"So . . . . What do you guys do?"

One of the questions we frequently get is "what do you guys do?" and "what is life like in Bahrain?" The answer to those questions is probably about the same as it would be if you answered them yourselves. Bahrain just seems more "exotic" because there aren't as many white, Protestant, English-speakers here. However, in spite of the fact that we work, play sports, go out to dinner, etc. just like we did in Spokane, we do all of this stuff in a different setting. So I guess the other part of the answer to the above two questions is that everything is totally different for us. Cryptic. Anyway, one of our favorite activities right now is walking everywhere - since we don't have a car. The picture to the right is the Grand Mosque (lighted up) as observed on an evening walk along the water-front. We also enjoy seeing how low of a price we can offer to pay a taxi and still have the driver let us get in the car.
Many people have asked us about cultural activities in Bahrain. Since we spend the majority of our time at work during the week and a majority of our leisure time with other expat, we have not exactly lived up-close and personal with the local culture. However, one of the fun cultural events we attended was the Bayan School's Ghabga. The Ghabga is basically a school-wide party where all the students wear traditional arab clothes, dance to arabic music, get henna tattoos, and eat food. It was a great experience. Other "cultural" activities include learning to call soccer "football" and learning how to play cricket. Incidentally, it's not as much like baseball as you might think. And, of course, one of our favorite cultural activities is eating food that we've never heard of! Another cultural activity involves smoking flavored tobacco out of a water pipe (sheesha, or houka, depending on who you ask) - and since Sara's not standing here right now, I can say that it is pretty fun.

The following are a couple of pictures from the Ghabga. The first is us with a co-worker, Bob (middle) and one of Mike's students, Mohammed (right). The second photo is Sara with a lot of her students.