Last night I went off base for the first time. This country is the most desolate inhabited place I have ever been. The landscape is more akin to Mars than most anything else. That said, you can imagine my surprise when we ventured into the city. Plants, large shrubs approaching the size of trees were seemingly everywhere, tended by people employed by the natives to do all their lesser tasks. Traveling along the road you could see people from cultures from all around the Indian Ocean area, with the most prevalent being Indians themselves.
You see, this country's population only has a small fraction of original people in it. When they discovered oil, they decided to hire a bunch of foreigners to build their cities and tend their gardens, presumably so they could live lives of luxury or dedicated to other, more lofty tasks. Its widely viewed as a form of indentured servitude.
The result was that as we drove around, you see opulence everywhere. The Palace downtown was several football fields long/wide, and skyscrapers rose up next to the sea. Occasionally minarets could be seen with loudspeakers hanging off of them, awaiting the call to prayer.
I spent the better part of the evening touring the shopping districts. The first one was largely of Indian influence. A guy I was with wanted to find a particular hookah shop, and so we toured with that in mind, going into random shops and asking where it was. This resulted in long polite conversations in broken English which invariably led us to different parts of the shopping district and we searched in effect to no avail.
At this point it should be noted that the shopping districts here are perfectly suited to nighttime shopping. With temperatures going up into the 130s during the summer, there is little wonder why. The culture here is understandably nocturnal. Shop lights gently accent the streets in a myriad of colors, and a gentle breeze pervaded throughout open shop doors and windows. The activity of people from so many countries was intriguing, relaxing, above all foreign. You could see the occasional Arab in his full length white robes, perhaps with a wife trailing behind in all black, covered almost completely. More common were people in collared shirts and slacks, or wearing two piece, flowing garments with small hats. there were lawns at the roundabouts (the city is built on a designs of concentric circles), and you could see people lounging on the grass in small groups as the sun went down, talking.
The traffic here was unlike any I have ever seen: cars constantly jockeying for position, passing, swerving, honking, every sign a suggestion. The bigger or fancier the vehicle, the more recklessly it was driven. Presumably the rich natives drive the Lexus SUVs which never seem to brake. The end result was that at least in this city, evolution is still in place. The weak are crushed, the rich and those who use public transport survive. At least this is how I imagine it.
By far the best experience of the night was our meal. After walking through a winding market in the older part of the city, we came upon a Moroccan restaurant. Every table was situated either on the roof or along the walkway among the shops. Conversation was had over 2 hours among the locals, who could be seen smoking a variety of hookahs as they casually dined. The service here was outstanding. The waiter even brought out a little table for me to put my camera on. Dinner consisted of roast lamb in a sweet marinade with tomatoes and onions. Green olives and chilis were the communal side dish, served with bread. We had mint tea as well, which was the best I've ever had.
Alas, curfew came early and we had to wind back through the market to our car, which was not so much parked as it was jammed haphazardly among much nicer cars in spots seemingly meant for a Geo Metro. As we left the bright lit oasis by the sea, the terrain again turned harsher, more industrial. The highway turned to dirt, the clean white robes turned to camouflage, and we were home.
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