Last Thursday, 14 teams participated in “Amazing Race Muscat – Project Nafeesa”, an event organized by school friends with proceeds going to a housekeeper and her baby daughter, to allow for their return to their home country and start a business to be able to stay together.
Typically housekeepers in Oman don’t have their children living with them, but rather have their own parents/family take care of them back in their home country, and thus, send money home for them. However when the housekeeper of friends of mine became pregnant on a vacation back home with her husband, they decided that they could handle having a baby around the house, and allowed her to bring her child back to Oman with her. These friends are now moving back to the States and this baby is now almost 3 years old. The housekeeper now faces the difficult task of bringing her child home to be taken care of by members of her family, while she returns to Oman in the fall to earn money to send home, as no other family would consider having their housekeeper’s child living with them. My friends found that to be a disheartening choice, and decided to investigate the cost of sending both mother and daughter home together permanently. Surprisingly it wasn’t much: for around $3000, mother and daughter could fly home together, and then mom could start her own business, earning her own way in life, all the while taking care of her child. My friends decided it was possible to try to raise this money through friends in the States and here in Oman, along with giving their own money.
The reason for Amazing Race Muscat: the darling Nafeesa
So each team happily paid around $50 to enter the Amazing Race, knowing we were racing for a good cause. And boy was I ready to race! I had to laugh when the organizer said at one point, “I didn’t know you were so competitive!” I certainly am, sister! If there’s a prize at the end, even it’s just the glory of saying I won the Amazing Race Muscat, I am so there! But first I had to find the perfect partner for the race: someone with agility and speed, endurance and gusto, street smarts and logic, but most importantly, someone who wouldn’t be scared of my driving! My friend L was the perfect choice, and soon I convinced her that with her knowledge of Muscat (it’s her 3rd year here) and my insane driving skills, we’d surely win!
Race day and we were all in team colours. Funnily enough, no team wore the same colours, and yet we hadn’t planned it. L & I were Team L Cool J, in turquoise. There were teams in white, red, orange (the Dutch!), pink, yellow, grey, white & red, blue, and black, with some prints in there as well. Some even had t-shirts made, oh how I was jealous! Also, there were families as teams, for example the Dutch were racing with grandparents and child; others had one or two kids along for the fun. L and I were on our own, and looking pretty twin-like in our similar shirts, black capris, and light blue hats:
Go Team L Cool J!!
I must have moved my car three times, trying to vie for the perfect departing position. I’d also loaded a cooler full of drinks, water and snacks, along with a bag filled with scarves, long-sleeved shirts, sarongs and a headlamp – in case we needed to go into a dark mosque, or a cave. I was READY!
At 1:55 pm, we were all gathered outside “Melrose Place”, the name of my apartment building as 7 out of 8 apartments are rented out to my school’s teachers, and we’re a mix of singles and couples without kids. And it was already 35′C in the shade… dear Lord, what had I got myself into?? After opening speeches, we were each handed a clue topside down and instructed not to turn it over until told to do so. I got my car keys ready, and looked at L: she was in charge of clues, and she had her game face ON! Pulse racing, palms and pits sweating, we were raring to go! The signal was given, and we were off, running to our cars, jumping in and taking off in the most logical direction, before we’d even read the clue!
Fortunately my instincts were correct, as we quickly learned from the clue that we were headed to one of my favourite locations: Shatti Beach, where I walk Snowy nearly every weekend. We were in first place, tearing up the dusty road, headed for the highway to take us there. Let’s just say, it was the first of many times that I went “a bit” over the speed limit that day.
About 15 minutes later (a new record), at one of the turn-offs to the beach, I yelled out “Nooooooo!” as I saw two teams pass us coming from a different direction and getting into the parking lot first. We all parked wherever we could find a spot, and ran to the beach. We were quite the spectacle: all wearing bright colours, shorts, some funky hats, and screaming at each other, “This way, no this way! Do you see anything?!” Little did we know that the organizers hadn’t planned on us arriving so soon, and hadn’t quite set up! But we did finally find them in a gazebo, down the beach a ways. This was our first task:
First Task: Go fly a kite!
