Yagoob’s Dome

One of the signs of summer in Bahrain, is that many people start thinking of signing up for a gym or at least do a bit of jogging, you know to pass the time and get healthy.

The government has built numerous ‘walkways’ around Bahrain to promote a healthier lifestyle. These walkways would usually be a 1 km long track with some signs giving advice on healthy eating and exercise etc..

Some, including the one I go to, also have a playground for the kids, a mosque and toilets.

This is all good and well, but living in Bahrain, one will always find something that will tick them off!

The walkway I go to - The Estiqlal Walkway- opposite Al-Waqt Newspaper is quite busy, so some people have taken advantage of this and started opening little ‘kiosks’ selling..well everything UNHEALTHY from Coke to chocolate to sweets to crisps you name it!

There’s even a ice-cream truck parked in the carpark!

There is also a cute old lady who sells ‘nikhi’ and ‘baajilla’ , but nevertheless I still see that it defeats the purpose of doing exercise and then have a coke and an ice-cream to cool off since they are so conveniently close by!

Why can’t there be a ’smoothie’ truck rather than an ice-cream truck, and why can’t there be a I dunno know a boiled corn/fruit salad shop? *notes it down as a possible post-retirement business venture*

Since we’re on about buying and selling stuff, I just received an article from this week’s Gulf Weekly (heads up Bahrain Taxi) about Geant scrapping charging people for plastic bags!

OK, I must admit paying for something that I used to get for free, would piss me off, but once I know that there is a cause (a very noble one in this case) I would comply and also encourage others to do so.

But, unfortunately we are in Bahrain, where people have become so shortsighted and smallminded that it’s shredding us apart! Everyone seems to care only of themselves and everything else, well is out of the picture and never take the blame when everything turns into a mess..

So, who is up for ice-cream?!

The latest entry in the Lightspeed Log series is uploaded, and you can watch it in the Lightspeed Log Page either by clicking the button on the sidebar or clicking on the page in the Pages section in the sidebar or simply by clicking here

Over a month has passed and I finally paid my first bill as a Lightspeed customer. Although I’m satisfied with my subscription but a few other matters arise that concern me..

To know more, watch the vid!

**And as always, leave your comments on this post!

A big smile is on my face today after reading that the ‘Saudi Eight‘ are to be released very soon after four long months detained after straying in a military no go area in Riyadh. This breakthrough came after H.H King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa visited the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Jeddah.

During the eight teachers’ ordeal, the Bahrain government in the form of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs including numerous other groups including Al-Wefaq and the rest of the MPs, raised concerns on the treatment of their fellow Bahrainis and attempted -although fruitlessly- to push for their release.

The funny turn in this story is that a few days prior to their release, a Saudi national [Ar] got lost in the Bahrain ‘Desert’ somewhere between Durrat Al-Bahrain and the Shaikh Isa Air Base in the southern area of Bahrain while he was planning to go back to Saudi. Luckilly his son who was also in Bahrain at the time called the police where they found him only a few hours after the call, and was not charged with any wrongdoing (although being in the restricted area in the south of Bahrain).

I can just only wonder what the conversation was like:

K.Hamad: “Dude, we saved one of yours so why not do the same for our guys, they have nothing to do with Iran, they’re just teachers, you know..”

K.Abdulla: ” Dude, I can’t believe that one of our guys actually got lost in Bahrain, the poor guy, anyways yea thanks for taking care of our guy and it’s only fair I guess..”

All in all, I’m really glad that the King stepped in and helped them out, and this is not strange of him to do his best in such sticky situations

Thank you

There are a few things I don’t seem to understand..

-Why do some people complain that they are overworked and underpaid and go on to work overtime?

-Why do we spend almost two decades of our lives in school trying to understand thousands upon thousands of ideals and concepts but rarely do we give ourselves the space and time to overstand and become innovative?

-Why do we undermine people to make them less important whilst we underline text to make it more important?

Half a year has passed, and more than half of Bahrain’s families (who earn less than 1500 dinars) have not received the inflation fund, ooh and I forgot the rest of the people who signed up for the fund (up to 27,000 families).

I find it despicable that Bahrainis’ emotions and financial needs are toyed in such a way, from the publication of full names in the newspaper, publishing lists and scrapping them with ‘newer’ lists, opening registration centres where the poor and old were dragged to ‘beg’ this fund, and all for what??

a small sum of 600 dinars spread out over 12 months…

But really whose fault is it with this mess??

Is it the MPs where many of them gained their work experience through working in Islamic charities and thinking that the whole of Bahrain are one big charity case and a one way ticket to Heaven?

Couldn’t they have used it better by encouraging small food industries in the country or even funding awareness campaigns on how to spend wisely or add the 50 dinars to the salaries of hard-working Bahrainis, both as a way to combat inflation and an incentive to produce and work harder?

Or is it the CIO and Ministry of Social Development whose kneejerk reaction was to publish people’s names and running around in circles like headless chickens to find who does and does not ‘deserve’ the fund?? and then saying “OOPS! We’re overbudget people!”

Now I’m no expert in Database systems, but wouldn’t you think that if you had all the information about the people living in this tiny country where the Bahraini citizens only count for nearly half a million and they were all in one place, I think a small time programmer could of figured out a way to write a query asking “married people whose joint income is <1500 dinars”

The big headline in today’s newspaper was that the government has added an additional 30.5 million BD on top of the original 40 million BD, nearly doubling the original budget for the fund.

Hopefully this will end this ‘crisis’ and puts a smile on many Bahrainis, but what really shocked and saddened me is that so many families (nearly 50,000) have an income of less than 1,500 BD..

So why did the Inflation Fund cross the road?

To give us a bloody wake up call of what we’ve become as a nation!