Saying Goodbye to Bahrain.

Reflections and thanksgiving

Saying goodbye to Bahrain

Hail and welcome! This week is one of those bitter-sweet moments that we all encounter in our lives. You see for three years I have enjoyed my sojourn and the work I was hired to do here on Isle de Bahrain as my weather app insists upon naming this place.

I know that is partly why in this last few weeks the poem, The White Heron of Bahrain was finally committed to text. It had been for months an emotional thought process ever before my minds eye. Mulled over. Thought about. Planned. Yet never written down. I am going to leave, so May was the perfect time to solidify that thought and picture and emotion, and create words.

You can also read it in the Poesy tab. Incidentally my school English department is going to use it in an “ unseen poem” lesson. Those are the poems that students have not studied. That a student nevertheless has to apply their acquired knowledge of poetry and offer an analysis of this unseen one. That is pretty cool for a nobody like me to know!

It is a blessing to me to realise that although I will be gone nevertheless a little of Syre Byrd will remain even as an unseen poem! Kind of symbolic I feel. Perhaps there is a similar cause behind, dear readers, why I continue writing on SubStack?

For this has been a difficult few weeks again. I have been consumed by everything except writing down my life and ideas. That, I need to remind myself, is in fact my purpose. I am leaving behind a poem in Bahrain soon. I am leaving behind a SubStack of works for my Sons and family and friends and subscribers. Hopefully for a little longer than the next few weeks. Yet who knows?

Another difficulty weighing on my mind and actions has been the political situation in UK as reported and commented upon in our ‘feeds’. It has been depressing to read about. It has consumed me. The result: mental Apoplexy. One feels so helpless and frustrated. Then again, as I wrote about in my last article: stepping back is the only option.

As Mark Twain once satirically wrote (and this seems so uncannily apt for our public discourses this very week in May 2025),

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed.

If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

Nothing has changed since Twain wrote those words. I know this….yet for weeks I can get swept up in the dross. SubStack is just another platform and not intrinsically different. Luckily it has many decent writers and voices. Luckily also as I said in my last article, I have managed to cut back on SubStack Notes/postings. Take a more balanced and nuanced approach to (all) media.

Of course as I write I have no new teaching position to go to either. Is this the end of teaching as in, for a school? I have an online teaching website. Should that now take centre stage in my life?

Time to re-centre myself. Time to re-centre my thoughts and ideas.

Come at last back to a blank page on my Mac Mini in front of me now that just cries out for words and ideas and thoughts and stories and principles and a good recipe!

This blank page invites me to write! I find this whole process exciting! I love it! Yet it can be assuaged and I can be so so easily distracted. I teach teens and see myself in them (not often, just sometimes) ironically!

A lesson that has to be repeatedly learned. Repeatedly worked through. This week, dear readers I break surface again and spend some time with you instead.

So I am leaving Bahrain. My three years at Capital School are coming to an end in June. This posting is not about the School. It is about Bahrain. So I decided I would mark my leaving by doing a several things.

Firstly I wanted to see and hear the Bahrain Philharmonic Orchestra one last time if possible. I wanted to say goodbye to them, metaphorically, and give thanks for their music making. Over the past three years this Young Orchestra (3-4 years old) has brought me much joy and given me much solace. The Concert I attended at the beginning of May suited that purpose and intention very well. The programme was title “The Beauty of Classical Music’’. It was a programme in honour of Europe Day. So they had prepared a chocolate box of musical goodies to serve for our enjoyment.

May 9th 2025. Bahrain Philharmonic Orchestra.

Thus it was. In particular I thought the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the guest soloist Olga Arribas Quintana was played beautifully. In fact, I so wish we had been able to hear the whole concerto live and not just the first movement! Audiences in Bahrain are ready for complete works, if sensitively programmed and played. Also the singer Marika Franchino who sang the Bizet pieces from carmen left an impression on my eyes and my ears! She arrived on stage in striking Red hair, as in rouge not ginger! Her singing was fantastic. As I have often said and I say again now: the human voice is the Emperor of instruments for this person and listener.

The National Theatre of Bahrain is beautiful as well. Intimate. The design seems to echo the wooden Pearl Fishing boats of this countries heritage. The balconies in particular echo that history.

Interior shot of Bahrain National Theatre.

I left that concert hall once again happy. Once again edified. Once again in awe of those who can congregate and aggregate their talents in an Orchestra and model perhaps, how a society itself should work. Such were my musings as I walked home through the Manama Souq which itself was just beginning to close: though many shops still blazoned with light and attempting to sell me, and I quote, “Genuine fake watches”! Then past the Bab Al Bahrain on my walk home.

The next items I am planning to do. In early June there will be a holiday here to celebrate Eid ul-Adha. That will be a 5 day holiday and it is hoped that I will be entertaining my Beloved traveling from Riyadh with the Filipino Friends! So I am hoping that we will do the Pearling Path. This is a relatively new tourist attraction in Bahrain. A walk that takes you through the Story of Bahrain via historical, cultural, religious sites that unfold Bahrain itself. I like the idea very much. Am very curious to see how it works! Of course, June during the day can be 40 degrees plus centigrade. Might need some adjusting!

Jean has said she would like to visit the Tree of Life as well whilst she is here. That was already in my plans as well. For on Summer Solstice morning this year, I will be there to watch the Sunrise with that magical Tree. I will meditate. I will celebrate the Sun at his height and interestingly the move into the dark half of the year! I celebrate both light and dark. The strengthening Sun of Spring and Summer. The waning sun of Autumn and Winter. Just one holistic movement for me. I embrace it all.

For this Druid, The Tree of Life is my Stonehenge if you will, whilst I am here. Taking Jean to the place earlier in the month is a bonus.

My go to place to walk and do my spells is the Karbabad Beach. One end of which is just rubble and hardcore giving a shape too a new man made contour on the coast. It is not built up, yet. To walk to it I go past the stalls offering roasted seeds and chestnuts. Karak tea and Qahwa. Luqaimat ( a kind of doughnut ball covered in honey or syrup and sesame seeds). Past bouncy castles and carousels. Horse rides along the lower beach. All mostly run by locals for locals.

I like it a lot on my way to the dark part of the beach.

Where I mediate and pray (cast my spells)

Yet before any of this, there is in fact a historical site. The Fort. In three years I have not visited! This I will rectify in the next weekend! Imagine a history teacher walking past a site regularly for three years! Embarrassing!

Lastly this week I would like to thank my Bahraini colleagues at the school. Over three years we have shared space and talked, shared dates and karak and laughter and sadness and the frustrations that teaching bring. In all that time I have felt respected, valued and treated as any civilised person would wish and would wish to be found doing themselves.

Reciprocity is one of the secret ingredients in recipes for peace in our world.

The local people who I have interacted with as pupils, parents, as stall holders in that Karbabad Beach area and in general as I have walked daily and gone into shops and coffee shops have been friendly and welcoming. People that I have met at the Tree of Life ( hello Ghaidaa!) sharing their coffee with me as we await the Sunrise.

In summary: I have actually really enjoyed my time here. In comparison with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, perhaps more so here on this Island of Bahrain. Excepting of course that I did meet Jean in Qatar and something precious began there; which we both celebrate.

To Bahrain and all of you I have met: thank you. I am grateful. I believe you have also made my heart and my soul and my spirit, wider than before I came.

I still have to find a place that makes the best hamour machboos though…..

Have a blessed week everyone!

Syre Byrd