Omani's love their soccer!

Don and I met a fellow expat couple at a hotel restaurant on the ocean front Tuesday evening. The traffic was horrendous for Don getting home from work that day. Police presence was everywhere; roads were closed. We figured that either the royal family was in town or royalty from another country was in town--or heaven forbid something bad was happening. We were wrong. We live not far from the Sultanate Soccer Complex--as we left to go to the restaurant we knew that a big game was in progress.

Soccer is taken very seriously in this part of the world! So, we skirted the traffic and went the back way to arrive at the restaurant. We missed most of the traffic and arrived to the restaurant in time. I think we thought that by the time we left to go home, there wouldn't be that much traffic. We would use the back way again and have little trouble going home. Wrong again, for the second time that evening!

We pulled out of the parking lot onto a street that was little more than a parking lot itself. I always hate sitting in traffic, but when inhabitants of the car next to us started yelling and gesturing to me, it was somewhat disconcerting. That is, disconcerting until I figured out what they were trying to communicate to me. They wanted me to take their picture! So, I hurriedly dug through my purse to grab my phone and got ready to snap. You can see that they posed for me below:

 In case you haven't guessed by now, the Omani team won the match. They were very excited. However, it was disconcerting to see so many young people hanging out of their cars while driving down the street. Sorry that some of the pictures are blurry, but we were in a moving vehicle!

Notice how this young man is perched on the car! In addition to him and the driver, there is a third young Omani perched on the roof of the car. He is in his traditional garb--truly a mix/clash of culture!

We are approaching a major intersection. Can you see all the pedestrians in the background? 

We have crawled one step closer to the intersection.

 These last three images are taken as we are waiting for a green light at the intersection. Do you see the two young gentlemen out in the middle of the road? They were haphazardly "directing" traffic. One had on a clown hat, the other a white mask (ghost?). I was scared to death they were going to get run over! Driving injuries and fatalities are actually a huge problem in this country. The police do not give out tickets for traffic violations (see my blog on driving!), and every time Don and I have been caught in a traffic jam, you see young people, even children, popping up through the sunroof of their cars. Traffic lanes for right and left turns are virtually ignored, as are yielding-to-right-of-way guidelines.

To end our story, we finally made it through the intersection, and as you can see in the picture above, the highway ahead was pretty clear, and we made it to the ramp for our highway home easily. It did put a smile on our faces to know that the young men in the first picture were thrilled that I took their picture to commemorate their team's victory! However, I think from now on we will pay attention to the soccer schedule and plan dinners in on those nights.......