Ramadan Kareem

Ramadan Kareem everyone.

A time for us to give everything a break, from stuffing ourselves blind to reflecting on the state of the world.

I love the temporary change in routine that Ramadan brings. The absence of food & drink during the day allows for more time to think of my life, my career, my future, my beliefs. I've always had this sort of feeling, of cleansing, of purity, of serenity during the Holy Month.

I wish you all a serene Ramadan

وكل عام وانتم بخير

Soul Time

The best part of my career is ...
My annual leave...


Have a Soulful time everyone...

The Whole Wheat Battle

Every morning,I wage a mini battle with my kids. They run to the kitchen, hoping to get there before me, to enjoy white bread or their favorite bleached cereal. But as soon as I am in there, I try to feed them what's good for them. I try!

For Lunch, its the same thing. They come home and expect white pasta or the more traditional white rice and can't imagine themselves eating anything with a tinge of brown.



What is a career mom to do? I need to rush to the office in the morning and don't have much time to argue, so I am sad to say that they win more often than I would like. HELP




I'm supposed to raise my children on whole wheat in a white bread world!

I hate white bread, who invented it & why? who thought of bleaching nature's beautiful bounties, nature's warm colors & goodness to deliver to our tables the un-nutritional white products? They must be evil....

Seriously... white bread is bad for you

The problem in Bahrain is not all nearby grocery stores (what we call cold stores) have brown bread on their shelves. I have to go all the way to a bakery to buy brown bread which is 5 times the price of white bread and then I come home to wage the Wheat Battle with my kids! & Brown Rice is out of the question. When you go into a shop to ask for it, they don't even know what you're talking about! Even whole wheat pasta doesn't seem to be readily available...

What's a caring mama gotta do to get her little kiddies to be whole wheat kids...

Peace,
SoulSearch

Soul Favorites

Soul Searching today, just a few things I have been excited about (& inspired by) and wanted to share...

1. Orange flowers in bloom: Come across this gorgeous tree very morning when I drop the kids to school. They love to watch the bold colors of the flowers, and I love the way they appreciate nature.

2. Really cool prayer rug: designed by Soner Ozenc, it gives you the direction of the Qiblah (Mecca) and it lights up the patterns on it in a florescent iry light. Its called Sajjadah 1426. Love it:

3. I love Weekends. Although I would very much prefer a 5-day weekend, I like spending my 2 days of freedom with the kids walking in the afternoon warmth, just around the block with the kids on their scooties, they love that!

4. Finalizing our kitchen layout: here is the model...

Honey cherry color for the cabinets and a white countertop, they've promised to fix it by 15th June... so fingers crossed!

5. The Kite Runner: By Khalid Hosseini, an amazing read, the journey of an Afghan boy through the tirbulations of childhood, adolecense and adulthood amidst the guilt he felt towards his best friend, Hassan, and the turmoil of the Afghan war and consequent downfall of the country.

Stayed up many many nights reading this book. Loved it!

6. Last but not least: Lebanon, has finally elected a president.

Michelle Sleiman has been elected as the 12th president of the Lebanese Republic. The country was on the brink of another civil war, but people have had enough bloodshed to last them many lifetimes. We already have a bloody warzone in Iraq & Palestine. We dont need one in Lebanon.

Love to everyone...

SoulSearch.

India

It was an amazing trip to India, incredible in every way,

I loved the scenary, the greenery, the uniquness and diversity of this place.

This was the view from my room at the Shangri La New Delhi:

I went on a quick excursion of the city, first stopping at India Gate:

Its basically a war Memorial, sort of like the Tomb of the Unknow soldier, commemorating the Indians who died in WWI.

My next stop was the National Museum, numerous Hindu gods and godesses, dating back to the 12th century!

Very artsy!

There was even an Egyptian artefact!

This one was huge!!!

I love museums!

This is the presidential palace, the parliament is nearby as well.

And on the streets of Delhi

Cute "buggy"

The bus states "Propelled by clean fuel"!!!

My trusty taxi driver Sukhjeet!

Stomp till you Dromp

What an amazing performance! We loved the show by Stomp at the gorgeous Arad Fort venue. I loved their rebelious take on making music!



I like to call it "The Art of Cordinated Chaos"






The noise they were making was hilariously put together... loved it

Watching them gave me a sense of freedom, a non-conformist attitude always inspires me. I especially loved their choice of music at the end of the show ... Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana

Stomp was a fabulos grand finale to Bahrain's contribution to Art through Spring of Culture.
Love,
Soul...

Welfare or Hellfare: Are we on the way?

