Offscreen Expedition 2007

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ok so today we woke up early as usual and got ready to go to the grand mosque in oman, my first impressions of the mosque … it was absolutely beautiful the architecture on the building and on the inside was so detailed i was amazed…we were guided by a man called shaikh khalfan who gave us a tour of the mosque and expained some of the things which make islam the religion it is… I would never have thought that this man was such a joker he made learning about islam interesting and humourous…after the talk we were put in pairs and had to walkaround the mosque and find interesting things to draw..the girl I worked with didn’t speak english but I thought that made it more interesting as we were connecting our thoughts and ideas througjh the power of art…I really enjoyed the day as it was a time to reflect our thoughts and ideas of what oman was like compared to the previous days in dubai..it definately is a change of scenery..but I think oman is more spacious and just as beautiful as dubai…..x

This morning we got up really early again, and i think today the tiredness really hit everyone. we could barely open our eyes, which was annoying because then we went to see the grand mosque which was really amazing! The way it was built and the materials they used made it feel really special. not only that, but it was realy peaceful and made me understand how the muslim religion works, whcih was inspiring! we then met up with some omani girls and boys who we paired off with and did some large drawings around the mosque, which turned out nicely!! then we went back to our giant house and hung around for a few hours doing art and explopring the local beaches etc! it was a really nice day and relaxing too. in the evening we went for a meal in what apeared to be some kind fo penny museum, which was cool but we were still soo tired!! then we went souq market where we got some kick ass scarves for our desert expedition starting tomorow!! its gonna be assome!! anyway, must sleep night night! x

DaY 5

We went to visit the mosque today in Oman.Here we met up with Shake Al-havan who is a consultant in human resources.I got the chance to see a mosque for the very first time but some of us within the group are already muslims. Through this xperience I got the chance to get all my questions answered and it opened my eyes of the way I thought about muslims.I learned that muslims wear white because all of the prophets such as jesus,moses,Muhammed all wore white to represent pureness.Visitors in the mosque can only step on the blue carpet because it woold be too much hassle and uncomfortable for people to go through the whole process of washing before entering etc.I also learned many things

When interviewing the Omani students,I felt a real sense of friendliness and they seemed really calm and genuine although some of them coulnt speak fluent English but they still communicated through the art by workinhg with us the Offscreen students.Not many of them knew too much about the UK but simultaneously the speak the same language as us.So for me this broke barriers between the media’s interpretation of the middle east and they way we have experienced it so far.