Find your inner kitsch
So I gave up my view of the purple and yellow hotel backside flanked teasingly by azure turquoise ocean for a terrible view into the ablution side of a decrepit apartment building with washing hanging out of every rusting window grid. There’s even a balcony on which I can sit and contemplate this. I don’t.
See. I have a flat. Five days in Bahrain and I’ve put up nest. Not bad.
It’s nothing fancy, except for one of the biggest TVs I’ve ever seen in such a small room. This comes with satellite, so bring the popcorn guys. But there’s only frontrow seats, even if you sit in the kitchen, so no necking!
Besides that it’s got off-yellow furniture and these framed flower arrangements. The flowers are made out of pink and blue metallic tape, orange netting and have green velvet leaves. I was forced to turn them face down on top of the wardrobe.
The kitchen is full of the filthiest crockery I’ve ever seen in my life. Remember at 2B House Street we thought aliens had copulated, bathing the kitchen top to bottom in gism? Well, post-coital bliss brought them here where they individually fingered each eating utensil, or maybe this was foreplay. I’ve washed everything every night since I’ve been here – that’s three times – and I’m only starting to see what lies beneath.
Still, compared to what it looks like outside of my flat, I feel like I’m living in luxury. As you might have guessed from the description of the view, I’m living in the heart of authenticity. No tuscan villa enclosed utopia – which seems as popular here as in South Africa, although I still can’t figure out why: It’s not for crime.
In fact, I’ve been working on an advertising campaign for one called Riffa Views. If it were up to me the logo would have been a fat spliff and the landscape a Jimi Hendrix psychedelic. When I ask the creative director how it’s going with the designs, I always ask “are you smoking”? But he hasn’t caught on yet, although he seems like quite a cool guy. Probably just been here too long – six years he says! – or, more likely, thinks I’m weird.
I’m enjoying playing up the dumb South African newbie damsel in distress. I find people seem to like helping me then, which is an inroad into small talk (I’m making lists of topics to talk about the next day before I go to bed). And from small talk… well, it’s too early to say really.
But back to my neighbourhood. It’s grim. Square ant-heap-like apartment buildings with small windows, tiny roads with no pavements and desert sand piling up against the edges. And oh please send it a coat of paint! But inside those crumbling walls is a good standard of middle-class living. I think this is important to understanding Bahrain – the inside, next to your air conditioner, is what counts. That’s why the TVs are so big and the women all veiled. It's about inner beauty - or kitsch in the case of the tape flowers.
See. I have a flat. Five days in Bahrain and I’ve put up nest. Not bad.
It’s nothing fancy, except for one of the biggest TVs I’ve ever seen in such a small room. This comes with satellite, so bring the popcorn guys. But there’s only frontrow seats, even if you sit in the kitchen, so no necking!
Besides that it’s got off-yellow furniture and these framed flower arrangements. The flowers are made out of pink and blue metallic tape, orange netting and have green velvet leaves. I was forced to turn them face down on top of the wardrobe.
The kitchen is full of the filthiest crockery I’ve ever seen in my life. Remember at 2B House Street we thought aliens had copulated, bathing the kitchen top to bottom in gism? Well, post-coital bliss brought them here where they individually fingered each eating utensil, or maybe this was foreplay. I’ve washed everything every night since I’ve been here – that’s three times – and I’m only starting to see what lies beneath.
Still, compared to what it looks like outside of my flat, I feel like I’m living in luxury. As you might have guessed from the description of the view, I’m living in the heart of authenticity. No tuscan villa enclosed utopia – which seems as popular here as in South Africa, although I still can’t figure out why: It’s not for crime.
In fact, I’ve been working on an advertising campaign for one called Riffa Views. If it were up to me the logo would have been a fat spliff and the landscape a Jimi Hendrix psychedelic. When I ask the creative director how it’s going with the designs, I always ask “are you smoking”? But he hasn’t caught on yet, although he seems like quite a cool guy. Probably just been here too long – six years he says! – or, more likely, thinks I’m weird.
I’m enjoying playing up the dumb South African newbie damsel in distress. I find people seem to like helping me then, which is an inroad into small talk (I’m making lists of topics to talk about the next day before I go to bed). And from small talk… well, it’s too early to say really.
But back to my neighbourhood. It’s grim. Square ant-heap-like apartment buildings with small windows, tiny roads with no pavements and desert sand piling up against the edges. And oh please send it a coat of paint! But inside those crumbling walls is a good standard of middle-class living. I think this is important to understanding Bahrain – the inside, next to your air conditioner, is what counts. That’s why the TVs are so big and the women all veiled. It's about inner beauty - or kitsch in the case of the tape flowers.
posted by Nadine at 8:20 AM
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