Chapter 4: Hello From Bahrain

Here I am again!

In the beginning, I only intended to write an update once, every couple of months. I’ve been told that some of you actually read these and want me to write more often. So, I’ll try to do better in the future.

Danny and I are doing great but Winston has an eye infection. I guess it’s due to sand and dry weather.  I went on my diet last month. It seems all that great bread and pasta in Sicily, the food delivered to the hotel here, and all the parties have added up to quite a few pounds. Now I will have to suffer for months to get into the clothes I brought over here with me.

February 21st
My neighbor Charlotte took me to the Bahraini National Museum. We were there nearly four hours. It’s in a very modern building but the majority of the contents are ancient. I enjoyed every exhibit but was mostly fascinated with the recreation of their ancient burial grounds.  This exhibit had a room of it’s own. They didn’t use coffins and the burial hole was shallow.  They were covered with these great mounds of large stones piled in the shape of a pyramid. They buried people on their right side and in the fetal position. Like the Egyptians, they buried items with them to use in their next life. Some of these mounds were quite high. I would guess that some are 8 or 9 feet high.  Sometimes whole families would share one burial mound. This was done in their Dilmun period, 2000BC. A’Ali Village is where these mounds are still located. Houses are built all in between them. The Tylo period was when Alexander The Great invaded them. The Greeks left an impact on them and changed the way they buried their dead. They are now placed on their backs.

At this Museum they had one room that told of their lives from birth. They also showed their family life. When pregnant, the women would go to her father’s house to deliver her baby. If it was a boy, the umbilical cord would be buried at the Mosque, and for the girl it would be the kitchen. (I’m assuming outside the kitchen.) After forty days all the female members of the family would carry mother and child back to her home, to her husband. The children would go to school to learn the “Holy Quran”. From what I gather this would be their complete education. The grandfather usually would be the person to pick out mates for marriage and sometimes it could be cousins. (Maybe this is what is wrong with Saddam Hussein.)

The vases in this museum date as far back as to the 13th century. They are beautiful and so well preserved. Well as you can see I could write for hours on this one museum.

February 28th
Charlotte took Pam, her daughter Sarah, and me to see the “Jasra House”. It was built in 1907 and was the birthplace of the present “Amir” (this is the head of the country-sort of like a king). This house was used before OIL was discovered in 1931. It has no electricity and has several small rooms built along the square stone enclosure. The beds are so small that they remind me of a child’s bed. I was sort of disappointed in this place since I assumed I was going to see a palace.  We sat on benches while we were waiting our turn to go in and out of nowhere came about fifteen to twenty teenage school girls (they had on uniforms) who surrounded us. They were all giggling and trying to communicate with us. Some did speak a little English. They asked if we were Americans and of course we all said yes. I starting asking if they where Bahraini. It turned out that they were from a lot of different countries. There was even one girl from Baghdad, Iraq. When we were leaving them to go inside for our tour, they all had to shake our hands and acted sad that we were going.

The same day we all went to the “Heritage Center,” that some call “The Pearl Museum” They have a courtroom here they actually used before their modern day one was built. The museum had lots of different rooms such as a music room, wedding room, toy room, weapon room, a receiving room for men and one for women. Having separate living rooms seems to be the norm here.

Well, enough of history. I hope this wasn’t too boring.

They are building houses, apartment buildings, and offices all over this Island but they are far behind in their roadwork. They still have too many dirt(sand) roads.

Roundabouts are a big thing here and they have names for them.  Some include The Pearl (statue of a devise holding a huge pearl), Burgerland (by a Burgerland restaurant) and Dairy Queen (you guessed it, next to a Dairy Queen), to name just a few. Jacksonville residents make sure the City Planners don’t put any in our city. THEY ARE DANGEROUS! The ones that we saw in France usually consisted of one lane and were quite safe, unlike the ones here with three to four lanes and unsafe.

They don’t have regular street signs like we do with names. These are only on the main roads. They use numbers and don’t post them. This was so confusing for me at first, but now I’ve adjusted to knowing where places are by the landmarks.

The majority of the businesses here close between 1pm to 4pm. Danny thinks this is because of the heat since it is worse during those hours. Whatever the reason, it has messed my days up quite often since it’s so hard to get use too. Speaking of days, Bahrain has it’s weekend on Thursday and Friday and the base use to do the same. This interfered with the Admiral’s business (it’s what I’ve been told) on the weekend with people in the States so he decided to have the base’s weekend be Friday & Saturday. Confusing? Yes it is!

The grocery stores usually stay open all day and so do the cold stores (their convenient stores). I shop at two grocery stores on the outside of the base.  They are Jawad (like Publix) and Al Jazira (like Winn Dixie).  I have what they call Loyalty cards with both of them. With these cards you accumulate points which will give you money off of your food bill. I also have a card for my pharmacy but this card gives me ten percent off every purchase.

Malls are hangouts here too but not just for teenagers. The entire family goes there for a night out.

Well we finally got Armed Forces Network television or AFN TV for short. We got it last month.  Now I can watch my soap (Guiding Light) and don’t need for my daughter Kim to tape and mail them to me. This also allows us to see the regular news and a few American shows.

Here’s a funny tidbit I forgot to tell you in the other updates. Before Christmas, Nancy and I were out shopping at this large discount center. While looking at clothing, Nancy started laughing. Of course, I had to see what was so funny to her. It seems there were a pair of lady’s slacks with a price tag that had WAL~MART on it. And the price was American, $29.99, not dinars. By the way Nancy just found out last week that she is two months pregnant so we will have a new addition to our Bahraini group. We are all hoping for a girl except for Christopher who wants a little brother.

At the base we have all the branches of the services but the navy is in the majority and the uniforms are the desert storm kind. The guards wear full gear and either are carrying rifles or they are riding around the base in tanks.  This was an unusual sight for me when we first arrived but now it seems so normal.

I forgot to tell all you Jaguar fans that the Jaguar cheerleaders were at the base Jan.17th.

The smoke detectors are the best in the world in this house.  It seems every time I try to fry anything it goes off and won’t shut off until I have both the vent over the stove and the one over the window on for a couple minutes. This drives me nuts!!!!!

We are starting “Eid Al Adha holiday” (Eid for short) today and it lasts for three days. They have Eid several times a year but each with a different name. They are holy days to the Moslems.

Now I want to ask all of you out there to say a prayer for Ronald Anthony, he is the brother of my friends, Maggie and Mary. Ronnie has cancer and it’s very serious.  They lost their younger sister to cancer six years ago, around the same time that I lost my brother. Also say one for John Rowland. He’