Thursday Night in Kuwait

I needed to get some cat food, toilet rolls and green beans. I decided to wait until evening when it was cooler than the 100+F during the day.

Walking out of my building at 8pm I was debating whether to go by car because the items might be heavy but it is a short walk. When I saw how long the traffic queue was to get through the traffic lights down the road I decided to walk. I estimated that it would take about 15 light changes to get through the lights. The lights are on red for 3 minutes and green for 1 minute. Each road has it’s own light here eliminating problems for those who want to turn across the traffic. That calculates to 1 hour to get through the lights and then I would have to queue to get a parking place and the queue was static waiting for cars to come out.

To get to the shop I was going to, called City Centre, I would have to go up to nearly the lights and do a U turn and come back to the shop.

probably got home having done all my shopping (having walked there and back) before I would have even got into the shop had I taken the car.

Thursday night is equivalent to Saturday morning in Britain as far as shopping goes but it is more than that. It is a family night so all the family (and many are big) are out filling the trolley and browsing the shops. Pushchairs are not common here, mainly used by ex-pats. Babies are held in arms and it is lovely to see them all. This goes on until late at night. One night I was in the store at nearly midnight (it shuts everyday at 1am) and was shocked to see the children that were there.

There is only one family living in my block of one bed-roomed flats and they are in the smallest apartment on the ground floor where the bedroom and living room is combined. There is a toddler and a newborn baby. We see the toddler quite a bit now just hanging around the entrance hall and lift. I have never seen her with a toy. Maybe I should get her one. (However when I got toys for a Liberian friend’s children when they were staying in England as the father was on a course for his job, the toys were all put away and didn’t appear to be played with.) Mum sits with the baby talking to the Harras. The Harras is the person who is supposed to clean the communal areas, empty the bins on each landing and act as security.

Tea at the Sheraton Hotel

English Tea at the Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait is certainly a compensation for the barrenness of the land. It is an extremely decadent and civilised pastime. The English School Kuwait provides this function to it’s ex pat teaching staff and governors before the start of each academic year.

The Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait is situated on a busy roundabout (called the Sheraton roundabout) with few parking spaces nearby so for those not arriving in a taxi, the best way to park is to use the very civilised valet parking provision. This facility is to be found at all the hotels, some of the shopping malls and the supermarkets where parking is difficult. You drive up to the door, get out and a man in valet parking uniform gives you a card and drives your car away. To retrieve your car you give your card to the person at the valet parking desk outside the door, they bring your car to you and you pay them 1KD and off you drive. No hassle!The function is held in the English Tea Lounge, which is furnished with old-fashioned quality settees and chairs around beautiful coffee tables. Nothing is uniform; the styles of the furniture and upholstery blend with each other but do not match. The large windows are dressed with large print floral curtains and the whole room has an English air to it. The southern Asian waitresses are in black and white uniforms and come around first with single fruit smoothies such as strawberry, kiwi, orange, mango and lemon. The only drink that seems to have water and sugar added is the lemon. The others are the pure fruit made into a thick liquid.

Then came the three-tiered trays of delicacies. Some plates had savouries while some have sweet. The savouries consisted of tiny man-sized bite sandwiches with different breads and fillings. Of course, they did not leave out the cucumber ones or the smoked salmon but there was a great variety including toasted sandwiches, which were still warm! They had tiny quiches, pizzas and cheese covered in breadcrumbs and fried. The scones were dinky and of course, jam and cream were provided. The chocolate covered strawberries, tiny bite sized cakes and the tiny fruit tarts were delicious. The waitresses served tea, coffee and water and kept filling up your cup and glass and the tiered plates were replenished when needed.

Another highlight of the afternoon for the ladies is a trip to the toilets (sorry bathroom for the Americans reading, although of course there was no bath in there.) This is a luxurious room with each toilet in it’s own separate room as opposed to cubicles. There were the tiny terry cotton towels at the ornate sinks but the pierce to résistance is the room at the end, which has ‘antique’ French settees around the mirrored walls with a choice of leg and foot massagers. We tried the leg massagers last year, which were so fierce they hurt our legs, so this year we concentrated on the foot massage. Mmmm!

Sitting around taking tea at 4 o’clock in the afternoon is a great way of getting to know each other as a staff. The school retains staff well but there is always new staff arriving each year and so we get to chat with each other and the governors. One of our governors this year is the managing director of BP in Kuwait and so we had a fascinating discussion centering on energy in all its forms. Many ex pat staff have taught in different parts of the world so their experiences are interesting additions to any discussion.

