“Why Would They…?”

(Written February 2012) During our years in Cairo, my husband devised a game called “Why Would They?” It proved to be an expat game of trying to hold your tongue.

The rules in Cairo were simple, for every, "Why would they?" exclamation -- typically uttered when witnessing some fantastical, or wildly amazing, or just implausible and gravity-defying feat, such as "Why would they carry a plate glass window on a motorbike?", or "Why would they step out into traffic without ever looking?" -- you would get one point against you. If you were somehow able to NOT exclaim this constantly, then you were probably asleep; there's really no other explanation. Our favorite supplementary game, was to see how long it took visitors to utter their first “Why would they” sentence, which was sometimes within minutes of leaving the airport.

We have tried to play the game outside of Egypt, but frankly it’s just not as fun. Yes, wild and wacky sights can be spotted in Venice, or London, or Alaska, or Muscat, but so far nothing can compare with the sheer volume of wondrous mind-bending sights in Cairo.

Life is much more sane and less like a carnival in Kuwait, but having said that, we have come up with two “Why Would They’s”. The first is quite simply, “Why would they constantly drive with such recklessness?” No, it’s not as much fun as “Why would they put grandma on top of the pile of watermelons in the back of the truck (in Cairo)?”, but we work with what we’re given. The driving remains a constant source of stress here, but I am trying to train myself to fully expect to be passed on an on-ramp and cut-off in a merge lane, so as to lessen the stress spikes. Not to mention constantly checking rear and side mirrors; I’ve learned all too often that just because it’s clear one second doesn’t mean there won’t be a Hummer H2 climbing up your tailpipe in the next.

Our second “Why Would They?” comes from something I have failed to share, until now. It’s not because I’m trying to hide it, but frankly I find it so baffling that I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s simply this, is certain areas of town, Kuwait City stinks.

It really stinks. The sewage smell can be overwhelming in some neighborhoods, particularly those close to the water. I've heard all sorts of rumors as to why, including a broken sewage pipe flooding Kuwait Bay and the Persian Gulf with raw sewage, and an on-going search for an engineering firm to fix it. I don't know what the real story is, but I can certainly attest to the real result. Pew.

So, sadly, one of the best parts about Kuwait, their 180 miles of coastline, is strongly affected by this. No one wants to come to the beach, when the beach doesn't smell like a beach should. Personally, I would think that the high-end resorts lining the waterfront would team up and demand that the problem be addressed. I can’t imagine paying $500 a night for a room with a waterfront view (and complementary smell), let alone trying to take a dip in the water and dodge the debris (I'm making an assumption here; I have yet to take a dip in the Gulf and frankly can't see it happening anytime soon).

And so, it still stinks. We recently visited friends who had a gorgeous villa, just a block from the water, but when we parked and open the car doors the stench was so overwhelming we ran for their front door with our breaths held. We’ve taken walks along the beach on the promenade, and one minute everything is lovely, the next the wind changes and you’re suddenly speed-walking to the car.

So it comes down to this. In a country as flush with cash as Kuwait is, "Why Wouldn’t They Fix the Sewage Smell?" Okay, one point against me; let the game begin!

Christmas in Kuwait - 2011

(Written December 2011) My husband called me at home last week with some good news!

Hubby: “Remember I put our names in for a raffle at work for a real Christmas tree? Well, we won!”

Julia: “A real tree?” … pause for thought… “We have a tree already, and it’s up and decorated.”

Hubby: “Yeah, but this is a REAL tree and it’s six feet tall!”

Julia: “But we have a tree already, and it’s up and decorated.” (silence on the line) “We’ll have to water it. And did it come with a stand? Where are we going to put it? Are you going to take down the other tree and then put new lights and decorations on this one?” [This actually is a fair point as I am the designated decorator in our house if we want decorations at all.]

Hubby (sotto voce): “But I’ve never had a real tree.” (Cue “Charlie Brown heartbroken” theme.)

And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say - that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then - the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two! So squelching my inner-Grinch, and with a new-found burst of holiday enthusiasm, I said, “A second tree is great. We can keep it in water until we can get a stand.” Sigh.

I’m not usually the Grinch at Christmas. In fact, I’m typically obnoxiously festive. In our first year of marriage, my husband made me agree to wait to put up Christmas decorations until the first weekend in December, despite my intent to start after the first load of dishes was done on Thanksgiving.

