Bahrain, Day 2: A Mixed Bag

Four school visits....

We began our day at the Crowne Prince's Scholarship Program, a very productive visit in which we not only introduced our schools to to this full scholarship program for the best students in the country, but also got a run-down of the education system and a sense of the schools we were to visit and those we were unable to schedule. The next visit was as bad as it gets. I never thought that in the Middle East I'd see a female student talking back to a male teacher with no consequence. We had been told that members of the royal family (and just about everybody says they are connected to the royal family in some way) get differential treatment, and we wondered if this was the case here. Other than that curiosity, it was not a worthwhile visit. Nor was the next where, as you can see below, we sat at a table during lunch while the students walked by outside. Never much like that at a local school visits; it's even harder to take when you have traveled this far. The photo was taken by the recruiter from the Capital Knowledge Institute of Finance and Accounting in Bahrain our "strange bedfellows" in the shared college fair space.)At least we were still smiling (sort of).


The last visit, however, more than redeemed the day for us. The counselor at the Bahrain Bayan School was simply terrific, a student there had been admitted to Wellesley and joined us for the presentation and the principal asked me about one of his former students who had gone to Smith. He said that he'd lost touch with her over the years, but when he taught her in Jordan years ago he knew she was someone who would do something special in her life. Her name? Luma Mufleh (Smith Class of '97 and the woman featured in the NY Times Magazine for her work with the Fugees Soccer team). For those of you who don't know the story, check this link:

http://saqonline.smith.edu/article.epl?issue_id=17&article_id=1707

How's the weather?

It's hot here! If you don't believe me, check out the temperature after our last visit:



A bit of sightseeing......

Work done for the day, and our spirits considerably better than after the previous two visits, we were to head for the airport. Our driver, Isa, who had been delightful and fun took us on a bit of a tour of the small island (area: 706 sq. km). We were able to briefly tour Bahrain Fort, built by the Portuguese in the 16th century as part of a string of defenses along the Gulf. Can you tell it is in the middle of the desert?

However, it's not at all far from Manama.

Most interesting to me was the system for collecting water from the morning dew. See the high tech system below--it's on a very modest slant and at the base on the right is the place where the water would run and be collected. Our driver was proud of the ingenuity of such a system.




Inside Baseball

(or in this case, football, for my sports minded family)

And, a flight to Kuwait, all and all, not bad for one day. There was quite a stir as we collected our visas. They were sure there had to be some mistake as one Jennifer after another came through the line! And that's all for this post.