Internet Connection and Bahraini Culture

I have internet connection!  This is exciting for a few reasons.  First, having internet means that my CPR card, the card which officially allows me to live in the country, has arrived! :-D  (I couldn't get internet without it)  Second, I can now keep this blog and you, my readers, up to date on life in Bahrain.  Third, well, it's just great to have internet that is not temporary and borrowed!

I cannot believe it is already November.  Last night's and today's weather heralded the change of seasons by doing something every Bahraini and expat loves - it rained!!  A downpour!  The weather in general is finally cooling off, the skies are becoming clear, and the air fresh.  Winter here is like fall in California and it is quite lovely.

Now, let me tell you about America, I mean Bahrain.  

In many ways Bahrain is one of the strangest places I've ever lived in.  This strangeness is not owing to it's foreign-ness, but rather its degree of familiarity.  When I first stepped off the plane, this small island held all the aspects of any foreign home - a different language, new customs, transportation difficulties, new people, and very little with which I could compare to something familiar.  However, the longer I live here, the stranger this place becomes, not because of its initial overwhelming feeling of being foreign, but because of its growing sense of familiarity.

Let's start with the grocery stores and my first general surprise.  The stores here are huge.  Not Super Walmart huge, but HUGE, most being two stories or more (and are quite aptly called "Hypermarkets").  The first floor contains several eateries, all of which m y readers will recognize - Papa John's Pizza, Burger King, Krispy Kream Donuts, and Subway!  The second floor contains the "grocery" section which includes everything from fresh baked bread to a fish market.  They have peaches flown in from Georgia, oranges from Florida, Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Burtolli Pasta Sauce, Dryers Ice Cream, and Coco Puffs cereal.  The only American thing I've come to realize they don't have (and wish they do) is Cheez-its.  The third floor contains anything else you could possibly want from refrigerators to laptops to designer saris for the Indian ladies to clothing for the whole family.  Needless to say, the first time a coworker took me to get groceries, I was blown away!

But my shock did not end there.  It continued to grow the minute I stepped into one of Bahrain's many malls.  As with the grocery stores, the malls are big and left me wondering where in the world I was.  In one mall I could get Louis Vuitton purses, Sax Fifth Avenue items, gold and diamond jewelry that cost a fortune, Mac makeup, chocolate that was flown in from Paris, all of my groceries at the attached Hypermarket,  laptop computers, internet and cellphone connection, items I could buy in the outdoor market (without the bargaining power), coffee from a local café or Starbucks, have a snack at Pinkberry (yes they have this too!), and choose to dine on any kind of main course dish I liked from nearly any category of cuisine -  all during closing hours that make me wonder if Bahrain ever sleeps! 

Bahrain comes alive at night and right around 6-7pm the malls fill to the brim with a bustle of people that makes Christmas shopping look pretty tame.  Everywhere there are Bahrainis shopping, eating, talking, and walking about with bags and sacks and shopping carts stuffed with groceries, clothing, and any other item which they might wish to purchase.

After seeing all of this, my initial reaction was, "Where am I?  And where is your culture?"  I felt like I had taken a 30 hour plane flight all to step off and land right back in America.  Though driving may at times prove a challenge, it is not difficult for a "westerner" to live here.  In fact, as I write this, I am sitting at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, sipping a Vanilla Late, listening to American "starbucks" music, very much in the comfort of something similar if not nearly identical to my own culture.

The longer I live here, the more I want to discover the Bahraini culture that is all around me, flowing in and through everything done and said.  I have yet to really put my finger on the pulse of the cultural beat that I know exists within this tiny island country.  But with a contract that states I'm living here for at least another year and a half, I hope to find it!  Perhaps this time next year I'll be able to tell you all about it.