I love everything wonderful about Christmas; the music, the feelings, the lights and ornaments, the movies, the concerts, the parties, the gift-buying. I love it all. But this year has been a bit of a struggle for me and I’m going to blame my sluggish holiday enthusiasm on the year we’ve had.

I did manage to push through my holiday-apathy and decorate our house, a little. I only put up about a quarter of our decorations, though I did throw up our fake-tree with lights and a handful of ornaments (mostly those that were at the top of the box). Part of this festive push came from our decision to throw our annual cookie party, which we started when we lived in Cairo. But I have to say that without the pressure of people coming to the house for a holiday bash, I might not have done even this much.

Conversely, Kuwait is bustling with seasonal joy. I have to admit that seeing all the stores decorated for Christmas is a bit of a shock to my senses. Even the grocery store Lulu’s is decked out to the nines with trees and lights and even that classic beauty the fuchsia-tree. I guess I had come to Kuwait with the assumption that it was more religiously conservative than Egypt, and therefore would not be doing the whole fuchsia-tree thing. And yet, they are far greater Santa enthusiasts than the Egyptians ever were – at least from a commercial sense!

But, now with our new real Christmas tree waiting in a bucket outside, we added one more task to our holiday preparations list and headed off to True Value Hardware (I’m not kidding, it’s located right next to Ace Hardware – I’m telling you, it’s so western here it’s almost disappointing), because my husband had heard that they carry stands for trees. After perusing the Christmas aisles, of which there were many, we came up empty. I did spot a nice red velvet bow that I thought might look festive on our front door, but then seeing that they were charging $24 for it, I quickly put it down.

After thoroughly wandering, we were still sans tree stand. We asked a few people if they carried stands and were told, “No,” “Check the Christmas aisle”, and otherwise got some blank stares. My husband, being ever so determined went back to the Christmas aisles and scoured them again. While I was wandering through the housewares (not really shopping, moreso checking out very expensive dishes made in China), my husband popped back and said he’d found one, sort of. I followed him back and saw that he was pointing to a sturdy plastic stand, definitely designed for real Christmas trees, but it appeared to be part of a display. “This is the only one I found,” he said. So, with a practiced move, such might be used to swap prices in a thrift store, I casually rearranged the fake poinsettias and grabbed the stand and we headed out with quite possibly the last remaining Christmas tree stand in Kuwait (made in Troy, Michigan). Maybe it was the excitement with which my husband embraced his new tree, or maybe it was the fact that he actually helped put the ornaments on (which he typically has no interest in), or possibly it was the festive scent of citrus in the air to discourage all the felines from munching on either tree, or maybe it was just the distant sound of the Whos down in Whoville singing wa-hoo wa-hoo that finally ignited my Christmas spirit. Whatever it was, I’m finally ready and eager to welcome Christmas in this year. ‘Tis definitely the season for miracles. God bless us, every one!

Moving In...

(Written September 2011) So, I’d love to say that I’m able to fully regale everyone with my immediate impressions of Kuwait and our neighborhood and our home, but honestly on the ride from the airport, I was dividing my awareness between our new surroundings, and Louie the kitten in a quiet rage in the carrier next to me. I was also just so damn happy to be off that plane that I could have wept.

My very very first impressions of Kuwait, though, were in the airport. First, it was spotless (compared to Cairo – which I remember as being dusty and slightly dirty), the floors were marble and shiny, the signs were in English and Arabic, and as I sat in the waiting-for-a-visa chairs with the three cat carriers around me as my husband and mother wandered off to figure out how to get the visas, I started to realize just how schlubby and exhausted I felt. This was exacerbated by the Arab women around me, who I assume had also just disembarked from a plane, and yet they all looked like they were ready for their photo shoots. Their makeup was perfectly applied, and they looked stunning. Their abayas (loose dress- or robe-like garment worn over their clothing) and hijabs (headscarves) were unwrinkled, matching and thoroughly bedazzled. I was wearing my elastic plants, loose shirt and crocs. I felt like a toad among roses (no offense to toads).

So I focused on keeping my croakings quiet while I waited; then we trundled off to find our six suitcases (we had saddled my mother with a second bag of our crap). With those in hand, we were driven to our new home in Jabriya, which is a neighborhood just southeast of Kuwait City proper.

We pulled in next to our house, or rather "Villa 21". There’s a cement wall surrounding the property and there were two gates, one for pedestrians, one for cars. The interior “yard” area was fairly large (certainly for us, since we’ve only lived in apartments). There’s a large carport area, some grassy bits that were rather tufty and dead, a table and chairs, and about twenty little trees lining the wall. Yup, we have trees.

