للا يوجد شيء إلا بعد المشقة راحة
There is nothing after hardship except repose.
After a storm comes a calm.
from “Apricots Tomorrow” by Primrose Arnander
It’s October, Think Pink
10 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: art exhibits, Think Pink Bahrain, World Beat Fitness, yoga
Just because I’ve had my eyes focused on the computer screen doesn’t mean things aren’t happening on this island.
The big Think Pink Gala has been postponed this year. Hmmm. But there are other events to attend to help raise money for a MRI at the government hospital. Early detection of breast cancer does not seem to be a priority. It took a female, expat nurse to create this initiative seven years ago. Two-thirds of the 600,000BD needed have been raised so far.
Thursday October 11th is the Open Fitness Day at World Beat Center from 9-1. Tickets are 10BD and can be purchased today or tomorrow.
Then Marwa Rashid Al Khalifa’s Exhibit will be opening on Saturday October 13 from 4-6pm at World Beat Center. All proceeds from the sales will be donated to Think Pink.
One good thing about yoga is I am much more aware of the havoc sitting at a desk for hours does to my body. Daily exercise is critical. Yoga has really helped me strengthen my core, lengthen my spine and build deep muscles. Yesterday, Yogini Virginie’s encouragement got me into the wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana) AND the peacock shoulder stand (Pincha Mayurasana).
Plate 357 is 48-year old B.K.S. Iyengar doing the peacock shoulder stand.
Plate 358 – that’s just showing off.
Check out World Beat’s new website. If the yoginis and the other women at World Beat can get me whipped into shape in a few short months, there is hope for anyone.
A Saudi Cocktail
03 Oct 2012 8 Comments
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, driving in a foreign country, safe driving tips, Saudi Arabia
A run into Saudi to renew my visa starts with a tense breakfast. The tension only diminishes when we see the Bahraini shore.
As my mere black-enveloped presence in the Immigration Office might cause a riot, Mojo drops me off at my place of choice while he takes care of business.
I used to wait at a nearby Starbucks and read, but two trips before a mutawa, a religious “policeman”, knocked on the locked door during prayer. A lone man, he marched into the family section to berate the Saudi women who were not praying and who allowed their scarves to slide off their hair. He did not speak to me but he scolded the baristas. The last visit the staff kicked me out during prayer. I stood outside sweating after they locked the doors.
Driving in Saudi Arabia is not known to be a relaxing experience. An everyday commute is more like a NASCAR race than the jammed, but orderly, Los Angeles freeways. The constant vigil for sober drivers in the right lane deciding to take a left turn in front of you to chase down women on the other side of the three lane highway combined with road construction are the first ingredients for a Saudi Cocktail.
After an hour of sipping that cocktail, even the most agreeable couples explode.
Running late as usual meant we arrived an hour before mid-morning prayer. The Dhahran/Khobar road was under construction in both directions without any exits or signs. After driving twenty minutes in a circle that took us no where, Mojo shouted.
“Just drop me off at the Dhahran Mall,” I shouted back unable to stand the tension any longer.
He did only to find his ten-minute drive took seventy-five minutes due to a three car collision. When I got his first text that he had just arrived I had barely walked halfway around the huge mall. As I rounded Gate 9, prayer was called and all the businesses shut down. I sat down and there across the aisle was the newly opened Pottery Barn. Ah – a taste of home.
After prayer I rushed over to buy picture frames before Mojo showed up. I was the only woman in a store with ten male salesmen who did not know the merchandise and one old Bangladeshi man who had the unenviable job of dusting the thousands of glass items on display. I knew exactly what I wanted. I walked through the store and discovered Thanksgiving turkey dishes I would never find again. Finally I found the gallery frames way in the back behind the rugs.
Loading my items on the counter, I got another text.
“Eight guys ahead of me. What are you doing?”
“Pottery Barn opened here.”
“Uh oh” was his response.
I still had time.
I raced to see the king-sized sheets.
Another text.
“Three guys ahead of me. Officer decided to take a break.”
Still more time. I circled around again and discovered even more things I never knew we needed. Thirty-seven items in eight shopping bags later, I got the final text.
“On way, meet you at Gate 3.”
“Sorry,” I texted back, “ you MUST meet me at Gate 9. I have too much stuff.”
He pulled up and the man with the trolley loaded the trunk. As Mojo complained about his experience all the way home, we got to the middle of the causeway where immigration and customs met.
Still on the Saudi side, I pointed out the line with only one car but the immigration officer’s window would be on my side, the passenger side.
“You are willing to hand him the passports?” Mojo asked.
“Sure,” I said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
As I rolled down my window, Mojo reached across me and handed the passports over to the young uniformed man.
“I didn’t want to insult him,” he whispered.
Just breathe, I said to myself. I omitted the OM in case that might insult someone.