It was a bit of a shock to come out into the heat of a Kuwait early evening.

Service workers in Kuwait

The grocery packers not only pack the stuff but also take it out to the car and put it all in the boot. Westerners tend to tip these people but some Arabs don’t.

Everyone who has children has a maid, often 'living in'. Maids are Philippine, Sri Lankan or Indian. The job of the maid is to clean the house, but she may also look after the children and cook too. Working for a western family is much preferred to an Arab one. A family without children may have a houseboy instead. Some families have a driver too. And then they may have a cook.

British mothers like it here because of the maids. A working mother’s life is so much easier with a maid. I have a maid who I pay the going rate of the KD5 (over 10 pounds) each week. Justin is the husband of the real maid who is ill in Sri Lanka having operations and so he took over all her work. He has medical bills to pay and so I couldn’t say no when a teacher asked if I wanted to employ him. The going rate is that flat fee and they will do whatever is required which can take him 4 hours or more. He is very thorough, floor vacuumed and mopped throughout, widows cleaned inside and out (hanging onto the window ledge outside the window! – doesn’t matter which floor you are on but I’m 1st floor), clean kitchen and bathroom, dust, iron and balcony cleaned. He has been here 25 years; only works for British people and his English is so pigeon he is difficult to understand.

Schools and Military in Kuwait

I am one of the 'army of expat teachers' teaching expat and Kuwaiti children here.

Half the population of Kuwait are expats from southern and south east Asia (who, on the whole are poorly paid and do all the manual work here) and westerners, who on the whole get well paid and hold managerial posts, mainly but not only in the oil industry. The Kuwaitis on the whole do as little as possible. These are generalisations and there are some southern and south east Asian managers and some Kuwaitis contribute much to their country, but neither westeners nor the Kuwaitis do any manual labour.

I teach at The English School (which is where the majority of the children from the American Embassy - 60 of them - are educated, because the American schools all have high proportions of Kuwaitis - with the resulting Aribic in the playground and bad behaviour. Kuwaiti children are brought up by maids and so the behaviour is poor). We have children from the British Military Mission. These servicemen are teaching the Kuwaiti military how to do their jobs. My class of 3-4 year olds consist of children from Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Britain, US, Canada, South Africa, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, India, and Scandanavia. We are the only not for profit private school, and the only school where English is the only language in the playground. There are many schools with the word English, British or American in the title who teach using the English language. There are government schools for Kuwaitis but anyone who can afford it send their children to private schools.

The American military are all in one of the two military camps here without their families and they rarely come into Kuwait itself. I belong to an expat choir here and we sing at one of the camps each Christmas. One of the camps is totally self contained, like a little town with different entertainment places etc and one woman who came to escort us to her camp told us that she had been there a year and that was the first time she had been out of the camp, seeing something of Kuwait.

Kuwait is the gateway to Iraq and I often see military personel and mercinaries (contract soldiers paid 'silly money' - their words, by the US government) having a spell of R&R at the Hilton Kuwait Resort before going home.

First impression of my School in Kuwait

My classroom was newly built to take in the expanded intake. When I arrived a few days before the children started, it was finished but that was all. I had a floor, walls, 2 doors, windows with blinds and two air conditioning units. That was it, and there was nothing available to put in it, no furniture and no equipment! I found out that tables and chairs had been ordered but nothing else! I got a carpet ordered locally so at least we could all sit on something and the day before the children started the tables arrived but no chairs. Chairs of various sizes were scrounged from somewhere. I scoured the school looking for any spare furniture and found some shelves so then I could raid the other Kindergarten (KG) classes for stuff to put on them. Pre KG had house corner walls, sink and stove delivered and I begged that. Another class gave me their new bookstand and filing cabinet. It was a bit stressful on top of moving to a new country! I still have no computer in my room despite that being one of the things mentioned at my interview.We have a very well stocked library in a newly refurbished room, which looks great. It even has some computers! I found lots of old favourite books that we had at home when my own girls were small.

