The Flood

I spoke too soon.

The rain started again on Sunday night and lashed down in almost Biblical proportions for 2 days and nights. Here is our street on Tuesday morning.

My friend, Anne, had to give her kids fireman's lifts across the deluge to get out of her house. Luckily she's a northern Irish lass and comes equipped with wellies and waterproofs - things which are nigh on impossible to find in Bahrain when needs must. I know; I tried.

And, of course, most Bahrainis aren't good at driving in rain. Motorways became lethal as locals adopted even more dangerous driving habits than normal, vacillating between racing madly with no headlights and scant regard for deep surface water and dropping to almost snail's pace with hazards flashing causing pile-ups from behind. There have been more than 500 reported road accidents in the last three days and traffic authorities have had to recall staff from holidays to handle the chaos.

Still, the constant downpour and accompanying mud and dirt all over (and inside) the car (and house), the frizzy hair, the running mascara and damp clothes have all made me feel quite at home again!

STOP PRESS - It's raining

I mean really raining - pouring, in fact. I'm so excited. We haven't seen rain like this in Bahrain since last February. I may have to go outside and get soaked, just for the novelty.

And then look for the umbrella...

Oh, no need. It's stopped.

Competitive parenting

Have you noticed how competitive everything is at schools these days? And not between the pupils, between the parents.

Kids' parties have become a hugely lucrative business as parents vie to put on the best show. But do children really need entertainers, bouncy castles and luxury party bags? And why does the whole class have to be invited? What's wrong with inviting a select few for pass-the-parcel and jelly and ice-cream?

Another breeding ground for oneupmanship is the school dress-up day. Olivia had one recently. She has been studying Ancient Egypt and the whole of her year had to come dressed for an Egyptian feast. Which is a great idea, except for the frenzy it seems to cause among parents as they desperately try to outdo each other on the costume front. Outfits were commissioned from local tailors or sent for at great expense from overseas websites, designs were endlessly discussed in the playground. Is it any wonder kids become demanding?

According to the British press, parents are now spending up to GBP150 on "manger chic" designer costumes for their children taking part in nativity plays. The UK department store Debenhams noticed the trend a couple of weeks ago when parents began asking the store's personal shoppers how to create the perfect nativity makeover. Ivory white bridesmaid dresses, bejewelled turbans and fleeced duffle coats (for the donkeys, apparently) were being snapped up.

The store noticed that it was the parents of those children cast in the minor parts of sheep and donkeys that were spending more, presumably to compensate for the lack of a starring role. This is competitive parenting gone mad. What's wrong with a tea-towel and a bit of tinsel? As a representative of Debenhams put it:"The amount of money that some parents want to spend on their child's nativity play appearance would enable Baby Jesus to leave the stable and check into a five-star hotel." Quite.

Yet just look at the photo above to see what can be achieved with a white nightie, an old gold scarf, some cheap bracelets from the souk and liberal application of Rimmel eyeshadow and eyeliner. I give you "Livvy-o-patra" for the princely sum of less than a tenner. Oh, and no agro (priceless).

Eid al-Adha

Today is the second day of Eid al Adha or the Festival of the Sacrifice, a three day festival which falls at the end of the Haj.

The festival commemorates the Prophet Abraham's (Ibrahim's) near-sacrifice of his son to Allah and Muslims traditionally celebrate by slaughtering an animal such as a sheep or goat. They are asked to give a third of the meat to the poor and another third to friends and relatives, symbolising their willingness to forgo something that is precious to them. Schools and offices are closed and people visit family and friends and exchange greetings and gifts.

We went for a family walk in a plantation on the east side of the island and almost everyone we saw greeted us with a cheery "Eid Mubarak!" (Happy Eid) and gave the girls a kiss. The weather was perfect and the date palms looked magnificent.

The farm workers were playing cricket and volleyball or simply sitting and relaxing in the shade of the date palms. Even the security guard at the entrance to the King's late uncle's palace complex let us through with a cheery wave and we managed to get a peek at his seaside pad. What do you think?

And how's this for an Arabian sunset? The view is from Bahrain directly towards Saudi Arabia.

What a drag

I need help. My mild-mannered husband who has never shown the slightest interest in strutting his stuff in a souped-up motor (previous vehicles have included a Holden Camira and a Niki 650) or trembled at the throaty roar of a V8 engine has suddenly become a petrol-head.

Since returning this week from a work trip to LA, he can't stop talking about ... drag racing. DHL sponsor a team in the US and he was treated to a couple of days at the track with all-areas access. He got to meet the drivers, visit the trailers and mingle with the surgically-enhanced WAGs.

Personally I can't see the thrill in watching cars burning rubber and then hurling themselves down a dead straight track in a race that only lasts seconds, but apparently it's so exciting that Ian is now a convert.

It's the noise, the smell, the atmosphere, he told our not-so-enraptured dinner guests on Friday night. They didn't look convinced.

He can't wait to go back next year and, most worrying of all, last night I caught him fixing a NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) sticker to the back of his car. And he didn't even have the good grace to look embarrassed.

Bring Back Adam!

I can't imagine the anguish British mother Rebecca Jones is suffering.

Rebecca's son Adam is in year 6 at St Christopher's Junior School, Bahrain - the same school my daughters attend. Adam's father, Jamal, was a Qatari national whom Rebecca married in 1998. Although the couple divorced in late 1999, Jamal continued to visit Adam regularly from Qatar.

