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Looking for help for a Belgian TV programme in Oma (Muscat)

Hello everyone,

I work for a Belgian production company Sputnik Media ( Protected content ) and we are currently working on the second season of Jobs without Frontiers (Dutch title: Beroepen Zonder Grenzen), a reality travel series for the Belgian public broadcaster
(één - VRT, Protected content .

Each episode four Belgian colleagues travel abroad to an unknown location. Here they will go and perform their regular job in a new surrounding and with new colleagues to the best of their abilities. E.g. in the first season four midwives went to work in a maternity hospital in Ecuador, four railroad workers joined the Albanian railways, four car mechanics were transferred to an African bush garage, four farmers improved their skills at a fazenda in the Brazilian Pantanal, etc.

The Belgian teams discover the skills, working methods and work environments of their counterparts across the globe. Throughout the week, they will work alongside and with their new colleagues and these experiences give our participants the chance to see their jobs from a different perspective and to return to Belgium with more know-how and better competences.

The second season of Jobs Without Frontiers will consist of eight episodes. In this series we will take four market vendors to Vietnam to go and work on the floating market of Cai Be, four firefighters will join their New Delhi colleagues. Other episodes are currently being researched and will be confirmed in the near future.

And that's where I'm looking for your help. We really want to go to Oman because it's such a beautiful country and as opposed to Dubai the people of Oman hold on to their traditions.
But that's maybe also the reason why it's so difficult to do any research from behind my desk here in Belgium. I've been looking into the dhow building wharfs in Sur and the camelracing in other parts of the country. But as I said, it's difficult to find people who actually work there and that I can contact.
That's why I was hoping that I can find some (maybe Belgian) expats working in Oman (maybe even near Sur) who can help me finding some concrete facts.

For example, at the dhow building wharf, how many people still work there, is it a company that still builds the ships, or is what's remaining of it only a site for tourists?

I've read some where that there are traininglessons for the people who race the camels. Is it comparable to the training of jockey's who race horses in the western countries?

Furthermore I'd like to have some more information about the Traditional Clinic in Muscat. I've read about it on numerous blogs but I can't find any more information about the clinic. E.g. where is it situated, who works there, who can go to the clinic and what types of treatment do they offer.

Are there any other typical professions in Oman that would be interesting for our programme (as I've described in the earlier paragraphs).

I know it's a lot to read and to think about, but I know this is a site with a lot of friendly and helpful people from other research assignments so I'm hoping you lot can help me out this time as well.

Thank you very much in advance and I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards,
Irina De Groof from Belgium

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