We're still in the honeymoon phase of this new adventure so absolutely everything is fascinating to me. I am transfixed by the smallest details. I feel a little like Stella who, at six, is still enamoured with all of life's little details that we tend to walk right past.
Every little smell (and there are a lot), sound (including the call to prayer we finally heard today), sight, touch (like the almost tactile wave of heat that hits you as you walk outside) and experience are just... awesome.
One thing I'm kind of fascinated with are all the different things the women are wearing. Bahrain is an extremely westernized middle eastern country, so the dress code is more lax, though still modest. We've seen everything from normal, American/European style clothing to full abaya with veil with only their eyes showing.
I'm finding it extremely hard not to stare. Not in a malicious way, but in a fascinated way. Obviously I've seen middle eastern women before here and there around the states, and even in Europe. But here, we're surrounded. And I wonder why they choose the different ways to dress. What makes one woman choose to be fully covered and another one to leave her face bare and only cover her hair? Or to wear the abaya and no veil? Today at the mall I saw a few women who held coverings around their mouths, muffling their voices and others bared their faces almost boldly. It was an interesting experience.
I've also found that those who choose to wear the full abaya don't make as much eye contact as those in just a hijab. Maybe that was just today, but I did notice it. I also realized that it must make it difficult to interact with strangers wearing a veil or full abaya. I tend to smile at people as I walk past and it makes me wonder... are they smiling under there or do they care about making contact with strangers? See? Curious as all hell... haha!
I'm sure everyone's wondering what I'm wearing. When we flew in I wore breezy long pants and a nice tshirt. Our first day out I wore a short sleeved shirt and another pair of breezy, lightweight pants. And today I'm wearing a mid-shin length t-shirt dress with a lightweight kimono over it to cover my shoulders and arms. And I'm living in birkenstocks... it's far too hot for actual closed toed shoes! The rule of thumb is modesty... no booty shorts (though I did see a pair or two today), no super low cut shirts, and right now, til I get a feel for everything, my Venus tattoo is going to remain covered. Stella can wear pretty much anything she wants. Until kids hit puberty they are free to dress however (to my understanding anyway). So she's dressing in her normal clothes.
As for the men- we've seen a lot of thobes, which are long white robe/dress things with head coverings in all white or red and white or just regular clothes. It's been pretty varied. I wonder how the men in all white keep their thobes so clean when there's so much sand and dust in the air. (Christopher is just wearing nice shorts and nice, lightweight shirts.)
We're two days in and I'm so far beyond fascinated it's not even funny. Everything is different and unique and still feels kind of surreal that I'm actually in the Middle East. I'm excited to see what all we'll learn in the time we're here! Two days in and we've already experienced SO much! I can't imagine where we'll be in two years!
No comments:
Post a Comment