the local scene--some of my favorite pictures

bike
red door
pottery in the kiln
Islamic design
tapestries in the souq
shisha
@ the fort
:)
The Qu'ran
Indian sweets

wedding bells

The big event for December was, of course, the wedding. Everything went extremely well. The ceremony was wonderful, and the reception was loads of fun. Everyone spent the night dancing away.

Once I compress the size of the rest of the photographs, I will upload them to a website and post the link.

back again

after a loooong break, I am back. and so much has changed since the last post. My family came to Bahrain in December. I had an amazing time with them. We got to see some sights of the country and just hang out for a while.

our Christmas card :)

at the Tree of Life

We kicked off the wedding celebrations with something called the rose. This is a Goan (Indians from Goa) tradition. It starts off simply enough: each member of the family blesses the engaged couple by putting some coconut milk on their cheeks. Well, this quickly spirals out of control as handfuls of milk are thrown on heads, down shirts, and into open flies. Then out comes the eggs, tomatoes, chocolate syrup, and ice cold beer. All being dumped on the couple and bridal party, who sit helplessly on a tarp. But it was all in good fun. Several showers and a set of dry clothes later, we were all enjoying ourselves.

the results of the rose

RAIN

You will not believe it but I am curled up in bed right now listening to the RAIN falling outside!!! I never thought I would say that in Bahrain!! It's been cloudy and a little bit drizzly all day, but now it is actually RAINING! And the forecast has rain for the next 5 days!!!!! AMAZING!

Eid Mubarak!

Well, it's time for the second Eid of the year, so we have six days off of school again. The first Eid occurs at the end of Ramadan in celebration of the end of the month of fasting. During the second Eid, many Muslims remember the sacrafice that Abraham was willing to make with his son Isaac. It is tradition that on the first day of Eid, Muslims will slaughter their own lamb early in the morning and then eat it later in the day with family. Although I knew this, I was still a little shocked to step out of my apartment on Friday morning and see a pool of blood in the street. One of the neighbors was cleaning blood and entrails off his front step and the remants were pooling outside my building. Lovely.
It is also during this Eid that many Muslims make a trip to Mecca. I saw on the news that Saudi was getting hit with rain, so all the Muslims in Mecca were getting poured on. I was quite excited about the prospect of rain, and we did enjoy a lovely five minute rain yesterday evening. Unfortunately, before I could get my shoes on and go to the roof to enjoy it, it was over.
The rain has brought in some cooler temperatures, so it seems that winter is drawing near. In the last week I have seen people sporting jackets, snow hats, and even scarves; all necessary in these chilly 75* days. :)

what are they thinking?

One of my better students was studiously bent over his desk working on his math assignment. As I walked closer, I looked at his hand. "What is that?" I asked, to which he enthusiastically replied, "It's my pencil, Miss. I've had it since last year!"

harvest

this is the best I can do :)