When Jamal was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident in 2005, Rebecca stayed in touch with his family and took Adam to Qatar to visit his grandparents and aunts and uncles.

She and Adam were in Qatar visiting his relatives this October and had spent two enjoyable days with them. On the day they were due to leave, an uncle rang Rebecca at her hotel and asked if Adam could come once more to visit his sick grandmother. She agreed and a driver was sent for Adam. He later called to say he had arrived safely and would be back in an hour.

Rebecca was then asked by Adam's uncle to meet him to sign some papers relating to a parcel of land Adam was going to inherit. The legal papers were in Arabic, but this was an uncle she knew and trusted. She signed.

The papers were nothing to do with land, but were documents which allowed Adam's supposedly ill 77 year old grandmother to file for full custody of the child. This she duly did.

Rebecca has not seen her son since. She has had absolutely no contact with Adam since that date. Neither the Qatari judge nor the relatives have allowed her to visit or speak to her son. Nor did the judge insist on Adam being present at any of the court hearings so that his well-being could be established.

The final custody hearing was last week. The court awarded full custody to the grandmother.

It is inconceivable to me that any judge could grant custody to a 77 year old grandmother over the child's own mother. Adam has a sister and stepfather in Bahrain. He was born and raised there. He has friends he has been at school with since kindergarten. No-one, least of all Rebecca, knows how the situation has been explained to Adam. And how can any woman who has suffered the loss of a child in the way the grandmother did then callously inflict that same pain on another mother?

And it is unlikely the British government will do anything to intervene because the ruling was based on religious grounds. Its aim was to bring Adam back to the Islamic fold and to ensure that he is brought up according to his late father's religion. This despite the fact that Adam was enrolled in various classes in Bahrain to ensure his Muslim heritage was respected.

You see, in this part of the world, if a non-Muslim woman marries a Muslim man, that marriage and any children it produces are subject to Sharia law and if everything goes wrong, the "normal" rules as we see them do not apply. It was, apparently, pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Qatari relatives would be awarded custody, even though they were only able to bring the case through tricking Rebecca and Adam.

Friends of Rebecca Jones, parents at the school and the local press in Bahrain are all doing their bit to publicise the family's plight. I am trying to do the same by writing this post.

Technical problems

Sorry for the long silence; I have been having computer problems. Last week I went to switch on my laptop and nothing happened, no sign of life whatsoever. Just a black screen staring back at me.

This is something I dread for 2 reasons: first, I know nothing about computers. I am a member of techno-wizardry's "Lost Generation" - too old to have learned computing at school and having left full-time employment and the support of those nice guys in IT before I really had a chance to get to grips with anything remotely technological. Consequently I am totally reliant on others to fix any problems. Second, I live in Bahrain, where getting anything fixed efficiently, on-time and with minimum fuss is, quite frankly, impossible.

I set aside an entire morning for the task. The first challenge was finding the repair shop. When I lived in Australia, I used to laugh at the Aussie's lack of imagination when naming their streets and towns. Sandy Creek Road is a road next to a sandy creek, Mountain View Road is a road with a mountain view, and so on. But at least the Aussies bother to give their roads a name, even if they only select from a limited pool.

In Bahrain, unless the road is a six-lane highway - in which case it is named after the King or his father - it is not given a name at all. It is instead allocated a number. Then the district it is in is given another number. So, an address may read something like: Apartment 756, Building 333, Road 1230, Area 327. For Ian, who has difficulty remembering his 4-digit bank PIN code, remembering our address is impossible. Couple this with the fact that there is no such thing as a street directory and you begin to understand why going anywhere new becomes a nightmare.

I find the address of the Dell repair shop, which gives me absolutely no clue as to its location. I ring the shop and speak to a nice man called Umar who tells me the shop is behind the Kuwait Building in a part of town called Gudaibiya. I don't know where the Kuwait building is andUmar is not forthcoming. This is another problem - getting directions over the phone from someone whose first language is not your own and who frankly couldn't really care less whether you ever find their shop.

Some time and many u-turns later, I finally find myself in the Dell repair shop. Umar tells me I need a new motherboard. I don't know what a motherboard is, but it sounds important and my laptop is relatively new, so I'm cross. Umar smiles, shrugs his shoulders and tells me I've just been unlucky. Grrrrrrr.

"We have to order the part from Ireland," he says.

"How long will that take?" I ask.

Umar sucks in air through his teeth, shakes his head and tells me: "Four days, maybe five." He pauses, smiles and then adds: "Inshallah".

Ahhh, there it is, that word I dread hearing whenever I need to get something done: Inshallah, or "If Allah wills it."

Anyone who has lived in the Middle East knows that the word is liberally used by all repair men, or indeed anyone you ask to do anything. And in this context, particularly when followed by a knowing smile, means "in your dreams" or "not a hope in hell."

So when the plumber tells you he will be there this afternoon ... Inshallah, expect him next week and only then after you've made sixteen furious phone calls to his boss. When a parent at school tells you they'll pick up their daughter from a playdate at 4pm ... Inshallah, don't bank on them arriving until at least 6pm.

Inshallah - it's the ultimate get-out clause, said ever so politely, with a wry smile. Let's hope UK builders never latch on to it.