translations of bahraini blogs - ebtihal salman

Posted by bint battuta

Ebtihal has a blog entitled My soul is raining - don't open an umbrella. I started reading her blog in August of this year, when a post entitled A request for Bahraini citizenship caught my eye. I have translated an extract from that post below, as well a couple of other posts (one chosen by me, one by Ebtihal).

A quick note about the translations: for those of you who like to compare the original with the translation, you may find parts that do not correspond exactly, or that might be open to a slightly different interpretation. Ebtihal has checked the translations herself, and very kindly asked me to leave my versions as they are, without changing those small things.

Ebtihal Salman followed blogs for a long time before beginning one herself. She used to contribute regularly to online forums, but eventually felt that she needed her own space with full control over what she could say. Her blog was intended to be somewhere she could post her creative writing, specifically short stories, but she hasn't written any new ones since starting it, and has chosen not to post her old work. She also wanted to be able to comment on local news, and express the thoughts that come to her mind every day when she reads the newspapers, but has ended up not doing that much either.

The name of Ebtihal's blog, My soul is raining - don't open an umbrella, comes from a fondness she has for rain. She has often used 'Rain Maker' as an online name. Because she was actually banned from posting on a particular forum (after criticising the administrators), she imagined her writing as rain that was not welcomed, and was determined that no umbrella should stop it.

Her first post was prompted by the loss of Sheikh Abdul Amir Al Jamri in December 2006, and at that point she created a category of posts called Jamri Rains, to contain any post related to Bahrain. I think in fact she has somehow combined her two original intentions; she often writes about Bahraini politics and society, but in quite a literary and creative way. Other posts are more general. The first one below, He is not cried over, is one she says she wishes she had not posted, but felt unable to remove once she had. The post that I noticed, A request for Bahraini citizenship, was written after she saw a newspaper report about the education benefits newly-naturalised Bahrainis receive; she describes it as 'an explosion of emotions'.

He is not cried over

Then you let go of my hand, in the moment in which the wind was about to carry me away. What were you thinking about? My capacity to manage without you? Or did you have the selfish hope that I would experience death without you? Did you think about the possibilities of distance, time, and age that would separate me from you? I said farewell to you, and you had said farewell to me long before that – the last time that you said 'I love you', meaning and feeling it completely, and the last time you really wanted me near to you. After that, those feelings didn't truly overcome you again, because they didn't truly overcome me again. And I knew – without wanting to believe it – that my fingers held in your hand were a burden you couldn't bear, and that maybe you would prefer to save yourself, and that you would let go of my hand, as if you would not cry over love.

Posted 27 December 2006

A graveyard – your good fortune

It makes me happy to notice that the graveyard could well be the most beautiful place in our neighbourhood. At the very least it reassures me that the long years I will spend waiting for the day of resurrection will be in a beautiful location.

Tall trees thick with leaves are found throughout and transform it into a delightful garden. The paths are laid with red bricks, and there is shade and seats for passers-by to rest. Most people of the neighbourhood use it daily for going to or from somewhere else in the area or around it, because it is a shortcut. I remember the days long ago when I crossed it twice a day to go to and from school. Perhaps some of the girls told me there was another shortcut, but was there another beautiful shortcut? I don't think so.

There is nothing at all bad about a graveyard being nearby and being this beautiful, so when a friend tells me that her new flat will be next to the graveyard, I say, 'That's your good fortune.' But she is afraid – what are you afraid of? That a poor dead person will awake at the end of the night to spit out his grief? They never have done, for as long as the living have been more dangerous than the dead. But you have the power to do something when a bunch of flowers wilts on the table – to lay them on a grave instead of throwing them in the rubbish.

Posted 6 October 2007

I would like to submit a request for new Bahraini citizenship, with the emphasis on it being 'new', as I already have (as you are well aware) the 'old' Bahraini citizenship. God determined that my fate would be the old, original citizenship, by birth: myself, my parents, my forefathers, all born on this land since long before the new people's discovery of the road leading them here. And as long as we accepted this fate we found nothing more beautiful, but now, after much consideration and contemplation, it seems that I finally want to change my nationality to the new version, with no sympathy for my forefathers. … I would like to feel that I am a valued citizen, and that all the institutions of the state are working to serve me, to improve my standard of living, and that every day they will offer incentives to encourage me to keep my citizenship, and that they won't hold back with money from the public treasury to enable me to remain and become deeply rooted with a foothold in every inch of this land.

Posted 4 August 2007