Most teams took their time, making beautiful sturdy kites. I whispered to L that we just need to do the basics (tape the two sticks to a diamond-shaped paper, attach some string) and then fly the darn thing! Our mistake was not reading the clue (“READ THE F’N CLUE!”) and getting our kite approved first. So we had the thing in the air for over 30 seconds, and were shouting “We’re done!” when we were told we hadn’t got our kite approved. *sigh* Once approved, we threw it up in the air again and counted another 20 seconds. Lots of wind that day, so it was pretty easy. We were first to complete the task, and after asking, I promptly chugged the organizer’s 1 litre of water, having left mine in the car. I was already getting dehydrated and we’d only started!! L told me later that it’s better to take small sips, that way your stomach doesn’t fill up and get all sloshy. Wise words, as I was feeling all full and couldn’t run anywhere after chugging that much water so quickly.
So L was off to the next task, which I’d figured out to be another gazebo down at the end of the beach – fortunately it said only one person was to do this task. However, little did we know that she couldn’t start until I arrived, so soon after my nearly passing out at the 1st gazebo, watching people still put their kites together (people, it only needs to fly 20 seconds!), I heard my name being shouted. L was back and needed me to come to start the next task – Doh! Speed-walking/light jogging up the beach to the last gazebo, we made it to find two other teams already doing the task: find a date with a tiny, laminated clue inside where the pit would be. The stickler was: any date you touched, you had to eat! Ohhhh, I was so glad that L was doing this, as I knew I wouldn’t have been able to eat many dates with all that water in my tummy! There was a mountain of dates (4 kg!!) and three women, trying to find the special dates. All the partners could do was encourage them and wait. L got the idea to push the other dates around with a date in her hand, this way she wasn’t actually “touching” the dates and she could pick through the pile, looking for suspicious dates – I knew I had picked the right partner! And soon the others were doing the same, digging down to the middle of the pile, where we suspected all the special dates were hidden. L found the first one, after having eaten at least 20 dates, poor thing! And then we were off, speed-walking back down the beach to get to our car. We saw many teams finishing up their kite task and looking to us to tell us where to go next. We pretended we were also still looking – sneaky!!
The next clue told us to head to where Omani boys raced on the dunes, and turn left at the roundabout with a top-notch medical facility, and look for some ancient ruins on the right. With L’s knowledge of Muscat, she quickly figured out that we were headed to Muscat Private hospital to find some kind of old castle. I knew to take the new highway, as there are no speed-radar cameras there (yet!). This was when I hit my top speed, that I won’t print here for fear of some police reading this… Suffice it to say that I would have fit right in on the Autobahn… We found the ruins right away, and another organizer waiting to give us our next task.
However, we first had to have our mandatory interview. At one of the first four stations, each team needed to perform a pre-determined video interview for 5 minutes – making it even for all teams. This was our time and I can only imagine what it looked like, being all red in the face and sweaty, from the heat and running! L elected to do this task, as it was running around the ruins, picking up 4 flags of our selected colour. Later on, I had to laugh when I heard that one of the competitors who chose to do this task was colour blind. He kept picking up the wrong colours, poor guy! Still, they got in 3rd place, so it didn’t hinder them too much! L made rapid work of this task, and we were back in the car just as two other teams started the task.
This next clue was easy enough, talking about a “Fish” roundabout (I knew that was near the old part of the city, and the souk) and finding an organizer enjoying some juice. Right in front of the souk are two fruit-juice spots with tables and umbrellas out front, so we knew exactly where to go. But the challenge was a) to find parking and b) the souk didn’t open until 4pm and it was 3:30pm! I dropped L off right in front of the juice bar, and found a spot fast and ran back to her. Yes, running in now 38′C heat; that’s how dedicated I was to this whole thing!
