A bientot!

I'm signing off now as we have the packers in tomorrow. Mark is so eager to go that they haven't much to do! I'm surrounded by boxes, the walls are empty and as I type the sound is echoing around the room! My beloved Bernina is being air freighted as well as some art materials and we will be staying in or near Veyrier-Doune for the next four months which is close to the French border.
















Alex is already packed!

We leave on the same flight as before - fingers crossed there are no storms forecast- and arrive in Geneva on Monday morning. Mark starts work straight away and the boys go to school from next week. I'll be house-hunting and, of course, taking photos of Geneva for the blog! We still have e-mail access here until Monday (unless Mark packs away the computer!) and I may be able to update the blog with some news if I get time in an internet cafe. Otherwise, we should be on-line in mid-March. (Do I sound calm? The reality is this addict is going cold-turkey!)

Kuwait is just warming up again - now, where did I put my winter woollies?

Bus stops!

I'm sure you have all been dying to know what bus stops look like in Kuwait! This one, above, would be my local one. It looks quite nice from a distance especially as most are little more than wrecks but I see on closer inspection it's just as bad! That is a government school building behind it. All along this road which our house backs onto are schools. They all finish at the same time (around 1.30pm) and the road is blocked. The system for picking up your kids in Kuwait is this; regardless of whether your child is first out the gate or last, you park your car directly outside the gate and wait for them to come out. As the road will have parked and double parked cars on either side, you will be blocking the road. Ignore the angry hooting horns. Your child will eventually stroll out and need to talk to you through the window and then stroll around to the boot (trunk) and put in his bag, stroll around to your window to discuss something before slowly removing his jacket and casually getting in. If he has a driver to pick him up this will involve a brief argument. Hoot at any inconsiderate drivers blocking your exit and you are off. The driver behind, having got very impatient will now repeat the process.











Ahem, back to bus stops. This blue one is in pretty good condition as it actually has a seat and a bit of shelter. I don't know what the graffitti says, I hope it's not rude!














Sorry this photo is not so great (it's not easy to take from the road!) but this is what most bus stops look like. My theory for the terrible state of these stops is that they are only used by poor workers and therefore no money is wasted on them. You would never see a Kuwaiti or westerner at one of these as everyone has a car here. I heard recently that a Bangladeshi worker sweeping the streets gets about 17KD a month - that is approximately £35. In the Sultan Centre supermarket you can pick up a cauliflower from Holland or a bunch or asparagus from Peru for a little under £10. Obscene doesn't begin to describe it.












Here behind the pedestrian (sorry, it's a fast road!) is a collapsed bus stop. Difficult to tell - is Kuwait an oil-rich or third world country?

Grafting dates

Annabel asked me a while ago what I will miss most about Kuwait. One of the things would be watching the dates changing throughout the year. This week the gardener grafted the sprays of blossom from the male tree onto the females. I think most of the trees in Kuwait are female because the gardeners get the male blossom from the Friday Market where they sell it.

Here is what it looks like on the trees. I watch the dates growing and changing colour all through the spring and summer until September when they change through the beautiful yellow, apricot and rosy red colours until going brown. Then they are very sweet and sticky. They are also eaten in the stage between yellow and brown. I'm told this is considered a delicacy but I didn't like them - they stick to your teeth like an unripe banana, but hey! what do I know!

So here they are in February. They take a long time to ripen but dates prove that good things come to those who wait!

Almost done!

We set off early this morning to get to the Immigration ministry. We fought our way through traffic to the other side of Kuwait and met our man again for the next round. We spent an hour sitting in a corridor with lots of other people with lost looks on their faces. To our left was a room full of men in their office with three entrances with counters where you stood to be told to wait, go back and sit down.

At 9.30 we managed to get as far as having all the paperwork done but it needed one last signature. Apparantly, this man was important as everyone else seemed to be waiting for the same thing but he was taking his own time to arrive. After half an hour, the rumour was, he had arrived. Our man tracked him down and gave him the papers and we waited. In the meantime, I was given a paper to sign to say I was owed no money by my husband, he had treated me fairly and I was signing without pressure (as Mark and his colleague watched me)! A couple of men in handcuffs were escorted into the office by three policeman. (Did you know female prisoners are not cuffed)? A big shot came down the corridor and started shouting at everyone (including an old man) to get out of their seats and go and find out what was happening - as if they were sitting there for fun! After perhaps half an hour he went to see what was happening. Oh, said the man, I forgot to sign them. So he walked down the corridor to another office to sign them and we waited. It took ten minutes to put a squiggle on the paper and we were free to go...to the passport office in Hawally - the second leg of three! Fortunately it was nearer home so Mark dropped me off and I had a much needed cup of tea! Ah! Memories are made of this!

Oh, and here is a photo I took in the morning's rush hour. We were queuing in one of the roads that goes up to the end of the fifth ring road - the one that is being dug up - a main arterial road. Impatient drivers don't do silly things like queueing, they create another lane. In a little road like this, one lane can become three! So naturally, it was this driver's fault that he came around the corner and went slap bang into a car coming up the road!

