View From A Broad

Travel Blog

The author is a travel and feature writer. This is an account of her expat years. Names have been fiddled with to avoid offence but most of what you’ll read here is true. She loves the UK, but hopes to live abroad again before she’s of pensionable age.

Part 20

Background

In 2006, a family of Simpsons from the East of England moved to the Middle East. For the purposes of this story-in-parts, and to allow a little distance from Mr, Mrs and the three mini Simpsons (boy, girl, girl), they will now be referred to as Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie – their Springfield counterparts. When they moved across the world, this Marge and Homer were in their forties, Bart was 13, Lisa was 10 and Maggie was four.

Year 3 

AUGUST 2008 – JANUARY 2009

Marge cannot believe her eyes.

Gnarly old women with chest tattoos. A G-stringed pensioner walking his dog. Combat knives for sale in the souvenir shops. Has she fallen down the rabbit hole into a parallel universe? No. This is not Bahrain. It’s Ayia Napa. Possibly one of the last places grown-up Marge would choose as a holiday destination, it feels like Nirvana after a year in the Gulf. Streets carpeted with discarded nightclub flyers, clusters of hung-over, green-skinned youths, and cafés selling English Fry Ups. She’s in seventh heaven and never wants to leave.

There are many things about life in the Middle East that Marge enjoys. But the necessity, as a female, to always be on one’s guard, to deflect the relentless low-level harassment, whilst now second nature, does take its toll.

The Simpsons are in Cyprus to visit family. Ayia Napa is merely a day out. The polar opposite of Middle Eastern culture, it does, just then, represent all Marge has missed: freedom and amorality, let-it-all-hang-out and anything-goes.

They do London, then Wales, and back to Bahrain at the end of August, the start of their third year, in time for Ramadan, to what now feels like ‘home’.

Driving in from the airport, they observe an increase in construction work. The island is now a building site. Air quality is poor. It remains that way for the following year.

Economically it is not a good time in the Gulf. In Bahrain and Dubai, there are tales of friends and colleagues losing their jobs. Expat families, unable to pay their bills, are fleeing the region to escape prison sentences, their cars abandoned at the airport.

Marge and Homer lay some foundations for a possible change of plan. They apply for school places in Dubai. Just in case.

The last few days of the holidays, the children disappear to catch up with their friends, and Marge and Homer decorate their house at last. Finally they understand (now they are considering a move) why seasoned expats, used to the transitory lifestyle, do this in the first month of arriving at their new destination.

Marge and some friends form a book group. Homer flies back to Dubai and receives a promotion. Marge returns to the magazine.

The weeks pass, and for the first time since she moved abroad she’s too busy to write the emails to friends in the UK that will later be mined for material for her blog. She feels happy and fulfilled; she’s part of a team.

She writes about Ramadan, and Eid, and how to cleanse body and soul. With face cream. She subs an article on Donald Trump (nine years before he hijacks the POTUS job title),

another about a community of little people in the Ukraine, and one about a woman who reads personal auras. She is tasked with researching the youth market in advance of her publisher launching its own yoof mag. And she is galvanised into thinking about going for her first mammogram after meeting the co-founder of Think Pink Bahrain.

It is Lisa’s thirteenth birthday. She’d like a party. Themed. Grown up. Not embarrassing. Marge tingles with panic. She fears this will be effort. They agree on Glitz and Glamour. A blend, if you will, of The Oscars with It’s-Perfectly-Normal-In-Bahrain-To-Take-Your- Prepubescent-Child-To-A-Beauty-Salon-For-A-Makeover. Bart and his best mate are roped in as ‘bouncers’ on the door; metres of scarlet fabric from the souk are transformed into a Red Carpet; Lisa and her friends resemble little Lolitas; a manicurist is on hand to paint the girls’ nails. Homer is asked not to be there. Maggie is allowed to stay.

Next up, Halloween. A party is organised in their street for the little ones. The Mums are witches (everyone knew that anyway) the Dads drink beer and pretend to help. The children are giddy with excitement and Marge is glad that someone else is hosting it.

Her social life now off the scale, Marge and her friend prepare for a Bahraini friend’s breakfast gathering. They deliberate long and hard on what to wear. It must be smart (the hostess is always elegant), modest, but stylish. When the maid opens the front door, Marge can see that she and her friend have got it all wrong. A breakfast with English friends? The hostess and her friends are in their sexiest sundresses. The table groans under the weight of elaborate culinary delights. Gigantic platters are piled high with fruits and meats, salads and tarts, porridgy-concotions and dips. A tiered plate stand is crammed with delicious cakes and pastries. Prepared by the hostess’s cooks, this would feed a sizeable wedding party. The six guests barely dent the surface.

