Western vs Arab Starbucks

The chairs in Starbucks are so close to each other, but who cares, since we enjoy listening to different conversations, whether they are your friends, or not! I couldn’t help it the other day, the only way I would prevent myself from eavesdropping on the nearby table was to stand up and leave. And since it was a sad, very sad, conversation, I decided to stay and listen because I got emotionally attracted to the topic.

See my friend, the sad part was not actually what was said, but rather what was NOT said. I’ve been to many Starbucks Coffee Shops around the world and they all have tables and chairs placed very close to each other. But I wasn’t sad there, I was ok, their conversations were more like what I like to hear when I am forced to eavesdrop. In this part of the world, it is a totally different experience.

Here I am, sitting, in Bahrain, the lovely Kingdom Island located in the Arabian Gulf, only minutes away from the Arabian Kingdom of Saudi and Qatar. But just a bit further away, are nations with a load of issues that can potentially spillover to all parts of the world, not just to me here in lovely Bahrain. In Syria, oh where do I start, it is cold and men, women, and children are freezing to death, literally in this freezing weather. In Yemen, people spend close to 70% of their income on Qat, just Google it to know what it is.

Iraq’s government has sold its sole to the Devil, Africa is starving, Pakistan is poor, and whom do Muslims run to in Burma? Europe’s economy is shattered, unemployment in Spain is unbelievable, Eastern Europe is turning back to Russia, and America is preparing for war on China while China’s neighbors are growing restless on border claims.

More animals are forever fading, the environment is sliding towards the unlivable, natural resources are truly nonrenewable, and forests will soon join the dinosaurs. Cities are exploding in numbers, cars are jamming the roads, homes are getting smaller, and people are populating and multiplying exponentially. Entertainment is continuing to ruin our healthy lifestyle, food is getting more expensive and worse, and soon people will go for plastic surgery to replace one ear with an additional mouth.

Let’s keep it short today and say, the problems above shouldn’t make you sad, because we can all put our hands together to tackle them one by one. We can believe in ourselves that in one single day, we can produce a plan that would end all the world’s problems for once and for all. However, if we choose to prioritize searching for the best color of lipstick that no one else has is something that truly makes me sad.