It is also the Land of the Two Seas. Why? “Bahrain” means “two seas” in Arabic. What are the two seas? The locals tell us visitors that there are fresh water springs that come up from the ocean floor near Bahrain. The two seas refers to both this fresh water and the ocean’s salt water. Interestingly, locals call fresh water “sweet water.” So the two seas are sweet and salty water.

You will notice a weather “widget” on this blog. It tells you the current weather here in Bahrain. It also shows you whether it’s night or day here because at night it will show a picture of the moon. I think this will be interesting for you because you’ll be able to see at a glance at any time just how different my time is from you and perhaps also my weather. For those of you living in North America (which as far as I know is all my readers right now) my weather is considerably warmer than your own (although I’m told it does get cold in January and February).

Enough weather report. Here are some facts about Bahrain:

• It is a kingdom and has a king.
• Its time zone is GMT +3. For reference Eastern Standard Time zone in the U.S. is GMT -5. GMT being of course Greenwich Mean Time or 0.
• It is a bilingual country, both Arabic and English. Everywhere signs are in both languages and the people speak both usually.
• Its religion is Islam.
• There are other religions here, too. Christianity is one of them. Yes, some Arabs are Christian. My husband and I attend a local church. The services are in both Arabic and English. We find this to be interesting.
• There are a lot of what Americans call TCNs here, Third Country Nationals. These are people, mostly men, from nearby countries, like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Thailand. This is not necessarily a complete list. These people come to work in the restaurants, hotels, construction, and similar “blue-collar” jobs. These people come here for economic opportunity, but the average restaurant worker makes 100 dinar a month. That is equivalent to $266 a month.
• There seems to be either rich or poor here. I haven’t really noticed a middle class. People can afford to live in nice villas or apartments where the rent is three or four times the restaurant worker’s monthly wage or they are that restaurant worker.
• That being said this is a very booming place. There’s construction all over the place, all the time. Most of what is being built is high-rises. They are also building new land–they actually create it from the sea, I guess by dumping dirt into the water.

That’s enough facts for now. I could go one, but this post is long enough already. In closing I want to thank you for coming along on my journey, for sharing my thoughts and adventures. I hope you have a wonderful day! May God bless you!