Reception Hands to Year 6 Batiks
05 Jun 2012 1 Comment
in Eye Candy - Art, Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Art, Bahrain, batiks, hands, St Christopher's School
St Christopher’s Art
03 Jun 2012 1 Comment
in Eye Candy - Art, Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Art, Bahrain, Children, End of the Year, Exhibits, Oliver, private schools, St Christopher's School
To Erin for Writing Her Name
St Christopher’s School ends the year highlighting the children’s achievements. Although academics are stressed, every child is encouraged to explore and pursue another talent whether in music, art, drama or sports.
This year’s Junior School Art Exhibit is outstanding. I was impressed by the innovative projects which still allowed the children to do the work themselves. The work is displayed so every child made a contribution. And the pieces are hung with a professional eye.
It is a wonderful exhibit. If you are in Sar, it is worth it to stop in and see it.
The Junior School’s production of Oliver is coming up June 25 and 26.
Save A Camel’s Life
01 Jun 2012 6 Comments
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, carbon footprint, desert, desert camping, environment, middle east, saving resources, surviving in the desert
The Ministry of Electricity and Water decorates our bills with helpful hints. However, this month’s suggestion to “Save Electricity and Water , Save LIFE” stumped me for a few moments.
The electrical outlet for the fish tank’s air supply was intentionally included in the drawing. Hmmm.
If we reduce the fish’ water and air, we would kill them, not save their lives. Is MEW implying that fish tanks are a useless waste of water and electricity?
On the envelope’s opposite side is a wonderful drawing of modern Bahrainis getting back to nature during camping season. While enjoying life in the countryside, and without leaving their tents, they can pay their electricity bill from their mobile phone or laptop.
As the drawing shows, unlike their ancestors who had to put up with the desert’s heat and lack of water, modern men can enjoy desert without suffering its inconveniences. The traditional fabric tent’s interior is equipped with electric lighting, air conditioning and running water. Even sand in your pant is no longer a problem because everyone sits on sofas.
Save a LIFE. Of course!
They want to save camels’ lives by ridding them of their burdens. Instead of a camel, it is much better to use a sport-utility vehicle to haul all that equipment out to the campsites around the Tree of Life.
And do not take your fish to camp. They should left at home – where they belong.
Where Do You Find Peace In This World?
27 May 2012 4 Comments
in Healing - Self and the Earth, Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, conflict, graffiti, hope, middle east, peace, photography
Driving through a village I saw this on the wall. It gave me hope.
You shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
– Jeremiah
Haj Harmony
24 May 2012 2 Comments
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Art, Bahrain, Fareed Ayaz, Jamshid Bayrami, LA Fontaine Center for Contemporary Art, music, Qawwali, Sufism, xerxes art
Touch the Marble by Jamshid Bayrami
“Mysticism and poetry have always been important elements in Islamic cultures. This has been the case throughout the centuries. The Muslim world is not composed of a single color. And it is not static at all. It is a tapestry of multiple colors and patterns.
Sufism is not an ancient, bygone heritage. It is a living, breathing philosophy of life. It is applicable to the modern day. It teaches us to look within and transform ourselves, to diminish our egos. There are more and more people, especially women, artists, musicians and so on, who are deeply interested in this culture.” – Elif Shafak, author of The Forty Rules of Love.
Fareed Ayaz and his eight member party will be performing a Qawwali concert to open the Jamshid Bayrami exhibit at La Fontaine.
Listening to the hypnotic songs which typically last from fifteen to thirty minutes may be a new experience for the modern pop music listener, but Qawwali music is not new. It is a 600-year old Sufi devotional music.
In the West, the best known Qawwali musician was the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Peter Gabriel’s Real World label released five albums of his music. In film, his contributions were included in The Last Temptation of Christ, Natural Born Killers, and Eat, Pray, Love. Since the 1997 death of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Fareed Ayaz’s party has continued to spread Qawwali music worldwide, winning numerous awards and playing for global audiences.
Fareed Ayaz’s eight member party comes to Bahrain under the support of the Paris-based Theatre de la Ville.
Theatre de la Ville “finds beauty in the Surrealists”. The theater’s aim is
“not to run away from the world and find refuge in dreams, not even for a second; it is rather to go to the theater to try on a new vision of things, to open up to events or experiences beyond the norm.”
Through Theatre de la Ville’s long list of Pakistani, Indian and African performers, Western audiences have been introduced to new norms.
The concert is in conjunction with the opening of Iranian photographer Jamshid Bayrami’s exhibit, Haj Harmony. A photojournalist, Bayrami has covered the Iran-Iraq war and Middle East politics for The Economist, Time, and Agence France Presse. He won the Grand Prize at the Fajr Festival and a UNESCO World Prize for photography. He is represented by the London gallery Xerxes Art.
The exhibit opening and concert will be this Friday, May 25th at 7pm at La Fontaine Center for Contemporary Art. The exhibition and concert will be 25bd and if you include dinner around the fountain, the cost is 35bd.
Ferrari Red
16 May 2012 1 Comment
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, cowboy hat, fashion, Ferrari red, Kurt Andersen, Rolls Royce, style, thobe, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair writer Kurt Anderson argued the appearance of the world has hardly changed at all over the past two decades. One reason is before the 1990s, factories were smaller and each decade’s goods had a distinct iconic style. Over the past twenty years, businesses have invested in huge factories and production lines that are continually put at risk if consumer tastes change radically.
To be unique requires handcrafting.
On a small island like Bahrain, wherever you go, you will see at least three people you know. Stylish people strive to be different. Many design their own clothing and have the village tailor stitch it up. And the million-dollar home owner can easily pimp his car at the auto shop next door.
Yet even stylish Bahrainis are not immune from the global corporate-style culture.
Only in Bahrain have I seen a hand-crafted, Ferrari Red
silk cowboy hat,
thobe and
Another Pomegranate Noir Story
09 May 2012 2 Comments
in Island Tales - Expatriate Living Tags: Bahrain, expatriate living, good-bye, Melissa Van Maasdyk, pomegranate noir, Robin Barratt, summer vacation, travel
June begins the summer exodus. People fly to other continents to escape the summer heat. The school year over, military and expatriate families bid farewell as they move onto their next work assignment. May is the month for good-bye parties.
It started with my friend author Melissa van Maasdyk. She and her husband Glenn are off to Canada for a new life adventure.
Uncertain what exactly they will be doing, at their good-bye dinner we toasted to “future travels,” “a new beginning in Canada, Uruguay or Panama” and “until we meet again.” To the very end, Melissa lingered with me and her friend Reem, standing in the parking lot, saying good-bye until Glenn gently reminded her they had to catch their plane.
Another blow was the sad news that after successfully launching the Bahrain Writer’s Circle and editing My Beautiful Bahrain, Robin Barratt’s wife got a new job outside of Bahrain. Soon he will leave to start fresh somewhere else.
His Navy father’s three year stint complete, our baseball team’s star pitcher’s family is moving to some new secret location.
One of the baseball coaches, a teacher and our martial arts trainer, is taking his family back to Washington state to teach at a new school there.
By June 9th my yoga training will be complete. My teacher, her philosophic husband and a fellow yogini are headed back to their respective countries.
As Bahrain’s future remains uncertain, two ladies from my sculpting class are headed back to Europe. Several fathers of the children’s school mates and one of sculpture class buddies have been transferred to Dubai where the grass is definitely greener.
And after eight years in the Junior school, Ace and Mark are graduating and following their sister to the Senior school. No more chauffeuring for me, they will take a bus to school.
Another tearful, hopeful time.
Tales of Dragons, Rabbits and Roosters 