There are 450 pupils from age 2-14 in The English School and it follows the English National Curriculum, but the Ministry of Private Education modifies this. Children of Arabs have to study Arabic and Islam and non-Arabs have to learn Arabic. They vet all our books, blanking out any rude bits like a bare backside of a boy playing in the paddling pool and references to alcohol and the meat of the pig in the text. If someone sees an un-vetted book in the classroom and complains to the ministry then that teacher is out of a job and back home. (This happened a few years ago at my school which means that the ministry is much more strict on us than other schools.) They also vet our productions and class assemblies. No last minute rush here, as the script for the assembly has to be sent at least 2 weeks before performance. Our first choice production about Mr and Mrs Christmas was denied so we adapted a reading book about Humpty Dumpty –‘ Was he pushed or did he fall?’ I had to send the words to the nursery rhymes and had to change the words of Georgie Porgie to him chasing the girls, as kissing would be vetoed. The show was deemed acceptable but we were told that no girl was to play a boy part and vice versa. Now, we had lots of police officers investigating the case in this play’ some of whom were girls. All the police here are men, but of course in UK they are both. We decided to keep our interpretation. Last year the 3-5 year-old boys were asked to wear tights for their costume and Muslim parents rebelled.

Jane, my LSA (Learning Support Assistant) has been here for years and is married to a Kuwaiti. She does not like doing anything she thinks a maid should do in the classroom! But she has a wonderful manner with the children.

We have two teachers in school who are married to Kuwaitis. Although they all had to convert to Islam they do not wear the garb. However there are a surprising number of western women married to Arabs who wear the scarf (hijab) and some even wear the full regalia. In school, I noticed a group of Arab dressed women waiting to pick up their children and they all have British accents!

The school day is tough on my 3-4 year olds as it starts at 7:30am and finishes at 1:25pm. We have two periods where they eat from their lunch boxes. I’m definitely ready for my lunch at 9am having had breakfast at 6am. Now that is no different from the UK as I had to be up early to beat the traffic but here that is my official lunch break with another one at 11:30. Children 8 and older have a longer day as they finish at 2:25. The teaching staff are allowed to go home at 2:45 unless they are doing an extra curricular activity (required at least once a week) but that is early for me and I have been known to stay until 8pm. Some of that time I was using the school computer to go on the Internet. I had to go home then as the school officially closes and some rooms get locked.

The school grounds are secured by high walls and locked solid gates. When a car or pedestrian wants to enter or leave by the main gate the security man sees on his monitor and opens it. During children coming and going times two further pedestrian gates are manned. The school is opened on the first day of the weekend (Thursday) and is full of cleaners and the odd teacher like me. However, it is closed on Friday.

Ramadan

This was an experience. There is a law here, which states that no one is allowed to eat, drink or smoke in public during daylight hours. The smoking bit of course didn’t bother me but I was very bugged by the other part! I felt that my liberty was curtailed. It was still hot here, 90 degrees F. I was in the habit of taking a bottle of water wherever I went and having swigs especially in the car (public place). I also had water frequently in the classroom (public place). Fortunately, the staff room was deemed not to be a public place. Jane and I sometimes disappeared into the kids’ toilets to have a long drink if we got desperate. The children of course were exempt from this law. The weather, having cooled somewhat was pleasant to be outside and it would have been lovely to have taken a picnic to the Hilton and had a day or afternoon out. However, if I wanted to do that I had to eat in the dark! When Ramadan finished, I did not want to go for a swim and picnic in the cold sand storms.
The upside of Ramadan is the shorter working day. Usually we have to be in school for 7:10 am but in Ramadan that changed to 8:40. Other schools finished earlier but we stayed open until the usual time.

On the Road in Kuwait

The traditional dress of both Arab men and women consist of cloth obscuring their vision (interesting fact for those people who observe beyond the concrete). Most Arabs here wear the traditional dress. This means that there is no point in anyone looking over their shoulder to check for traffic as all they will see is material! so they just blithely merge into the traffic. I have even seen women driving with black cloths actually totally over their faces and peering through the material! There is also a big element of impatience resulting in weaving around the different lanes at great speed. It seems quite suicidal, their lack of concern for life. They have a saying 'In Shalla' meaning God willing, which punctuates every sentence, so if they do not arrive at their destination but end up 'in paradise' instead, it is classed as God's will. You could pray for all the children who are free to jump around inside the cars and the babies who even sit on daddy’s knee to help drive (with no other person in the car!). It is only the western expats who have car seats and strap their children and themselves in even though it is actually the law here.

Kuwait June 2005 (summing up the year)

The my class school reports are eventually all written and just a few days now to go before I leave Kuwait for the summer.

