It was sudden. On the evening of 27 February, my world in Bahrain felt remarkably normal. I was out with a group of fellow South African expats for Iftar. As the saying goes, “soort soek soort”, we gravitated toward each other for the comfort of shared language and the familiar warmth of home.
We broke our fast, laughing about our daily struggles and debating politics, drifting between the complexities of South Africa and our adopted lives in the Gulf. We said our goodbyes, unaware that the quiet of the night was about to shatter.
On the morning of 28 February, a long, hollow, rising wail of a siren tore through the morning. Living in the Juffair area, sirens aren’t entirely foreign, but this one carried an urgency we weren’t prepared for. I stood on my balcony, looking towards the navy base, already clutching my phone to call my mother back in Kariega, Eastern Cape. I started gathering my “emergency bag”, passport, documents, water.
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Then, the air itself seemed to fracture. A massive explosion threw me to the floor, my mother still on the line thousands of kilometres away in Kariega. Then another. And another.
In the chaos of those fifteen minutes, I wasn’t just an expat; I was the student who walked the halls of Dower Practising School, the matriculant from Strelitzia High, and the graduate from Nelson Mandela University. My identity as a former teacher at Uitenhage Primary School felt worlds away from the crouched position I took on the floor, pleading with my mother not to hang up. As each interception rattled the windows, I found my only strength in the faith I cultivated at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. That religious foundation is the only thing keeping me focused and centred while the world outside feels like it’s ending.
By the time I fled my building to find my friends, the sky was alive with flashes. We sought refuge in a basement before the Bahraini police moved us to a safe shelter. We couldn’t return to Juffair; the area had become too volatile. That night, the entire city was a symphony of alarms and the heart-wrenching thud of impact.
Now, nearly a month into this regional tension, I find myself at a crossroads. Should I pack up the life I’ve built here and return to the Eastern Cape to start over? I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the Bahraini government, which has worked tirelessly to keep us safe. Yet, I feel a stinging bitterness towards my own.
South Africans here are adrift. With no functional embassy and a consulate that offers little more than a referral to Saudi Arabia, we have been failed. While other nations mobilised, we were told we could get a free visa into Saudi, at our own expense. There were no repatriation flights and no food vouchers. Many teachers, colleagues of mine had to flee at their own exorbitant cost, money they didn’t have. We remain tax-paying citizens, yet in our hour of need, our government remained silent.
I am learning to live with the “aftershock” of every explosion for now. I am trying to stay strong in the country that has been my home for years. But as the sirens echo, my heart longs for the quiet streets of Kariega and the safety of being home with my family.
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