the Phlog » Oman

Zafraniya

Pinaki — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:53:30 +0000

Around the corner from Wariposht, we sip on kahwa with Shamsa’s mother.

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

Paris. Afternoon.

Pinaki — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:13:59 +0000

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

The Sheikh of Lawami

Pinaki — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:26:29 +0000

I lean in and switch to the 50. I can manage f1.8/200 and his eyes, watery blue around the irises, pop into focus. Everything else — the shadow on the speckled wall, the heavy fake gold watch, the starched edges of his clothes, the fixer in the corner — is a blur.

The story is here.

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

Khor al Fardh

Pinaki — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:54:09 +0000

Hilal bin Ali al Amri has been burnt almost black after a lifetime in the glare of the sea, loading wood and dates onto dhows bound for Zanzibar.

The story is up here now.

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau Du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

The Color of Jaundice

Pinaki — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:51:13 +0000

Even the walls seem a sickly jaundiced yellow in the last house of Mateira. It is here, crammed between the rock and the sea, that the medicine woman cures people of busfar, an art that her family has passed down for generations.

The story is up here now.

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau Du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

12.30pm

Pinaki — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:53:17 +0000

The muallim of Luluah, up here

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau Du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

8.57pm

Pinaki — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:09:59 +0000

A land so lonely even the cows stare at you

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

for Eau Du Volcan | Courdemanges, France

Pinaki — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:26:36 +0000

From Mid Coast

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

Pinaki — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:39:17 +0000

From The Aufis of Wadi Bani Auf

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

Pinaki — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:29:18 +0000

The cruellest part of the desert is its sound. In that emptiness without people, stretched across countries, you will first be aware of the soft rasping of waves of wind over sand, and sand scraping over sand. Slowly, as I spent hours lying down without hope, waiting for the night that might change my life or end it, the wind and sand seemed to take on lives of their own – I heard faraway cars coming to me, even faint, distant voices that must indicate Bedu where there were none. These are little sounds, mere suggestions in the air, and their subtlety will tease you till you cry. The only real sound I ever heard were two ghostly figures in the night that scared me enough to grab my shovel and shout out. But it was only a couple of wild camels that I soon forgot, lost in my problems, stuck in the Empty Quarter, a stretch of desperate loneliness that extends across most of Saudi Arabia, spilling out into Oman and Yemen.

From Love and Death in the Umm as Samim