The house itself was described to us as a townhouse. But it’s not like any townhouse we knew. It’s more of a very large, duplex. We share a common wall with our neighbors, but if we didn’t periodically hear their kids, we’d think we were in a single family home.

The front door opens into the dining room, with the living room off to the left, and kitchen, laundry room, and half-bath (with three sinks, for some reason) off to the right. The stairs also lead off from the dining room and up to the second floor’s family room. The master bedroom are to the left, above the living room. There are two more bedrooms off to the right, one will be my husband’s office (for all our cable-storage and harddrive nesting needs), and the other will be our guest room and nursery. Plus there’s one more full bath here. From the family room there are steps leading up to the roof, but other than accessing the a/c unit or fussing with the satellite dishes, I don’t see us using it much. It’s got a nice sunny landing that Ricky likes, though.

All in all, we love the house. It’s far larger than we need, but we’re thoroughly enjoying the space. There are marble floors throughout and large built-in closets lining the wall in all the bedrooms, plus a separate “dressing area” with more closets in the master bedroom. The kitchen is nice, though I wish it had some natural light. But otherwise it’s big, has tons of cabinets, and room for a little table and chairs.

As with any new house, there are some quirks. First and foremost is that you need a key to not only get in, but also get out. You can actually get locked in. There’s no doorknob. There’s a handle for pulling and pushing, but it’s placed so close to the edge that if you’re holding it when you’re outside shutting the door, you’ll peel the skin off your knuckles. Plus the whole door is metal, and with the sun blasting on it for hours a day, you can’t actually touch it. So we’re getting accustomed to that. The oven and stove are a bit small, and the oven only has Celsius indicators. We call it our little Easy Bake.

We also discovered a door that leads directly into our neighbor's villa. They had piled up some furniture and lamps against the door, signaling the property line, I guess, but it felt weird to have that access. We may be piling up some miscellaneous items on our side as well. We haven’t fully explored the neighborhood yet, but it’s mostly residential; not a lot of shops. During the few days my mother was here, I suggested we go for a little walk around the neighborhood to see what we could find. She was game, but we both quickly realized two things. First, this area of Kuwait is not pedestrian-friendly. Everyone drives. There are nice sidewalks, but frankly I’m not sure why. I think we saw two other “walkers” while we were out. The second realization was that Kuwait is hot, even in September. We didn’t bring any water with us (stupid, I know, and when he heard, my husband railed, “We’re living in the desert, never leave without water!” My husband may have water issues, but he’s right on this count). We were only out for about thirty minutes, but we were red-faced and thoroughly pooped by the time we got home. We later learned that it had been a balmy 108 degrees Fahrenheit that day. Could explain the mini heatstroke. We did manage to find a Pizza Hut, a Burger King, and a KFC a block away, and an odd little grocery store that seems to only sell fruits, vegetables and eggs. Well, so much for my plans to see Kuwait on foot. It did, however, spur me into buying a large thermometer I can put outside on the window, so as to not repeat such lunacy. The irony here was that most window thermometers only go to 120 degrees apparently, but I finally found one that went to 140. If we get that high, I can assure you that I'll be inside with some iced tea watching my new thermometer melt down the window.

Even though it makes the windows too hot to touch, we get lots of sun throughout the day, and it's lovely. We’re learning the best sunspots in case we need to locate a feline. So far the nursery has top marks.

We’d love to say that we're hoping for lots of visitors, but we realize that there are many ways in which Kuwait is nothing like Cairo, and for most of those very reasons, it’s not a highly-rated vacation spot. We’ll share more about “all” that Kuwait has to offer as we dig into it. But I have to admit, that for the first time since January 25 of this year, I feel at home. I feel calm and relaxed and so happy to be here. I think Kuwait is going to be very good for us.

Kuwait's Wild-life

(Written November 2011) Aside from a few pigeons and some stray cats, I have yet to see much wildlife here. And yet, I think the real wildlife of Kuwait lies in the drivers. Without fail, every Friday and Saturday morning you can spot the wreckage from the previous night's drag-racing, speeding, fate-testing antics strewn about the sides of the highways.

Just last weekend, on our way to the grocery store, we spotted three; and one was a Porsche! Hope he had a spare.

