Globalization in Action

I have to write about one of the most interesting things I saw on my first trip -- it was the irony and the extent of how globalization is changing the country.

So on our first day of the trip, we stopped by a roadside meat stand to see the traditional Omani lunch and how it is cooked. It is actually pretty fascinating -- the fire is built with stones around it, and heated all morning, then big slabs of freshly butchered goat meat are thrown on the
'stone grill'. (See pictures!)


This is one of the grills -- the meat is actually cooked right on top of the stones. According to our sources (the men working at the grills) they slaughter and sell about 30 kids' worth of meat (baby goats, not children!) on a normal day, and during the days of the Khareef Festival it can be tons more (50 -100) -- and this is only at one stand of about 75 all along the roadside.

(Here is a picture of them putting the meat on)

Now, where is the globalization you say? That would be the transnational migrant movement here in Oman -- most of the hard work or physical labor is not done by Omanis at all, but by Southeast Asians. I knew this -- but seeing an Asian man (perhaps Indonesian?) performing traditional butchering and grilling really threw me off guard -- maybe because this is one of the few traditions that pre-dated modernization that has still made it, or just because butchering has Islamic regulations, that I expected the butcher to be Omani, or Yemeni (as the manager of the grill was) but no, in the picture below, you can see that he is definitely an immigrant from Asia)

This is also a good picture, because you can see the huge hunks of hanging meat.

So, I will definitely discuss this idea of a servant worker class here in Oman in a later post. But this is it for now....