On the Bahrain side, 75% of the customs lanes were closed as they did something to the roads. Like a herd of cattle being prodded with electric pokers, all the beeping cars funneled into the two open lanes. Thinking of the trunk full of packages, I decided it was time to lift my sunglasses and wave to the customs officer when he bent over to tell Mojo to pop the trunk.
Mojo got out to review my purchases with the officer. It did not take any time at all.
“Funny,” Mojo said. “I remember you saying just this morning before we left how you were not going to buy anything. You want to be able to walk away from everything we have. And now you bought all this stuff.”
“That was before you screamed at me.”
“I screamed at you? I didn’t scream at you. I was screaming in frustration.”
“But I was the only one in the car….”
And that’s how our outing across the bridge ended – with a Saudi cocktail.
Speaking of Tim Mackintosh-Smith
12 Sep 2012 2 Comments
in Food for the Mind - Books, Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, Famous Arabs, famous explorers, Ibn Battuta, LA Fontaine Center for Contemporary Art, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, travel, Travels with a Tangerine, Yemen
Fatima Ali Raza, the owner of La Fontaine Center for Contemporary Art, invited me for dinner. As we ate under the moon, she asked me,
“You know Ibn Battuta don’t you,” she began. Her eyes sparkled.
Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battutua, the name echoed in my brain. However, no thoughts came to mind.
“No,” I admitted.
“Ibn Battuta was an Arab explorer. He traveled from Tangier to China and covered more parts of the world than Marco Polo. So many people do not know who he is. And do you know who I have coming to La Fontaine?”
“Ibn Battuta’s ghost?”
She paused, “Tim Mackintosh-Smith, the expert on Ibn Battuta.”
Now it registered.
At the 2011 Dubai Literary Festival, my friends, Deborah and Maeve, went to his lecture. The British Mackintosh-Smith is an Arabist living in Yemen. He is the go-to man for anything about Yemen – and Ibn Battuta.
Mackintosh-Smith literally re-traced Ibn Battuta’s footsteps around the world. Then he condensed the 14th century traveler’s thirty years of travel into a trilogy. Travels with a Tangerine, the first in the series, made it to the best sellers list.
“For three years I have been inviting Mackintosh-Smith to Bahrain. And he finally accepted. He will be coming in November. We are planning to offer several workshops over the three days he is here, both in Arabic and English,” Fatima announced triumphantly.
“That’s fantastic,” I said. “Now I know what to suggest to my book club.”
“But don’t read all of his books. I am ordering some for the event.”
I decided to see how well-known Ibn Battuta was. I posed the question to Mojo who corrects my American history mistakes.
“If I say Ibn Battuta what comes to your mind?” I asked him.
“The Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai.”
“Have I got a gift for you.”
Get ready for this November event at La Fontaine by reading Tim Mackintosh-Smith’s Travels with a Tangerine.
La Fontaine Center for Contemporary Art is featured in The Best of Bahrain vol. 2 which is being launched this Saturday, September 15th, 2012.
The Julia Club
06 Sep 2012 6 Comments
in Food for the Mind - Books, Island Tales - Expatriate Living, The Most Interesting Roosters - People Tags: Books, cassoulet, Dearie, Hampton Court Palace, Julia Child, Julia Stuart, The Pigeon PIe Mystery, The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise, Tourism, Tower of London
Finishing the 500-odd paged Dearie I started thinking about how French cooking changed the lives of authors Julia Stuart and Julia Child.
Classic French dishes were the inspiration for their first books: sole meuniere for Julia Child and a haricot bean and meat cassoulet for Julia Stuart.
In Stuart’s The Matchmaker of Perigord the story starts describing a son’s devotion to his mother’s thirty-one year cassoulet and its crucial element: a preserved duck leg. So important was his mother’s recipe that a village feud started over a cassoulet’s proper ingredients.
‘Monsieur Moreau,’ she began. ‘Forgive me, but it is a matter of utmost importance and a true Frenchman such as yourself will know the definitive answer. Should a cassoulet have tomatoes in it or not?’
According to Dearie, co-Authors Julia and Simone Beck, aka Simca, nearly came to blows over the proper cassoulet for Mastering the Art of French Cooking. They tried twenty-eight recipes with and without goose before agreeing on the final version – which did NOT call for tomatoes.
In Stuart’s The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise, the Tower ravens ate the tail of Beefeater Balthazar Jones’ 181-year old tortoise for lunch. Although the famous ravens ate it raw, right off Mrs. Cook’s fleshy backside, Julia Child suggested adding mustard and grating a little cheese to enhance steak tartare.
Stuart’s most recent book, The Pigeon Pie Mystery is about an Indian cook who uses a 1897 recipe for pigeon pie. Her problem began after she altered the instructions. Instead of carving innocuous leaves into the pastry’s top, she garnished the pie with three bird legs pointing towards the sky ensuring it was eaten by the Major-General Bagshot.
Roasted pigeon was the first Cordon Bleu dish Julia Child served to her husband, Paul. And it was one of the first dinners she prepared that didn’t nearly kill him.
