Vol 25 Mahfood

I have a new friend. His name is Mahfood. He’s Omani, 32, and an engineer with an oil company. I met him last month at Second Cup. He stopped me one night and asked if I would be willing to read something he had written for school to check his English. He is studying for his Masters degree from a University in Glasgow. So I said sure, no problem. Told him to nab me next time he saw me. When next I saw him he didn’t need any help so we just chatted. I started seeing him more and chatting more and eventually we started sitting together with our laptops. Now we call each other to say which café we’re going to. No Mom, we’re not dating, just friends. He just broke up with his fiancé of 7 years. And I was seeing someone and now I’m not and the circumstances of ending are similar so we chat about that. And we chat about business. And we chat about his assignments. And we chat about our jobs. And life in general. He’s insightful. Offers a different perspective.
This is Mahfood.

Last weekend he invited me to drive to Al Khadhara, the village he’s from. I have a policy not to refuse invitations so off we went. It was a little over an hour from Muscat, on the coast and quite small. We went to meet the brother of the man who is renting Mahfood’s house. They have turned it into a primary school for about 130 children. It was the weekend so no kids were there but I got a quick tour and it looked pretty cool.

We drove around the village and he helped me ask people if I could take their picture.

This is a date palm. Those are the dates hanging from the top. I’m looking forward to eating fresh dates soon. They come into season when the weather gets really hot.

These ladies were sitting on their front porch. Mahfood says they do this every day. Eating, chatting, and working on projects. One of them is doing some needle work. She has the yarn wrapped around her toe. The tray has a "sweet" on it. They call all desserty-type things “sweets”. Cookies, cakes, ice cream, puddings etc. These ladies liked me taking their picture.

I love this photo. This guy just gave a nod to go ahead with the photo. Sometimes I wonder if they think I’m crazy. They don’t know how cool everything looks to me.

Like this. This looks cool to me.

And this. Love it!

And this. People here sit on the ground a lot.

Mahfood has promised a daytrip to Nizwa, a town in the interior, soon. There is a famous fort there to visit. More photos!