Ramblings of a White Girl

You can tell some time has gone by in a foreign country when you are sitting drinking coffee and a Caucasian person walks by and you think, “WOAH! It’s a white person!” I reflected on that for a second and thought about how funny that sounded coming from a tall blonde haired, blue eyed girl who sticks out like a sore thumb.

Bahrain is back in full swing now that Ramadan is over. The implications of that are as a whole, amusing, exciting and annoyingly frustrating. We’ll start with the frustration – TRAFFIC. My word, I have never seen such bad traffic. Yes, the driving is horrendous as well but the traffic is just crazy here! It can take an hour to get what should take 10-15 minutes…every day! I actually had my first moment a couple of days ago that would be what I would call the closest thing to culture shock feelings that I have had.

To give a brief background from me and how I do away from home: I was the kid who went to summer camp or on a trip away from home and cried the last day or two, not because I missed home and my dog but because I had to leave and go home. I have always loved travel – was fascinated with airports and LOVED going to pick up and drop off my dad when he traveled. I have dreamed of being abroad for a long time since middle school and want to get my masters in cultural anthropology and be multi-lingual. SO I was not really anticipating culture shock and really have 95% of the time loved it here and enjoyed my experiences greatly.

The other day though….it was a bit of a long week last week going back to school and trying to get caught up on all of the grading…oh yeah, grading a lot of plagiarized essays….I had lacked sleep and was ready for the weekend. I had a hair appointment right after school and had to go a little way to get there – ideally and in a normal setting, this should have taken maybe 20 minutes to get to the location. Reality: 45. Not SO bad. Well, then I came home and because of construction, the path to get home changed and I did not know this. SO I spend and hour and a half coming home and sitting in traffic when it should have taken me maybe 45 minutes. Too bad traffic lights aren’t synced so that you can have a normal traffic flow to life. Frustrated? Yes. THEN to top it off, I went to visit some friends later in the evening. Missed the exit as I had not gone that way before and so I try getting off at the next exit and turn around but OH…you cannot do that here often!!!! Sure you can to u-turns wherever on regular roads but not the highway. So I get lost yet again trying to navigate back and there is no logic to the roads, few road signs and names – people don’t really use them anyway.

What do to as my internal frustration radar is maxed out after a long day, being lost three times and wasting time in traffic (some of my least favorite things)? Call mom….so I did. And she let me rant about dumb roads that don’t connect to highways or even allow you to go around the block and dumb lights that don’t work together so you can actually go somewhere in a decent time, no road signs, dumb traffic and feeling like I live in a backwards place (obviously my perception is a little off at this point). Shed a couple tears that are rare for me, take some deep breaths, apologize later for the rant. Yes, my mom is the best. And that is my story of what I think is the closest I will come to feeling the culture shock or whatever it is one “feels” when frustrated abroad. As you can tell, patience in traffic is one of my greatest virtues….

The amusing – Hearing students interact with their Arabish…(the Middle East version of the world Spanglish) they will talk and fluidly weave English in and out of their Arabic conversations – even within one sentence.

Also amusing – the perspective of education from some parents and students at my school: “You need to be their friend and be easy to make them like you so that they like the class.” “Teacher, you gave us TWO homeworks today!!!” Life is hard. VERY hard.

The exciting: this would compromise the majority of my view of Bahrain in her “normal” state. I love seeing all of the people out and just watching them function in every day life, from the. Lots of things start up at this time, one being Arabic classes! I will be starting Arabic this week 

I really like exploring the city and hopefully soon more of the country. Some of my hopeful future endeavors:
- Four-wheeling in the desert
- Camping in the desert
- Boating with the dolphins
- Boating in general – MAYBE wakeboarding 
- Kitesurfing???
- Running a race!!!

One note about Ramadan: it is MUCH easier to stay on a budget for eating out during Ramadan. I ate out one time during that month, maybe twice. Since then…well, my top fifteen food list has greatly diversified :D

Top 15 Food Update:
1. Hummous and the bread they serve with it
2. Calve Peanut Butter
3. Moussy Drinks (raspberry is the best)
4. Turkish food
5. Halloumi Cheese
6. Weetabix
7. Mango-orange juice
8. Kofta
9. Shwarma
10. Curry anything
11. Chocolate milk here – cannot describe the level of amazing to you
12. Egyptian food……wow
13. Calve Peanut Butter
14. Samosas
15. Baklava-like pastries