Coming Home to a Sick Place

I am back in Bahrain and not so really back as being back here needs a certain stage of mind which I am too busy and tired at present to stoop down to. I don't mean this in a condescending manner at all, for my love to this place and its people (at least the decent ones who aren't stupid) is unmatched and hasn't changed and never will. 

Reality of how mad this place has become smacks you in the face the second you land at the Bahrain International Airport and see all the ground staff wearing surgical masks, from the ground handling staff to the immigration and customs officers. "What's wrong with you?" I ask them. "Is there a plague in Bahrain?" I continue questioning. "Is it that bad down there? Do you have masks for my husband and I too or should we subject ourselves to whatever diseases you are carrying?" I plead, all the time all the people I ask continue to laugh and ignore my questions. I seriously wasn't trying to be funny as the situation seemed tense and and the level of swine madness was certainly the highest I have come across everywhere I have travelled through since pig mania gripped Planet Earth. Why wasn't there a single person wearing a mask at the airports of San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and Heathrow which I have travelled through over the past few weeks? 

People I spoke to all reassure me it is part of the government's measures to ensure that the disease doesn't spread in Bahrain, which is really a noble task I whole-heartedly appreciate and support. Thank you government for protecting us from Swine flu, for censoring the Internet, for telling us what to read and what not to read, what to think and what not to think, what to believe in and what not to believe in and what is right and what is wrong. Without your benevolent wisdom and gracious directions, we the little subjects wouldn't know what to do, or think or behave or believe in. Without your kindness and charity, we wouldn't have homes, or cars, or electricity, or running water, or sewerage, or roads, even those which take forever and ever to build, or the Internet, even that which is censored and slow and sluggish. 

And no. I don't see the glass half empty. I see no glass. It has been stolen and I am now investigating who stole it while I was away. And of course, I will grumble and grumble and grumble. And this is the first take. 

The Packing Saga Continues

The boxes have all decided to huddle up in a corner. And I am keeping to mine. I don't know how long this stand off will continue for, but I know it can't last for ever. One of us will cave in. Either the boxes will fill themselves, or I will take action into my own hands and do that silly chore for them. After all I am a capable human being, born to be a manager, a visionary rather - who sits back and issues orders veiled as suggestions and requests, of course. 

My biggest dilemma is not packing - but rather what to take with me and what to leave behind. I fully understand that things are things are things. Just things. But all those things have sentimental value to me. As a self-confessed shopaholic, with a social consciousness, I have taken it upon myself to keep the economies of the countries I have been through going, and the catalogue of damage is evident in the junk I have amassed. True, I have ferried a lot of the spoils of those indulgences back to the homeland, with every trip back to Bahrain and as a result I have rooms full of my 'stuff' in three different homes in Bahrain waiting for me to uncover what I have hidden in them. 

But you know as much as I do that whatever goes into boxes will remain there forever after, or until the things decide to come to life and reach out of their boxes. 

Sigh! And I thought I had a frugal existence here. If that was the case what are those closets full of? Call them stuff, rubbish or junk, deciding what to do or not do with them is proving to be extremely difficult. 

Help!

انفلونزا الخنازير حلال أو حرام؟؟؟

اذا الخنزير حرام وانفلونزا الخنازير تنتقل من الخنزير إلى الإنسان، فهل انفلونزا الخنازير حرام أم حلال؟؟
هذا سؤال شرعي وباللغة العربية علشان اللي ما يفهمون عربي ما يضحكون علينة!!!!

Packing ...

So sorry my last post was "deep"-ressing .. Was up to my usual antics and firing off in all directions, with each line of that post dedicated to a different person. Had so much time on my hands, you see. 

Anyway, after my stint on the sofa, my neck and the sofa along with the left side of my lower back decided to get into a squabble. I tried to mediate and tell them each to get a life, but they continued to argue until I had to forcefully separate them. So now the sofa is left all alone in the living room, with the boxes, which have also developed a life of their own and creating mischief. Let's see if the sofa is able to do all that work on its own. Me, my neck and back will stay here in the safety of my study until my better half is home to deal with this domestic dispute. Meanwhile, the sofa decided on confiscate the remote control and TV too. Damn. What am I gonna do with the rest of my day? 