I meant to write a newsletter during the Easter holidays but I was so busy having a real holiday myself that I just didn’t fit it in.

Weather
The weather was just perfect then, so I spent most afternoons on the beach. I’m not one for stripping off and sunbathing but it was warm enough to do that. I prefer to sit in the shade with my clothes on and read, or listen to and watch the waves. This was the first time in many years that I have actually felt like I’d had a relaxing holiday. I wanted to take advantage of the good weather because I realised that soon it would be too hot for me to want to sit outside. And sure enough, it is now much too hot for me at around 112F every day. The beaches and pools at the Hilton though are crowded with people sunbathing! Today it was 114F according to Yahoo and they are always conservative I have noticed. The local temperature displayed on a building here always shows a much higher temp than Yahoo. Anyway, it was like being permanently in front of a fan heater today with a hot dry wind that dries the eyes. With the air being dry, it does not seem to be excessively hot. You expect it to be hot when the sun is out but it is a shock when you walk into the oven temperature at night. The other day, when it was only 100F we had 48% humidity and that was so sweaty! I had my washing hanging on my airer on my balcony and noticed it was due to come in soon but then the humidity struck and when I went to get it all in, it was wetter than before!

A few days in the spring, we had a severe sand storm. Visibility was very low and I had to wear a mask because I didn’t want to breathe it all into my lungs. I have my balcony door open a crack permanently so the cat can go to the toilet there and my whole apartment was covered in very fine dirty sand.

The Hilton
Most days the Gulf is like a pond with little waves lapping at the beach. It is so peaceful. I am a member of the Hilton Resort beach club. This was a big outlay in the autumn but well worth it. It is the best spot in Kuwait. Green and well looked after grounds, a lovely sea front walk with villas or grass and palm trees the whole length. Some of the villas have full time residents (at about £5000 a month) and they have got lovely pots of plants and interesting patio furniture to enhance the view. The beach has blue and white loungers under large beach umbrellas. These were straw ones up until a few weeks ago but have now been replaced with royal blue material. There are 3 beaches and 2 swimming pools with an inside spa pool too.

Rubbish
Most of the populated country is either a building site or rubbish dump with a few wonderful malls and hotels in between. My apartment building is in a place that is both a rubbish tip and a building site. The rubbish is put into open skips that are emptied most days but in the meantime the rubbish gets blown around or put in a corner somewhere and no one picks it up. There are street cleaners who are paid a pittance and do a good job, but they do the street and my building is surrounded by waste ground known here as patches of desert. Actually there are a few streets in some areas with trees and walled gardens and they look great. The public sea front areas are landscaped and paved nicely and are popular with everyone so they get crowded. There are places to have picnics there too but you either sit on concrete walls or bring your own chairs. Overall, the country looks better at night. There are lovely colourful lights everywhere and palm trees are lit making them more attractive than in the daytime. You don’t see the mess, rubble and rubbish at night.

The English School
School is about the same as anywhere, hard work and fun, except I’m working in a private school where all the parents are educated so that makes a great difference to the children. We have a high proportion of western children here, which makes us stand out from the rest of the private schools in Kuwait who have high populations of Kuwaitis. Kuwaiti children all have maids (whom they don’t respect) and not much parenting so their behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. This leads parents of difficult children to want to send them to us because they know that we do not pander to the Kuwaitis and the discipline is good here. The vast majority of the children in this school are really great, well disciplined and eager to learn, and the oldest children are 14. The teachers are all of a high calibre too and the school has a high reputation among those that know about it. There are so many schools in Kuwait with English in their title that many people get confused and as ‘The English School’ is not visible from any main road, some people do not know it exists.

The Kuwait Singers
My choir put on another concert in May, this time, some opera arias and a South American mass using folk tunes. We have some very high quality singers who are ex professionals so they all did a great job at the solos.

