We chose Oman because it’s the only O country in the world. Besides being in a remote area of the world, Oman is quite interesting.

 Having about 8 times less people than their neighboring Yemen, they only have a small 4.5 million people. Their land is really rocky and dry and they only have a small fertile area in the southwest. Most people live in the twin cities of Muscat (Al Musqat) and Matrah (Al Matrah).

Frankincense in ancient times was one of Oman’s most important exports and still grows there today. Oil is now their main resource which makes them have a high GDP. To learn more of the awesome information of Oman go here: oman_info

Interesting Facts

• The most consumed beverage in Oman is Mountain dew
• You can drink alcohol in Oman even though it is Muslim by getting a alcohol license
• Oman has the longest serving head of state currently serving since 1970; Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id
• Oman used to own Zanzibar Island of the coast of Tanzania
• Oman is part of one of the only Second order enclaves in the world Nahwa, a piece of the UAE inside Oman inside of the UAE

Food

Omani food is quite interesting. Omani food has  super flavorful spices. They have a hint of heat in their food. Omani’s also eat a lot of grilled meats. They can sometimes be weird like camel,  dried shark, and bird meat. They also eat chicken and lamb. They eat vegetables but not that much.

Breakfast

Ragag Ma Beed Wa Jibne Recipe – This is a flatbread with egg and cheese or honey in it. I do not like egg so we made a just cheese one also. This was really good.

Coffee and Dates – This is a thing for every breakfast in pretty much every Gulf state. But Oman has a special coffee with cardamon in it.

Dinner (You should do this for lunch, though, since lunch is the most important meal of the day for Omanis)

Shuwa Recipe – pretty much anybody in Oman loves their national dish. Maybe that’s why its only eaten on special occasions. This takes 24 hours to marinate so make it a day ahead. We dyed the rice to make it more fancy. Mama does not like lamb so we replaced it with chicken. It was still pretty good.

Yogurt, tomato, cucumber and jalapeños. This is a little spicy and can be used as a cooling dish for the Shuwa.

Culture

Since its the first of the three Arab countries that we doing (and have to with the others we have to do the others being Qatar and Yemen ) we wrote Arabic. It has characters and all the letters connected if you can. We copied the words from Google Translate into Word. Word show the characters not
connected so we had to use the words from Google translate.

The letters also change depending where in the word they are. There are different characters for the beginning, middle, end of the word, and if it’s its own word. Did I mention that it is written right to left? Arabic is very different from English in tons of different ways. I was the only one who wrote it correctly. What Mama and Andrew wrote I would call “Broken Arabic.”

To learn all the letters go here: Arabic Chart.

 

Flag

The Omani flag looks very different from the other gulf states’ flags. It has the red and white but where is the black? Well it turns out that Oman gets the red from the indigenous people and later on added the green and white so no black. The green represents the mountains in the north. White representing peace and Imam, or the priest for Islam. Red represents the indigenous people and is a common color in gulf states. The symbol depicted on the omani flag had been around since the 1700’s. It shows a curved dagger and cross swords connected by a horseback. For more information go here: Oman Flag Wikipedia

Next up is Papua New Guinea, the only country in Oceania to border another country in a different continent!

– By Isaac