What I did on my weekend

Ornately tiled mosque tucked away in the back streets of Budaiya

So, what an incredibly cultural weekend I've had! Between traditional crafts, old houses, forts, horses, feral cats, mosques, sunset on the beach and archeological digs, I feel I've been quite the tourist for the past few days.

Luckily for me, all this activity was organised by my friend, The Good Witch, who had a girlfriend out from the UK for the weekend and wanted to explore some of the cultural history of this country. Me? I got to tag along for the ride - literally, in the backseat of the car.

Here's a pictorial record of what we did on our weekend .....

Village ruins dated to 2000 BC

Sunset on the beach

Bahrain fort, with the city in the background

Very stern man at the fort, wearing traditional gulabeya and keffiyeh

City mosque near the old houses

Grand Mosque in Juffair

Everybody needs ..... Beautiful Table Manners

Hello dear readers. I am proud to present to you my latest project - Beautiful Table Manners!

This is a range of gorgeous square table napkins and runners in 100% cotton - lovely to look at, easy to wash, easy to iron, and best of all, easy to post to you from here in Bahrain.

These are perfect housewarming presents, birthday gifts, and the Absolutely Ideal Stocking Stuffer. Don't you think? Christmas is coming up quickly, after all....

I lit upon this idea a few weeks ago, as I stood in my empty flat surveying my non-existent fabric stash and empty notions box. Being bereft of my everyday fabric stash (I use the term "stash" loosely, it's more a "room" these days) and all my associated interfacing, buttons, zips and other notions, I've had to turn my mind to new products and ideas. Like camel softies, for example - look out for those soon.

But unlike the camel softies, these are lovely things. Things that are straightforward to make. Things that are easy to pack and post off all around the world. Because I'm not bringing them home with me in January, that's certain!

So please .... give someone you love the gift of Beautiful Table Manners.  And save me the excess baggage fees on the return leg of my Middle Eastern adventure!

Singing in Bah-rain!

View from the top floor of my building

 It was the sound of rain that woke me up at 5.18am. Rain, drumming on the windows of my porno flat and splatting on the concrete outdoor space right beside my front door. As I started with the sound of it, I felt a little confused - for a moment there I thought I was at home in Melbourne.


But this was rain - rain in Bahrain! The rain in Bahrain falls rarely on the plain - that's for sure. I'm told it only rains here five or six days a year (isn't that just my luck, I adore the heat and I'm desperate for warmth, and it's raining instead).

I pushed myself out of bed and into my gym clothes before I had time to talk myself out of it. (I've not been to the gym in four days - sheer laziness, I admit). Heading out the front door, I breathed in that fabulous hot metal and lightning smell of ozone that comes with every storm. I love that smell. If someone made a perfume of that smell, I would totally buy it. 

For the next 45 minutes I pounded the treadmill while half-hoping the building wouldn't get struck by lightning, and half-watching the storm thundering on around me as the lightning forked down around all the skyscrapers. It was quite fantastic, with leaden clouds and an unusual greeny-grey light - and eleven stories up, I was in just about the perfect viewing position to see it all.

When I gave up running out of sheer boredom and started on some light weights (I might as well, they're all here in the gym in my building, and it's a shame just to use the treadmill and nothing else), I could hear the sound of children shrieking with excitement in the streets. Looking waaaaay down to the ground I could see a bunch of them splashing around in the water and the monstrous earth-swallowing lakes that were forming on the vacant lot next door.


When I went back to the flat for my shower the thunder and lightning cranked up a notch, and I actually waited a good half hour before turning the water on. Why? Because I had visions of being electrocuted under the flow of water, you see, and my brain was crowded out with images of dying here, away from My One True Love and home, and not being found for a few days because I live alone, and then, the godawful horror of being found dead and naked under a running shower - by Biju, my little Indian building manager. Oh my wordy lordy no, it was enough to put me off showering for good. So I made my lunch instead (healthy, healthy me) and waited for the storm to pass.