To add insult to injury it's cloudy and going to rain. I cut a deal with someone yesterday that if he manages to make the shisha work, and let me have as many puffs as I want, I will give him the shisha, plus a year's supply of tobacco in return. It is one of several shisha kits I brought with me when I came to Canada to create a Middle Eastern ambiance in this forsaken land. Needless to say, I wasn't able to operate the damned piece of machinery. And with the weather not behaving itself today, I think I am stuck indoors with my shisha and tobacco and the fire alarm. Not that I will attempt to ignite the shisha indoors. I am not desperate. It has been sat in its corner for four years and we have both not complained. 

The fire alarm and I don't get along too. Every time I operate the piece of equipment better known as an oven in some parts of the civilised world, the alarm goes off. I really don't have the patience for screamers. So every time it starts yelling, like a prostitute who hasn't been paid after the lamest sex ever, I just walk away from it. Screamers realise that they are wasting their breath when you ignore them and eventually shut up. And my manners don't allow me to stoop that low and engage with noise makers whose only mandate in life is to draw attention to themselves. 

And then what's with prostitutes and all this discrimination against them. Like, if men weren't so needy and grubby, there wouldn't be prostitutes right?  But this isn't the time for talking about prostitutes and men. I have work to do, and packing and boxes. And no time. Remember how my time is up. So up in fact that it is dragging me down.

So the boxes are here and you would think it's easy to find manageable boxes right? Wrong. The only decent boxes you can find here are the ones you purchase from UHaul. I tried to skimp and look for boxes at supermarkets, which only had the open banana boxes - the ones with bananas drawn all around, holes and an open top. Not being a monkey, I decided to dish out some hard earned cash on boxes. That is - to date - the most ridiculous purchase I have completed in my life. And don't you get any weird ideas as my relationship with money is that of a fool. No matter what we do, we are soon parted. But money isn't the issue.  It never is. Seriously. 

Back to the boxes, I bought, with actual money. I get the biggest boxes and decide that they will become the temporary home of all our books. And we do consume books. Books. Dangerous collections of words. Words. Lethal combinations of letters. Letters. Those come in consonants and vowels. And I can go on till morning if you insist. It is only time that I am burning. Time and, as an after thought, life. Not too sure on that last bit though. But this isn't our issue today. 

Back to the boxes. Which are stacked with books. Which have become stubborn and refuse to move. The boxes I mean. I can't even slide the full ones to the other end of the room. After all that back bending treacherous manipulation of space, they simply refuse to cooperate. I even arranged the books in order, by genre, with the one dealing with medicine in one box, and the ones dealing with life and love in the other. Funny how medicine and live and love can't exist in one box? Again, I am drifting and this again isn't the issue or focus of this post. Seriously. 

Back to the boxes and the domestic drama. So the sofa attacks my neck and back and  the boxes and books gang up against me. And the real estate agent is calling and he wants me to move my stuff so that he can show the place. And I too want the stuff to move but it isn't. 

Sigh! What have I done so wrong in my life to deserve this? 

Tick Tock. Your time is up!

tick tock 

tick tock 

tick tock 

Someone, anyone, please tell that demented clock that time has no essence to me, at least not now. Not today, not over the previous four years, and specifically all the years before that.  Nor will it mean anything to me tomorrow, or, for that matter, yesterday. 

It is just time. A clock with nothing better to do than tick. Tick all you want, for we live in two different worlds. You calculate yours, while I .. I don't know what to say now .. while I do whatever I want with mine, I suppose. I set my own rules and deadlines, I work at whatever pace I want and should I decide to sit doing nothing watching you waste your minutes and hours away, there is no one and nothing to stop me. Does this make any sense?  

I know. I am all over the place and time zones. But: Time. Means. Nothing. It is just a waste. Time waiting to be spent. It's morning, then afternoon, then night, then morning again. Talk about boredom and not having anything better to do. Like those people with children. They sleep to wake up to eat to puke to shit to be washed to sleep again to wake up to eat and throw up and shit some more, then get washed to sleep again ... you get the picture right? Oh the monotony! I am already yawning. 

I really seriously did yawn and stretch and am thinking of just curling on the sofa for the rest of the day and possibly staying there until the weekend. Or I could continue sitting in this comatose position, typing with one or sometimes two fingers, just like I have been doing for the good part of four years (The rest of the time I was doing other things, like curling on the sofa, watching TV, playing games on the computer, Xbox and Wii, and when I am hungry or am in a creative mood, I would cook. I do have a life, in case you are wondering). 

