We are back in Germany – green, rainy, well-organised, toilet paper deprived Germany – oh how we missed you, or did we?! I`ll admit it dealing with the thought that we might not be able to get back was pretty unpleasant, but I can`t say that I felt particularly homesick over the last two weeks and I hope neither did the other fieldtrippers. Letting go of the excursion routine, the great outdoors and the people that surrounded you non-stop is easier said than done. So, to make our transition back into our everyday lifes a bit smoother and to say goodbye to our readers, I am writing one last blog.

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When we prepared the lunch for our fieldtrip participants on the first day we triggered a lot of confusion. ‘Is this dinner already?’ (at 1 pm mind you.) ‘No this is lunch.’ ‘WE GET LUNCH?’

Yes indeed, you get lunch. Yes, every day. Three meals a day is apparently unconventional for fieldtrips and I have to admit I gain a few pounds every year, but come on, did you think we would let you starve?! There are fresh veggies, fruit, eggs (oh so many eggs), bread and a number of spreads on the buffet. Dinner embraces the popular concept of ‘Reis mit Scheiß’, whereby ‘Scheiß’ is usually spicy goat or camel or, on meatless days, chicken. But where does all of this come from? How does Oman satisfy its food consumption?

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Imagine a wadi. A dry river bed, filled with gravel, at the foot of a tower-shaped mountain. A few trees and shrubs grow between the rubble. Night has already fallen, the mountain stands black before the night sky. The full moon is bright enough to see every pebble and every thorny twig. In this wadi there sits a camp right beside a rudimentary dirt road. The camp has a large white truck, a row of cars, some tables, a circle of camping chairs around a campfire and a few scattered tents. The fire is burning, an interrupted card game lays on a boulder and from the boiling pots in the truck`s kitchen comes a smell of roasted chicken, but nobody is there.

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