Sometimes Close is What Makes You Happy

The other day a restaurant menu was left on our door.  Or on our windsheild - I'm not sure.  It was for a new restaurant that advetised delivery.  We don't often do delivery (even though EVERY restaurant delivers), and I particularly don't enjoy calling because of the language barrier.  Its sometimes all we can do to communicate with people when we're with them.  Phone conversations can turn futile.  However, we hadn't eaten dinner and didn't feel like making dinner, so we decided to order in.

I called the restaurant and it took a few tries to establish that I wanted delivery.  Once we did, I stumbled my way through ordering the following

• Onion Rings
• Chicken Tikka
• Beef Tikka 
• Hummous (with bread). 

There was confusion at every point, and I don't think I clearly established what size of each of these I wanted.  But we all ended that portion with feigned confidence, and then attempted to determine where the food should be delivered.  That one seemed even less successful... My friend gave up on that one pretty quick and handed me over to someone that could clearly and accurately find out my address.

After about half an hour (pretty speedy by most standards we've found), the doorbell rung and our food had arrived.  I asked him how much, and he said BD1.6 ($4).  Pretty good!  But I still hadn't seen what was inside.  Alison and I sat down and started pulling our food out, and we found:

• Onion Rings (check) 
• Chicken Tikka (check) 
• Hammour Filet (Hammour is fish - which sounds like Hummous, I guess) 

No beef tikka.  I guess he thought that I had changed my mind from Beef to Chicken.  No problem - what we did get was more food than I thought, so we ended up full with food that tasted good.  Sometimes close is what makes you happy.

A Bahraini Super Hero

Bahrain has a new superhero.  Fighting evil in all its forms.  His name is Salman Khamis*, alias Mukit the Nourisher, and  his superpower is being able to manipulate and control water.

Unfortunately, this superhero isn't real.  And  I haven't been able to find a picture of Mukit.  I don't think he's actually debuted in the comic books yet - so there aren't any pictures.  He will apparently be the latest in a group of comic book characters that make up part of The 99, a series of comic books from a Kuwaiti entrepreneur.  There will be a total of 99 characters in the series (obviously).

In Islam, there is the idea of the 99 names of God.  Each name is really an adjective which illustrates part of who God is.  I just quickly looked through the list of names (from the link above) and I think that most Christians would generally agree with the attributes listed.

The purpose of the comic book series is two fold: 1) to introduce Muslim kids to their own belief system and give them characters with whom they can relate and who give them values in line with Islam and 2) to be a positive image for the rest of the world (and I imagine the west in particular).

Once I find a picture of Mukit the Nourisher, I'll post it here.  And maybe a summary of his adventures!

*for those who like details: Khamis is an area in Bahrain and is the location of Bahrain's oldest mosque, the Khamis mosque.  This is most likely a shout-out to Bahrain's early place in Islamic history.

Khamis itself translates to "Thursday" so I'm not sure if there's more significance in the name than that.  Either way, it would be similar to naming an American character Thomas Chicago - it'd be a geographic reference that any American would understand.

Arab American Country Music

If there's anything that could be categorized as ethnically American (for much of American culture is the result of the melting pot or tossed salad - whichever metaphor you prefer), the closest might be country music.  So when I was sent an advertisement from a friend about arab-american Kareem Salama performing country music in Bahrain, I was a little skeptical.  If I had said that I was going to perform ethnic Bahraini music, there would be much skepticism there as well!

However, one doesn't get much chance to hear country music live in Bahrain.  So tonight we went to see Kareem Salama perform live at Seef Mall.  And it was really good.  When we got to the mall we found the band of four setting up the sound equipment - I went over to ask if they were going to start on time ("on time" is relative here).  The guy was very friendly, and we quickly began chatting.  Soon the other band members came over, including Kareem Salama.  And boy was I suprised.

He looks arab (duh), and I was (subconsciously, I guess) expecting a Gulf accent.  So I was a little taken aback when a midwestern accent with a slight southern drawl came out of his mouth.  His ethnic background is Eygptian, but he was born and raised in Oklahoma, being surrounded by what he characterizes as a mix of western and southern.  It doesn't get more country than that.  In fact, he has an engineering degree and a law degree from University of Iowa.

Soon the band had to get back on stage to begin playing.  They played for about an hour and Alison and I really enjoyed their music.  The music was fun and the words were engaging.  Enough, in fact, that I've bought the two songs available on itunes (its only $1.98).  We stayed for the hour long set they did, and I was so excited about all of it that I decided to write a blog.

Some of the music is explicitly dealing with the issues facing an Arab American in a climate that has some fear and concern about Arabs living in America.  Some of the music is just "normal" country music.  One of the current songs has an available music video available on youtube, which I've put below.  You can also see some of the media coverage of the band on foxnews.com and cnn.com.