What time is dinner?

In class this last week, I was talking about Eva (as I often do).  For some reason, I was talking about what time we feed her dinner.  I said something along the lines of, "so when it comes to around 5 o'clock, she starts getting fussy and we feed her dinner."  At this point, the kids almost fell out of their seats.  A mixture of hilarity, shock and wonder filled their faces.  One kid said, "What time do you feed her lunch - 12 O'CLOCK!?!?"  He then proceeded to laugh as if he'd told the funniest joke in the world. 

The thing is, everyone else laughed because they DID think it was the funniest joke in the world!

Here, the daily schedule is a little bit different.  People often work from about 7am till 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  At this point, people leave work or school to go home and eat lunch.  In fact, there is no prescribed "lunch break" at Al Raja.  There's just a 15 minute break at about noon.  If anything, kids will eat a snack.  But full on lunch isn't until 2 or 3.  Then comes the nap time. 

So when is dinner?  I asked my class and they said no earlier than 9pm.  Sometimes as late as 10.  So you can understand their surprise.  This actually works out quite well for us because that means that if we go out to eat, restaurants quite dead till at least 8.   So we always get fantastic service - we're often the only one's like that? 

So why do they eat lunch and dinner so late?  Well - I might ask you why I eat so early.  But I do have a hypothesis.  Air conditioning is the savior of life in the Gulf, but before that, it is just too darn hot in the afternoon to do anything.  So what else is there to do besides take a nap?  When it gets dark and a little cooler, people would often return to work an return home for dinner late in the evening.  The pattern has stayed even with the advent of air conditioners.  Its not so much different from our system of summer breaks. I wouldn't give it up, but it comes because families needed kids during the farming season.  That purpose is outdated, but the tradition is still there (thankfully!) 

It was kind of fun to see the shock and horror on their faces when they learned this fact about me.  I'm sure there'll be more stories as the year goes on!

Elections in Bahrain

If you've met me before, you know that I like politics.  I'm a bit of a news junkie and like to watch cable news when we're in the states.  And this year in Bahrain are the elections for the lower parliament.  According to Bahrain's constitution, there is a lower parliament that is elected (similar to the house of representatives) and another "house" that is appointed by the king.

This will be my second election cycle in Bahrain - the first being the very first year that I moved out here.  That year I was able to visit some of the election tents.  Candidates will often set up tents in the constituencies that they are running in that serve tea, have lots of couches and music playing.  People will come and hang out and get to know the candidate.  To be honest - when we went, I'm not sure how many were people were 'voters being courted' and how many were people who were a part of the campaign (though its probably a blurry line anyways).

Elections will be on October 23, and I'm interested following it (regardless of how little I will actually know).  I'm also interested in seeing if I can find an election tent in our area.  I always enjoy talking with politicians and hearing their views and how they are interested in helping the people around them.  Here are some of the similarities and differences (and other random pieces of information):

1. One of the big differences is that the "campaign season" is only from the middle of September till the elections on October 23.  To be honest, I'm not sure that US presidential candidates need what is essentially two years to build up their campaigns.   Don't get me wrong - its an important office.  But it seems a little blown out of proportion. 
2. The age to be eligible to vote is 20 years, not 18.  Not a huge difference, but I like useless information. 
3. Other voting requirements:  must either 1) be a Bahraini nationalized citizen 2) permanent resident with a GCC (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar or Oman) passport or 3) own land (which, if you're not Bahraini, is very difficult if you're not fairly wealthy). 
4. I think you have to be 30 in order to run, and you have to be approved by the election commission (not sure what those requirements are). 
5. These are only the third set of elections.  2002 was the first time that Bahrain elected the parliament. 

If I'm able to visit an election tent, I'll see if I can take some pictures and post evidence of my indoctrination!

Summer Recap

Alison, Eva and I did a lot over the summer.  Too much, in fact.  I think that next time we come back we'll have to plan less, or at least do less traveling.  However, what we DID do was a lot of fun.  We saw lots of friends and family, got to show off Eva and generally had a good time. Here are some of the highlights:

• traveling on the USS Badger across Lake Michigan
• visiting small town Aledo, IL, where my parents just moved to.  Small towns are certainly very unique.  And quite delightful. 
• I spent a week in Chicago attending an AP seminar to teach AP Economics
• Transformers 3 was being filmed in Chicago while I was there, so I got to see the set every day as I walked by to class.  Very cool to see everything.
• played LOTS of settlers and cities and knights with my brothers and Alison's brother and sister-in-law
• filmed "Mafia III - Today Is Not Now" with my brothers.  
• went shooting (clay pigeons) with Brian and some of his friends.  

There were lots of people that we saw and things that we did - too many to list here.  But here are just a few of the people that we spent time with.  If you're only interested in seeing pictures of Eva, you're in luck.  Most of the pictures have Eva in them.

Enjoy!