“Bedouin Woman Selling Her Wares”
10 x 16 cm
HERE'S THE STORY
The municipality of Muscat holds the Muscat Festival regularly and it is a wonderful way to enjoy the culture and history of the Omani people. It is also a rare chance to photograph so many people, especially women who may otherwise be reluctant for photos. The rule is, if you participate in the Festival, you automatically give permission for your photo to be taken. I think the difference is that at the Festival, the participants understand that you are enjoying the occasion of learning and partaking in the Arab culture. Sadly, outside of the Festival atmosphere, many Westerners photograph the Arab women as if they are part of a zoo, what with our cultural prejudices about face covering. The facemask in Oman is called a burqa. In other Arab countries, a burqa is the entire covering, head to toe, that women wear. This burqa is distinguished by the vertical piece that stands up perpendicular from the face piece. This style is distinctly worn by the Bedouin women in the high desert and is called “saif” which means, “sword”. It is made of stiff cloth that is dyed very heavily with indigo and then burnished until it shines like metal. In fact, when I saw this burqa style at my very first Muscat Festival, I thought it WAS metal. Sometimes the blue indigo comes off on the face underneath but the Bedouin consider this good for the skin. Before SPF 65+ burqas sure were the way to go in protecting your skin from the harsh desert sun.
