Blockbusting

Those Brazilian pilots we know sure are scared of the Shi’a.

In Bahrain, the Shi’a are the majority I believe, still without political power but in population I think they outnumber the Sunnis. Shi’a villages are denoted by black flags that dot the perimeter of their areas. (Back in the States, I only knew of them as Shiites, but over here they are called Shi’a, I think it’s just another way to say the name)

Anyway, Jeff and I live just a few blocks away from a Shi’a village. We found this compound first, but it was out of our price range. After searching and searching, we really couldn’t find anything we liked. This place was OK, we didn’t love it, but we could stand it, which is 10x better than anything else we saw. So I went back to the agent and asked if we could negotiate the price. We met with the landlady and spent some time with her, and told her that we could get other pilots moved into this compound (as it is brand-new, there are many vacancies) since so many of the pilots were re-locating to the area from Saudi. She dropped the price and we got a home.

We showed the Brazilians the compound and they all loved it. It’s brand-new, it’s right on the water, has a great pool, and is really close to the causeway leading to Saudi Arabia, where everyone has to go for work. We had eight pilots signed up, and they wanted to bring over more, to the point that I thought I’d only have Brazilians for neighbors. After two weeks, several had signed contracts and were about to pay deposits.

Then… one of them saw the Shi’a village and Freaked out. He told everyone that this area was an unsafe place to live. He told Jeff that the Shi’a are dangerous and he shouldn’t leave his wife alone all day near the Shi’a.

Every single Brazilian then backed out of the compound.

Jeff and I just shook our heads. We saw Shi’a villages all over the island. You see black flags everywhere.

Most of the Brazilians moved all the way to the other side of the island, which adds approximately one hour roundtrip to the Saudi airport commute. Guess what’s a few blocks away from their new neighborhood?

A Shi’a village.