Check Your Hubris at the Door: Khareef

Detachment 6 had been on an auditing moratorium for over seven months when I first arrived in June, 2017. The War Reserve Materiel (WRM) Contract was in transition from WRM II to WRM III, and the contracting agency responsible for the acquisition had determined that having CORs from the Detachment conduct audits under the new WRM III contract would be detrimental until after the Initial Contract Performance Review. That decision had led to an almost intolerable level of boredom for the rotation of CORs that were on site when I first arrived.

Luckily enough for me, that Initial Contract Performance Review occurred within a few weeks of my arrival, and I was out on the road shortly after the Review wrapped up. Travelling as a small team of four, we first went to Kuwait, followed by Oman. I was excited to get on the road and experience what had been promised when I was initially looking at volunteering for this job.

We left in early August, and landed in Kuwait. I will say very little about Kuwait, as it is like a more boring version of Qatar. The whole country is “dry” so there is no alcohol, and the drivers are crazier than anywhere else that we traveled to. Kuwait City International Airport is poorly laid out and the Customs Agents are lazy to the point of being negligent. I never wanted a window seat when flying into or out of Kuwait, as I did not want to see all the plastic bags and cardboard boxes blowing across the runway, waiting for their chance to get sucked into one of our Airbus’s turbofan engines. I would travel to Kuwait several times during my tour at Al Udeid, and each time it was the same.

Oman, however, is gorgeous. The people are friendlier than anywhere else in the Middle East, and far more open to other cultures. Situated on the Southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman has treacherous looking mountains, flat desert, and in the mountains just outside of the port city of Salalah, there is a local phenomenon every year known as the khareef. 

The khareef is a period of time from June through September where the temperatures in the mountains drop, and a dense fog covers the mountains and rolls down into Salalah. The resulting moisture causes a rapid proliferation of green vegetation unique to that particular area. If you were to fall asleep driving through the desert and wake up while driving through these mountains during the khareef, you would be forgiven for thinking you woke up in Ireland.

Of course, we had work to do, and it was not in the jebel where the khareef was, but rather in the mountain valley near the village of Thumrait. As we steered through the dense fog, avoiding the ever prevalent semi-trucks hauling who-knows-what across the highways, we suddenly descended back out of the fog and into the all too familiar desert.

Arriving at the Royal Air Forces of Oman (RAFO) base just outside of Thumrait, we were checked through by the surprisingly thorough and professional Omani security forces. After we passed through base security, we made our way to our lodging accommodations and settled in.

RAFO Thumrait might be my favorite place that I visited while working for Detachment 6. The villas that we stayed in were pretty well maintained, and we had access to both the RAFO Officer’s Club and the bar maintained by the Expats working on base. In addition to this, the scenery around Thumrait and Salalah provides a welcome respite from the rest of the Middle East with mountains and greenery.

While we were on this first trip to RAFO Thumrait, we made sure to see as much as possible when we were not working. We drove into Salalah to visit their mall and to see their beaches. We drove through the Khareef fog and took pictures. And we observed the Omani tradition of roadside chats.

For whatever reason it is a tradition in Oman to pull off to the side of the road and just sit/squat and chat for a couple minutes. Maybe even break out a hookah and pass around a hose while burning the flavored tobacco, shisha, while eating lunch.

As we drove around the jebel we definitely observed the tradition. We also observed people from many different cultures gathered to take pictures and marvel at the dichotomy between the khareef laden mountains and the desert just a few kilometers away.

Oman is full of such dichotomies. Here it would not be strange to witness a man herding camels and goats down a winding mountain road as a Mercedes SUV waits impatiently to pass. It also would not be strange to watch someone dressed in traditional dishdasha (long white robes made out of a light weight fabric) and muzzar (a type of turban) line up  a series of Jagermeister shots at a hotel bar downtown.

The RAFO personnel were uniquely welcoming and friendly during our stay there. Where in Qatar and in Kuwait the host nation Military personnel either ignore us or treat us with an aloof disdain that did not quite ever get explained to me, the Omani personnel always seemed somewhat excited to have us Americans around. While getting our SUV’s filled at one of the gas stations in Salalah, a very excited young man approached us and started practicing his English, asking where we were from. As a general rule, I tell people I am Canadian when I travel, and after telling the young man at the gas station such, he proceeded to have a full conversation with me that covered his surprising level of knowledge about Canada. We left the conversation, him grinning from ear to ear telling me that I “should be proud” that the young Omani man spoke my language.

One afternoon after Sergeant Henry and I had wrapped up our portion of the Audit, the two of us decided to walk back to our villas on the other side of the base. How far could it be, we reasoned? Maybe a mile or so? The two of us embarked on our misguided trek, walking through the sun scorching the soft sand on the side of the road. We made it roughly half way, to a guard shack that separated the “ground” side of the base from the “air” side. As we drew near to the shack, sweating profusely and debating whether or not to turn around, a young RAFO security guard waved us down and ushered us into the shack.

Here we were greeted by another RAFO security guard, a RAFO NCO, and what I inferred was a RAFO Security Officer. They eagerly shared their group lunch that they were enjoying, a sweet type of jam scooped (with your bare right hand) out of a bowl and either eaten directly from your hand or spread onto some unleavened bread. Sergeant Henry and I were given small cups of tea, and the RAFO Security personnel proceeded to practice their English with us, peppering us with questions about how to pronounce our names, what we were doing at RAFO Thumrait, and how we were enjoying Oman.

Sergeant Henry and I spent awhile with them, cooling off in the air conditioned guard house, before departing back to the villas, thankfully the last two members of our team drove past and picked us up before we walked too much further.

On our last full night at RAFO Thumrait for this trip, we made our way to the RAFO Officer’s club at the behest of the Station Commander, who wanted to meet us. Our group of four headed over there at dinner time, which for us was nearly two hours before the RAFO Leadership came in for dinner. Their desert camouflage uniforms and flight jumpsuits replaced with their traditional garb, the Station Commander arrived with a couple more RAFO Officers in tow.

Continuing the precedent set by their personnel manning the gates, the RAFO Leadership were incredibly friendly, even encouraging us to tell our bosses to bring more Americans to the base. We ate dinner together, had a couple of drinks, and then started playing darts. Our hosts thoroughly trounced us, although I will contend that they had an advantage by standing several feet in front of the agreed upon fault line. One of the RAFO Officers there had not been drinking like his contemporaries, so I asked him about it between dart throws.

“Oh no, my friend,” He assured me, “I do drink, but only one per time.”

I figured that was reasonable, and we kept playing darts, talking with our hosts until it neared time to go.

“Sammy,” the RAFO Officer said to the bartender, “it is time for my drink.”

The RAFO Officer’s “one” drink turned out to be a pint beer glass filled seven-eighths of the way with Jack Daniel’s whisky and topped with a spritz of coke “for taste.”

The four Americans in the room shared an amused look as the RAFO officer took a pull from his whisky. We wrapped up the evening, promising the RAFO Officers we would be back soon, and headed back to our Villas just down the road. We had an early flight back to Doha in the morning.

I would not make it back to Oman until after the Khareef was over. Even so, Oman would remain perhaps my favorite place to visit while serving as the ACO for Detachment 6. I would not mind going back someday, not for work, but just to experience it. Maybe I’ll even run into a RAFO Officer looking to have his “one drink.”