My Recent Visit to an Omani School

  While on Masirah Island, I saw this interesting painting on the outside of a school so we entered to ask if I could take a quick pic.  (The Arabic on this painting reads, “Education (or science) is light.”)  What we thought would take less than a minute took more like an hour as we were hospitably welcomed to the headmaster’s room, offered tea and then given a royal tour of the entire school by two friendly Omani teachers!  We were warned not to take any photos of the boys as there seems to be some royal decree prohibiting the publishing of photos within schools of Oman.  Al Muhalab bin Abu Sufrah School for grades 5-12  A model of the school which we were shown in the art room.  A nice portrait of Sultan Qaboos bin Said at the entrance of the school  “Our golden sand and marine treasure.”  Showing a good student model and a bad student model  An interesting art piece made by a local student out of shells off the beach  A map of Masirah Island painted on a turtle shell!  “Keeping the environment clean is a human beings attitude.” (?)  “Keeping our resources is a national duty“.  “A young Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber.  These birds breed on Lake Rezaiyah in Iran, and winter along the coasts of the Gulf of Oman.” (picture taken in The Natural History Museum, Muscat)  This picture describes the criteria of a competition that occurs between all schools in Oman, known as “Competition for a Clean and Healthy School Environment“.  It is announced by Sultan Qaboos each year.  Some criteria of the personal hygiene of students judged include: condition of sandals, whether students have taken showers, wearing clean standard uniforms, wearing perfume and combing ones hair.  “Nature Inspires Poets“.  “You have to cooperate in good things, not bad.”  These are the two friendly Omani teachers, Humaid Al Wahaibi and Abdullah Al Harbi, who were kind enough to spare their time in showing us around the school and treated us like true guests.  Abdullah, when he met me, was quite excited and said, “You are that guy with the website, right?! Andy in Oman! Wow! I can’t believe I’ve actually met Andy in Oman!”  That really put a smile on my face! 🙂  (He told me he found my website when searching for something on Anger Management on the web.)

Thanks again to Al-Mohalab School on Masirah island for an unforgettable tour!