Tayyiba & Mejruha

This is what bahraini friends called me: tayyiba (which means kind as I am told).

We met them here, in this passage in Al Ali mall where we took as a good shelter in around 43 degrees celcius outside.

A banker and a businessman they were, both in the traditional white dresses and their traditional scarf. We had a nice chat sitting in a cafe nearby. This is when I understood how proud bahrainies are of their traditional clothes.

In he evening, I entered a class at the university of Bahrain. On he English Language board I saw this and it was sweet suprise as if describing my stay in Bahrain.

My second word today has been Mejruha, from my Fairouz song. Means "heartbroken".

Umm Ali

This is Umm Ali (meaning Mother of Ali), which is the Egyptian Bread Pudding that I tasted in Al Abraaj (meaning towers (burc is 1 tower al abraaz is the plural form for burc)

Recipe here

Sorry for the picture but I was more for eating than documenting it. Creamy sweet flavor of Ummmmmm Ali mmmm..
So after having Umm Ali, we tried to fix a date to go to see Umm A..

The Welcoming Strangers..And Your Own Land

In the loving touch of strangers..

..you see your future as a white paper with a fresh smell, enlightened, as perfect as your dreams and yet not drawn, empty. Light as a piece of fresh paper.
The way I felt in my new friend A's car.
And yet..
I miss laying down under the dining table with my cats in my flat.
All these days, at the moments where I was in the room here to update the blog, I had a company of a bahraini ant to whom I am very attached now. He is more than a pet. He comes and goes as if lost its way like a part of me. I am sure I will miss him when I will be back.

Somethings Never Change

Likeknitting in 37 degrees Celcius..

I like this word HUBB by the way. It is pronounced just like its meaning(to love).. You inhale quickly and suddenly. You take it to your lungs.

When I was taking the photos the door was open since there was something viciously wrong with the airconditioner. But then came this beautiful air of chello through the corridor, from probably a neighbour's tv. When you can not cry anymore, chello is allways able to take this weight on your chest, carries it through the melody.. That is the good company of chello.

Can you hear it there?

Leaving it Behind - A Recipe

This is my new friend M, talking on the phone with his bird love over our dinner on the terrace.
Love makes him smile and loose her casual face expression in this giant smile.
That was a nice chat where we listened back to Fairouz, a legend in the middle east, a beautiful bird singing sadness, the big eye make up she wears in my childhood
He gave me in a way the recipe of leaving it behind, a love, a job, a city, a life. And asked me for the recipe of Kisir(turkish tabouleh) instead. I wish I could put a photo to the recipe but he already finished his kisir in his plate in the photo. Here we go for the tabouleh recipe:
1,5 cup of fine boulgour(crashed wheat)
1 cup boiling water
3 heaped tablespoon of tomato paste
2 tablespoon of chilly paste
1,5 tablespoon of pomegrenate sauce(optional)
olive oil(as much as you want)
lemon juice(as much as you want)
2 teaspoon of cumin
1teaspoon of chilli powder
4 scallions
3 cucumbers
2 large tomates
2 handful of minth leaves
5 leaves of lettuce
salt/pepper

Kisir is a good idea to prepare for a crowd and very easy to prepare since you can taste it and change the quantities according to your own taste.
Finely chop scallions, lettuce, minth leaves and chop the remaining vegetables(I like cucmbers and tomatoes chopped in bigger sizes). Take boulgour in a casserole and add the water, close the lid (know that this dry ingredient will become 3 times bigger when left with some boiling water, so choose your casserole size accordingly). Leave for 10 mn. Open the lid and add the olive oil, lemonjuice, tomato and chilli paste, keep stirring and add the spices. Add the minth leaves. then the remaining vegetables.

Does anyone have a good recipe for leaving it behind? Your hopes along with your dreams..
I couldn't find it in my way, no recipes but just crawling and waiting.

There was this retired war pilot I met in Costa Cafe. Seing my tears, he gave me me his own one: "Don't look at your shoes, look forward. You are looking at your shoes now. Look forward and see what happens. When I was going to the war, up there there was no one. Leave it to Allah." How sharp he is in life could be seen in his eyes.

I allways wanted to be more than a knife in life. That may be the reason, what makes me crawl.

But you see.. Everybody has at least one recipe in life. Some share.

Spicy East

This is Latifah asking me my name in arabic. I liked her way. We just met 2 minutes before this poto was taken

And I liked the lady at the veryright side of the photo, she gigled and helped me with the dress.

A Timeless Peace

I went to the old souq yesterday. Souq is the word for the word bazaar, the marketplace here.

I found objects from my childhood here in the old small traditional shops.

This city reminded me of the small town I was born in the south-east(of Turkey). The friendly and very helpful people, the yellow dust, the streets, the shops, the heat, the agressive light but most of all ..the language. The native language of my grand parents.

