National Day

The Oman Tourism College celebrated National Day this afternoon in typically flamboyant style. His Majesty Sultan Qaboos is a pretty big deal out here.

With the help of a great team of Omani staff, the students staged an afternoon event with everything from poetry to taekwondo (which was really impressive!). The main exam hall was packed out as the performances got underway and the atmosphere was electric!

The highlight was definitely a large group of male Omani dancers (from outwith the college) complete with drums and bagpipes. The girls went mad when they came into the hall and it was really quite a funny sight to see every single mobile phone whipped out to catch them (along with a handful of teachers!) in action.

The Omani equivalent of a surname is a tribal 'family name' which lets everyone know which part of Oman you're from. This photo shows two lovely little Al-Balushi girls whose family set up a mini camp to show off their crafts, clothes and music. The mothers were very traditional and therefore were not comfortable around the camera, but these two girls started posing as soon as they saw the lens cap come off and so after a little bit of translating (via an ex-student of mine), everyone was happy for me to take a photo.



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A big thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment on yesterday's Blip. I had no idea when I posted it that it would get that kind of reaction! It even made it on to the BBC website!