Kuwait Day 2: Perspective

While yesterday, I looked like this:

Today, the jetlag hit me. Everything was a little hazy. The huge duststorm that came through today may have contributed to that. It was pretty hard to breathe outside.

But I think I'm also a bit perplexed. I'm overwhelmed at how much there is to share.

I'm unsure of myself.

It is a practice of compare and contrast...

What has remained the same, and what has changed since I was here last? These things I am more adept and filing, sorting, figuring out.

What is unique to this society and what is similar to the way things are in the U.S? These things are difficult, the lines are more blurry and I can't quite decide what I should find surprising. Mostly, it feels 'normal' to me...but it's not because I thought about these things before, as a child. I grew up around them. I think about them now. In some ways, I have a heightened awareness of cultural differences. In other ways, they slip right past me. In some ways, they are still striking, in others, they are more assimilated/'Westernized'.

I suppose being with someone who has never been to the Middle East will help me. Maybe they can see things clearly, with a fresh set of eyes. Mine have a bit too much dust in them already, I suppose. :)

Yesterday, Mom and I took a dip in the clear, warm water. The sand was soft and smooth, the waves were calm. We took a quick trip out to 'the village' right outside of camp. It is very rundown and most shops are closed. I was ecstatic that the 'cheese bread' guys were still there. It tasted exactly as I remembered. We found our old blue golf cart. The exact one I used to drive around. I showed mom the short cuts. I tried to climb our big climbing tree in the park. Lets just say I'm not as limber as I once was.

Later, when Dad came home from work, we had a driver take us three into Fahaheel. It is about a half-hour from the camp. ( This is one thing I am getting used to again...the service. Lots of people come here from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Phillipines...to find work, and send money back home to their families. As a result, there are wonderful individuals who need work and are willing to garden, clean homes, drive, nanny, etc. It feels a little strange to be waited on hand and foot. As Americans, we are a self-service people...it seems odd to us to have others do these things for us. Somewhat of a class system definitely still exists here.)

We drove the straight highway through the brown, brown dessert, as always...watching miles and miles of powerlines and several herds of camels and sheep on the orange horizon. We had dinner at a brand new mall, across from an old Bazaar that I remember from before. We walked through the row of gold souks and saw some shop owners that remember us from the 90s. I only remember the lady who used to have a pet cat with pierced ears. The cat has since passed away. She still has a picture of it in her shop. There are lots of Americans here now. Many more than before. A large new military base accounts for much of that.

On the drive home, it was dark. The flares of the oil processing plants were glowing against the black, and the yellow lights lining the buildings, tanks and towers looked like a small city. Dad explained about carbon and crude and acid and smoke.

Today, we braved the duststorm, and took a ride on the 'shopping bus' to Salmiya with some of Mom's friends, other wives who live in the camp. (The bus reminded me of my school days here. We had curtains on the windows and little folding jumpseats in the aisles. Many an early morning and sweaty afternoon was spent on those buses.) In town, we explored some amazing old shoe souks (souk= shop), and a brand new mall with high-end stores like Burberry and MAC. (There are new developments everywhere. We thought when we lived here before that it was a drastic contrast....the nice/new/wealthy and the old/dirty/crumbling parts of town. It seems to be more pronounced now. The upper end has grown. And the bombed out buildings and burnt tanks on the side of the road are pretty much gone.) We had fruit cocktail (fruit mix drink), pita bread and hummus at a Lebanese restaurant!
We had ice cream in the food court and watched families and gangs of teenage boys and women in beautiful black Abayas (see here for a description).

Tonight, Dad and I worked out and sat in the steamroom in the new fitness center. (Well, new to me. It was opened only a few months after we left..10 years ago). Sufficiently sweaty, we stepped outside, and the air felt cool with the sea breeze. We played around at the park and swung on the squeaky swings...the ones I used to pump higher and higher on, and jump off to land on the sandy ground.

Here is something strange about memory. Some things, I specifically remembered before coming here, as I thought about the city, the camp, my school, the house...and I anticipated how they would look, how things would be. But others, I did not remember or think about it until I was face to face with it, and suddenly, it was familiar...like the worn brass knob of the front door, the lamp above the diningroom table that you can pull up and down, or the way people say 'inshalla' about everything.

Off to eat a KDD icecream bar, and then to bed.

More tomorrow!

ps. I wish for your (and my) sakes, I was a better photographer, had a better camera, and was more willing to risk life, limb and dignity to get great/more photos for you. But alas, I'm not. So please enjoy the few pictures I post.

pss. I read this book on the plane ride here. It was a really good/easy read. If you are interested at all in the Arab world. Particularly the women.