Back On, But Slowly

The things you miss when you're off-line for a few days.

I went over to the supermarket, hoping to buy some Legos or some pickled fish or maybe some danishes. But no! Thwarted by the blow-up between some Danish cartoonists and the Muslim world. What's a girl to do?

For those of you who want to see the cartoons that have caused all these problems, well, sorry but you're on your own with Google. I wanna be able to read my own blog here in the future. And those of you who want my take on it? Same thing. You can probably guess if you know me well.

I would, however, like to point out that there's a fair number of overwrought Christians in the world who did not find the South Park "Santa Claus versus Jesus" episode—in which Santa and Jesus beat the shit out of each other over the true meaning of Christmas—to be the least bit funny. What does that have to do with anything? I'm not totally sure.

I wonder if Saddam Hussein thought it was funny when the South Park movie portrayed him as the gay lover of Satan. I'm digressing again.

Anyway, there's no danishes at my neighborhood supermarket.

Update: What's annoying me is that people are responding by using guns and burning flags, which plays into stereotypes and furthermore makes non-Muslims smug and say "see, I told you so." My opinion on the proper response? If you're offended by a cartoon, draw one yourself. Even better, host a cartoon contest in which all are invited to draw cartoons lampooning anything sacred to Denmark. And better yet? Offer a prize so that even talented people who aren't offended are drawing amazing cartoons to piss off the people who pissed you off. A Thai restaurant here offered a trip to Thailand as a prize for drawing the best elephant and some really incredible elephants have come in, including two from our office. People who have never drawn an elephant in their lives are suddenly churning out amazing elephants, because who doesn't want a trip for two to Phuket? Another thought: Make the prize a free trip to that redneck town in Denmark where this nonsense started. And give the recipient a carton of eggs when they get off the plane. Just my two cents. Or two fils.

P.S. I apologize for offending any non-redneck Danes who my have been swept up in my rash generalization about the redneck town. Of course this can't possibly be the case of all Danes who live in that town, because surely they are all good and charming people who don't go around playing with Legos and eating danishes while stomping on copies of the Koran. It was wrong of me to generalize.
P.P.S. I'm going to start burning copies of all magazines that offend women, as soon as I am out of Kuwait, because Kuwait is not a large enough country for the massive bonfire I'd have to hold.

SMS from Marie Javins

Still no Internet in Bneid al-Gar. It is, however, a good time to see if I can SMS-2-blog.

Down and Internet-less in Kuwait City

There was some kind of fire and it was somewhere important. Internet go bye-bye here in Kuwait. Or at least in huge chunks of the city.

One of these chunks covers both my apartment and my office. It's amazing how much depends on the internet. We don't even have an intranet so I copied things onto my USB stick and walked it over to the writer only to find that his USB drive was busted. Ho-hum.

Sven and I had a mandoub drive us out of the area to Starbucks. The internet works here, but now it seems that the artist I needed to send a contract to found it in his spam folder. Oh well, guess I'll just answer my emails instead.

Expect radio silence for a bit. Those who really need to find me can ask my mother for my phone number or use my secret email-to-SMS address.

Mission Accomplished

Today I managed to find a post office in Kuwait AND I took a bus to it AND I even got a bus map.

I was spurred on by Sven teasing me that the post office had become my grail.

I sent a postcard to Don Hudson.

Small wonder anyone can find this place. It's not exactly well-marked. I never would have found it without asking people.

Slipper Quest, 2006

Winter in Kuwait is worth a few eye-rolls to someone used to pipe-bursting frigid winters. Any time someone bleats "it's cold today," I start giggling. It gets chilly enough for both a sweater and a light coat sometimes, but I haven't once regretted leaving my mittens and parka at home.

Nevertheless, the tile floors in my apartment do chill my lower extremities. Meaning my toes get cold.

Socks haven't beaten back the chill. I needed slippers with rubber or plastic soles.