Our friend handed us a bag of coffee beans and the task: grind up the coffee with the right spices so that it would make a perfect cup of Omani coffee. Once again L’s knowledge of all things Omani helped us, and she knew exactly what to buy (cardamom) and where to get it in the souk. By this time, shops were slowly opening and tourists started to filter into the souk, so L & I had to weave our way around them, heading to the top of the souk where the spices were sold. Cardamom bought, we were now looking for a place to grind our beans. I suggested heading into a “family restaurant” with nothing but men sitting inside and ask them. Lo and behold, they had a coffee grinder in the kitchen, and speedily ground up all our beans. Yes! We were back to the juice stand, and mixed up the cardamom and coffee together. Our friend smelled the bag and declared it was correct, then told us we had a mandatory 30-minute break to use the washroom and have some juice. Hallelujah! I chose freshly-squeezed orange juice, while L went for the traditional lemon-mint (lemonade and fresh mint):
Loved our juice break!
This was my favourite part of the day: getting to watch team after team, arrive running to get their clue and off into the souk, while we got to sit back, relaxing and knowing we were in first place. 
Here’s some shots of other teams, reading their clues:
Team Spamma Montana with two of the organizers' children racing with them
Team K'Paso
After our 30 minutes were up, we got this clue and had to run back to our car; the race was BACK ON!
Fourth task: Find Mark in a park
I couldn’t make heads or tails of this one, but L figured out that we needed to go to a park near a large statue of an incense burner up on a hill, just up the road from the souk. Driving into the entrance of the park, parking the car, running into the park, we realized that there was an amusement park at the base of the statue hill. That’s festive and at a base, so off we went, crossing the whole park, going over a bridge, and down a hill to get to where there were bumper cars, merry-go-rounds, and lots of Indian families. No sign of Mark, heck no sign of a white guy at all! By now, our 10-minute lead was eaten up by searching for Mark, as 3 other teams arrived, running around looking for him too. So I called Mark and asked him where he was. Ah, thank you technology! He answered cryptically that he was indeed in the park, then hung up. Doh! More running around ensued, with teams following each other, shouting, and sprinting here and there, looking for Mark. Finally someone saw his red hat in a gazebo, way back at the entrance of the park – ARGH! He was nowhere near the “festive” amusement park, as the clue stated!! Now the mad dash to get to the gazebo. Flash forward to the following morning when I couldn’t move from my bed: sprinting in 40′C is NOT RECOMMENDED! We got to the gazebo in 3rd place, and picked up this clue:
Next task: Find some frankincense!
This clue had us a) looking on the ground for frankincense (small cubes of amber-looking rocks), then b) following the “spiral path” in the park, and finally c) tempted to head back to the souk to buy some! But L saw that people were heading out of the park, and she saw some start to head up a trail on the side of the mountain. That’s when the clue made sense: frankincense had once been brought into the city by this winding, mountainous trail, and that’s where we’d find some waiting for us. However, I knew there was no way I’d make it up and down that trek without passing out, so once again L carried the team forward by going up alone. In fact, only the first team had both members go up the mountain, everyone else followed our example and sent up only one person to find the frankincense. So there I sat at the base of the mountain, in my A/C-filled car, finishing the last of my water bottles (I’d only brought 3 – not nearly enough!!), phone in hand, waiting for L to come back with the frankincense.
Teams heading up the mountain to find frankincense
This was when we saw our lead slip: the first team came down with their frankincense lit and smoking, running back to Mark in the park, then the next team, then the next, and so on, until L arrived at the passenger door about 20 minutes later. She hopped in, and I drove us back to the park. Poor girl was red and sweaty for sure, now we truly matched! I found out that she was delayed because she’d tried to light her frankincense up on the mountain top, but it had been too windy. We lit it just before handing it over to Mark, and he gave us our next clue. At this point, we found out that there was no longer a U-Turn, that in fact every team would have to perform both tasks, as we had all been much too fast, and they had to slow us down for our next task! Hehehe, they didn’t bank on us all being so darn competitive!
So our next task was to smell and look at Mark’s Masala mix and choose only 5 of the 10 spices on hand, and duplicate his mix. I figured we had this in the bag, since I love cooking and L knows Indian food really well. Yeah, well, it was tough. For every wrong guess, we’d have to sit a 2-minute penalty before trying again, so I decided to mix 5 spices and determine if it was the right mix before showing it to Mark. I threw out 4 different tries, before I thought I might have the right one. Mark smelled our first official attempt, looked at it and declared, dead-pan style: “I’m sorry, this is not the right mix.” We proceeded to our 2-minute penalty, where others were also sitting, waiting out their time. We did this combo (guess+penalty) at least 3 more times, and watched our position in the race slowly disintegrate, as others caught on to the right mixture and left for the next task before us.