When I moved here, I had grand schemes. They were just plans. None of them saw light - but that isn't the point. I  was so keen to get out of the hellhole I buried myself into in Bahrain, which included cramming everything and doing all that I could sandwich in every 24 hours of every day. I thought I would relax for a few days or a few weeks - two months at most - to find my bearings and then leap into action. My plans for my time here included so many things, things I can still do if I really want to, but which I don't know how I feel about anymore. Among them were: writing a book, doing a PhD and having a baby. I also told myself that I would grab time by its horns, and not let it defeat me; that I would invest my time and make the most of it; that I would be productive and useful, enterprising and successful. 

And successful I was, in watching every year, month, day, hour, minute and second of that time squandered. Almost all of it. I worked to the minimum of my capacity. I sat on my own. I lied to myself and  said I was taking a break after a busy life in Bahrain. My excuse was that Canada is boring and there is nothing to do here; that all my friends and family are in Bahrain, where I will be returning and as such didn't need any more friends.  Almost four years, in a self-exile, with friends and family and everything meaning anything to me in Bahrain. And I alone here. I mean, I do have friends here of course - a former Bahrain couple whom I see once every few months, my landlady, whom I also see once every few months, and, of course, my husband, whom I see every day.  

And more successful I was in making this time pass - all 24 hours of everyday. At first it was exciting: I have the whole day to myself. For the second time in my existence, as the eldest child of seven, I am all alone in this world (I must admit that the first stint, more than 30 something years ago, lasted two years until my sister was born). Then it became depressing. Can I type that word again with a Capital D please? Depressing. Now can I type it again in ALL CAPS. Please? DEPRESSING. Then I got to grips with it. Time. And we learned to co-exist. I learned to slow down and it learned to speed up. So I have to cook dinner right? But it's 10am. And we have dinner at 7pm. So I learned to spend all the time between 10am and 6pm, thinking about what dinner should be. And then the next hour is spent preparing it. How's that for a plan? 

And now that I am so successful in pacing myself and know exactly how to manage my life and affairs properly and successfully, time rears it's ugly head and announces: "Your time is up!"

After all my patience, after sitting on you for four years, almost, is this how you repay me? You tell me, that I have pack, even the things I have never got around to unpacking, and return to Bahrain where tick tock will take a whole new life of its own and where I cannot remain a silent depressed bystander watching you and me go to waste every single day anymore? 

Seriously, go get a life. And read that ethics book while you are at it. You have been unfair to me, when I have given you all the chances and time in the world. I waited for 2006 to turn to 2007 to turn to 2008 and it's now 2009 and I finally slowed down to accommodate you - and now you are asking me to speed up and pack and return to the rat race? You certainly have issues and I have a sofa waiting for me. 

I know I have to pack. But it's a holiday in the US today and there's always tomorrow. And if tomorrow is wasted, there is the day after. And if that too goes without me realising how it went up in smoke, there is the day after it. It is not like I am leaving today, is it? 

You Too Can Support Free Speech ..

As many of you know, I have been involved with a project very special to my heart for sometime now. Global Voices Online is a unique project which gives bloggers a voice and helps echoes their writings across language and cultural barriers to an international audience. The entire project is run by volunteers from around the world, who link to, translate, summarise and comment on citizen media output. 

Global Voices Advocacy is an integral part of this mammoth project. Its aim is to support freedom of expression, fight and expose censorship and rally for jailed and harassed citizen journalists and highlight their plights, where ever such injustices take place. 

This is why I am voting for Global Voices Advocacy (GVA) in Zemanta's "blog for for a cause" 

initiative. All that people should do to cast a vote is write a post on their blogs saying that they are supporting Global Voices Advocacy and paste this text in their posts, just like I am doing now: 

This blog post is part of Zemanta's "<a href="http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause/">Blogging For a Cause</a>" campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

The prize up for grabs is $3,000 - not a huge amount but certainly one which can make a difference in helping GVA cover some costs and continue to defend free speech around the world. 

If you too support free speech and have a blog, please post a similar message. It takes less than five minutes and next time a blogger is arrested, you know who to turn to. This campaign ends on June 6, so hurry up!