MODERN CONVENIENCES

Dearest Friends,

As soon as we moved into our apartment, maybe even before, we contacted the phone company and got put on the waiting list for a phone.  Eighteen months later, when we left Bahrain for good, we were still waiting!  That meant that, each week when I scanned the Gulf Mirror for job possibilites, I had to take down all the contact information, then go to work with John to make the calls. 

We did eventually get a couple of window unit air conditioners, the tiny washing machine, and a little TV, but none of it was quite what we had had been used to back in the states -- especially the TV.  Well, the TV itself was alright, if you didn't mind rabbit ears.  It was the programming that was hard to get used to.  First of all, it was mostly in Arabic, of course.  I tried to watch a bit each day, to help me learn the language.  I wasn't very successful though, and couldn't decide whether Arabic was really, really difficult, or I was really, really dense when it came to foreign languages.  Probably the latter.

Occasionally the odd American show would appear.  I remember watching Mission Impossible now and then, and an old Shirley Temple movie.  Mostly though, we watched BBC, and wished we could get subtitles for that as well!  Eventually we developed an ear for their "dialect" of English, and that's when we really began to appreciate British sitcoms.  Several of the ones we enjoyed over there were later snatched up and remade for Americans.  For instance, our favorite -- Man About the House -- inspired the American show Three's Company, with John Ritter.  We both liked the British version best.  There was another channel that showed a lot of Bollywood-type extravaganzas, which John has always been quite fond of.  Regardless of the station or language, however, one thing was universal.  When it was time for the adhan -- the Islamic call to prayer -- whatever you were watching would suddenly disappear, and get replaced by the image of a mosque or minaret, and the warbling sound of the muezzin's voice.  Since the program you were watching did not stop running, you were completely lost when it finally came back on.

At first that was a major irritation, but later I came to appreciate it.  Despite having gone without TV the whole time we were in Indonesia, and having found many other ways to fill our time, it hadn't taken long to fall back into old TV-vegetative habits.  The call to prayer was like a wake-up call each evening.  A chance to ask ourselves, is this really how we want to spend our time?  Wouldn't it be more fun to just read together, or develop some film, or wander around the neighborhood taking night shots?  Or maybe we'll just wander over to our neighbor's little shop to get a soda and say hi, then sit on our stoop and see who comes by?