This afternoon, I hopped the 505 bus up the Gulf Road past Kuwait Towers to Sharq Souk, the mall I'd visited on my first night in town. Slipper Quest 2006 didn't produce ideal results. Debenham's had lots of toasty slippers in sizes too small for my big feet. The 1.50 dinar slippers at Sultan Centre (the local equivalent of Shop-Rite or Safeway) were one-size-fits-all—if you are a member of the Yeti family (speaking of which, did anyone notice that the Malaysians are hot on the trail of Big Foot? But I digress.). A nice Filipino saleswoman walked me over to the KD 2.50 section and there I acquired the necessary foot coverings. Not furry or wooly as I was searching for, but I was ready to take what I could get as I don't plan on carrying these back to the States with me. KD 2.50 is USD 8.50. For a cheap pair of slippers. I'm missing dollar stores at this point.


I walked back through the mall, dosing myself on fast food with the excuse that I needed more salt in my diet since I'd been dehydrated. What a difference the time of day makes! When I'd visited Sharq last, it had been filled with teens and young adults, all decked out in hair gel and romantic flowing princess outfits. The afternoon clientele was nearly all families. Women were covered in black robes and veils. Men wore dishdashas—long loose robes and head coverings.

Children were everywhere. Baby carriages seemed as likely to be pushed by men as by women, which caught me by surprise. Older children appeared to bear some responsibility for the younger children.

Last night, I'd been in a completely different sort of shopping center. It was in the middle of town, its clientele far from the glamorous nightclub-looking denizens of Sharq or the teens of Marina Mall. The downtown shopping center was the melting pot of malls, with few Kuwaitis in sight.

Mr. Fixit took Sven, Mrs. Fixit, and me to the pirate DVD shops in the basement of the shopping center. It was a little Bollywood empire, with each of four shops competing for our attention with the latest Bollywood video. The Fixits and Sven paged through the available Hollywood DVDs while I turned my attention to the video screen of the shop next door.

"Sanjana, I love you," belted out the handsome Indian star as he swung Sanjana out over the bow of a cruise ship. Wait, I'd seen this. I'd watched half of this movie in the lobby of Econolodge in Dar Es Salaam while waiting for someone to get off the manager's computer so that I could use his internet. In this movie, Sanjana's parents tried to set her up. The boy they'd set her up with didn't feel like showing up, so he'd sent his friend. The friend and Sanjana fell in love, and then the parents found out the future Mr. Sanjana was an imposter. How did it end? I never found out. The internet became available and I'd forgotten about Sanjana's dilemma until this moment.

The shopkeeper, a young Indian guy with a doo-rag pulled tightly over his hair, instructed his helper to fast-forward so that I could see the end. Too far. All I got was an ensemble of dancing Bollywood actors doing a complex routine as the credits rolled. The shop staff looked to me hopefully.

"Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted to know," I said politely. The Fixits and Sven—DVDs in tow—showed up. We left Sanjana behind and went for some curry.

Happy Australia Day

Peter's blog just reminded me that it's Australia Day.

As someone who was once a near-Australian, I'm embarrassed to say that I had forgotten.

Not a lot of kangaroos to pet in Kuwait, so make yourself some ANZAC biscuits as the next-best thing. (Better for ANZAC Day, natch, but we're improvising here.)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup of rolled oats
1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of coconut
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
1/2 cup of margarine (soft and pliable)
1/2 tablespoon of baking soda (bi-carb soda)
1 teaspoon of boiling water

METHOD
Mix together the oats, flour, sugar and coconut.
Melt the syrup and margarine together.
Mix bi-carb soda with the boiling water and add to the melted margarine and syrup, then add this to the dry ingredients.
Place tablespoons of the mixture on a greased tray and bake at 150c (302F) for 20 minutes.

To further celebrate Australia Day, bake these with Paul Kelly playing in the background.

Money only buys you what you want
You can't buy your balls back like you buy a pair of pants
Once they're gone, you've really got fuck-all
Watch out little boy, don't lose your balls.

Dust and Buses

I’d been walking to work but today there was a swirling haze of dust in the air. You can dress the desert up in Pizza Huts and office towers, but the sand never misses a chance to punctuate its point that mankind is just a temp in the grand scheme of things.

The desert was reminding me of its existence rather nastily this morning, so I hopped on the bus. The working-class men moved aside to give me a seat. Rather than belabor the point that they were as entitled to it as I was, I took it. I was already nervous that they’d look askance at me for taking the bus in spite of being told by co-workers that it was inappropriate.

