Lights, Camels, (Road) Action!

Christmas is alive and kicking in Bahrain, to our pleasant surprise. Living in a Muslim country one does not expect to see or hear much about Christmas. I assumed I would miss out on most Christmas traditions I'm so used to. Not the case!! While shopping at the mall today, Christmas carols were playing continuously and decorations were up. Tuesday night we attended the Christmas tree lighting celebration on Base which included an adult & children's choir and a live nativity. I think I was just as excited as all the kids to see the camel parade in. When the snow fell I thought I would faint! It was great to celebrate with friends on a very cool and lovely night. We're not putting up any decorations, just Benny's stocking.

An exciting bit of news........our car finally arrived! We are so excited to have the freedom to go where we want in our own clean car. A man named, Ali, picked Scott up on Wednesday at about 2pm to run him around the city to get all the paperwork in order for us to get the car. Scott came back after 6pm with the car but all the paperwork was not done. Ali picked the car up Thursday morning and finished all the paperwork for us. Scott cracks me up! When describing Ali, he tells me, "He reminds me of your dad if he were on speed." Ali zoomed him all over like a maniac, cut in front of the lines at the DMV (which is computer-less), yelled at people and bought Scott snacks and mango juice. Scott said he couldn't possibly describe the experience to me. I had to be there to understand. I think I have an idea, though! When Ali brought the car back on Thursday, I walked to a parking lot to meet him. He was a clean cut, gray haired, 40% toothless, nice guy. He kept referring to himself as my father which I later realized was because Scott told him my dad was Lebanese. He kept telling me he was by baba Ali. When I gave him a tip for all he did for us, he clutched his heart and almost fainted. Very dramatic and might I add very humorous. As soon as Benny saw the Jeep he ran to the back door which opens up to his riding area. Poor guy thought I was going to take him to doggy daycare. He was so happy the first time we took him for a ride. Poor guy!

I'm lucky because my house maid, Kasim loves to gossip. He came over Monday to clean and he spent the first 15-minutes giving me the gossip on everything he thought I'd be interested in. I enjoyed every bit of it. Scott isn't always interested in my bits of information, but Kasim will give me his ear easily. The pool guy cracks me up. He is terrified of Benny and won't step foot through the front gate until I hold him like 20-feet from him. The pool guy is from India and even though he is afraid of Benny, he stands there forever saying, "Hi Beddy. You are a good boy, Beddy." The entire time he is speaking, his head sways from side to side. Benny, of course, just wants him to throw the darn ball. He is ball obsessed. It really can be too much.


Scott leaves for Virginia next week (boo hoo!!!). Benny and I will have to survive over here without him for almost a week. The bad news is that he will be gone. The good news is that he is going to bring back all the things we haven't been able to find here and just can't live without, such as corn tortillas and pirate's booty. I was going to go see my cousin Jean-Paul and his family in Dubai during that time but he will be in Cairo for most of the time I could go and our stuff is "supposed" to arrive during that week. I say "supposed" because I learned the hard way with the car. According to what we were told, we should have had the car over two weeks ago.

The weather here went from boiling hot to cool over night. All of my winter clothes and more importantly my winter shoes are packed away and on a ship somewhere. I can't wait to get my stuff. I have been living in the same clothes I brought with me when we arrived in early October. I only have sandals & flip-flops. Luckily, I packed one pair of Roxy's but they don't go with all my clothes. I just really want my stuff!

I'm reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. I love her books. She also wrote Snowflower & the Secret Fan. This is another good one. We love Amazon. They get us our order within a week. Also, I ordered a pair of shoes from zappos.com (my favorite shoe website) and they arrived in about 5-days! In the states they get your shoes to you the next day, but I did not expect to get them in less than a week over here. I LOVE zappos!

Until next week......stay well!