 75% or more of motorists are men. If you are a woman, don't be surprised to be punished for being on the road alone, you bad girl. A popular pastime is for male drivers to overtake "uncovered" female drivers, get an eyeful, then slow down in front of them. Particularly annoying on single-carriage roads where you may be stuck behind them for some time.

On the upside, even in Muscat the traffic is not as heavy as in other capital cities, and thanks to the Sultanate's low population spread over a large area, there are fewer cars on the road in Oman than in many other places. One good thing I can say is that drivers do use their hazard lights to warn others whenever they slow down or there are animals in the road ahead. Also, if you are a woman, even an infidel female is expected to cross the road without looking, so outside of Muscat the road is yours when you're on foot.

For a nation known for its kindness, patience and mind-wrenchingly flexible attitude towards time, I am terribly sorry to say that there is no trace of these qualities in the discourtesy and impatience one often encounters on the road. The nation itself laments the abnormally high road fatality rate, which according to a recent newspaper editorial is double that of the US, often involving children and especially young men.

We may not have the chance to teach our hosts the essentials of driving courteously and intelligently, but I do hope foreigners can be part of the solution, not the problem here.

[veiledsentiments]

Not to dispute Ms Kuberkat's tales of driving in her corner of Oman, I must expand and perhaps even dispute a couple of points.

[kuberkat]

As VS points out, it may be that my gripes about driving in Oman are really gripes about driving in general. Admittedly, I drove very little before. And it is definitely time for my annual unleashing. Seems I may be doing one of those little expat routines where everything is blamed on the locals when actually that's just life.

However, while discourtesy on the road can happen anywhere, I do maintain that there are a few unique twists here, very often along gender and cultural lines. Many foreign women I know here, for example, have shared my repeated experience of male drivers driving slowly, but then speeding up to make it impossible to overtake them. Neither local women nor foreign men I have asked have experienced this. I'd love to hear more about this from other residents: am I paranoid or is there really a plot here?

[Duffy]

KK!!!!

NAW!!!! your not paranoid!!!

Whenever my wife is in the car, we are constantly amused by the "non-arab" attention paid to her. Often we pass a cyclist with his friend sitting on the back bumper and they both STARE . It is a shared joke amongst us and other expats as to who has seen the most run off the side of the road or just stopped because they have seen a "white woman" - unveiled!!

Luckily my wife is well used to this and I, having been out to the ME before recognise the antics and just ignore them as does she. After all, can you imagine what would happen if I or any other husband began to worry about all these "men" ogling my/our wife!!!! Paranoia!!! No, reality kicks in and I realise that these guys have come a long way from their homes, they are young men (mostly) and have never had the exposure to Western women, especially those who "flaunt" themselves by not dressing correctly.

Here in Salalah, I must say that it is not the regular expat western woman that upsets the apple cart. It is those young things who come in on a two week holiday, who find it is extremely hot and dress accordingly, that is for a western society. Not taking into account the cultural differences. I daresay, they have never even looked at any website or book on culural awareness here in the Middle East.They just wear stringy tops, tight jeans and openly flaunt themselves in front of the male population.

I am no prude, God forbid I ever wish to sanction censorship, but, just sometimes, I wish there was someone out there to tell these girls that they are causing offence to the Omani people in general and the Muslim country as a whole.

Many years ago I was working in Tabouk, KSA. One evening I was walking down the street with a friend and his wife. Suddenly this five foot nothing of a religious policeman ran up to her and ripped the gold chain and image of St Christopher from her neck. He brandished it in front of them both and in very broken English tried to tell them that it was an offence to bear such images in a Muslim country.

He actually raised his bamboo stick to hit her, but my friend stood in front of him, he was 6' 7" and very muscular. The little shit thought again and walked off. Despite all efforts to trace this person, he was never found and nor was the gold necklace.

Now my friend and his wife never even thought that she was doing anything wrong! She had worn that chain and image for years. It was unfortunate that she and her husband had not realised it was non-muslim and therefore, in the eyes of this little policeman, offensive.

I have never heard of this happening since, but goes to show how deep the divide really is,or was at that time, has it got any better??

Duffy (or should it be- )

[veiledsentiments]

The mutawwa/KSA story was similar to many such that one hears through the years. Rather like the inappropriately dressed visitors, it is a matter of not educating oneself about the local oddities that gets one in trouble. But those little tourist trollops types really irritated the heck out of me over the years... both culturally arrogant and ignorant...

I note that you mentioned that the extreme attention to women comes from the 'non arabs.' When I visited India, it was that problem only multiplied by the multitudes. You would think that no one in India - male/female old/young - had ever seen a foreigner before. It is obvious that no Indian mother ever said to her children, ''don't stare child, it's rude" - so obviously this is partially a cultural issue with the added extra of so many of these men being separated for years from their wives.

And kuberkat, what you described happened to me both around the Gulf - even to women old enough to be their mothers or grandmothers... and here in the US through the years this has also happened... it is not an unusual, but rather obnoxious male game... it isn't paranoia... they are after you... haa haa haa...

VS

[kuberkat]