Finally I asked L if she wanted to give it a shot. She got it on the second try – attagirl: Chili, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Cumin, Cinnamon. There were still about 6 teams trying, when I let out a whoop and we grabbed our next clue: “You must have a serious appetite after running for so long. Drive to the Sultan Stadium, find this Muscat-famous grill house and decide to sit down to a nice treat, or deliver one. You might need to use some brains to finish this task.” Hmmm…. sounded like a food challenge to me! L knew exactly where this restaurant was, so we quickly took off out of the park and drove across the city. The whole drive there we were trying to guess what they’d have us eat. That’s when L told me she’d done a detox the day before and she couldn’t eat any carbs. Sounded okay to me, I love bread/pasta/rice! Famous last words…
We got to the restaurant to find out we were in 6th place, not bad all things considered, and that there was a mandatory waiting-period, as the restaurant wasn’t quite ready for us. Ahhh, this was why we did both sides of the last task! So we sat and compared experiences with the other teams – there were a lot of sweaty, but happy faces around us. This had been such a fun day!
I guzzled another bottle of water (will I ever learn to SIP??) and we anxiously watched the first teams make their decision: eat something that was only revealed to them at the time of their choice, or make a delivery to an address nearby. The thing is, the address system in Oman is very convoluted: Street names are numbers “Way 3245″, “Way 5619″ and buildings have numbers “Building #365″, then apartments have numbers “Apartment “31″ = 3rd floor apartment. Way too confusing for a lot of teams, so many chose to eat.
L and I watched as their piping-hot dish of cut-up meat and spices arrived with two large puffy pita breads. Teams were told they had to eat with their hands (and pita) and had to eat all the meat and bread. It looked hot, both temperature and spice-wise, as teams gulped it down with mouthfuls of bread. That’s when L and I agreed that she’d eat all the meat, and I’d eat both pieces of bread, as her detox would guarantee a seriously bloated tummy if she had any of the bread. We’d figured that the mystery-meat was brains and who knows what else, and if she was willing to eat it all, I wasn’t going to argue!
Finally it was our turn, and we looked at the menu to see what it was: brains, intestines and other internal organs, cut up in a hot, curry sauce. I looked at L and asked her if she was truly ready to eat that, and she stoically nodded her head and headed for the order counter. One bowl of kat-a-kat please. Four agonizingly-slow minutes later, L was literally digging into her bowl of meat, burning her fingers and her mouth, and I was eyeing my part of it: two gigantic, fluffy pita breads, the size of medium dinner plates. Uhhh… sure I can do this. Everyone around was curious to see what we were doing, and L explained our deal: I had to eat all the bread. And I did, in about 7 minutes – my jaw was so sore from chewing, and L just kept encouraging me, having finished off her brains a while back. We finally got this last clue:
Last clue: head back to the organizers' house for the post-Race party!
With full, bloated tummies (yup, even the brains did a number on L’s stomach), we drove to the finish line, guessing we were still in 6th place. Once inside the Riddle’s house, we confirmed our position and fell into some soft chairs, exhausted, salty (all that sweat had crystalized!), and nauseous.
Here were the top three teams: Team HipHop (my name for them – see their costumes?!), Team Pink, and Team Orange. Team HipHop won dinner for two at a lovely restaurant (that doesn’t serve kat-a-kat!!) and Team Pink won a foot massage. Nice!
Top three teams and Nafeesa
We’d started at 2pm and L & I arrived at the Riddles at 7pm. We didn’t last long at the festivities, but managed to stay until the last team arrived about an hour later, then drove home to crash. I was asleep by 8:57 pm. What a truly amazing race.
Oh, and we’re already talking about making this an annual event, and donating the money collected to a different charity every year. And don’t you worry, I’ve already volunteered to be one of the ORGANIZERS, not RACERS! 
I forgot to give credit to Shawna R. all the photos on Race Day (minus the clues) – thanks for sharing!