There are other similarities between Julia Child and Julia Stuart.
Both women were “trailing spouses” who followed their husbands overseas.
Neither Julia aspired to be an Expat Houswife. Without ever having written a book, both women fearlessly changed her business card to Author and devoted eight-hours a day to her new-found passion.
When Julia Stuart asked English authorities for permission to do research at the Tower of London, they denied her access.
Disguising herself as a Tourist, she took another route to research English ghosts like Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury,
“who was chased by a hacking axe man after his first blow failed to remove her head.”
After interviewing Beefeaters, Stuart incorporated the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace apartments into her story then filled them with eccentric characters. Her clandestine research made English history interesting – especially for Americans. Today the English edition of her book, Balthazar Jones and the Tower Zoo can be purchased in the Tower of London’s gift shop.
Julia Child succeeded despite the famous stand-off with Madame Bressard.
After passing her Cordon Bleu exam she went out, and with her French allies Simca, Louisette Bertholle, met every famous French cook. Together they gathered their secret recipes then tested each one for Mastering the Art of French Cooking, converting the French measurements into something useable for American housewives. Fifty years later, the cookbook continues to sell to new generations of cooks.
Neither Julia is or was a professional actress but on camera their breathless enthusiasm and laughter makes me want to join in on their fun – whether cooking, visiting places or meeting people that inspired them.
Even if my mother did not name me Julia, I will join their club – the club of women who get lost in the maze of their dreams and persevere until they eventually and successfully find a way out.
Julia Stuart’s video tour of Hampton Court can be seen on YouTUBE.
While in London we missed Hampton Court but spent a beautiful afternoon at Kensington Palace. Julia promised me she would show us around the next time we visited London.
Getting Ready for the New Chapter
04 Sep 2012 Leave a comment
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, culture, expatriot living, fashion, travel, women in the Middle East
November 14th will be the start of the new Islamic year; January 1st for the West; the Chinese Year of the Snake in February; but September 1st is the first day of my new year.
The end of summer vacation signals the final chapter of a yearlong story.
September begins with a week-long adjustment to the eleven hour time difference. Between naps, suitcases are unpacked, name tags ironed into new uniforms, emails are returned, the annual closet cleaning takes place and, if I am lucky, the mess on my desk disappears.
Among the books and papers, a copy of SAYIDATY, Saudi Arabia’s Vogue equivalent, lay buried.
Thumbing through the pages, I remembered reading the magazine back in the summer of 2008. As I poured over the celebrities and fashion exposes, I noticed EVERYONE was wearing leggings. Even Dior’s Barbie-doll models wore them on the runways.
Silly me – for a moment I forgot where I was.
The women were not wearing leggings; the editors were self-censoring and had photoshopped the offending appendages, covering them in black.
What a change. “Before”, every magazine that arrived in the kingdom was reviewed by a legion of men with black markers. Photos of women used to look like this:
Or the page was completely ripped out.
The fact that photos of women with “leggings” and bare arms are allowed is progress.
Shway, shway – slowly, slowly – as we say.
Today I prayed “Please God, Continue to Bless Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, with good health and wise leadership.”
The Old Kangaroo Route
06 Jul 2012 Leave a comment
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, Bahrain tourism, Kangaroo Route, Pearling Industry, travel, UNESCO Heritage Sites
“I’m forwarding my Bahrain tourism article published in The Australian today,” the former Bahrain-resident and ancient history scholar wrote to me.
Deborah Hope’s The Keys to the Kingdom highlights why a Middle East Tourist should follow the the Kassite kings’ and Hormuz Princes’ examples and take at least two days to stop in Bahrain.
While Deborah lived here, she not only studied the ancient archeological sites at Sar and Barbar but she was part of the team who wrote Bahrain’s application to UNESCO for its “Pearling Heritage” in Muharraq.
On Saturday, the same day the article was published, Sheikha Mai was in St. Petersburg for the UNESCO announcement that Bahrain’s Pearling Heritage corridor had been added to the World Heritage List.
The irony was I read Deborah’s article on my Iphone while sitting in my car.
I was stuck for an hour and a half in a huge traffic jam as the blue-flashing lights of the police and civil defense vehicles maneuvered through cars to put out the fire set across the freeway. Much of the delay was caused by drivers who tried to push their way to the front by driving on the shoulder, leaving no space at all for the emergency vehicles.
Deborah did mention that during the evenings a visitor would be wise to avoid Budaiya Highway as it is the area where many demonstrations take place. I will add that the last week around 8pm the Northwest area of the island, after the Yum-Yum Tree Roundabout in Mahooz and just after the Geant/Seef Mall area just before Karranah, was plagued with fires across the highways.
At least they follow a schedule.
A big Shout-Out to these Queens of Bahraini History, Architecture and Culture for their hard work. With time, the positive voices will drown out the negative ones.
Tales of Dragons, Rabbits and Roosters 