Why I Moved Back To Kuwait, Part One

Allen: you are a very lucky girl

Deena: plus i get 200KD from the governement just for being a brown girl

Allen: i'm never going to understand your culture

Deena: hahahaha why?

Allen: because that's just ridiculous. that's like giving me 200 bucks just for having black hair

Deena: HAHA, pretty much

Twelve Ways To Turn A Perfectly Good Evening Into a Bitchfest That Makes Everyone Want To Kill Themselves (Or You) With A Butter Knife

Last night, I sat on a comfortable IKEA couch (the Ektorp series are my favourites), drinking a glass of white wine, and listening to a crazy, drunken Italian New Yorker rant and rave for about four hours on how horrible it is working at the United Nations. To the crazy, drunk Italian New Yorker: I’d believe you more if you didn’t repeat the same stories about seventeen times throughout the course of the evening.

Twelve Ways To Turn A Perfectly Good Evening Into a Bitchfest That Makes Everyone Want To Kill Themselves (Or You) With A Butter Knife:

1. Prior to arriving at the household, drink two tumblers of vodka, straight. Then, during the course of the evening, have about three glasses of wine.
2. Begin talking about your job, which you hate. The hatred, combined with the alcohol, is sure to make you a hit with the non-drunks.
3. Tell the same stories, repeatedly. Mention how the only way anyone gets anywhere at your job is by kissing ass and how a truck driver has a higher position than you.
4. Curse, lots.
5. When telling your stories, gesture loudly and repeatedly. Use the stranger sitting next to you as a prop, grabbing at his shirt and gesturing wildly at him, despite the fact that you just met him about 20 minutes ago.
6. While telling a story about how you yelled at a local Kuwaiti man at the Sultan Center, mutter “fucking Kuwaiti’s” frequently enough to make the two Kuwaiti’s in the room with you uncomfortable as well. Marvel at the fact that she escaped unharmed.
7. As you tell all your stories about your lack of assimilation into the culture, boast about how you yell at people, which makes them scared of you. Ignore the fact that everyone in the room is thinking “They’re probably not scared of you so much as they’re thinking ‘Who is this crazy woman and why is she in my face?’”.
8. Tell the same stories that you were telling in #3, again. Gesture wildly.
9. As the brains of everyone in the room start to atrophy, repeat your stories, and ignore the fact that you are now the only person in the room talking.
10. Drink more wine.
11. As people start to clear out because it’s getting late and they have to go to bed, keep talking. Repeat the stories you’ve been telling all night, to make sure that your audience (because they are no longer your friends that you are having a conversation with since you are the only one talking) really gets the point.
12. As your new husband (who has been sleeping and/or suffering from a heart attack) taps you on the arm to tell you it’s time to go, squint at him and slur “I totally forgot you were here.” Ignore his first two requests to leave, repeating the stories you’ve been telling all night, then finally leave when he starts to hand you your coat.

In the future, if you look around and see that everyone is falling asleep on various sofas and you are the only one talking, it may be a subtle hint that it’s time for you to go home, drink a glass of water for every alcoholic beverage you’ve had, and go to bed.

Life is a Highway

In Kuwait, I’ve learned to drive with one hand on the horn and the other one out the window, giving the finger.

People who have seen me drive in the United States say that this isn’t unusual. But the level of aggressiveness I’ve started to show is surprising, even to me. Driving in Kuwait isn’t just a way to get from Point A to Point B, it’s a contact sport.

In California, using your horn is illegal, unless something dangerous is going to happen. Here, using the horn is a way of communicating anything from “HEY! I’m right here. Please don’t drive your car into me” to “Hey, cutie. Look at me in my adorable Z3 with a red heart-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.”

As a woman, driving becomes even more perilous. According to these youngsters driving their expensive cars, by simply being on the road, you’re just asking for them to try to talk to you (communicating with their horns, of course). Any time I’m on the road, I fully expect to be followed to wherever my destination is. If a car is driving next to me, I refuse to look over because it may be a male and he may be staring at me and if he sees me looking at him, well, it’s over. I’m being followed. Important note: this isn’t a testament to my looks; this is a testament to my being a female. If you’re a female driving alone late at night? Well you must want them to follow you. Why else would you be driving so late? It couldn’t possibly be because you want to get home. In the three months that I’ve been back in Kuwait, I’ve been followed four times: Thrice to one of the malls (two numbers have been left on my car) and once to my apartment complex. True stories.

The rules and regulations of the road are considered guidelines here. Do you need to make a left turn, but you’re not in the left turn lane? No big deal, go ahead and turn anyways. Do you want to go straight, but you’ve ended up in a “right turn only” lane? No matter, just go straight anyways. The saddest part is, I’ve come to expect this. Just today, a car turned left from the middle lane. I, of course, laid on the horn and gave him the finger.

Using your high beams to make someone get out of your way is also illegal in California, but here, using your high beams is another way of communicating. It either means “Hey, I’m coming down the road at almost 120mph/200kph, move out of my way or I will wreck you” (this is indicated by flashing your lights several times from a fairly decent distance away) or it means “Asshole, you are moving TOO SLOW, please put your foot on the gas and go higher than 20mph/30kph in the left lane, thanks” (indicated by being right behind them and flashing your lights at least once or twice before getting impatient and changing lanes to go around them).

Then, there are the roundabouts, also known as the Bane of My Existence. I don’t know what the rules are for roundabouts; I generally just hit the gas and try and maneuver my way through it. When do you drive on the outside and when do you drive on the inside? That’s completely unknown, both to me and to my fellow drivers. It’s almost as if your car needs shoulder pads, a helmet and a 300 pound fullback to help you get to the end zone.

Driving down Gulf Road (a stretch of highway not unlike Pacific Coast Highway in California – it follows the coast line and has way too many lights) makes me feel like I’m in racing the Indy 500. After the light turns green, all I have to do is glance into my rearview mirror to see the Mustang’s, Carrera’s and the very occasional beat-up Ford’s revving their engines, prepared to spread across the four lanes in order to maximize the space on the road. As the next light changes to red and half the cars screech to a halt (the other half blow through the light as if red was the new green), I almost expect to see a black-and-white checkered flag lowered, indicating that this leg of the race is done.

When I was first trying to figure out which car I was going to buy, my dad jokingly asked me if I’d like to drive a Hummer. I considered the idea for half a minute, rationalizing that it was probably the safest car to drive here. I decided to take my chances driving here in a normal car rather than looking like a tool driving a vehicle meant for desert warfare. Although I’d be safer in a Hummer.

The analogies I can make about driving in Kuwait are endless. But let’s just leave it with this: The Formula One racecourse is nothing compared to the insanity that is driving in Kuwait.