Working 9 to 5 . . .

So I officially have a job in my field! Yeah!

I am working for Gulf Holding Company as a Project Manager. GHC is a development company here in Bahrain, so I am the client - sweet - nice to be in charge. The project I am working on is called Al Areen Downtown. We are the developers of a parcel of land within a master development. The land will be developed with shops, retaurants, a hotel, apartments, villas, townhomes, a spa, a fitness center, mosque and school. We have started construction of the first phase and have started the design on the 2nd and 3rd phases, so I get to see both processes, which is great. I really enjoy what I am doing.

My company is pretty much a mini UN of different nationalities. My boss is from South Africa, and the Senior Project Manager who is basically training me is a Brit. My boss' boss is Kuwaiti. The VP of operations is a woman from Jordan. We have people from Bahrain, Lebanon, India and Pakistan and all over south-east Asia.

So, a few things that are funny about work. First off, because Bahrain used to be a British protectorate, so everything in English is spelled the British way. I have already been corrected on my spelling, "''Color' should be spelled 'c-o-l-o-u-r' in your report."

There are also a lot of construction terms that are different. My favorite one for this week was punch list. This is the list the Architect makes of all of the things that need to be fixed before they will accept a building. So, when my boss kept talking about the "snag list", I had no clue what he was referring to.

They other thing that is weird is that all of the offices I have been in have a butler. It is this guy that brings you water, coffee and tea all day long. You can have European or Arabic coffee or tea. He will also take your lunch in the morning, and if it needs to be heated, will bring it to you at lunch time when you call. It is very weird. There are also no water coolers because you can get water from the butler.

The Master Developer of the project (the company we bought our land from) had the coolest set up -they actually have a Costa coffee kiosk in their office. So, when you are in a meeting and the butler asks what you would like, you can totally say "I would like a double shot, non-fat, non-caf, vanilla, no foam cappuccino" and you could get it. I say could, because everyone else is ordering stuff too, so something that complicated will probably come back wrong. Since our last meeting was in the afternoon, my co-worker recommended a hot chocolate - yummy.

Puppies!!

So, many of you know that we got puppies!! That is right, two ridiculously cute and slightly naughty pups.
Our friends at the embassy rescued a litter that was on the side of a road in Manama. They cleaned them up, took them to the vet for their first round of shots and then took them in until they all found happy homes.
It was pretty easy to know which ones we were taking since these two picked us - well, actually, they picked out laps to sleep when we first met them.


We had some great name suggestions from everyone - Cheech and Chong, The Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeffrine, Peaches and Herb, Mac and Manco,

Woodward and Bernstein....even Courtney's cat Zoe had suggestions - we liked Zoe Jr. and Zoe III. In the end, we settled on George and Gracie. We have taken Dad's suggestion of the kennel names "Salah al-Din Yusif - Urchin's Iced Carmel Macchiato" for George and "Shajar ad-Durr Sultana - Symarun's Red Hot Kisses" for Gracie under advisement, but since they are Bahraini mutts I don't think we are going to need them. They are pretty quick learners, although not necessarily good listeners.

They love their treats, so crate training them has been relatively easy because they will fly into their crates for a treat and happily gnaw on it as they are locked in for the night. Our next door neighbor's daughter comes over after school to let them out, so they aren't cooped up all day while we are at work.
They fight/play with each other a ton and are very funny about who had what toy. You can give them the same exact toys and one will look over at the other's and decide that one has to be better and take it. Not that different from human siblings! The vet thinks that they are somewhere between 3-1/2 and 4 months right now. Looking on-line we think they are probably at least part Saluki - which is also called the "Arabian hound" or as our friend said "a greyhound with longer hair". They are very common here in Bahrain.

So, take a look at the newest members of the fam - we have their puppy pictures (above, probably at 6-8 weeks) and pictures we took today (below) - they are getting big!

