Sultanate of Oman
Sultan Qaboos University
College Of Medicine
Done By: Abdullah Sultan ALJabri 1
Uzbekistan Introduction: Uzbekistan is a country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. The Uzbek language is the only official state language. Russian is the main language of over 14% of the population and is spoken as a second language by many more. The weather was cold and rainy at the beginning of May but at the end of May it was a little bit hot. The country had very beautiful areas; there were green mountains, blue lakes, rivers, snow and old beautiful building which reflect deep Islamic history. They have a lot of different types of fruits; strawberry, peach, and others and there were cheap. The country is poor and it is undeveloped. There are only some big, beautiful modern buildings at the center of Tashkent. 2
Tashkent A lake in Tashkent One of the beautiful river in Tashkent. 3
Notice the two colour of the river. The journey: We flight on Turkish Airline (the only one we found) from Muscat to Istanbul on 7th of May 2009 at 7:00 am. It took 5 hours. We transited in Istanbul for 9 hours, during these 9 hours we have visited the Istanbul.It was very beautiful and its weather very nice. We visited Masjid Sultan Ahmed (The blue masjid), Hagia Sophia and others beautiful places. We arrive at Tashkent airport at 5:00 am after another 5 hours flight. The Turkish Airline was good and we had comfortable flight. The procedures of the airport were very complicated and take long time. The doctor who will be our supervisor was waiting for us in the airport with another student, and then they took us to the accommodation. Accommodation: We have lived at student accommodation. We were three and it was one room with three beds. It was good and clean room. They cleaned every week. We were comfortable in it. There was no air condition. But the weather was a little bit cold. The problem was that the bathrooms were only separated by small walls and without doors or curtain. There was no water in them only we could carry the water with us in the bottle. It was real problem. The good was that we have our own shower room. The accommodation was for male and female students. It was closed at 10:00 pm no one enters or exit after 10:00 pm. There was no TV and if there, without international channels. There were places for playing football and volleyball. There was billiard hall. Food: We found great difficulty in founding something to eat. They are depending on their self so they don’t have outside food. The other difficulty manifests in that the menu in the entire restaurant in Russian or Uzbek languages, there for we didn’t know what kind of meals they have. By the time we adapted to the situation and every day we discovered a new meal. 4
The prizes of meals were more or less same as Oman. There were no KFC, Pizza Hot, or other kind of global restaurants. This popular rice meal called “Osh” sometimes they put horse meat with it 5
This is our room in Uzbekistan. These are some Uzbek’s food. Transportation: They were carrying us from the hostel to the hospital by one of the student car. We can’t go by our self to anywhere because we can’t speak in their language and they didn’t understand Arabic or English, so every time we went to any where there was someone with us. There were buses, taxies, their own cars and trains. People: I didn’t see as kindness as Uzbek people. They were very friendly and they treat us as their brother. They show to us great respect because we are Arab and the center of the Islam. They invited us on lunches and dinners. They spend a lot of time with us and they show us their culture and modern areas in the country. They want to know more about Islam and about Arabic language. Most of them they didn’t pray only in some occasion. 95% of them were smoker and about 80% drink alcohol. 6
We and our colleague were at accommodation. This picture was in Samarqand. What kindness of people! 7
This is Samarqand ‐the beauty of culture This is great Samarqand 8
Study: I have taken 2 weeks in surgery and 2 weeks in pediatric. We rotated each 3 days in different hospital. We started at about 9:00 am and finished at 4:00pm. The surgery rotation was poor in information because we face great difficulty in receiving the information despite the translator and they have different system and using different approach and management which we couldn’t understand. They were so interested in teaching us and there were assign professors only for us. The pediatric rotation was better and more organized we benefit from it. Their hospitals are old. They have strict antiseptic technique especially in surgery, in the word we should wear operation suit with slipper covered by piece of cloths. In other department we should always wear a hat and slipper. They gave us certificate for all the rotations we did. We have met the head of the Tashkent Medical Institute and all the heads of the departments we rotated in. This doctor is assistant professor of peadiatric. All we were wearing slipper. 9
Cost: We didn’t spend a lot of many in Uzbekistan. The Tashkent Medical Institute give us 200,000 sum which about 45 OR. The accommodation and the transportation were provided for us. Therefore we have spend about 200 OR. The tickets was quite expensive 525 OR on Turkish Airline. Others: ‐ Regarding the language of teaching in Uzbekistan, they said to us that the language is English. When we arrive there the supervisor said to us that the studying languages are Uzbek and Russian. ‐ Uzbekistan visa was very big problem for us. They sent them to KSA embassy before one week of our travel. We couldn’t bring them from there, because they will take more than one week to arrive to Oman. We asked them again to send them to the Abu Dhabi embassy, so we went there but still not arrive and we stay in ALBuraimi for that night. Next day they sent them and that day was the day before departure. It was real headache. Conclusion: Uzbekistan is very beautiful country they are very interested in receiving more Omani students, but it is very difficult to live there despite the kindness of Uzbeks. 10