Later in the morning, driving was a real challenge, every car had their hazard lights on. Like Dubai, Bahrain doesn't really have a drainage system - it doesn't rain often enough to warrant one, and after all the place is built almost entirely on reclaimed land, and the water just seeps through the sand. So it means that when it rains, there's nowhere for the water to go, so you end up having to wade or drive through great rivers of dirty slushy sandy muck. All the cars were crawling through water that was thigh-high in places, and doing it at a snail's pace. It took me 45 minutes to go a total of five kilometres. Gah.

Within an hour the clouds had vanished like they'd never been there in the first place. The sand is already bone dry. But my car is clean for the first time in three weeks, and the leaves on the trees are green again instead of covered in dust, and the whole place looks brighter and fresher.

Even RAMEE SUITES-2 even looks better for having had a wash .....

It's the little things ... mumtaz petrol prices

The car - my little Nissan Sunny, especial favourite of Indian drivers, particularly in Dubai - is running low on petrol.

I've had it for a week and driven 350 kilometres already, which I think is primarily down to the fact that I am still getting the hang of the roads here and quite often get lost and have to retrace my metaphorical steps. I spend a lot of time driving around and around, looking for a turnoff.

So it's time to fill up. I've no idea how big my tank is, because this is the first time I've needed to refuel. I pull into the local petrol station, where they have driveway service (remember driveway service all those years ago? I still remember being in the car with my mother as she got her tank filled up and oil and water checked. I think that's part of the reason I still have no idea how to check my oil or water, lucky I'm living in the Gulf now huh, where someone else can do it for me.....).

The attendant asks me how much I want. I um and er, and in the end I tell him to fill it up - why not, I might as well, and it'll save me coming back here again too soon. The fuel is called Mumtaz (pronounced Moohm-taz), which is an Arabic word that basically translates into Excellent! or Terrific! or Fabbo!. I like Mumtaz fuel, just for the fun of saying it. Mumtaz. Mumtaz. Mumtaz ......

I watch the gauge as the numbers tick over. 30 litres, 40 litres, 50 litres and I'm done. Aghast, I look at the price indicater and it say 2700, which I think means 27 Bahraini dinars - about $70 Australian. I'm not sure I have that much on me, I thought it might be more like 15 or 20 BD.

Cheerfully, the attendant leans in and says "Thank you madam, 2 dinars 700 please."

I have to ask him to say it again, because I think I've heard it wrong.

"Two dinars seven hundred fils please madam" he confirms with a smile.

I'm astonished! 50 litres of petrol for the equivalent of around eight bucks. And I remember that I'm in an oil country, and that it was incredibly cheap in Dubai all those years ago too, and that's what petrol costs here. No wonder people drive everywhere, it's more economical to do that than it is to take the bus - if you can find the bus, that is, with its incredibly secretive and infrequent timetable. It's like a secret service bus, for secret squirrel agents. There must be some kind of secret club you have to join in order to ride it.

I hand over 3 BD and tell him to keep the change. Mumtaz indeed.

My Creative Space

It's been a while since I had the chance to play along with My Creative Space.... and it's nice to be back.

I wondered how much sewing I'd get done here in Bahrain. The first week, I didn't even get my beloved Bernina out of its box because I was too busy (and jetlagged). The second week, I unpacked and began to think about what I could start working on in my spare time.

This week - the third week - I've made the better part of a quilt top, four patchwork cushions, two drawstring bags, a table runner, and I've got two Hoots, three sets of napkins and another table runner on the go. Isn't it amazing how stress can motivate you! Thank god I brought my machine - it's how I decompress, after all.

I couldn't fit all of that stuff in the photo though - I'd need a wide-angle lens. (Hm, maybe that's something I should speak to My One True Love about, CHristmas is coming up after all.....) So I chose a few things that went nicely together.

This is a patchwork cushion made from a charm pack of Nicey Jane I've had for ages. Sorry the light is so bad, but my porno flat doesn't get any direct sunlight, so I had to squeeze these in under the window to catch even the smallest chink of light.