To becoming a Welfare state?

So what's a Welfare State?

According to Wikipedia:

There are three main interpretations of the idea of a welfare state:
the provision of welfare services by the state.
an ideal model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. This responsibility in theory ought to be comprehensive, because all aspects of welfare are considered and universally applied to citizens as a right. 'Welfare state' can also mean the creation of a "safety net" of minimum standards of varying forms of welfare. Here is found some confusion between a "welfare state" and a "welfare society" (see below) in common debate about the definition of the term.
the provision of welfare in society. In many "welfare states", especially in continental Europe, welfare is not actually provided by the state, but by a combination of independent, voluntary, mutualist and government services. The functional provider of benefits and services may be a central or state government, a state-sponsored company or agency, a private corporation, a charity or another form of non-profit organisation. However, this phenomenon has been more appropriately termed a "welfare society," and the term "welfare system" has been used to describe the range of welfare state and welfare society mixes that are found.



Some people disagree with the model of a welfare state, calling it the "nanny state" that causes an infringment on many personal freedoms. And we all know that is so possible in Bahrain!!

We need to consider...

Peace,
SoulSearch

On having children in the Corporate World...

The word "motherhood" is an undefied term in the corporate world. Its been an agony for me to survive in the corporate world, not on a professional level, but on a more personal level. I am torn by my feelings as a mother, as my need to be resposible for my children's well-being, for their everyday lives, and between my career.
Alot of you would say, if someone felt that way, they should just quit and be a lady of leisure, but that is not even an option for us as a middle-income family.
Our working hours are going to be hiked up soon and will probably be till 5.30 pm, which is crazy for someone with 5 & 3 year old children.

My children are my first priority hands down, and I'm sorry if tha is my number one objective, because in the corporate world they want to work you to the bone, so you can help in generating the highest possible revenues for the company you work for, and at the end of the day come back to a grumpy family, who gives you dirty looks for being out of the house all day, to children who have no interest but to watch TV, watch TV, and watch more TV. Children who need to ask you if "you still love them" ...

Ohh the agony.

I'm at a crossroads, I need to put my priorities straight, but then again, I know what my priorities are, I love the line of work at at the moment but hiking the working hours like this without prior notice is really a disgusting thing to do.

The only thing I'm dpending on is that someone would consider Flexi-Hours, whereby we could show up at the office earlier in the day so that we could leave earlier than 5.30pm, and I would even ditch the lunch break...

I want to have a life,,,,



Peace,
SoulSearch

On shopping and religion

I am so enjoying the 10-day break. It is serious medicine for the soul. I have been so engrossed at work, these past 2 months, that I welcome this amazing alignment of holidays that gave us 10 days of sleeping in late, chicken nuggets lunch with the kids, and an endless amount of mopping around the house in pjs. However, we decided to do a little Eid shopping in our friendly neighbor the K of SA. The overpowering stench of stupidity did not leave my nostrils since the second we set foot on the causeway. Here are 5 reasons why I will not be travelling across the causeway unless I absolutely had to:

1. You can't have a decent two hour shopping spree without having the whole shop shut down on you for prayers. Don't they realize that people should be given the freedom to worship and not have worship shoved down tehir throats 5 times a day?
2. Store managers get jumpy and nervous and would rather kick you out of their shop as soon as they can, than to have the religious police close down their shops!
3. If you thought traffic in Bahrain was a nightmare, think again. Many of our neighborly drivers prefer to jump a red light or claim your lane as their own at any time they choose.
4. There are absolutely no changing rooms for ladies in any retail outlets, even my 5 year old daughter was not allowed to try on her clothes anywhere, because "she's a female". Outrageous!
5. It hurts me to see how women are totally inferior to men on many a level. They are treated in a humiliating way, that I would not be able to take if (God forbid) I had to ever live there!!

I could write a whole load more but my blood is boiling at this point and I would rather stop.

Have a good holiday people...
Peace everyone,
SoulSearch

The 7 wonders buzzzzz

Its official, there's a poll going around hoping to choose a new set of 7 wonders of the world...

News Agencies have been carrying the news:

Two millennia after the Greeks listed the sevenwonders of the ancient world, a
foundation created by a Swissmillionaire is to announce the seven sites elected
as the modernworld wonders in a global internet vote.

The announcement will be made tomorrow:

A glamourous gala event will be held at a huge Lisbon stadium Saturday to make
public the winners of a competition which has generated enthusiasm outside
the Western world, but came under criticism from art experts and the United
Nations.

Peace,

SoulSearch