Celebrating America's Independence Early

I know you are saying . . .

What? The Fourth of July is many weeks away!

Yes, but this year the Fourth falls during Ramadan. Ramadan is for self reflection, restraint and time with family. You can not eat, drink or even chew gum in public during daylight hours. Restaurants are closed during daylight and there is absolutely no alcohol, beer or wine sold anytime, day or night.

It is not a time when the good 'ole USA should throw a big party to celebrate our independence.

So the US Embassy in Bahrain threw a big party a few days ago celebrating the 239th Anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America EARLY.

In Bahrain one day every year is set aside for each country to celebrate. All the expats love to throw big parties celebrating their countries. The newspaper has pictures showing them celebrating. I love seeing all the people in native dress and the celebrations for each country.

We were very fortunate to receive an invitation to the US celebration which was held at the Diplomat Radisson Hotel in the Diplomatic area of downtown Manama.

There was a really, really big cake. The flag on the right is the Bahraini flag.

The event was very well planned and perfectly carried out.  The Embassy staff  did a great job! There was all the usual USA pomp and circumstance with a fantastic flag ceremony that, unfortunately we could not get a good view of but caught the tops of the flags.

This was as close as we could get to the flag ceremony. The ballroom was packed.

I visited with Ann Roebuck, the wife of the American Ambassador whom I had spent some time with earlier that day at the Special Olympics event. We did not get to meet the Ambassador. He was way too busy having his picture taken with hundreds of people waiting in a long line. I really felt sorry for him.

You can catch a glimpse of the Ambassador behind us in this selfie. He is shaking hands and getting his picture taken. I bet his face was sore the next day from smiling for hours. He is the one with the light colored hair and red tie.

Coke had a special booth where they would put your name on a can of coke so we had our names, and BHB and little LW's names put on cans in Arabic. Cute!

Can you pick out the names?  Me neither.

Some other AWA members were also there and we celebrated together.

I am very proud and fortunate to be an American. It was a night to celebrate and be USA proud.

Cheers,
Brenda