Events of the last week in Bahrain have made me see how naive I was about the country - even after my visit there last October. Before this last week, I had no idea that much of Bahrain's internal tensions stem from a Sunni minority's rule over a Shia majority. Other factors are at work, of course - including basic tenets of democratic civil ( Read more... )

I guess after what happened in Egypt I shouldn't be surprised by anything, but I definitely wouldn't have guessed that protests would now be taking place in Bahrain. As I wrote when I visited the country back in October, Bahrain seemed stable - not exactly a representative democracy, but certainly much more so than its immediate neighbor Saudi ( Read more... )

I've been watching with some interest the "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia (also known as the "Twitter Revolution"), as protesters in that country have successfully overthrown a corrupt, autocratic government. Seeing as how I recently visited a neighboring country in the Maghreb - Algeria - I asked an American friend living there if similar ( Read more... )

October 22
Sitting in the Amman airport for four hours waiting for my connection to Tel Aviv. Now it can be revealed that my last stop is indeed Israel. (The fear was that if, say, Algerian officials knew that I would be traveling to the Jewish state, they would have denied my visa or at least made it difficult for me while I was there. The U.S. ( Read more... )

October 18
Left Algiers, transited through Istanbul, and landed in Bahrain. Man, oh man, Manama. I feel like I am on the moon.

October 19
After getting in late last night, I enjoy the cushy bed here at the Gulf Hotel. Today I am celebrating Sari's birthday in absentia.

Back-to-back hotel lobby interviews with English-language papers The Daily Tribune ( Read more... )

Tuesday, Oct. 12
Flew in to Algiers sick as a dog. Never should have had that Egyptian KFC. After many bathroom visits & sleeping 10 hours, I feel human again. They've put me up in the beautiful and history-steeped El-Djazair, whose former guests include Dwight Eisenhower, Simone de Beauvoir, Edith Piaf. Not too shabby.

My first official activity is ( Read more... )

Friday, Oct. 8
Leaving for the airport in an hour. Using all of my packing/rolling techniques right now. No time to shave; I will shave in Cairo.

OK, Delta Airlines wins the worst-ever international check-in/baggage drop award. Buckle in for the 10-hour flight.

I'm here. Landed in Cairo, was driven to the hotel, met Mike, the Cultural Affairs rep ( Read more... )

Tomorrow I embark on a three-week trip to the Middle East (and North Africa), another "mission" on behalf of the State Department's Speaker/Specialist Program. This time I'll be visiting four countries: Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, and a country to be named later. As with my trip to Burma, it seems that - because of A.D. - I am being invited to ( Read more... )