Getting Directions in Bahrain

Getting directions in Bahrain is always an adventure.  Rarely are roads labeled, and even if they are, few people call them by their actual names and call them by 'popular' names (which is different depending on your social group).  If you are going somewhere, you often are referred to the nearest 'large' landmark and directed to sucessively smaller landmarks until there are no more familiar landmarks.  (The worst is when someone starts off with a landmark you don't know - that's always trouble later on).

I've learned that Bahraini's do a similar thing with one exception.  When getting (or giving directions), my Bahraini friends want (or give) only the general area.  Then when I arrive to the general area, I will call again to get more specific directions.  Makes sense, actually.  Then they can tell me, "Turn here",  or "After the cold store, turn left", which wouldn't work if given directions before I even left.

This happened to me the other night as I went to a charity center in one of the villages for a meeting.  When I arrived at the village, I gave my friend a call and he said, "Just ask anyone.  They will know where it is."  So that's what I did.  I found two guys about my age walking down the road, pulled over, and asked them where the Charity Center was. 

Well, first, they didn't know what "charity" center was in Arabic and assumed that because I was American that I must have been looking for the communication centers near Seef Mall, which was close by.  Once we established that I actually did want to be in the village and not at the mall, I called my friend so that he could speak Arabic with them give directions to the two guys, who could then tell me where to go.

To my surprise, this caused even MORE confusion!  My new friend (whose name I don't even remember) got a concerned look on his face as he tried to discern where the charity center was.  After a few minutes of what I figured was a less than productive conversation, he hung up and looked at me with a face that said, "I'm not really sure."  But he wasn't about to give up.

So he and his friend started getting in the car.  About half way in, they paused quickly to ask if it was ok if they came along, which I readily agreed to.  It was very kind of them to hop in and get me where I wanted to go.  Once they were in, we drove around the village haphazardly.  I think that they had a general direction and landmark in mind, but didn't know exactly where it was.

After a few wrong turns and a few more calls to my friend, we made it.  They were pleased with themselves to have helped, and I was grateful to them for having gotten me where I wanted to go.  I thanked them, shook hands and they walked off into the night.  I turned around to my friend at the charity center and he explained the problem.  They weren't Bahraini.  They were Egyptian and had only recently moved to Bahrain.  Oh well.  I made it to my destination.

ufo