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.