Omani elder resisting modernity’s call to abandon his desert home for town life

97-year-old Ahmed Al Masroori isn’t ready to compromise his nomadic values for urban comforts. Speaking to The National, he highlighted his family has long been urging him to move to Bidiyah, after living all his life in the desert oasis of Gharb, located 45 km away.

Born in 1926 in Gharb, the Omani elder got married at the age of 19. 10 years later, he married for the second time and built his own house, next to his parents’ house. Five years after that, he married for the third time, extending his family. His fourth marriage came a year later.

Masroori struggled to adapt to modern comforts

“My children then moved to Bidiyah one by one for work, taking their mothers with them and left me alone in Gharb,” Masroori said. He has 14 children and all of them moved to the small town in the eastern region of Oman once they reached adulthood.

Six years ago, his children successfully convinced him to move to Bidiyah, after they built him a house in the town so they could be near him, since he refused to move in with them. But they failed in getting him to adapt to modern comforts such as electricity.

Gharb has only nine houses, and all of them have no running water or electricity. Residents herd animals and grow dates like the old days. Masroori said just like him, villagers refuse to move to larger modern towns to join their children, preferring the old way of life.

“He is like our father”: Masroori’s neighbour in Gharb

A year after shifting to Bidiyah, the 97-year-old returned to his old house in the desert oasis. His daughter Hartha, 68, visits him only on the weekends, leaving him in his old six-bedroom house most of the week. “He lives alone and we are really worried,” she said.

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“On my visits, I take food that would last him the next five days until my return,” Hartha added. But she is grateful to her father’s neighbours for looking after him. Ali Al-Hashmi, 43, said: “For me and my wife, he is like our father. We have the key to his house.”