Tropical Cyclone Phet

Ok, bad weather following me around is getting a little out of control. Oman is at warning level orange for tropical cyclone Phet, a category 4 storm. Muscat got hit really hard back in '07, so even though the storm is heading for the East coast, and will probably just cause some rain here, people are a bit panicky, stocking up on bottled water, and hunkering down for the weekend (which is Thursday afternoon and Friday here). The problem is that since it's such a desert, any rain causes flash floods, and locals are horrible drivers in the rain, so if it rains, everyone just stays home to avoid car accidents.


It turns out Elke put me in this hotel (Hilde's B&B) because the small rooms at the clinic will flood if there's a big storm. Her house is scheduled for demolition, and although they may not need to move for a few weeks, the air conditioning has been turned off, which is a big problem here. So it looks like after the storm passes I will be staying in the apartment of one of the clinic's employees while she is on holiday and look after her cats.


Things are very relaxed at the clinic, everyone wears sandals, and when there's nothing to do because everyone is hiding at home from the storm, the girls stand around chatting. Though I suppose that doesn't include the kennel attendants, who always have the most to do.


I have a car to drive here, and went to the supermarket. There's actually a lot of vegetarian foods here because of the large Indian population. The Arabs speak Arabic to each other, the Indians Hindi, the Africans Swahili, but everyone speaks English and the people are very friendly.