Red tape!

The time has come to do the dreaded rounds of the ministries buildings. We are leaving on Monday (hopefully, or Inshallah as they say here) so the process of extracting ourselves from the system has to be done. Today we went to Mark's office and from there we were to go to the Ministry of Immigration where we expected to spend a few hours. However, since the office is almost opposite the place we need to go to get our mobile phones cancelled we decided to go in there on the way. A quick stop - or so we thought.

As is the way when dealing with authorities, there is someone at the office who is employed to help ex-pats handle this. I was going to say someone 'who knows the system' but nobody knows the system here, it changes from day to day and on the mood of the person holding the rubber stamp. So a quick trip to cancel the phones went like this: you enter the building and there are no signs to tell you who does what or where to go. We find out you need a numbered ticket so we get one. Half an hour later (that is very quick for Kuwait!) we approach a very surly woman who we can tell by the body language is telling our man why we can't do what we want to do. We can't cancel the phones for two months because we 'have roaming'. (I've no idea what that means). We can pay the bill and it will be cancelled in two months. OK we do that. All this of course takes a long time to work out. She cancels something or other on the computer and gives us some papers and points to a row of three desks a few feet away where they will conclude the business. Our man talks to one of the men there and is told we have to go back and get a ticket and wait again! A slightly heated discussion ensues and we get special treatment - we only wait 10 minutes. After looking at the papers and much discussion we are told there is a problem - the first woman hasn't cancelled the something or other.

This is a little sample of something that is very quick and easy. Tomorrow, because we didn't have time today, we have to get up at the crack of dawn to go to the Ministry of Immigration. I'm going along because, the last time and ex-pat from the office went there, they held up the process by telling him his wife had to be present to prove he owed her no money. Of course, this is unheard of but one has to be prepared for all eventualities. But they are always one step ahead of you!

We won't have an internet connection in our temporary apartment until maybe mid March so there may be a long gap once we get there before I can blog. (I'm not sure how I can cope without e-mail or the net!) I'm hoping our phone lines won't be cut off without notice or I will be completely lost! I'll be fairly busy once we get to Geneva but I hope to get time for a few drawings and I'll post asap.

BTW, the shops that were closed were the ones in residential areas. It's an effort to cut down on illegal immigrants or so I'm told. It sounded ominous to me but everyone I've spoken to seems to have great confidence that things will improve under the new Emir. Time will tell.

Closed shop

The bad news for me is that somehow all the Geneva photos have disappeared from my camera. Since I'm a visual person I don't think I can blog about the trip very well without them so I'm going to wait until we get there. Things are moving along and we could be leaving fairly soon but we have to go through a few formalities to extract ourselves from the Kuwaiti system and that, by all accounts, might be fun and games (for everyone except us that is!).













I must say I wasn't too happy to lose all the photos but that is as nothing compared to what a few thousand people in Kuwait must be feeling. I passed the boys' barbers yesterday and rather unusually it was closed. Today I was told that all the small shops (what we might call corner shops in the UK) have been declared illegal by the new Emir and ordered to close. I'm not sure if this is why the barbers was closed (it was run by Lebanese. Many of the shops are run by Arabs of all nationalities).I've tried not to get into the politics of the country on my blog but this sounds terrible. I imagine that a lot of people have lost their livelihoods and didn't see it coming. What are they supposed to do? What for example are they going to do with all their stock? I will have to find out more.

Comments on blogs

I just came across this site from another blog. It enables you to keep track of the comments you leave on other blogs. Sounds really useful! BTW, I'm sorry I can't reply by e-mail to the comments left here - most of the comments now have a 'no-reply' address. I love getting them, I appreciate each and every one so if you want a reply please leave an e-mail address. I'll also reply in the comments section and hope Blogger sorts itself out soon!

Back to the future

We're back from our whistle stop tour of Geneva and now for the not-so-fun part of packing and uprooting from Kuwait! I don't have photos today as Paul took the camera before I had a chance to download the pics. He went to the Chocolate Bar this afternoon with a group of friends and now he and Alex are on sleepovers - trying to spend as much time with friends as possible before the dreaded day!

What to say about Geneva? It was an amazing trip and my head is still spinning! I'll fill in the details with the photos but when we arrived the first thing that hit us was the cigarette smoke! People smoke just about everywhere, and that won't change anytime soon. Secondly, I had an image in my head of a very upmarket place with ladies in fur coats and small dogs - and it was exactly like that! We spent Tuesday with a very charming, humourous man from an ex-pat relocation company who showed us a selection of properties for sale and rent and we immediately realised we would need a lottery win to buy our dream home here! House prices are pretty high and there are no shortage of bankers, Formula One drivers and celebrities to ensure they stay that way.

Mark's office and the boys' new school are in the same neighbourhood so we were shown around properties within easy driving distance. Passing through hugely expensive areas near the lake we were soon out into the countryside. There are laws in place to ensure there is always a certain amount of farmland so there may be a compact residential area on one side of the road and vast areas of farmland on the other. You can be in the countryside within 15 minutes drive! (Living in the country and nipping into Chanel on a whim IS possible in Geneva!)