The Kuwaiti government is quite aware of this reckless behavior, and subsequently has spent quite a bit of money and effort to put all manner of signs up encouraging drivers to be safe, buckle up, don’t text while driving, slow down, etc.. Of course, if you’re flying low at 120 mph, it might be dangerous to stop and read the signs.

In all seriousness, this is the most hazardous thing about life in Kuwait. And we don’t take it casually. It leads to some tense driving times, but after our training in Cairo, we feel that we can handle this. I mean, in Kuwait there are no propane donkey carts, or families of five on a motorbike, or bread bicycles, and they rarely try to make five lanes out of three here. Kuwaiti drivers just speed excessively, cut in, pass you on an off-ramp (that’s always a hoot) or drive in reverse if they took a wrong turn. But we do our best to fully anticipate the idiocy and drive accordingly. Let the idiot pass, we’ll get his car’s picture next weekend.

We Have Heat!

(Written December 2011) Three months ago, when we arrived, it never once crossed my mind that I’d be begging for heat. But in a mere 10 weeks, the outside temperature has dropped 60 degrees and thanks to our acclimation to desert climates, waking up to temps in the upper 40s makes for a chilly morning! Couple that with a sudden realization this past weekend that the heat for our second floor doesn’t work, resulted in the family (felines included) spending most of the weekend on the first floor in layers under blankets.

My husband put in a request to have our heat fixed first thing Sunday morning (the workweek here is Sunday through Thursday). They showed up a few hours later and after five minutes on the roof, came back in carrying a curled metal piece, which I will call the heating coil (no idea if that’s the proper name, but considering things, it works for me). They explained that it was broken, but they could get the new part and would return in two days. The next day, they showed up again, with the new part. (Making an appointment in this country to have work done at home is proving to be an impossibility – typically they just show up and you hope you’re home, or in the case like this, they actually make an appointment, then show up early/late regardless and again, you hope you’re home.) I was just happy that, a) they showed up, b) they appeared to have the new part, and c) I was home. So things were looking up.

They tromped back up to the roof again and about five minutes later one of them returned. “It’s all fixed,” he told me. He set the thermostat and then looked to me as if to say, that’s all there is lady, now let me out. I had no intentions of keeping him hostage (though that’s a definite possibility considering our stupid front door), but I was also waiting for his friend. “Is the other guy still up there?” I said motioning to the roof. “He’s going down a different way.” A different way? Like by parachute, suction cups, large springy shoes? Without a flinch, I led the one guy out and just assumed his friend met up with him somehow. In all honesty, I’m guessing he had an appointment with our attached neighbors, and just walked over the roof to their access door, but maybe I’ll go check for rope ladders, just in case.

I set the thermostat on heat and cranked it up to 80 to get it rolling. I kept waiting to hear that whoomp sound that let’s you know the central heating has awoken, but I never heard it. I did hear some rattling/hissing sounds coming from the nursery, and they were not connected to any of the felines, but despite the built-in white-noise, I still couldn’t feel any heat.

By that evening our upstairs was just as cold as it had always been and walking up the stairs was like entering a walk-in freezer. My husband made yet another call on Tuesday morning. And a few hours later, two more guys showed up; different guys (maybe half of the first set was still camped out on our roof?). These two shuffled up to the roof and were up there for quite a while. Periodically one or the other would come in and fiddle with the thermostat, then head back up. I futzed around upstairs and worked at my desk in the family room, so I could be within earshot if they needed anything.

At one point, just as one of them came in from the roof, I looked up to see the whole family room thick with a sooty smokey haze. “What’s with all the smoke?” I asked. “It’s just from the heat vents. We got it working.” Well, I was delighted for their skillset, however having our house filled with year-old dust and schmutz was not something I’d bargained for. I quickly opened a few windows, all the easier to switch out old dust for new dust, and checked on the cats whom I’d locked in the nursery. They were fine and there was significantly less haze in there. The family room and the master bedroom, however, were dense with the fine dust that coats every surface and clings to your lungs for days.

I managed to get it mostly “aired out” before my husband got home, and we definitely had heat, so all-in-all things were good. Of course, the evidence of an internal sandstorm was everywhere and each time we moved a pen or a book, we could see the distinct outline left behind in the soot. And when we attempted to blow the dust off, a cloud would rise up and then just settle elsewhere. This might need some professional help. Thank goodness for housekeepers (though this may require a bonus and a hazmat suit). Ahh, winter in Kuwait.