author - oman observer

I went to a Christian high school in Buitenveldert, Amsterdam, but apart from Religious Studies, there was little that was particularly religious about it. In those days, one of my friends had a...

“Khob Khun Ka, Rapunzel, kha!” she said to my favourite girl while running her fingers through her brown curls. Vivian, a spa therapist in Phuket, was friendly, but not in the typical Thai polite...

“All I care about today is Messieeee!” Once again, a phone case with the Argentine flag and a picture of “the greatest football player ever” is waved in our faces by one of our colleagues....

“Oman is okay now, right?” the tuk-tuk driver suddenly asked, smiling at us through his rear-view mirror as we gripped the sticky handrails, plastered with stickers advertising nightclubs, while...

“Your iPhone contains almost everything about you, yet Siri has never been able to use all of that information when you need it,” read the New York Times Wirecutter newsletter. A bit of a tech...

“Is your family still safe in Beirut?” I asked the familiar face I bumped into at a coffee shop. I was on a short break after almost writing on the office windows with a permanent marker, feeling...

“Right,” I lie, when the lady beside me at a pottery studio (run by an Omani mother of two) in Muscat says Michael Jackson’s music is not from our generation. She gives me a look with her big...

On a Saturday afternoon, I got three whole 'likes.' Offline at a soiree on a farm in Muscat, that is, not as reactions to some unpolished post on my low-follower private Instagram account....

Tuesday, last week: A cup of coffee at the café downstairs with our guest, a Parisian, though originally American. Fair enough: He moved to France in the 1980s, making him an immigrant like me here...

“You have many lovers!” “Thanks, habibti! Wait.. what?” “I mean, we really like you as our team member!” Without looking up and a little lost in (Freudian) translation, my sweet colleague...

“What if it had been a baby inside that cage, mama?” I was calmly asked after we met Bruno, the Doodle Dog, at a local veterinary clinic that made global headlines last week. It was a loaded...

Should I blame Bella Hadid, the glamorous American supermodel of Palestinian and Dutch descent who wears Prada to the Oscars and posts frequently about Gaza and health? After all, following her (on...

“Astaghfir Allah,” I muttered after one or two curse words did cross my mind while chasing the cat who was once again trying to ruin my late parents’ furniture by using it as a scratching post....

Go or stay, stay or go. Apprehensive, maybe even afraid. That was the Muscat state of mind I anticipated of first-time visitors to Oman who normally live on the bustling yet close-knit Dutch street...

At first, I was dismayed as I was clearly vilified. Patience, Patience, Patience, I told myself, as a glimpse at another unpleasant personal email brought a feeling of distress. My hands hovered over...

I still look around in some embarrassment and even turn away my laptop screen when someone approaches while prompting “Betty” (my nickname for ChatGPT, since I keep mixing up the ‘T’ with the...

My first (and last) real encounter with Marco van Basten, known to football fans worldwide, was when he walked into the gym where I worked part-time as a receptionist while still a student. He looked...

“Mister, why is the moon sometimes visible during the day, if you say she only appears after sunset?” my now husband, who was then seven years old, and his friends once dared to ask their strict...

“We offer the best espresso and hot chocolate in Oman, and you would be our fifth customers since we established this business,” two friendly, young and very PR-savvy Omani students from Sultan...

Last weekend, we took my sister, who is like a sister, visiting us in Oman all the way from Amsterdam, to Bidiyah to explore the desert, and perhaps find ourselves out there after a year during which...