Day 216 - Dressing for Dinner

Image of Bahraini flag by Frans Zwart, via Flickr.com

There were many levels of competition between Qatar and Bahrain in addition to the claim by both to Hawar and adjacent islands off the west coast of Qatar. Evidence of how seriously Qatar took that claim was the insistence by the Qatari Customs authorities that a shipment of T-shirts with the outline of Qatar on the front must have the islands added in magic marker before the Hash House Harriers were allowed to take possession. The competition spilled over into many other areas, such as the competition between the U.S. ambassador in Bahrain and the U.S. ambassador in Qatar. Since our embassy in Bahrain was much larger, the ambassador in Qatar was seen as lagging behind. His ambition to establish an American school and a church may have been sparked by the fact that Bahrain already boasted both institutions. His initial ambition that our local guard force be staffed by Gurkhas was another attempt to keep up.

Image of Qatari flag by Mohd Althani, via Flickr.com

History is a useful reference to explain the competition. For nearly 100 years, Bahrain's ruling family controlled Qatar as well as land on the peninsula stretching from modern day Kuwait to the south of Qatar. Other empires including Persian, Ottoman, and British ruled large portions of the Arabian peninsula as well as both Bahrain and Qatar. Both countries gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1971, Bahrain on August 15 and Qatar on September 3.

Qatar and Bahrain are separated by just a few miles of water. Their flags are the same except for the shade of the red and the number of saw teeth that connect the white with the red. Qatar is a larger land mass, but Bahrain has a larger population. There is evidence that both countries were inhabited as far back as 7,500 years, but only on Bahrain can ruins more than 100 years old be seen today.

Dressed for dinner

Many of our friends in Qatar eventually found their way to Bahrain for work, among them Pete and Lorraine and their children. Once they had settled into their new house, they invited us to join them and a few of their friends for dinner. They told us to bring formal clothing as we would be dressing for dinner.

The occasion for the dinner was that it was the same evening as a formal dinner at the Bahrain Equestrian Club. Pete and Lorraine decided the lack of an invitation to that exclusive formal event shouldn't prevent them from appropriately marking the occasion through hosting a smaller scale event in their home.

Alex and I flew to Bahrain for the weekend, bringing tux and formal gown with us for Thursday evening. Lorraine had arranged for the meal to be prepared in her kitchen and served at the table in the style of Downton Abbey dinners.

The only thing missing were the valet and upstairs maid to help us change.