A few weeks ago I had one of my "adventures". (Do these things only happen to me?) It was a Friday evening, and I had an appointment at the American Mission Hospital. Parking around there is difficult at most times, but on a Friday it's nigh on impossible. I couldn't find parking in the hospital car park at the front or the one at the back (which is shared by the National Evangelical Church), so I ended up in the car park at the end of the little road at the back of the hospital. I wasn't sure what the car park was attached to – it seemed like a mosque – but I didn't have time to find out, as by then I was cutting it fine for my appointment.
After I finished in the hospital I came back to discover that metal bollards or stanchions had been put up in the road I had entered on – and my car was alone in a deserted car park. At that point I realised that the car park did belong to the mosque, and the cemetery next to it. People could still walk through to reach the other side, so I asked a couple of Indian men that were passing if they knew where the mosque caretaker stayed. They didn't, and when I explained what had happened, they told me that in any case I wouldn't have been able to leave from the road I came in on, as it was one-way, but that there was an exit on the other side. I drove over, to find that there was a big locked gate on that exit.
I left my car near that gate and started wandering about the compound trying to find the caretaker. There was no one around, and I was starting to feel miserable, so I called a couple of friends to see if they had any suggestions. One said that I should go and knock on the door of a house near the mosque, as they would probably know how to get hold of the caretaker. I did that, and found a woman – I'll call her Um A. – who was very helpful; she didn't know where the caretaker was, but told me to go and ask the sheikh of the mosque as he lived a few houses down from her. I knocked on his door and found his son, who was in his twenties, and explained the situation. He said his father wasn't at home, and that he didn't know where the caretaker was; he didn't seem very interested in helping me, but I asked him to call his father to see if he could get the caretaker's number for me. He disappeared, and came back to say that his father wasn't answering his phone.
It was clear he wasn't going to offer another solution, so I went back down the road where Um A. was waiting, peering out of her doorway, and I reported the conversation to her. She thought for a moment, and then said the woman who washed bodies before burial would know where the caretaker was. So she pulled on her daffa, and then took me up the road to find Um B., the corpse washer. We stopped a couple of times on the way while she greeted people. She mentioned that the lock on the gate was very recent; it seemed to confirm her low opinion of the sheikh, because she complained that these days they just sent sheikhs who were only interested in money, and nothing else. We soon got to Um B.'s house, and we stood at the entrance while Um A. shouted up the story to Um B., out of sight at the top of the stairs. I didn't understand the conversation, as they spoke in Persian, but as we left Um A. explained that Um B. was going to call the caretaker (who lived in the souq and came to the mosque by bike), and that I should go and wait in my car until he came.
I thanked her profusely, and she just brushed it off, telling me that I was her sister. At no point did she ask me where I was from (even though my Arabic is a strange mix of dialects). I also remember feeling grateful at the time that she didn't make me feel uncomfortable for being in the neighbourhood dressed in short sleeves with my head uncovered, but looking back, it's perhaps strange that I thought she might. I went off to my car, but after some time it was clear that the caretaker wasn't coming. I went back to Um A.'s house, not knowing what else to do, and she came out ready to go to speak to Um B. again. At that point a taxi drove up to park outside her house; it was her neighbour, Abu C., and she explained the story to him (again in Persian), and he went ahead to Um B.'s to find out what had happened. We followed, and met him on his way back; he said that the caretaker had said that the bollards on the first entrance were not locked (though I swear I saw a padlock...) and that we could just pull them out ourselves. So both of them came to the car park with me; Abu C. told me to bring my car while he went to pull out the bollards. I kept thanking them, but again Um A. said that I was her dear sister, and that her reward would come from God. I drove out the way I came, very relieved after an hour of stress.
So what did I learn? Well, if I hadn't listened to the Indian men who told me I couldn't go that way, I might have figured out myself that the bollards at the entrance I came in were not locked, and the whole story could have been avoided. I also learnt that I shouldn't park in places when it's not clear whose property it is (although there was no sign warning that the car park closed at night). And I was reminded of how incredibly kind and helpful Bahrainis can be.
I was also reminded of how many worlds, largely self-contained, exist in this tiny country. In the space of a few streets you will find communities of different nationalities and different languages, who probably don't have that much to do with each other. It feels a little like a display where different networks show up according to which button you press; by chance I had pressed a button and made visible a community that I might not have paid much attention to otherwise.
