The Changing Face of Misfat Al Abriyeen
PHOTOS BY LENA PETERSEN The stunning authentic and organic nature of the Misfat Al Abriyeen tourist experience is what sets it apart from so many other tourist destinations in the Sultanate is in the...
Gender equality is unfinished business...
Recent celebrations in respect of the achievements of women in the Sultanate have been well-presented, well-received, and offered due praise, respect, and acknowledgement. However, often such events...
Sun, Sand, Salt, Surf and Sea… Missing the time at the beach
Photos by Lena Petersen Right now, I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I cannot go near the sea or the beach, and I am suffering for it. It is the fresh salty air, the ubiquitous sea breeze,...
Thank God the flowers grow, the birds sing and the sun shines!
I lay in bed last night, and from nowhere came the thought… “What if COVID-19 doesn’t end in the New Year?” I don’t know about you, but I have had this vision of COVID-19 becoming no more...
As one door closes... a birthday shared can be such a joy...
November 18 has always proven a special day for me, and even more since arriving in Oman during 2009. It is really quite something to think that you are sharing your birthday with that of a nation. Of...
‘Kitab fi Ma’rifat al-Hiyal al Handasiya:’ Ismael Al Raza Al Jazari
What a wonderful thing is knowledge, and while the Sultanate is absolutely and correctly celebrating the launch of its very first laptop, the Onsor, this month, and the public debut of several new...
Value your culture: For it is the willow that bends to the winds of change
The word culture is evident in many conversations today, but is often, in its purest sense, used incorrectly. Mostly, people are referring to the traditional identities of their country such as their...
Oman doors and the story behind them
PHOTOS BY LENA PETERSEN "The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are, and not be questioned,” said Maya Angelou, reaffirming that our safety and security lies at...
Who covets the rose must respect the thorn...
Life, living a ‘good’ life, and being true to one’s faith and heritage rely on neither money nor masculinity, either power or position, or a question of stature or station, but rather......
Finding SHAFRA, with Mariya al Hinai, Omani scientist and entrepreneur
NIZWA, NOV 2 The recent public introduction to SHAFRA, a home genetic testing service for Arab societies everywhere, in equal measure awed and excited local investors recently as Chief Executive...
A Green Kind of Magic in Izki
PHOTOS BY LENA PETERSEN You have all heard of the Bahla ‘magic.’ Well, now Izki has it own ‘green magic’ in the form of Ishaq Al Saqri’s latest agricultural venture. Stretching far...
Let’s not throw out the baby, with the bath water!
Very few teachers, lecturers or students are at ease in this current COVID-19 educational environment. It is quite simply, only a sticking plaster, for a savagely beaten, bruised, and somewhat...
The ‘Tutorial’ landscape requires regulation to protect the unwary
COVID-19 continues to exert relentless chaos in, and create havoc over the lives of all of us, and it is so much worse because it is an invisible, insidious foe, but none are more disadvantaged than...
Sas boost for start-ups in Oman
The Sas Accelerator’s second cohort, organized by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT), through Sas Center for Entrepreneurship in partnership with Google for...
Can camels swim?
Camels are almost mystical, almost prehistoric, almost creatures of fantasy and wonder, but they are big, heavy brutes of things, slow looking, and even when they are galloping at full pace, appear to...
Let’s talk online, techie, and the olden days this week?
The Internet, new technologies and all that stuff can be quite bewildering, polarising and just occasionally, downright new, for all its good points can’t it? I’m from a generation that used to...
COVID-19 defiance, climate change extremism, and BLM. Really? Now?
It is 2020, and tens of thousands are dying all around the world, and yet we still have groups and individuals around the world intent upon thrusting their particularly obtuse agendas upon us....
From Botswana, an Eloquent Artist
Bokamoso Kumwenda, known to most around her as ‘BK’ is an artist with a rich African heritage who has merged into the Omani art scene in the same manner as her art appeals to the afficionado…...
Expats exit hits real estate rental market
Nizwa: The much-publicized contraction in the real estate rental market in Oman is just one consequence of the departure of tens of thousands of expatriates from the Sultanate during the last year,...
Masirah Island, closer to God and to nature
Noted British actor Benedict Cumberbatch observed that, “You come into this world on your own, the same way that you leave it. It’s made me want to live a life less ordinary.” That’s not the...