I don’t normaly wear black, which is unfortunate because the performing uniform for the choir is of course black. I had borrowed some clothes for the Christmas concert but looked frumpy in them when everyone else looked glam so I decided I would buy something nice for this one. I am planning on being part of 2 more concerts here so it made sense to spend some money, especially as I had lost some weight and changed my style along with my name. I knew what I wanted, a long tiered skirt, something not sexy or suggestive but feminine and floaty. Well of course when you know what you want isn’t it the case that you rarely find it? I spent hours and days looking through many of the many shops on the many malls we have here. Kuwaiti women like to shop. However black is not one of the colours this summer so each shop only has a limited amount of clothes in that colour, most of them being the ‘little black dress’ variety. Now I could not have bought anything strappy or sexy even if I’d wanted to because that was off limits for the choir dress code. We don’t want to offend anyone so the skirt had to be long, (anyway my legs demanded that), and the sleeves had to also be long. By the way, Arab girls still buy the short, sexy strappy clothes but wear them over a tight top and jeans. They still look sexy but they are sticking to the letter of the dress code by covering the top of their legs in a loose garment and not showing skin. I eventually found a skirt that was nearly right and was persuaded by the salesman (they have men as well as women in the dress shops) to take it and bring it back if I still didn’t like it when I got home. I’m glad I did because I eventually found a top to go with it in a mall a few miles away.

We only had one performance this time, which I nearly missed! I had got myself really tired due to not going to bed early enough the last few days, for the very early start everyday, so I went to bed after I got home from school because this would be yet another late night. On leaving school at 2:30, Jane, my assistant, laughed and said ‘You’d better put the alarm on so you don’t miss the performance.’ I told her that is just what I would do, and I did. I woke up from a deep sleep to the ringing of the phone. I was very disoriented, not realising that the sound was even the phone. Anyway, Odette a fellow teacher was on the line and was surprised to hear my groggy hello. She said ‘Patricia? Aren’t you coming?’
‘Coming where?’ I asked.
She said ‘We’re singing in 15 minutes!’
OhMyGosh! My alarm had not gone off because, although I had set it to wake me up an hour before the concert to give me time to eat and get ready, I hadn’t actually pulled the button up! What was going round my head was that all the expense and effort of getting those black clothes (and I had to get some strappy black heeled shoes to go with them too) would be wasted if I missed the concert! Then I thought of all the rehearsals I’d been to too! Anyway, I told Odette that I was coming and I threw on the clothes and some makeup, dashed to the car and raced to the venue. Fortunately, it was ‘just round the corner’ from me (but the Kuwaiti road system meant that I had to go all the way down the road to the traffic lights to do a U turn and come back!). The concert was in a hotel so I used the valet parking system that is everywhere here (even at the supermarket) and abandoned the car at the door and rushed to the line of choir members who were lining up to go into the hall. Fortunately, they were 5 minutes late going in. Phew! The funny thing was that I had planned on using the valet parking anyway because no way could I have walked from the car park in those shoes! I am very unaccustomed to wearing heals of any description. The skirt was so long that it covered my feet so I could do the entire concert with them bare.

Cultural Activity
There is a thriving and lively amateur dramatic/operatic society here. I went to see a performance the other day. They were good and all enjoyed themselves. I might audition in the autumn if they are doing something I like. There is no professional theatre/orchestra/choir/ballet so all entertainment has to be home grown. A little more fun and draws the ex pat community together. The Arabs don’t have the same interests it seems. The cultures are so different that only a few Arabs and westerners mix although there do seem to be quite a few western women married to Arabs.

My Conclusion
After a shaky start, (when I didn’t like it here during Ramadan) I have found that I have had a good year. The heat has not bothered me as it seems to bother some other people. That is because I stay out of it as much as I can going from one air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car to another air-conditioned building and trying not to do that in the heat of the day. The car needs to cool down before it is entered usually because even with screen shields the steering wheel hurts your hand and you can’t leave anything in there or it will melt. I have found I have got used to all the sights and sounds and don’t find them strange any more. This is weird because I was finding being in America strange into the second full year.

Summertime break
And I’m now going to start the longest summer holiday I have ever had and it is with pay! Wow!

I’m off to Cardiff on Wednesday night and will just have enough time to repack my case before I get the coach with Claire back down to London Gatwick to fly to Montana. I’m spending 3 weeks there and then back to Cardiff where Claire will already be. Helen is in Montana as I write and will be spending the whole time there with Orion. They have decided to postpone the wedding until 2008, which is when Helen finishes her degree because they would have had to spend the first few years of their marriage apart anyway. I’m going to spend a week in Chester on a residential course for school but the rest of the time will be in Cardiff with a few visits to my Mum who lives two and a half hours away by car in Taunton. One of my colleagues whose daughter is in my class will be living in mid Wales so I’m going to pay them a visit too.
Then I fly back to Kuwait on the 25th August in time to start a new school year. This time I will have a classroom with things in it!

Summer 2005 in Montana

I’m now back in Kuwait about to start my second academic year after a wonderful summer doing more wandering.

