Even though Bahrain is a small island, I haven’t come close to seeing everything here. Today we went to two new places: the camel farm and the National Museum. The museum is beautiful and modern with displays of life and culture from the past that showed off historic fashions (the women were covered, but colorful), weaving of baskets and cloth, Bahrain’s history of pearl diving, and other ceremonial things unique to here (boys used to be (and might still be) circumcised between 3 and 6 years old — ouch!).
My favorite part of the museum, however, was a gigantic satellite map of the entire country on the floor of the main room. I stood in the map, found our house, and things started to fall in place from there. I told Josh I need to go visit there just to figure out where I’m going before I drive anywhere and I was only half kidding. I felt like Joey on Friends when they go to London and he keeps putting the map down on the ground and standing on it to figure out which direction he’s supposed to be walking. It’s the only way it makes sense to me.
Something I didn’t know about Bahrain before we moved here is its long history of pearl diving. Bahrain was well known for quality pearls and this statue at the museum shows how they used to harvest them: nose clips, ropes to secure them to the boat and bare hands. They must have had fantastic lung capacity and better ears than I do (mine always hurt whenever I dive down any distance at all and nothing helps except coming back up).
The beautiful building behind the statue is the new theater that opens tomorrow night. We’ll have to check the schedule and see if there’s something worth going to. Placido Domingo is coming later this month, but Josh will be gone traveling for work. We’ll just have to catch him next time.
She loves to run — she’s either running away from me or trying to beat me.
Another place that is on the “must-see” list here is the camel farm. The camels are owned by the king or the prince (somebody from the royal family), but we had heard the farm was open to the public. We wandered in like a bunch of yahoos off the street and I kept expecting someone to stop us, but I guess that’s what everyone does since nobody even blinked.
The camels aren’t in cages, but they’re attached with a short length of chain so they’re not able to go anywhere. I thought the camels must be special ones for racing or for eating, but one of the caretakers told us that they’re just raised as a hobby. The camels just “eat and sleep. No racing. No meat.”
This cute little one is only two weeks old. He (or she) was leaping around on his gangly legs.
Mama and baby — settling in for a nap.
If things would chill out here, I can see us really starting to enjoy it. Bahrain isn’t outwardly beautiful, but there are some unique opportunities that we have here. We’ll keep searching for more of them!