Winter is coming!

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When you live in Michigan, you are constantly checking the weather forecast. In Kuwait, we rarely usually look at the weather because it’s been almost the same since we arrived – sunny (with an occasional cloud) and hot (over 90 degrees).

Last week, I happened to check the 10-day forecast and saw it coming…winter! Yesterday it was slightly more cloudy than normal, but the high was still in the mid 90s. Last night it got windy and the temperature dropped (not out of the ordinary). BUT today it never went back up! It’s been in the 70s all day AND it’s been cloudy, windy and rainy. Did I mention the thunderstorms? We’ve been hearing gorgeous thunder on and off all day! The cool temperature and rain is refreshing and very welcome to stay. It was hard to imagine this weather when we got here in August, but it’s here and we are loving it 🙂

Here is a picture of one of the courtyards at school at 2:30pm this afternoon.

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Unexpected Holidays

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Today is November 11th. As you can see in the calendar below, we should have only had 1 day of vacation since the beginning of school for the Eid break (have a post in the works about what we did!). We were told on October 18th that our that our 3-day weekend would be extended to include Sunday & Monday making it a 5-day weekend. A week and a half ago we were told that we would get Thursday, November 15th off for Islamic New Year. This morning at 6:30am we found out school was cancelled today by HH the Amir in honor of the 50th anniversary of the constitution (we had record breaking fireworks last night…post in the works for that too!).

Recap: Thanks to the Ministry and the Amir, we have gone from 1 day of vacation to 3. We worked a 3-day week, then a 4-day week, we suffered through a 5-day work week last week and now this week has turned into another 3-day week! Can’t complain about life too much 😉

Feels a little more like home

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Kuwait has slowly started to feel more like home. There are still days when we think “We live in Kuwait?! Crazy!” But those moments are getting few and far between. Our apartment is still quite bare, but we’re chalking that up to the fact that we’re trying to save money and we’d like to be here for several years…we’ve got time.

On Friday, I got a hair cut. It might seem a little silly, but finding a good salon and hair stylist makes a place feel more like home to me. Eden Salon & Spa was just what I needed 🙂 Mez did a great job of cutting my hair AND I even got my eyebrows threaded! The prices were reasonable and much closer to what I’m used to paying than some places here. For awhile it seemed that all the salons were either extremely overpriced (35KD) or under priced (5KD). Eden is just right (20KD for cut, curly style, threading & tip) and I quite enjoyed my experience! It was a little ‘welcome home’ moment just when I needed it most 🙂

Too many Daves

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Boy do we have a story for you!

October 23rd(ish): Talked to the Middle School principal (Dave B) about getting together to watch one of the World Series games (he is also from Michigan and a Tigers fan). He just got a new iPhone 5.

October 25th: Jeff received a text from an unknown number asking us over for dinner on the 26th. When Jeff asked who it was, the reply was Dave B. Jeff already had a Dave B in his phone, but figured he got a new number with his new phone. We were a little surprised that they would ask us over for dinner, but we’d just talked about the Tigers.

11am October 26th: Lissa texted Dave B to make sure we were still on for dinner and to see if we needed to bring anything. He asked who it was. When I told him he said he thought so. Said we’d just order something in and to come at 7pm.

1pm: Jeff gets a text from Dave B saying dinner is at 7:30pm.

7:20pm: On our walk to dinner, Dave B texts Lissa asking if there was a miscommunication  thought dinner was at 7. We text back saying the last text Jeff got said dinner at 7:30pm. We are thoroughly confused and arrive at their apartment.

7:30pm: At Dave B’s, we start talking about the situation. We realize that Jeff has TWO Dave Bs in his phone. While we are discussing, Jeff gets a text from Dave B…not the one’s house we are at! Jeff calls. We realize that Dave B the high school teacher asked us over for dinner, NOT Dave B the MS principal. We realize that we (basically) invited ourselves over for dinner at our principal’s house. Because food is already on its way, we eat a delicious meal with them. And then head over to Dave B the teacher’s house where our friends are finishing up dinner.

It was one of the craziest, most unbelievable experiences. There were SO many tiny things that could have changed everything. We told our friends at teacher Dave B’s and a good laugh was had by all. Principal Dave B and family were also able to laugh. We were incredibly thankful for friends that go with the flow! Now it’ll be a silly story to tell 🙂

To make things a little more interesting…the next morning we had breakfast at a third Dave’s house…

Update: As Christina just pointed out, there is a poem that goes quite nicely with our story. Enjoy!

Too Many Daves
by Dr. Seuss

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate …
But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.