No one looked askance. No one even blinked. The bus roared on, zipping me to work in record time. I marveled at the efficiency of Kuwaiti public transport, thinking “More people should take the bus.”

I spent the morning giving my first coloring class. It didn’t take long for the staff to groan at the labor-intensive process. The wise Editor-in-Chief looked alarmed. They got it quickly. Coloring is a pain in the butt.

Point made, we all packed up and went to look at our new offices, which happen to be located in the ass-end of nowhere. My brief bus ride this morning will likely be the end of my Kuwait City bus-riding career. I’m going to need a car.

The idea of driving in Kuwait City terrifies me. It seems like an easy place to drive. Kuwaitis drive on the right, just like at home and in continental Europe. Roads are clearly marked in both Arabic and English. Traffic lights control major intersections, and people more-or-less heed them.

No, it's not the roads. It’s the alarming speed at which people tailgate that has me worried.

According to the BBC’s correspondent, tailgating in Kuwait is about boredom. Young people, frustrated by the lack of gathering spots or things to do, play out their frustrations behind the wheel.

I worry about these drivers. I don't like when people ram me from behind while going 60 miles an hour. I've been in the car a few times with people who drive like this. One of our mandoubs is a prime offender.

"It's no problem to drive here," stated our company advertising sales executive. "You just have to look all over and be ready for anything."

Mr. Fixit is still looking into a car for me. So far they've all been quite unaffordable.

One unrelated tidbit: When I arrived home, I was surprised to see that my 2-bedroom apartment had become a 1-bedroom in my absence. They had talked about moving me into a 1-bedroom as soon as one became available, but this seemed a bit excessive. They'd sheet-rocked over the entrance to the second bedroom, making the small bedroom with attached bath into its own studio flat (although it is as of now walled up with no entrance). Which is fine, except that the workers had left the porn channel on my TV and it took ages of fiddling with the two remotes to get it back on BBC.

Losing It in Bneid Al-Gar

I haven’t been taking care of myself properly over here. I’ve been skipping meals, not drinking enough water, and burning the midnight oil on deadlines whenever I’m not at the office. And the freelance deadlines keep getting screwed up by little things from freelance sources, things that should only take “a minute.” Nothing only takes a minute. Filling out forms takes all g*dd@mned day.

Today I’m paying for it with an incredible headache. It could be because I’m allergic to tobacco, and we’re never far from the scent of a lit cigarette. Or it could be, as Sven told me, that it’s easy to get dehydrated here. I’m going to have to make more of an effort to drink more water, especially given how easy it is to have another cup of coffee set in front of you here in Kuwait.

I'm pretty sure it's not because I started walking to work today. No one stared. I even saw another female pedestrian.

I’m having a hard time working up the energy to blog lately, as I like to spend my free time sleeping. So if I slow down a bit here, forgive me.

Now, where was I before I took a paracetamol and collapsed on the couch? Ah, Donald Duck needed coloring, and still does.

Palace Showdown

According to the BBC, we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis over here. A sheikh throwdown, Kuwaiti-style, with tea and biscuits.

And here I thought it was just a little cold.

Update: Our constitutional crisis seems to be over.

Hot News Day

Kuwait seems to have a new Emir, although there is still some debate among the royal family. The 75-year-old crown prince--for those of you who have not been closely following Kuwaiti politics--was too ill to take the oath of office. So a bit of a power struggle ensued between branches of the royal family. There probably wasn't much doubt all along, as the Prime Minister has been running the show here for a long time and he is almost certainly the new Emir.

There's a cabinet and a parliament here, part of the modernization reforms instituted by Sheikh Jaber (the last Emir). It's not quite the British system as the royalty has more political power here than does the Queen of England, but it's the same basic idea. I'm a little uncomfortable with the Prime Minister and the Emir being one-and-the-same, but maybe they will appoint a new Prime Minister now. I'll have to ask the wise Egyptian Editor-in-Chief about this when I get to the office.

Speaking of the office, the other hot news item is that my employer was featured in a story in today's Sunday New York Times. I am one of the "old hands" mentioned. Sigh. Old.