Marge is always intrigued to see Bahraini women uncovered and tries not to repeat the mistake she once made at a birthday tea for Maggie’s friend’s – a little girl with a British mum and a Bahraini dad. There, introduced to the child’s aunt clad in abaya and hijab, Marge made polite conversation with her for quite some time before the lady went to help with the food.

A little later, a woman in trousers and a blouse entered the room and told everyone to come through. Marge, always happy to meet new people, smiled and introduced herself. The woman started to laugh. Marge was not sure why.

“Don’t you recognise me?” the woman finally asked, realising that Marge was not joking.

Marge shook her head.

“We had a long chat ten minutes ago.”

The weather cools down and there are trips to the desert with groups of friends for barbecues and picnics. They convene at a landmark – the Tree of Life – and follow the leader in a caravan of 4x4s up into the dunes. Away from the numbers, the malls, the construction work and the lights, the desert is eerie and still, rose-tinted at dusk. The families share food, make a camp, someone plays a guitar. Children of all ages play in the dunes. Wood gathered earlier is collected from the cars. A fire is lit.

Maggie in the Dunes

These are beautiful evenings. Except, on occasion, when something goes wrong. Bart stands on a rusty nail. Maggie falls on her face on some rocks. Others, more used to the hazards of desert expeditions, come better prepared. They share antiseptic wipes and plasters, impressive first aid kits and hugs of encouragement. Leaving alone is not an option for fear of losing one’s way across the unmarked, unlit, lunar landscape. Besides, no one wants to miss a night in the desert.

One evening, making dinner, Marge cuts her finger instead of the carrot. Times like this she really misses Homer. The children run away when they see the blood, so she plasters it tightly, wraps it in paper towel and drives herself to the doctor’s.

“You’re very brave,” the doctor remarks, trying not to grimace as she removes Marge’s make-shift dressing and the blood spurts out. She hastily calls for back-up. Someone to hold Marge’s other hand while she steri-strips Marge’s finger together again. Marge feels so brave. So proud of herself.

The same night, Lisa is ill. Marge, Mother of the Year, tends to her patiently, in her darkened room. Bending to kiss her good night, she doesn’t see the bedpost and nearly knocks herself out, chipping a front tooth in the process. But a visit to the dentist is not on the cards. The last time Homer went for a routine check up, three hours later he still wasn’t home.

“You need root canal,” he was told, once they’d tilted his seat back and wedged his mouth open. They then proceeded to remove a perfectly decent tooth.

The interview with the Think Pink lady still preying on her mind, Marge makes an appointment with Dr Eva. Marge knows that all doctors are different. Some are good. Some – not so good. Her expectations are low. It is hard to tell which camp Dr Eva falls into, because Dr Eva only grunts. Not that this matters, because the mole on Dr Eva’s top lip commands all Marge’s attention. Which perhaps is a good thing, because Dr Eva finds some lumps and sends Marge for a mammogram.

Marge does not think there can be anything wrong with her because she is Never Ill. But she is nervous and throws herself into work with a vengeance. She interviews an artist, writes a piece for the new youth magazine – Shout – warning girls not to wear bikinis and boys not to drive like idiots, and she gets a host of advertisers on board.

The day of the mammogram arrives. The clinic, in the heart of Manama is chaotic and the doctor doing the ultrasound makes Dr Eva seem like Miss Honey. She must, she is told, have a biopsy. Another appointment. Another day.

Arriving at the hospital, Marge discovers they don’t have her notes. There’s not a lot they can do.

“Get them emailed from the other clinic?” Marge suggests, reminding them it’s the twenty first century.

The nurses stare at Marge in wonder – what an inspired idea.

Crisis averted, Marge enters the room to find Ultrasound Doctor and Biopsy Doctor frowning at the computer.

“We’re going to have a problem with this biopsy,” Biopsy Doctor says. “Because of your implants.”

Marge stares at her, then down at her boobs.

“I don’t have implants,” she says.

“You do,” she is told. “It says so here.”

Marge, rapidly losing her sense of humour, asks Biopsy Doctor if she knows why Marge is there.

“You found a lump?” BD asks.

“He,” says Marge, pointing at Ultrasound Doctor. “Referred me to you. And I don’t have implants.”

UD stares blankly at Marge.

