Libraries and What nots...

I can tell that my main issue here in the Middle East is going to be books, and everything related to books… At least till I can get some insider information and find out where all the gold is.

So, Time Out magazine Bahrain very kindly lists a few libraries and other places to read books in its issues. Thinking that, as per universal norm, the Manama Public library was probably going to be the largest and most comprehensive among all the little reading nooks available in Bahrain, I made plans to go there. In other words, I called up the library and got directions from them a day before. I asked my husband to come home especially from his office at noon so he could take me to the library, because the library closed at two.

In retrospect, that closing time should have tipped me off.

The great day arrived, and I have to say I was excited. Call me childish, but I was. A trip to the public library! Books and books and more books… I must say I was probably having a serious withdrawal from earlier on or some such thing. So anyway, husband came home to take me to the library. I got into the car, quite happy to be going to the library for a couple of hours. And after another call to receive directions to the Manama public library, we finally made it there.

Was it disappointment that I felt when I first saw it? I don’t know. Many people (my husband included) would be put off by that average, white building with cracking paint, with corners full of dirt and trash, joined to yet more average white buildings with cracking white paint, such as the Manama Teacher Training Directorate or whatever. But you know… When I first saw it, I thought: this is Bahrain. What did I expect? A huge stone building with a magnificent, enormous stone staircase leading up to it, flanked by two roaring lions carved in stone? No. We’re in the Middle East. Maybe their library was built, you know, Middle East style. And, no pun intended but… We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Maybe this was one book I should have judged by its cover.

I have to say, even though I had no dreams of grandeur for the place, the entrance to it was less than welcoming. I felt compelled to ask my husband to accompany me over the cement pavement to the little doorway, and I believe he was thinking that he had better.

Well. When we entered, the first room that greeted us was filled with dusty office furniture, placed together in a cramped fashion. I’m thinking in retrospect that all that furniture might have been for people to come, sit and read, but the impression it gave me then was of furniture being jumbled together for storage. I think some of the chairs were even stacked on top of each other, or placed on the tables upside down, so maybe my first impression was right. You see, it was a singularly confusing experience.

Still not wanting to give up, I walked into a corridor to the left of the building. Ah, finally, books!

But books in four foot tall, dusty bookshelves. Books that seemed to be placed in no particular order. Books where the Arabic and the English were all thrown together. Books that were indeed placed in shelves as per subject (well, some of them anyway) but with only one labeled shelf to one subject at best.

Maybe this was the holding area. Maybe there were some more somewhere else. I spied a room to the left, and went in.

Hmmm. Definitely more bookshelves here, even if they were as dusty and disorganized as the ones in the corridors. But what seemed to me to be a more unusual sight for a library were two Indians/Bengalis in dirty green uniforms, seated with their feet up on little plastic chairs as in a particularly run-down khoka, staring at us. They were at a distance of about four feet from each other, and were regarding us with a curious gaze. What business could two civilians have at the public library?

I ventured to ask them a question – perhaps I would be able to get some direction, some clarity as to what the procedure was in this place.

“Ummm… Do you carry any annual journals?” I said, focusing my attention on the Bengali/Indian seated nearest to me.

He did not budge, but his expression seemed to become slightly questioning. I tried again.

“There is a Bahrain Center for Strategic Research. They come up with an annual report, every year. Do you have those?”

The Bengali/Indian looked at his equally silent friend seated to his left. They both looked at each other silently, then shook their heads.

“You… Go ask Secretary.”

“Secretary?”

He nodded. “Secretary. In the room at the start of the corridor. On right.”

I looked at the barely articulate Bengali/Indian. I looked at the bookshelves piled with jumbled, tattered, ragged old books. I looked at the supermarket shopping cart blocking the way down one of the only two visible aisles (the other one was being blocked by the two individuals I have previously mentioned). The shopping cart, piled high with books, was apparently their version of a book cart. The books looked melancholy sitting on their unaccustomed perch. They could only await a dire fate, when being carried away in so ignominious a vehicle.

I turned away and went to find the Secretary.

A large, open office filled with sunlight greeted me as I went in. It was about as big as the room that was meant to be the ‘library,’ only cleaner and more inviting. An Arab man sat at his rather large desk, talking on the phone. An Arab woman sat on a smaller desk which was joined to his desk. Perhaps she was Assistant to the Secretary. I went towards her, and she smiled politely.

“Ummm… There is a Bahrain Center for Strategic Research, and they come up with an annual journal. Do you have those?”

She continued to smile politely at me. There was something very simple and innocent in her face.

“Annual… Journals?”

Still the same polite smile, and then an outpouring of stilted, heavily accented English which I understood to mean that they had shifted all their books. I asked twice, but I could not quite get where they had sifted the books to.

And so we left. I was disappointed. My husband was disgusted.

Another book expedition bites the dust.