We had a lovely sunny day fortunately, as we were told last week was miserable. It was a fairly cold minus 5 degrees and I'm glad I had brought all my woollies! In the evening we went to a Swiss restaurant with live entertainment - and very entertaining it was too! Two men in national costume played various instruments, each one more unusual than the last! We wondering each time what on earth they would do to top that! They played accordions, a double bass, a saw, cowbells, two different alpine horns from the top of the stairs behind, a coin in a ceramic bowl and of course, yodelled! The food was pretty good too and we left just as the smoke was getting too much. I don't think we'll be eating out much in Geneva if that is the norm. On the way back to the hotel I don't think I have ever been so cold! I was shivering so much it was hard to walk! I hate hats (I've only ever worn two and one was to my wedding) but I'm buying a warm furry hat before I go back! I'm sure I've experienced colder nights but I think age must be playing a part now!!

We had a night flight changing at Amsterdam on the way out so I was fairly tired by the time we arrived. I thought the flight back during the day would be easier but it was the worst flight I've ever been on! Everything was fine until we approached Kuwait and the plane started buffeting. (This is the worst time of year for dust and rain storms). Most of the passengers were American military personnel. The guys just behind us (with shaved heads and tattooed arms) had been talking of their experiences in Iraq. As the plane was bouncing around there was an eerie feeling. We seemed to be going round and round and the engines were making strange noises. Alex was really worried and Paul started to get sick into a sick bag. I thought that all those macho guys must be immune to fear but there was silence in the cabin. Then just after Paul got sick, there was a rustle of sick bags around us! After we had gone around a couple of times (during which time seemed to be going excruciatingly slow) the captain announced he was going on to Bahrain. There were a lot of relieved passengers once we had landed although we had no idea what was going to happen next. After an hour the captain said the weather was good enough to try another landing (we all agreed it would be a good idea to have enough fuel to get back to Bahrain!!) but then we spent another half an hour waiting for an engine problem to be fixed. Amazingly, we had a smooth landing and arrived at 4am, three and a half hours late. As we got into the airport it was bustling - full of all the passengers who had to wait for our plane to come in. Oh, the joys of the jet set lifestyle!

Swanning around the lake

I'm off to Geneva for a few days. Photos and report to follow!

Oops, updates and waffle

Starting with this Chevy. Not, as I said about the silver one, a nasty modification, Chevrolet must sell them like this because the one above passed us as as we went out this morning. The smaller red letters are his e-mail address. Sounds like a rap star but that's all I'm saying!

It brings me to the second oops. Well not quite an oops but the buildings in the background are across the road from us. Lots of new eateries opening up including....the Chocolate Bar! Good job I'm leaving. Anyway, I picked up a free book with info on all the restaurants in Kuwait and found out that the Chocolate Bar is indeed a local bar and was the brain child of Nouf al Mutawa and Bibi al Sabah - two women! Good for them and apparently it is very popular. Not surprising, when you read about the chocolate ingredients flown in from Belgium and the summer and winter menus...

More of a doh! than an oops - I bought a diary recently with the Arabic holidays in it and Eid, when the sheep are slaughtered, is Eid al Adha in full. This is translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, which I hadn't heard before.










Hmm. I can't remember why I uploaded this photo and now it looks out of place in this post! It's an restaurant of some kind. Since most of Kuwait is beige, it's certainly noticeable. (I really don't know how I managed to make it look like the crooked house though!) We passed it on the way to lunch at Peppe's Pizza. Mark remembers Peppe's from the eighties when he was living in Norway. He gave it the thumbs up because they still do the meatballs!

Swiss role

Well, we now know we are moving to Geneva. We are flying out on Sunday for a quick look and hope to leave Kuwait by the end of February. With luck I'll have some nice photos to share. And with luck some of them will be taken with a nice new lens from Geneva Duty Free!

Who said...

they would be glad to see the back of those water dispensers? Well, look what I found this week! Oh, and that black blob on the ground is a dying pigeon. This photo was taken in the city which can be really dirty and shabby in parts. We parked the car to make what we thought would be a quick stop to the main Canon dealer and ended up on a wild goose chase. We did find it eventually in a back street and they had what we were looking for, a 10-22mm zoom lens - the last one in stock. Hurray! Then they took it out of the box and it had one big fingerprint on it and no lens cap. They had the cheek to tell us it came like that! In Kuwait, 'the customer is always wrong' so we voted with our feet. Very hot, sore feet in my case!

Road signs

Since Kuwait is now a country in mourning, many new signs with messages of condolence are springing up. The one above is quite an old sign showing, from left, the late Emir, the Crown Prince and the prime minister. The prime minister was chosen by the parliament as the new Emir (the Crown Prince is elderly and in ill health) so now there are lots of signs with congratulations.











many of the condolences are put up by the local companies. Behind this one are the water towers you might recognise from this post.













I like this, it's a very strong image.