Mosques, people, parties and nation building

The evenings are a perfect time for walking around Manama. Mosques are a beautiful sight. I admire their tranquility. Of late I have tried to time my walks to coincide with the evening Call to Prayer. A religious experience regardless of whether you are a believer.


This is a local cafe. I have labelled it the 'French Indochina' cafe. It is old skooly and French. In the picture you have both Qatar and Bahrain teams coming together during planning. (L-R Eric, Gannat, John, Kristina, Claude, Mada and Adriana).


It was nearing two years since we last caught up. Jen, I had a great time during your whirlwind planning visit. Even though I am a relative newcomer to this island: I am glad you have been here, to see the kind of people we work with, the environment we are in and to share the excitement. There was something powerful about pooling together people from Haiti, Romania, the USA, Brazil, Egypt, Austria and Australia to engage around this issue of Middle East expansion.


Kristina, Fix and Terbo. One of our members put on a fantastic feast of Bahrani cuisine. Rice, fish, fried stuff, rice, lamb, rice, a million different kinds of deserts, coffee, tea. This is a photo of Fix playing the drums while people took turns dancing. In the foreground you can see a board game played by flicking pieces around like billiards. A truely memorable evening.


This is how it's done folks. You can literally see them pumping sand to build up a bank that will later become land. Over the course of three days that patch became shallower and shallower. The speed of development was a little unnerving. This is the view from our boardroom.