Chapter Three

I’m Back!

Manama is the capital of Bahrain and we live in Juffair which is an area of Manama. We chose our house because of it’s location. We are near the base and this allows Danny to ride his bike to work and I keep the truck. This was his idea.

Homes in Juffair are overpriced because of their location and we were lucky we qualified for this house. We are allotted a certain amount of money from the government for rent since there is no on base housing.

Our house is smaller than most, but is still larger than we need. We have a living room, kitchen, dining room, two and a half baths, den, and three bedrooms. Our master bedroom is the largest room in the house. It’s eighteen feet & nine inches by twenty feet & one inch. Our king size bed and other furniture look lost in this room.

We have three bay windows. The bay windows in our bedroom and den have seats but the one in the living does not.

Since our house was designed by an American, we have lots of closets. Bahrainis use wardrobes and have no closets in their homes. The floors are part marble and part carpet in the living room and den. The dining room and bedrooms are all carpet. The kitchen and the baths are (HARD TO KEEP CLEAN-WHITE) tile.

We have a washroom and carport. We have an American washer and dryer, this was a must since some of theirs are so small, they look like child’s toys.

There are air conditioners in every room except for the bathrooms. Our walls are cement and this made it extremely hard to hang our pictures and mirrors. We ended up having to do quite a bit of patching up.

We have a water cooler (hot & cold) in our kitchen. You can't drink from the faucets here. I don’t even use it for cooking. They call the drinking water, “sweet water”. I  have no idea where that came from.

Our newspaper, “The Gulf Daily News” is delivered every morning and placed in our front door handle. It’s that small. We get the English written version. I can go through this paper in fifteen minutes and then I attempt to work the crossword puzzle. It's British so it’s almost impossible, I guess it’s a translation problem. But I WILL complete one before I leave this country.

February 15th the Bahraini people voted for a “National Action Charter” and from what I gather this is a step forward to a more free society. At least, that’s what it said in the paper. This was the FIRST time the women were allowed to vote.

We use American currency on the base and Bahraini dinar and fils on the outside. I keep them separated in two different  holders (wallet & changepurse). This keeps me from making too many mistakes. They pay with cash here. I have yet to see anyone write a check or use a credit card or debitcard other than us Americans.

As I’m writing this, the Indian workers are spraying outside for bugs or “whatever”. Actually, I should say blowing since they are using something that looks like a blower that you blow leaves off of your driveway with. I’m starting to smell it inside here and I hope Winnie and I don’t get sick from that poison.

We have a phone in our house but it’s main purpose is for us to have the Internet. We both have mobile(CELL) phones. Danny’s is furnished by the Gov’t for his work. Mine is paid by us. I buy a card that cost ten dinars and it will last for two months. I rarely use mine. It was Dan’s idea and I didn’t see the benefit in me having one since I don’t work. Now I’m glad I have it in case of an accident (I did tell you how bad they drive here) and if the truck were to break down.

Talk about driving, it’s like being on a race track with some of the world’s worst drivers. It would take me over an hour to tell you some of the things they do on the roads so I’ll save that for another update. They love to “TOOT” their horns so much. I’m beginning to think it’s a requirement to get their licenses. They must drive with one hand on the horn ready to fire away at any and all they seem annoyed with.

We do not pump our gas here which has spoiled me. The gas is so cheap. It’s less than a dollar a gallon. Of course, they don’t use our measurement system here. They use the metric system of grams and kilograms  This is confusing to me, just like the miles are meters. Thank God the truck has both on the dashboard or I wouldn’t have a clue with following the speed limits.

Wednesday I will be going to some museums with my neighbor Charlotte and hope to learn more about this country. I will write about what I learn.

We ordered a camera over the Internet so we can send pictures instantly now. Angie will be putting some on this page as we send them to her.

More to come…………….


Sylvia