Month: September 2012

So, unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the stuff at the Egyptian and Libyan embassies over the past 2 days. Things are fine here, but we’ve been given additional “watch where you go” warnings. You probably don’t know this (because I haven’t told you), but one of the things that is different about living here (and similar to Egypt) is there are constant protests. Not actually constant, but weekly (at a minimum) and there are certain areas of the island that are off limits at certain times due to their volatility. So I get emails and updates all the time revising the off limits areas based on what they think is going to happen in the next few days. Telling you this isn’t a violation of security, because any of you can go look at the State Department website yourself to read the various warnings at any time.

http://bahrain.usembassy.gov/demonstration.html

No big deal, I’ve been staying relatively close to where we live because I much prefer finding my way home to getting lost and aside from shopping and eating out, I haven’t found much else to do here anyway. So don’t worry about me. I’m sort of in a funk about it because the extra warnings get other people all stressed out and spun up, which can stress me out, and usually Josh is the one to reassure me that things are fine, but he’s been busy today.

I could probably get on my soapbox and say I’m frustrated that local people would attack an embassy/consulate and an ambassador, when the role of the ambassador is help them and how it makes everything more difficult for everyone else, both locals who harbor no ill will and embassy staffs all over the world. But the people who do this are crazy and aren’t exactly impressed by logical arguments.

So we’ll just have a quiet (hopefully) birthday weekend as Carter turns 11 and I’ll be thankful that I’m not trying to figure out how to get on base to have a baby in the middle of the post-9/11 lockdown.

In order to get our car we need this magical residence card, which isn’t really a card, but a piece of paper since they don’t consider us to be real residents or something. In Oman we were given residence visas, cards, and my driver’s license is good for 10 years, but whatever. When we had to give up our diplomatic passports, we joined the ranks of the unwashed masses. :sigh:

We got news last week that our car has finally arrived (2 and a half months later, sheesh!) so Josh, Meelie, and I are parked in the CPR office this morning. We’ve been here for an hour and they have helped ONE person and are now on number two. We are next. There are probably 15 people behind us, so it could be worse, especially since all the people behind us are sitting on chairs outside of the office, with no discernible order or line. It’s all about jockeying for a spot in one of the 4 chairs inside the office. You snooze, you lose.

There are supposed to be two people working, but this guy says his computer isn’t working. Josh and I suspect he’s just playing minesweeper since he keeps clicking the mouse, but isn’t doing anything else.

Meelie was great for the first hour, but then started to get restless and was whining and crying for yogurt. A lady gave her chocolates so we should be good until they run out about 5 minutes from now.

The one lady who is actually working went over to “fix” the guy’s computer, but I’m pretty sure he’s not planning on working today. The funniest part is seeing all the different people come in trying to get non-working dude to let them jump the line. I can’t understand them, but I can guess what they want based on their facial expressions and hand motions and Josh texts me translations: “That guy wanted to prove that he had his paperwork all ready.” or “She wants a residence number for a baby, but she has to get paperwork from the hospital first.”