hasanhujairi[dot]com

Okay, and so the local internet cafe is making a killing off me. Not much I can do about it, though. Not that I’m a miser who has issues with things like paying an inflated price to use someone else’s computer while my own laptop is virus-dead and Batelco STILL haven’t figured out how to connect the phone/internet lines to our new home (even though my family have been living there for nearly three months). Talk about inconvenience.

*Sigh*

Oh, and the Philipino woman who works in this internet cafe is looking over my shoulder while I type up this blog entry. I know that this blog is online for the public to read, but I don’t feel completely confortable if someone is looking over my shoulder as I type it up. Is this unusual? I wonder to myself.

But before we get on with it, here is Yesterday afternoon’s post-4-km-jog-nap’s dream:  Instructions to use flying machine: Lean forward while you stand on the metal platform (to prevent the innnnnnertia from causing you to lose your balance, hence, throwing you off). The left metal stearing rod is to make turns. The rod on the right is to accelarate. The accompanying little pod that flies in front of you automatically decides how high/low to fly (preventing you from crashing into obstacles at high speeds). Using this machine for a long time causes your body to adjust to being at high speeds; you end up being able to run a bajillion times faster than usual. Enjoy the ride. (End of Dream)

After yesterday afternoon’s post-4-km-jog-nap’s dream, I took a shower and headed over to the Bahrain Human Rights Society with my father, to listen to a small lecture about the the relationship between constitutions and democracy given by a Bahraini lawyer. He stated the obvious - that a democratic constitution is an important pillar in creating/maintaining any a democratic state. He stated his opinion about Bahrain’s 1973 Constitution being much better than the 2002 Constitution (which are two different things because the 2002 is not an amendment of the 1973 Constitution, but rather, something completely different -  and not necessarily better). His reasoning for his opinion was that the 1973 Constitution guaranteed more personal freedoms and also had a mechanism that stated that no minister was above the law. It also gave citizens more say in things because 73% the members of the parliament were elected, while only 27% were appointed by the Head of State. (According to the 2002 Constitution, those elected and those appointed are EQUAL in number - and those appointed do have much more power than those elected by the people). You do the math.

This morning, I was up by 7.00am to drive my mother to her office in Manama. On the drive down Budaiya Road, between Saar and Manama, I couldn’t help but steal glances at the sporadic schools of palm trees that pepper the roadside as I waited for the oh-so-aggrevating traffic to move. To those of you who haven’t been to Bahrain, please don’t confuse this image with the symmetrically alligned palm trees in Miami and Malibu you may have seen  in  Hollywood renditions of  paradise. Regardless of this, I find Bahraini palm trees somewhat more honestly-romantic and reminiscent of something that has gone a long time ago. Our very own palms of a paradise lost. On my drive back home, and since my grandmother had asked me to buy her 100-fils’ worth of Bahraini FlatBread, I decided to do some exploring in a locale I hadn’t been to in ages. Out of the bakers along my way - which are in Sanabis, Jidhafs, Saar and Al-Qadam, I thought to myself, I would like to go to the one in Al-Qadam because I noticed that there was a  team of no more than nine elderly Bahraini villagers digging up some relics  over there while I drove nearby earlier that morning. Al-Qadam’s FlatBread it was. Trying to be an anti-nidoer, I didn’t honk my car’s horn to get the baker to come out and ask me what I wanted, but got out of my car and placed the order and waited for the fresh bread. After I thanked the baker, I jumped back into my car and decided to drive back to my home in Saar through the backstreets linking the villages of Al-Qadam, Al-Hajar, Abu Saiba, Shakhura, Saar, Al-Markh, Bani Jamra and Al-Janabiya in a path that seems to go against the flow of the traffic out on the Budaiya Road. Here are some of my quick remarks on what I discovered/noticed: People  in Bahrain should DO something about trying to uncover all the covered up relics in that area and make it a tourist attraction (I don’t care about the feasability. Get a shovel and dig.). There was this HUGE house in the process of being built in Al-Hajar’s backstreets and it is ABSOLUTELY the UGLIEST house I have EVER seen in the world - which made me feel physically sick by just looking at it (another reason to turn that area into tourism zone - something like a zoo for crazy-and-rich-too-rich-they-don’t-know-what-do-with-their-money-and-selves-people). I am also very disappointed that the construction at the entrance to Shakhura (near that other ugly ghost house near the Shakhura entrance signpost) resulted in the felling of that palm tree that was stricken in half by lightening in a storm in the early 90s that resulted in it being still living on the outside, but charred in the heart. I really liked that palm tree. It was the only magical thing about Shakhura.