I flew to London Heathrow on the evening of the last day of school. Amazing that I managed to pack in time. I packed 2 suitcases with all that I thought I would need and was astounded that I was asked to pay KD82 for excess luggage! She said she was being generous and charging me the lower fee, pretending some kg did not exist. Well that was my silly fault for not checking how much luggage I was allowed – only 20kg! I paid it but when I flew back, I made sure I only took one suitcase weighing 20kg, which of course meant that I left loads of stuff behind.

When I got to London I got the National Express coach to Cardiff arriving mid afternoon. My daughter Claire age 18, was there and it was so lovely to see here after nearly a year. I spent the next day in Cardiff. It was a lovely day and we went for a local walk around the little village of Llandaff, which has a cathedral! Changed a bit of packing and we both set off the next day for London again to get a plane to Montana. I was going to a church conference and Claire was going camping on a teen retreat.

That was a Saturday, which was the longest Saturday I have ever had! We set off at 4:30am for the bus station to get a coach to London Gatwick. Gatwick is the airport where the package holidays go from and I can vaguely remember going through it many years ago for a holiday in Greece. The atmosphere was very different to Heathrow. There were mainly families all going on holiday whereas Heathrow has more of a mix of travellers. Claire and I had different seats on the plane because we had booked a month apart. Amazing that we got on the same flight with the same change!

We arrived at a US airport whose whereabouts escapes me as I write but it may have been Chicago and got another plane to Bozeman. We arrived at 7:30pm local time about 21 hours after setting off. Security and immigration require a destination address. I had no idea where I was staying! Initially I knew I was staying at the Bozeman teaching center of our church whose address had changed since I was there last and then I was going on to stay with a lady called Margery whose last name and address I had no idea of although I did have a phone number. I was given this at midnight, a few hours before I left for the journey because I realised that although I had requested to stay at a church member’s house I had not been told which place. My friend from the BTC was not at the airport but Claire’s ride was there so we packed our bodies and gear into her car and she took me to the BTC. Cristina had got the date and time remembered wrongly but she quickly made up a bed for me and I went to bed at 9pm.

Claire and I both did some EFT tapping to counteract jet lag and Claire was most successful which was a good job because the next day she had to participate in a whole day’s training to become a mentor for the younger teens.

I had a few days of leisure, which I thoroughly enjoyed, looking around the beautiful garden with a duck pond/stream and borrowing my friend’s car to do some shopping in Walmart. I had brought a list for toiletries and craft stuff for school. I also visited a friend’s new day care center and her baby-that-was-a-bump when I saw her last.

I got a lift (ride if you’re American) 50 miles down to Margery’s and settled in there. When I arrived at her house she said by way of greeting ‘I don’t know what you are going to eat. I don’t have much food here.’ Margery was a very old lady, (older and more infirm than Victoria) who had her meals brought to her by a neighbour so she did not have much food in the house. So nearing lunchtime I visited a friend, Victoria a few steps down the road, an old lady who was laying a carpet on some steps in readiness for the visitor she was expecting next day. She was at a tricky bit of cutting around the door jam and as she had never laid a carpet before she asked me to help. I had arrived just at the right time it seems. Anyway with that job finished she gave me some lunch, she is a wonderful cook, and lent me her car so I could take some of my Walmart purchases to Claire who was camping 30 miles away on a mountain. I did not know exactly the route to the camping ground so as the church headquarters was on the way I called in to see Helen, my other daughter age 19, who had arrived a few weeks previously to work for the church the whole summer. I persuaded her to hop in the car to direct me up the mountain. I had not seen her in almost a year but our last meeting was only very short as she arrived from Montana 2 days before I flew out to Kuwait. However we had been communicating by phone, email and instant messaging so the only thing missing was the hugs. I rushed back after giving Claire the stuff because Victoria needed the car and borrowed some warm pants from her because I could not find anything suitable in Walmart and realised that I would be cold when I went camping on that same site 2 weeks later. The weather had turned quite chilly. Whilst I had the car, I bought some groceries at the local store for breakfasts. I then went to visit my friend Penelope who was just across the stream from Margery’s. She wasn’t in but her husband was, along with the part time carer for Jean her 5-year-old severely disabled daughter. So, I started to sort the washing, which is what I usually do at her house when I go. She has 3 other girls and 2 washing machines and tumble driers. There is always something in both machines and both driers and in the basket/floor. I was just starting on the kitchen when she arrived home. I always like going to that house because I feel so at home there. We had some food and so it turned out that Margery need not have been concerned as I was well taken care of. After the meal we went for a walk and Penelope lent me a fleece as it was a bit chilly. I used that lovely fleece the whole Montana visit. Thank you Penelope. Jean was 4 when I first met her and I knew that I had known her in a previous life and she seemed to recognise me too but this visit she seemed to have forgotten and was quite the older girl now. Still gorgeous with a wonderful smile.