Who is Coming Here? Part 2

So, part two is the actual day of the visit.
The President had a few different places he needed to be over the whole 20 hours he was here. He was met by the King at the airport. After that the President went to one of the palaces for a ceremony where he received a medal from the King and they each gave a short speech. After that he went to the hotel for a meet and greet with the embassy staff and families. Then he had a "working" dinner with the King and each of their advisors. The next morning he went to the navy base to have breakfast with the troops, and then he was on his way.
For the palace ceremony the groups decided on "1 plus 30", which meant that there would be the President, plus 30 Americans, and the King, plus 30 Bahrainis. Most of the American delegation was taken up by people traveling with the President (Secretary Rice, the Chief of Staff, the Press Secretary, etc), but the balance was taken up by Embassy Staff. So, Steve and I were invited to come along for that. This meant we would not be able to make it back to the hotel for the "meet and greet", but that seemed okay because we would get to go to the ceremony and the palace.
So, everyone associated with the embassy that was not meeting the president at the airport met at the embassy and we took a bus to the palace, which was about 30 minutes outside of the city. The palace is a working palace, which means no one really lives there; they use it more as an office and a place for official functions.
It was really chilly and overcast that day, and we were going to eb outside for the ceremony - we were definitely glad we had our coats. The palace people led us past the area where the ceremony would be, which was this big outdoor courtyard. The chairs were set up on this raised patio overlooking a large stone area. We were led to a long, skinny room with a table down on side and a buffet at the other end. So, the embassy group was able to have a nice lunch before we were ushered outside to wait for the arrival of the President and King.
We were led to our chairs on the raised patio. Some of the Bahrainis were already arriving. We just chatted and waited for the people to arrive. A little before the time that the President was suppose to show up, the press corps arrived and began setting up. A little bit after that we heard the King's helicopter arrive, and then saw the President's motorcade drive up to the front of the palace. An honor guard played our national anthem and the Bahraini anthem, after which the King led the President to the raised area where we were all seated.
The President was awarded a medal from the King, and then both gave a speech. After the speeches, the King and President sat down, and in a large courtyard area a sword dance was performed for everyone. It was a few hundred men sort of walk dancing and chanting. There were a few dozen that carried swords and muskets and would swing them up and down to the chanting. The dancers kept on coming forward towards the raised area, at which point the King brought the President forward and gave him his sword so he could join in. So, the King and President swung the sword back and forth a few times. After that the dancers sort of moved back and danced away. During the dance, the audience was given the Arabic coffee, which was wonderful because it was so cold.
After the dance was over, the President and his staff headed over to the hotel, while the rest of us got back on the bus for the trip back to the embassy. It took us a while to get back to the embassy due to the jammed up traffic from the President's motorcade. After we picked up our car Steve and I headed over to the hotel to work.
Steve ended up working most of the night by helping the White House Gift Officer pick out gifts for all of the people involved in the visit. I ended up helping out around the hotel and at the control room for a little bit, and then I hung out in the bar with some of the other embassy staff, enjoying the fact that we were done!
So, all in all, it was quite an experience - it definitely kept me busy for a few weeks, which was nice, because I would have never seen Steve otherwise!

Intermission - Pictures!

I know I promised the rest of the President Post , but I am SO behind in showing pictures, I figured we could have an intermission from the President Post for some picutres.

These pictures are of our house the day after we showed up. Only our things that were on the plane with us are there, so everything else you see is from the Embassy. They give us a "welcome kit", which includes kitchen stuff and linens to tide us over until our things show up.

So, I will give you a tour of our house, and then I will take some more pictures when we are done unpacking and you can see the difference.

Of course, since I am an enginerd, and a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought a little floor plan would be easier then me explaining the layout of the house. So here is the layout - of course, it is not to scale (Power Point) but you can get the idea.


This is the front of our house. We have a yard that goes the whole way around the house. That tree in the right of the picture was dead when we got here and is now gone. Actually, our whole yard had been negelcted for about three months since no one was living there, so it was really sad when we showed up. Now it is really nice, but only becuase the gardner we hired ir great - we didn't do a thing.

Below is the Living Room, which is really big. You can see our lovely embassy furniture, which is the same furniture everyone else has that works here. it is pretty funny when you go to a party and see your couch at someone else's house.

There is this big open room in the house, and when we got here, the embassy staff had set it up as a family room, but it is really big and has no windows, so we copied our neighbors and made it the dining room - it seems to work better.

This is our dining room, that is now the family room. It gets good light in the afternoon, and is a nice place to hang out.

This is our kitchen, which is an unbelievably ugly brown, with dark green blinds. It has gotten better now that most of our stuff is put away.

We have a little utility room off the kitchen and a door to the side yard from here. Woohoo! A washer and dryer - no more apartment living and dragging your stuff to the laundry room.

This is the Master Bedroom. We were so excited when we got our linens, because the pink comforter the embassy provided was not the best. We have these built-in closets, that are great. Not every house has them, so we are pretty lucky - tons of storage.

Here is one of our guest rooms - also with nice closets.

Okay, so we are almost done putting away all of our things, so as soon as we do, there will be another post of the "after", where our house actually looks like home!

Who is coming here? Part 1

Okay, so, Steve and I swore that we would get better then posting once a month. . . and then the POTUS storm hit.



We got word in mid-December that the President and the Secretary of State would be coming to our little island for part of their visit to the Middle East. The party would show up on January 12th and stay the night.



What we saw next was pretty amazing - the embassy was whipped up and organized and everyone took on some sort of responsibility (along with their daily jobs they have in the embassy). The people who had experienced a presidential visit warned us of long hours, vacations being re-scheduled and weekends spent working.



The embassy staff spent the first couple weeks of planning in an extremely busy, but relatively quiet state. The teams were planning and working with Washington on locations and events.



Right around New Year's though, the storm really started. Advance people from all of the different agencies started coming in and everyone in the embassy had a group in town that they were working with.



Steve ended up with a bunch of different responsibilities. The first was that he was the Control Officer for the Advance Staff. So basically, he was the point of contact for the White House advance team. This was one of many positions Steve was assigned to. He was also in charge of the gifts and the Control Officer for some of the other people coming in on the 12th.



