Coming Home to a Sick Place

I am back in Bahrain and not so really back as being back here needs a certain state of mind which I am too busy and tired at present to stoop down to. I don't mean this in a condescending manner at all, for my love to this place and its people (at least the decent ones who aren't stupid) is unmatched and hasn't changed and never will.


Reality of how mad this place has become smacks you in the face the second you land at the Bahrain International Airport and see all the ground staff wearing surgical masks, from the ground handling staff to the immigration and customs officers. "What's wrong with you?" I ask them. "Is there a plague in Bahrain?" I continue questioning. "Is it that bad down there? Do you have masks for my husband and I too or should we subject ourselves to whatever diseases you are carrying?" I plead, all the time all the people I ask continue to laugh and ignore my questions.

I seriously wasn't trying to be funny as the situation seemed tense and and the level of swine madness was certainly the highest I have come across everywhere I have travelled through since pig mania gripped Planet Earth. Why wasn't there a single person wearing a mask at the airports of San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and Heathrow which I have travelled through over the past few weeks?


People I spoke to all reassure me it is part of the government's measures to ensure that the disease doesn't spread in Bahrain, which is really a noble task I whole-heartedly appreciate and support. Thank you government for protecting us from Swine flu, for censoring the Internet, for telling us what to read and what not to read, what to think and what not to think, what to believe in and what not to believe in and what is right and what is wrong. Without your benevolent wisdom and gracious directions, we the little subjects wouldn't know what to do, or think or behave or believe in. Without your kindness and charity, we wouldn't have homes, or cars, or electricity, or running water, or sewerage, or roads, even those which take forever and ever to build, or the Internet, even that which is censored and slow and sluggish.


And no. I don't see the glass half empty. I see no glass. It has been stolen and I am now investigating who stole it while I was away. And of course, I will grumble and grumble and grumble. And this is the first take.