Hashish ~ Random Memory #14 ~ Bahrain

Spring Green Lawn, taken May 21, 2009 in Brunswick, Maine.

Random Memory #14 ~ Bahrain

Uprooted from Iran after the revolution, we have, once again, spent months in hotel rooms. We are in Bahrain and have gone through the process of finding a house and making decisions on schools for the children. It's wonderful to be settled in our new home, our shipment has arrived and now, Abdullah the gardener is having a spirited discussion with Peter. It goes something like this:

Abdullah: I am going to plant hashish everywhere! All over the garden!

Peter: Flowers are fine, but please, no hashish!

Abdullah: Why no hashish? Everybody have hashish!

Peter: I don't want hashish, can you plant something else?

Abdullah: But everybody have hashish. The green.

Peter: You mean grass?

Abdullah (beaming): Yes, yes, the grass. The hashish!

So Abdullah planted the hashish and was our gardener for the four years we lived in Bahrain. It was never a beautiful garden by any stretch of the imagination, but Abdullah worked hard in the oppressive heat and humidity and he was always cheerful and reliable. He desperately wanted us to have tomatoes and perhaps, we harvested two or three shriveled and undersized specimens from the spindly plants. Oddly enough, the supporting sticks sprouted in the nutrient rich sand and flourished.