2 - Bahrain War Experience

February 14, 2011 this is the day when everything about I know about Bahrain changed. Wars and rumors of wars started in every region in Bahrain. Road blocks from the protesters, and tanks and soldiers where sent to Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.

Imagine, waking up to the sound of an explosion only to find out that your house are being surrounded by hundreds of rebels and peacekeepers, throwing molotovs and firing tear gases at each other in front of your house. This is my life in Bahrain. For a 13 year old like me to see those rebels and peacekeepers shooting at each other is pretty interesting and terrifying at the same time.

It's interesting to me because, as a 13 year old i was able to experience those adventures in the safe zone, which is basically inside my home. The terrifying thing though is every time we go to the malls or parties we can't get back to our house safely, for the reason that we have to go through several police checkpoints and protester's barricades. Not all barricades are harmless you see, some barricades explodes after a minute or so. If my memory serves me correct, more than 10 peacekeepers already died in our area because of those exploding barricades in our streets. It is more terrifying though, when there are no barricades or checkpoints, because one time we didn't go through any that, but when are about to reach our home, a group of peacekeepers suddenly showed up out of nowhere, and surrounded our car and started firing at the protesters 30 meters from our car.

Now because of that, usually it takes us more than 2 hrs or so to find an alternate route going back to our house. In some cases we take the risk of moving the barricades as quickly as possible. Not only that it has the risk of exploding, but also the risk that if the rebels or the peacekeepers saw us moving those barricades, they will shoot at us relentlessly. Another thing is, most peacekeepers in our area are trigger happy, so they just fire their huge guns whenever, wherever they want. Pretty terrifying right?

When i turned 15 years old, i can't get over the fact that those firings, roadblocks, and peacekeepers doesn't terrify us anymore, it doesn't terrify me anymore, sometimes it even excites me to see those things. It became part of our daily lives. So like whenever i join a party or any events of my friends, i would just take the risk of hitching with random people, in order for me to get home safely. Now because of that i made friends with random people easily. One thing i like about Bahrain is, most people there are very friendly and hospitable. They care for one another even if you're a stranger. It really doesn't matter who you are, they just care for one another. (here is a picture of a protester, helping another protester, who suffered from too much exposure to tear gas.)

Even though there are wars in our area, we still find the compassion to help one another, we build up each other just like that. One thing i realized during my stay there was that, throughout those chaos there and there will always be peace somewhere in the area. That's the same thing i learned in life too, throughout the struggles i went through, throughout the storms im going through, and throughout the giants I'm about to go through, there and there will always be peace somewhere in the area. Now i would like to end with this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.