Then, I was back to my 5 years old times where nothing much happened. I felt back my grand mother (who passed away 3 years ago) then my grandfather(that we lost even before)

I had this sweet feeling, this lightness and I wanted to name it as "Peace".

Then I thought of the city of Baghdad. It must have been a place like this one and like my hometown. They must have been like that at those days when I was five. The kids, the streets, the ladies' smiles and charm in those black dresses(abayas), the dark tanned skinny guys with their big moustaches, their mind occupied with in their trades, the big smokers that they were..

Where are they all now?.. My grandmother's kitchen utensils, my five years old me, my grandfather, Baghdad..

Here in these streets, in this language.

Here.

In the old souq I found them.

Something we all are looking for, lost in the empty feeling of the tempting big shopping malls with corporate brands, but never achieve to have it back. We all are looking for this sweet feeling, this lightness of the peace in our personal history.

Enjoy..

Said goodbye to it all.. for awhile

There I went, after a whole day of packing ..(while cats jumped on each other and on the luggage)




here I am.. !
I woke up where orange juice and toilet papers packs were in arabic script


and went to the sun and went out at nights

Silence

There was that time where after days and days in my appartment, silence within silence, I took the advantage of the movie festival, to be in other lives, understand my self within, and those days I decided to go out, take pictures for my new blog in the city.. I struggled in the calm and in the silence.

Treasured people I love

..Special times with my soul sister, happy in the shade of the big plane tree that she is and.. her sweet husband.

..Special times with Mother that I tortured whole my life. Just started knowing her and treasuring..

..Special introduction, a new special woman in my life, big round blue eyes full of something I wasnt able to name but still there ready to innund with the grandiose sensations oppressed.

..And a very special friend, long distance calls.. In the lonely life he is.. sharing all he learned from his own hard times and loneliness.

They were allways there..

In the emptiness of my home..

Following a dream may take you to the silence of the totalitarian regime and when you wake up one day, you wake up alone, you are deserted, there is only your dream and you , and the other day, and the next one you wake up in the same place. In where you are deserted.. Within your dream.

The Blades of Every Crisis

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,

A quiet house, some green and modest acres

A little way from every troubling town,

A little way from factories, schools, laments.

I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,

With only streams and birds for company.

To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.

And then it came to me, that so was death,

A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,

But let it go.

Homesick for moderation,

Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.

If any find solution, let him tell it..

Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation

Where, as the times implore our true involvement,

The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.

Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary OLIVER (1935-present)

I had this running around day last tuesday. Then met with my good old friend Ali to go to a cocktail where we survived for some time till smoke took us apart(why do people still smoke?). He left me to the funicular and although I was so tired of thinking about my beautiful Mary Oliver poem that I discovered before the flat it self and whether to leave or not to leave the flat now, I didnt tell a word that evening. My constant eating must have told him about the way I feel, he was unusually supppotive that night. And while we were saying goodbye, he asked about the latest situation on my job and the rented dream flat and I said "my home was beautiful..". He said "you'll make a more beautiful one.."

Then I remembered how wise he was in telling this and the good architect that he has been. The flats they have made with his creative wife in time. How many homes have they had.

Thatanswer stopped me and woke me up.

Isn't that what life is all about? Starting over

Who ever made music of a mild day?

So the day after I was changed. I started this beautiful butterfly cross-stiching kit. Had the call I was waiting for, for a further interview.

The Tiny Woman and Honeysuckles

A home was my dream. Just like in the poem...


The Giant, The Tiny Woman and Honeysuckles

He was a giant with blue eyes
Loved a tiny woman
The woman's dream was a house
With a garden where honeysuckles grows
in marbled textures

The giant loved like a giant
And his hands were done for so big
That he couldn't do the way
He wouldn't knock on the door
Of the tiny house with a garden
Where honeysuckles grows
in marbled textures

He was a giant with blue eyes
Loved a tiny woman
The woman was teeny tiny
Became hungry for confort
Got exhausted in giant's enormous way
And saying goodbye to the giant
Entered in the arm of a dwarf
To the garden of the house with honeysuckles

Now the giant knows
That to giant loves
Can not even be graves
Tiny houses whith honeysuckles

Nazim Hikmet RAN (1901-1963)

Who could blame the woman? I had no giants, no dwarfs just my home and LOVE. My dream home. At the age of 35 and after dreaming for at least 16 years.

Lost job, lost lover. And am about to loose my home now.

This was my dream for years. What kept me alive. My white tablecloth and my diningwear on top, waiting for my friends around it.

My dream flat..

Me, Myself and My Home

It has been 8 months since I moved in here. It was August and it was in June when I fell in love. I was happy
The moving part was very tiring
I went to the office with bandages on both knees.

But I was happy..