The next day was the start of the conference and I enjoyed meeting old and new friends.

Soon after I arrived in Kuwait

Leisure
Being a Muslim country the weekend falls on a Thursday and Friday, Friday being the holy day. It is very confusing. We often have to clarify whether we are talking about virtual or real Saturday when organising an evening event because we often get mixed up, even those who have been here for years! Some people say the weeks seem to go quicker because the weekend is in the wrong place. The Christian churches go with the flow and have their services on Fridays too.

There really is not much entertainment here. No theatre, orchestra or nightclubs. There are a few funfairs though. There is a Little Theatre which houses the amateur dramatics, and the two choirs each put on two shows a year in one of the many posh hotels, and there is a group who organize musicians to come and play a few times a year. There is an enormous Dow, a traditional Arab boat that has been built attached to the Radisson SAS hotel, (on land) which is used as a function room. The rugby club put on a ball in October. Most people go shopping for their entertainment. The Arab days are split with people having a sleep in the afternoon and subsequently are out late at night. Some shops close at midnight with children still up, because they had a split day too. I went into the grocery store last night at 11:45 after coming back from a friend’s and there were people in there doing their weekend shopping! Ramadan was weird because some people stayed up all night partying with family and slept most of the day because everyone had a shorter working day. Westerners don’t join this lifestyle. We just struggle with having to get up early in the mornings.

There are 2 singing groups for ex pats in Kuwait. I joined the Kuwait singers. It is very cosmopolitan with 21 different nationalities among 55 members. It is interesting to mix with them all. (The teaching staff at school are British with 2 Australians.) We have just performed in a good Christmas concert. We were of a high standard which is gratifying to be part of. It was lovely singing the British versions of Christmas carols because for the last 3 years I have had to sing them to the US tunes. Both the choirs hear have English musical directors at the moment.

I joined the British Ladies Society early on because the membership secretary is a mother in my class and the handbook has useful information and maps of the various places drawn by members. The Christmas ‘do’ was free to members so I went and had a great time. I happened to be on a table made up of parents from my school.

Most western ex pats belong to either a gym or a beach club. If you want to go on the beach here there are very few places you can do it if you are not a member of a club. I joined the Kuwait Hilton Resort Beach Club. All clubs have special deals for teachers as they make up a large part of the western ex pat community. We were invited to several places to sample their facilities. The Hilton is the farthest away, about half an hour in light traffic, with 3 beaches and lots of well-maintained greenery. I like seclusion so it suits me, I can go to the furthest beach and pool.

It is illegal to drink alcohol in this country, not that it stops many people, Arab and westerner alike. Ex pats tend to brew their own wine and/or smuggle, and Arabs buy on the black market. The school proposed having the Christmas ‘do’ in a hotel but that was voted out because there one couldn’t imbibe in ‘ribena’. So, it was held in someone’s large villa with catering by a hotel. The hotels do this a lot and send waiters for the food and bar. Many villas actually have a bar built into a room. Someone said that when they go back to Britain they have been known to get their drinks and just walk away from the bar without paying because that is what he is used to here. I was at a party held by an Arab once and asked the waiter for water. I had to repeat it. He said ‘On it’s own?’ I said yes, thinking well I don’t want whisky with it. (I don’t drink alcohol). He brought me half a tumbler. I was thirsty so took a swig and it was vodka! He had obviously never been asked for water before and assumed it was my version of vodka. I stopped going to parties after a short while, as they really aren’t my scene.

I have a cat called Treacle who is 15 years old. She is a tabby and very quiet apart from 2am if my bedroom door is closed! I like to sleep with my door closed and do not like having animals on my bed but I’ve had to compromise with this old lady as she makes such a racket! She does not like for there to be a door closed between her and me but does not necessarily want to come in the same room, although she does spend all night on my bed. One of the teachers is moving on to Australia and so needed a home for this cat. I also got her large plants so now the place looks homier.