The drawstring bags are made of Patty Young's Flora and Fauna, with the top feature strip in Summer Soiree by Paula Prass for Michael Miller. I especially love the fuschia cord I've used as the drawstring, which I picked up just last night in the Manama souq (I found a great notions shop and immediately made friends with the nice man behind the counter as he collated a little pile of cords, ribbons and zippers forme. Plus the buttons - oh the buttons! - but I will save that for another time.)

It feels so good to be making things again, and there's a special kind of pleasure that comes with not having to do them to a market timetable. Of course, I don't need to keep any of these things myself, I'm just making them for fun - so I can feel an Etsy update coming on .....

Hop on over to Kootoyoo and see what everyone else is working on today.

When in doubt, sew

I'm missing home a lot today, after a long day that has drained me of practically all energy and motivation, following a night of bad dreams that woke me up at 3.49am. I'd hardly have the strength to write this if it weren't for the fact that every time I look out the window at RAMEE SUITES-2, I get a little burst of chuckly bubbles fizzing up inside me. Oddly, that sign is becoming my friend. Strange, huh?

In an effort to assuage my mood, I'm putting together two new patchwork cushions covers. I brought a small pile of 4 inch squares with me to Bahrain, knowing I would need something familiar and comforting to do in the evenings, and tonight these are proving just the ticket.

 Here they are, laid out on my tiled floor. Isn't it funny ... no matter how melancholy I get, the simple act of putting together little squares of coloured fabric in a pleasing arrangement always manages to lift my spirits.

It's the little things ..... bedspace

.... that sometimes make you realise just how good you've got it.

Take these advertisements, for example. I photographed them on the weekend, pasted onto the side of a public phone booth on Bank Street in Bur Dubai.

The two notices at the top are advertising bed space. Not houses, not flats, not even rooms. Bed space.

There are two different kinds of bedspace available in Dubai - at least, there were when I lived there all those years ago, and I don't imagine much has changed if these ads are anything to go by.

Bedspace Type One is one-half of a bunk bed you rent in a room, which probably has three or four bunk beds in it, which means you could be sharing a room with five or six other people. Did you note that the ad on the top actually specifies you get an individual bed? For other alternatives, see below for Bedspace Type Two. You are probably an Indian or Pakistani man, perhaps Sri Lankan or Afghani. You might be a bachelor saving up money for your marriage at home, or you might already be married, and sending money home to your wife, children and most likely mother as well. If you're a woman you are most certainly young and single and submissive, most likely Filipino or South Asian.

Bedspace Type Two is literally, bedspace. You rent the bed on a timeshare basis. You're an Indian/Pakistani/Afghan/Sri Lankan shift worker, and you share the actual bed with one or two other people, and you each get a timeslot to sleep in when you're off work and the others are on. You might rent it from midnight to 8am, or on a twelve-hourly rotation. Take it as read, you don't get to sleep in.
 
Bedspace is a widely exercised and generally acceptable accommodation option in this part of the world. It's a prescription that means you can live in Dubai and earn money at a greater rate than you might in your home town.

It comes with its side-effects though, which can cause nausea and headache. The flip side is that if you're renting bed space you're probably employed by a third-party company who has confiscated your passport and only allows you one trip home every two years. You can't leave the company, because you haven't got a passport, so effectively you're a modern-day slave. You're completely dependent on them.

You probably earn between 400 and 1000 dirhams a week - the equivalent of about $125 - $350. Maybe the company doesn't pay you every month like it should, either ... maybe it only pays you every few months, or every six months, or maybe it doesn't pay you at all.

You probably risk your life quite regularly, especially if you work on a construction site during the summers here, when workers in their blue jumpsuits fall like stones from the top of tall buildings as their brains bake in the searing heat and their legs fail underneath them.

It's not all like this, of course. There are reputable companies who look after their workers (in a relative sense). But there are enough of the disreputable ones around to make you take a second look at the glamorous world everyone there is living in, with their designer clothes and fancy cars and top-end international lives. Lives which are built off the backs of the men who live in bedspace.

That makes some of us  thankful for the things we have. Glad for our suspiciously pornographic-looking flats and the ever-present soft red glow of our RAMEE SUITES-2 signs. We bid you goodnight, from the vast and gratefully unshared expanse of our four-poster porno bed.