Last weekend Jen and I took advantage of a 4 day weekend to fly to Kuwait. We visited with a fellow Durham/Bowmanville - ite named Katie. Katie and I had never met, but through the wonders of technology had discovered that we were connected through mutual relatives and also through 2 degrees of Dutch separation.
Kuwait was an interesting place. It was a lot like Cairo, except ... not at all. At first, I fell in love with all the things it had that Cairo did not - big grocery stores, organized highways and roads, no harassment of any kind, and lots of good places to shop.
As the days went on, I realized there are aspects of Egypt that I love, and that are not actually 'Middle-Eastern;' they are Egyptian. I missed that everyone is outside here, all the time. Even though it occasionally drives me crazy, I missed that I go to an outdoor market for my food, and a tiny squished up little inside store for my perishables. I missed walking everywhere. I especially missed that when I can't walk, I can take a super cheap taxi.
Having said all of that, Kuwait is beautiful. The Gulf is right there, and there is a beautiful view. The wind blows and being by water all the time makes you feel fresher. There is much, much less garbage on the streets.
I learned that there are more foreigners in Kuwait than Kuwaitis. All the service and retail employees were not Kuwaiti. They were, among other nationalities, Egyptian, Philipino, and Indian.
I learned that Kuwaitis called oil "black gold." This is probably accurate.
It would be fair to say that Kuwait as a whole is not a big fan of Iraq, or of Sadam Hussein. We went to a museum called the "Kuwait house for national works not to forget museum saddam hussain regime crimes." In said museum we watched a pyrotechnic display that showed us the destruction brought on Kuwait by the 'barbarians.' And we learned that "even the air conditioning control centre was harmed by the barbaric invaders." Although I am not a huge fan of Saddam Hussein myself, history was so grossly one-sided it made me laugh.
Katie is deeply involved and is happy there. It was so fun to experience that, to attend church with her, and see where she works. It looks like an amazing place. We were so grateful to have a great host!
It was also great to return to my Cairo: 10 degrees cooler, being whistled at and stared at in the airport, and having a treacherous ride back to Maadi in Mostafa the driver's new car, which he proudly demonstrated to us "goes very very fast."