The embassy had Site Officer for the different locations the president would be who would make sure all of the logistics were taken care of, we had a point of contact for all of the security team's questions, the communication's team's question. There were people in charge of different areas of logistics - transportation, customs and immigration, the hotels, etc.



I ended up working with the person from the State Department office that is in charge of international Presidential travel. I ended up making and updating the spreadsheets for all the hotels and who was in which one. It actually became pretty challenging - mostly because there is no hotel in Bahrain large enough to house the President and the 700+ of his closest friends who would be in town on the 12th, so we had four different hotels we were using.

And here is where the dorky Architectural Engineer comes into play - one of the things we needed to do when assigning rooms to people was see where the rooms were on the floor layout. Of course we don't have CAD (which would have made life easy, because the hotel did have an electronic copy of their drawings) so I ended up making a floor plan out of text boxes so we could layout where people were and type their names in each room. It made life a lot easier and everything was easy to update and check against out master list - I know - I am a dork....


For the two weeks before the visit Steve and I both were logging in 80 hours a week for work. We didn't have a day we weren't working from December 29th until January 17th. It was a little bit nuts.

Stay tuned for the next post about the actual visit.

Has it really been a month?

Wow, time flies.

I really thought it'd only been a week or two since we last posted. How much has happened in the last month? The easy answer: A lot.

In terms of home goods, we got our first shipment of stuff. That's the 450 pounds of stuff that we wanted here before the rest of our stuff gets here. We had packed our clothes, towels, sheets, and shoes, and some kitchen stuff. We're excited to have it, but, almost every night look at each other as we realize we can't really cook the stuff we want to cook and say, "I can't wait for our stuff to get here." When will it be here, you ask? Well, it's supposed to arrive in country on Dec. 25 at about 9 pm. We're hoping we have it in hand the first or second week of January. That'll be good.

Work? Work's good, but really busy. I actually made the paper - once in a picture about somebody else, and once as the "Embassy officer responsible for the annual human rights report." Hey, it's something! Some of our recent visitors included Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Homeland Security secretary Robert Chertoff, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt (anybody else noticing a pattern or am I just screwing up the first names? Mom just pointed out I screwed up Chertoff's name, it's Michael. Sorry Mr. Chertoff!), and several congressmen, none of whom were named Robert.

Katie's started working at the embassy part time, although it doesn't seem to be part time anymore. We drive in together, and, more often than not, leave together, too. The unfortunate part is that she's working in the basement and therefore doesn't get a signal from her cell phone, so if any of the private sector jobs call her, she doesn't even find out about it.

Which brings up another point - voicemail. They don't seem to have it on their cell phones here. I don't get it. how the heck are you supposed to know who called you and about what without voicemail?

In the interest of keeping this entry short I'll just add two more paragraphs - one about Thanksgiving and one about Chanukah.

We had Thanksgiving at my boss' house with some other of my boss' friends. He and his wife (Steve and Stephanie) are both from Kentucky, and turkey day showed it! We had dressing, turkey, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese! What a great day! Our next door neighbor, who also works at the embassy, was going to come, but her daughter got sick. So, on the way back, we stopped by with a box of leftover desserts and two unfinished bottles of wine. While it didn't compare with being home with our friends and family, it was still a good Thanksgiving!

I forgot about the first night of Chanukah amidst the SecDef's visit. I remembered on the second night, and every night thereafter we lit candles. On the eighth night of Chanukah, Katie surprised me with a Chanukah dinner - including her first Kugel and Latkes! It was really good, and I had no idea it was coming!

Told you it'd only be 2 more paragraphs! We hope everybody's well!

Camels and Cows and Horses, Oh My!

When we got to our house the first night in Manama, we were greeted by about six cats, and the amount of animals we have seen since then keeps on growing.

So, there seems to be a pack of neighborhood cats that live in our complex. There are about four black kitties, a white and black calico and an orange tiger kitty that seems to hang around our place, even though we don't give them food. They seem to be pretty used to all of the people and cars. This morning one of the kitties just laid in the road taking a rest in front of our house. She seemed to feel I could get my car around her, which I could, and did not bother to bat an eye as I drove past.

Along with our everyday visits from the kitties, we have also been seeing a bunch of different animals as we drive around. I have seen people walking their goats and donkeys along the side of the road. I have seen some sheep and bunnies too. We went to the outdoor market the other day and saw some chickens and ducks. Unfortunately for them, I don't think they had that much longer to live since we saw them outside of a poultry butcher stand.

Bahrain is known for its horse racing and riding and a lot of the well to do Bahrainis have horses. Last week I saw three Arabian horses being walked along the road in one of the developments near our house.

Last week I saw a cow and, this morning during rush hour, I saw a camel in the back of a pick-up truck. The truck has these rails around the bed that are about five feet high so that the animal cannot fall out. In case you were wondering, the camel was definitely smarter then the cow. The camel was sitting down in the back of it's truck, so that when the traffic stopped and started it didn't go flying around. The cow stood up for the whole time we saw her. I felt bad for it because every time the truck started or stopped the cow almost fell over.

So, there you have it - the animals you can see when driving the roads of Bahrain.