Friday, March 14, 2008

So I'm sitting in this dust storm....

Its dusty....verrry dusty. The Shamal (windy desert disastrous thingie) is in and it's so brown outside you'd think its a seventies office party. It means that the net doesn't work that good on and off so there's a lot of swearing...a looooot of swearing.

Nothing and lots has been going on these last few weeks. AJ has gotten himself another cold out of sheer stubborness because he refused to stay home and sleep off the beginnings of the bug he was getting and not go to a booring product promotion given by Weatherford. He's not too unwell actually...I took him out for a Thai lunch yesterday in Bahrain and he was suddenly very spry, ordering goodies and even forgot to groan every five seconds. Sick Men GAH!

So I've promised to put the odd Saudi recipe up here some time soon that I've pilfered off one of the locals. I've got one or two but I'm going to wait until we have the international glutton day we've got planned on camp where everyone brings in their autopilot dish of choice (i.e. the one you make when you can't think of anything else.) and shares the recipes. This is going to happen when I badger Aisha and ask her when she's having it at her place. Because the men in a lot of cultures do a fair bit of the cooking its going to be a big night function. So far we've got a Saudi, a Trinidadian, a Pakistani, An Aussie (Moi), A Nigerian, A Kiwi, An American (Californian), An American (Texan), A Singaporean, A Sikh, A South African, a Scott, a Swede oh and not to forget the Frenchie. So it should be a pretty great evening and I'll post some of the recipes up afterwards.

Our Bahrain abode is pretty much done bar some fiddly bits and making the lifts work so we'll be thinking of moving over there in the next few months. Hopefully we shall have many visitors (Renee!). I'll post some pictures soon but some of the ones I have a dodgy because I gave the (very very sick cough cough) man the camera to take the pictures while I discussed bits and pieces with the real estate agent and he decided to just unwittingly take random pictures of my backside in various rooms. Just Great! I'm pretty sure you don't want a tour of the house via George's rump. This is mah ass on the balcony....oh and here is a delightful picture of my behind in the kitchen...There will be vengance!

Trippy thing, I just looked outside and realized that all the desert flowers close up their petals in dust storms...interesting... All the camels are having babies too at the moment so you see them randomly wandering around outside camp.

Anyways I'm off to have my dinner.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Self Flagellation for Everyone!

Yesterday we got back from a very relaxing weekend with friends Aumi, Craig and their son Rex in Bahrain that also entailed doing housy things...like looking at our new apartment to be and going OHHH AHHHH its almost finished! It also entailed a very fatness inducing meal at a South African restaurant in the Restaurant strip which was unbelievably good.

However the highlight of the weekend (well as far as spectacle goes) were the Shea parades around the more conservative areas of Manama. Thursday was the 40th day of the Mourning Period (or Moharram) for Shea Muslims and some Bahraini's take it very seriously. Our real estate agents offices are in the middle of the main conservative area so we got to see many a young guy walking around dripping blood onto his thobe from giving himself a bit of a beating with misc. unamed objects in self flagelation. There was also the odd ambulance from the guys who'd tried to one up each other in their grief a bit too much (I.e. I can beat myself more than you can!). The whole thing was a pretty 'spectacular' sight to see, although AJ got a bit queezy so we decided to bugger off to some of the more chilled out areas of town for an Asahi. This was Craig's first time out of Saudi in months so he spent more of his lunch sniffing his beer and smiling.

Our next mission is to be getting ourselves some wheels of the larger kind over here so I'm setting AJ onto the vehicle aquisition task which will probably involve him walking over to my friend Aisha's house and asking her husband Kamal if he can do a bit of negotiating for us. This man is unbelievable, he's got the most likable face on the planet but works in finance and can get anything out of anyone. My favourite Kamal story is that he discovered after he and Aisha had a car accident that he could 'sue' her for emotional damages through a loophole in their insurance policy, gaining them a few thousand pounds! That the guy speaks Urdu will be helpful too. Most of the time speaking Urdu will get you further here than speaking Arabic because all the guys in the shops etc tend to be Pakistani or from surrounding regions.

Anyways, due to an anoying technicality in Bahraini banking law in regards to expats I'm off to Bahrain again on Monday most likely to do some more house stuff so with luck I'll be able to schlep along a few ladies from here and make a day of it.

The weather is unbelievably nice here so I'm off for a swim.