AND THE RAINS CAME

Dearest Friends,

Unlike Indonesia, Bahrain did get a bit of winter weather.  Not too frigid, but cold enough that, by mid-November, we were pulling out the few sweaters we had brought with us, and eventually purchased a space heater or two.  The most startling thing about winter weather was that it usually brought a bit of rain.  Sometimes, more than a bit.

On January 1st we celebrated John's 27th birthday at home with a candlelit dinner for two -- beef filet (tenderloin) in a puff pastry crust with madeira sauce.  It had started raining sometime in the afternoon, and by the time we went to bed, it was coming down pretty hard.  It rained all night long.

The next morning, a Sunday, we awoke to find that, though the rain had finally stopped, during the night the water on our street had climbed up over our entry steps, come under the door, filled the long entry way, and was now soaking the edges of our brand new area rug in the big central room of the house.  For once John was probably relieved that he had to go to work on a Moslem holiday (how did he even manage to get there?) and I didn't, for it took me an entire morning to get all the water swept back out the door.

The next day we finally managed to sell the crappy Vega that had given us so much grief -- for less than a third of what we had paid for it.  If you then subtract everything we spent on parts and repairs during the brief time that we owned it...well, let's not even go there.

It rained off and on most of the week.  On Wednesday I got home from work to find we now had an indoor pool!  Did I mention that there were no sewers, or any kind of drainage system, in Bahrain?  I guess they figured, "Why bother?  It only rains one month out of the year!"  But, do you recall what I said earlier, about people tossing their garbage into the street, and the vermin it attracted?  Now think about all that being mixed in with the water that kept seeping under our door.  Yeah.  Nasty!  I spent the next day scrubbing the hell out of that rug and everything else the water had touched, and wondering why on earth I had passed up the chance to move into a nice new house on the company compound back in November, where I could have been neighbors with Paula and Nellie!

This is how Nellie had to dress for work on rainy days.  Her office had similar water problems to our house, but the employees were expected to carry on as usual!