“Your name is Marge isn’t it?” asks BD.

“Yes Marge Simpson.”

“Oh,” she says, peering at the computer. “A different Marge.”

Only when Marge is absolutely certain that they have the correct notes – “Show me,” she insists before letting them anywhere near her – does she allow them to go ahead with the biopsy, in this office with its open door onto the corridor, staff entering and exiting without knocking.

The lumps are benign.

Christmas arrives. Their third in Bahrain. No floods, no dramas, mild and sunny, a fine haul from Santa. Christmas Day at a nice hotel. Boxing Day at home. New Year’s Eve with real friends. They have it down to a fine art.

With two weeks off work, Homer and Marge have Grand Plans for Lovely Family Time. 2009 may well be the Chinese Year of the Ox, but in the Simpson household, it will be, Marge declares, the Year of Less Whinging. Enthusiasm is muted. But Marge is on one. It’s the Christmas holidays; they’re doing a family outing to Manama. She might as well have asked Bart and Lisa to stick needles in their eyes.

They grumble round the gold souk – a bracelet for Marge’s mum, and mutter in the spice souk – saffron and coriander seeds. But when they stumble upon the DVD shop, the pirate DVD shop, a small miracle occurs. The storm clouds around their heads melt instantly away.

The holidays come to an end. Homer returns to Dubai, Marge to work, the children to school. And almost at once it’s Ashoora. Shia Muslims beating themselves with chains and rocks in memory of martyrs from bygone times; Marge barely blinks. What used to make her fearful has become the norm.

At work, the magazine, planned a month in advance, is gearing up for Valentine’s Day and wedding planning. It’s buzzy and it’s busy. And it’s overrun with cats. For Marge’s editor – very Absolutely-Fabulous-Patsy-“SWEEDIE!” – doubling as Bahrain’s very own Child Catcher with her abhorrence of anyone under the age of sixteen but an obsession for four-legged creatures, is on a mission to rescue every stray cat in the neighbourhood.

With free rein of the building, cats of all shapes and sizes strut on desks and over keyboards and clamber across the backs of chairs, their tails brushing everyone’s faces as they work. The editorial team, behind Patsy’s back, battle to remove over-entitled moggies from their perches and keep them out the office.

Someone has a birthday. An elaborate box of chocolates is shared. The next day it’s sitting open by Marge’s computer. Marge helps herself. And gags. It’s bitter. It doesn’t taste right. It would be rude to spit it out.

And then a kitten jumps up and sits on the box. Licks the remaining chocolates. And cocks a little leg.

And even if Marge was a bit slow on the uptake, her stomach certainly isn’t. Within twenty minutes, she is violently sick.

Bart receives his mock GCSE results. Not quite as good as he’d expected. But why is Marge so bothered? It’ll be fine. Isn’t she pleased? He’s setting up a band. She needs to chill.

This doesn’t really work for Marge. But she can’t argue with herself and throws herself into interviewing people as if her life depended upon it – the artist; the round-the-world cyclist on a mission to spread peace and understanding; Bahrain’s very own Mother Theresa.

And then all three children fall ill simultaneously. This, in the scheme of things, is quite convenient for Marge. The older ones can look after Maggie. But when Marge gets home from work, Maggie really feels it’s time for Marge to act like a mum. And nice mums play with their children.

Marge loves her children very much, but playing with them?

She has an inspiration. They’ll do origami.

Is that playing? Maggie wonders.

Marge thinks it probably is.

Especially when she does it for three hours.

“I have to make the dinner now,” she says, pretending to be sad. Only to remember that first she must do some exercise. For there, in all its splendour, set up on the landing, is the new all-singing-all-dancing elliptical instrument of torture. And it is set up on the landing, as opposed to, say, the garage, because in Bahrain, upstairs landings not only house a kitchen (two others – the normal one downstairs, the other one in the maid’s quarters – not being quite sufficient) but, the size of a small playing field, they have more floor space than anyone could ever need.

After two and a half years in a desert with no pavements, Marge is now the most unfit person in the universe. Just looking at the machine raises her pulse rate to dangerous levels. But having made a star box, a boat, a cup and a frog, she has reached a point in the Origami For Beginners book where someone is having a laugh. And having struggled with comparing rotated congruent shapes in maths when she was at school, trying to work out the folds for an origami turkey is well beyond her spatial capabilities.

“I am a good mother,” she sobs, ready to collapse, as she pounds the cross-trainer, only seven minutes in.

Continued here: View From A Broad Part 21