5 times a day, 7 days a week

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When Jeff and I were living on campus at Hope College (our awesome alma mater), trains pass through town on a regular basis. During the day, in the middle of the night…all.the.time. Because it was downtown and there were lots of cross streets, we got quite used to the sound of train horns. By senior year, they no longer woke me up in the middle of the night.

When I lived in France, there were lots of churches. I remember my first couple days in Paris…the sound of church bells made me really realize I wasn’t in the States anymore. Eventually, the beautiful bells just became background noise and I barely noticed them.

In Kuwait, we’re (very) slowly getting used to something new. Muslims pray 5 times a day. For each of these prayers, all the mosques have a call to prayer sung by the Muezzin and played on loudspeakers. We have at least 3 mosques in a 1-mile radius of our apartment with one practically attached to our school. Even though we hear the call 5 times a day, it’s still interesting to me. Fridays are the holy day of the week for Muslims. Today, on our walk back from the gym, there were 2 simultaneous calls to prayer and 1 Friday sermon for the city to hear. Men in dishdashas (and a few women) flocked to the mosque next to our school to pray. The majority of Muslims in Kuwait are Sunni and 30% are Shi’a. Each mosque has an Imam who leads formal prayer. My goal is to make time this weekend to blog about the Grand Mosque tour we went on in September. 🙂

Here is a very short clip of the call to prayer of the mosque across from Al Corniche that I took a few weeks ago. If you want to see a longer one from the mosque in Kuwait City, click here (we didn’t take this one).

Walking with Lissa

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I wrote this post on Friday and then had technical difficulties with the video 🙂 You will now see why I posted a password protected post (see end of post).

Last night at the Halloween party Jeff and I drank very responsibility (i.e. nothing). We may or may not have eaten some very tasty desserts though 😉 That allowed us to wake up quite refreshed this morning! After an hour of lounging, I got myself motivated, made my green smoothie and headed out the door to the gym! We were busy with Halloween festivities so we skipped working out Wednesday and Thursday and I was determined to get my sweat on. I felt quite accomplished after attending BodyAttack 🙂 After the gym, I had a very important mission – buy an eyebrow ring! Mine completely feel out and was lost early last week. My 10-year old piercing was slowly getting closing up and I was having none of that. So…I headed to the mall (~20 min walk from the Corniche). I was successful in buying a pack of eyebrow rings…they are too big & ugly, but something is better than nothing! I also stopped at Bath & Body Works to check out their 3 candles for 12KD special.

It was quite successful, but I also ended up meeting a fellow American! When I walked in one of the employees was speaking with a very familiar accent. I think she heard my accent too and came over to talk to me. I smelled hundreds of candles (at least it felt like it) and had a pretty great convo with her! She has lived in Chicago for the last 6 years and is currently traveling the world visiting Bath & Body Works stores for the company. She is in Kuwait for 2 weeks by way of 3 weeks in Poland and several other cool places (I don’t remember them all). I can’t exactly put into words exactly what she does, but what I understood is that she visits stores outside the US and helps them do business more like the stores in the US. She said it’s been really interesting to visit different countries and see how different it is (culture, business, the stores). She also had good things to say about Kuwait which was good to hear! I think she’s most likely here to help with the opening of the new Bath & Body Works in Phase 3 of the Avenues. It opens next week and we’ll be eager to explore it once the hype dies down. The Kuwaitis love their malls!

The point of this post is that I made a video as I was walking around (from the gym to the mall, in the mall and back home).  I hope you enjoy sharing my walk!

Info:
Total Trip Distance: 2km + 3.3km = 5.3km (not including getting to the gym or my workout)
Total Trip Time: 2 hours (ditto to above)
Some things to watch for: fancy cars, the surprising (to me) number of motorcycles, crazy drivers, stores signs in Arabic (both outside and in the mall), our typical walk home from school…

Click here for the password you will need to watch the video. Click here to watch the video. Sorry for making you work…I want to share my walk but I also want to keep a certain level of privacy 😉

Halloween in Kuwait

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Halloween celebrations started last night (started this post Thursday :)! Staff children gathered at the school to carve pumpkins. Afterwards, they made their rounds to the teacher buildings to Trick or Treat. We ended up getting 15-20 kids – they were adorable! After the kids came, our neighbor (Arabic teacher here) told us about a tradition during the middle of Ramadan. She said kids dress up in traditional, formal clothing (not costumes) and go around getting candy. They do it after sunset so they aren’t breaking their fast. We love learning new things about the culture we live in!

Thursday was dress down day at school (once a month students don’t have to wear their uniforms and teachers can wear jeans). This week teachers and students were allowed to wear costumes. There were some impressive ones! A middle school boy had a wooden miniature house made and was from the movie Up!. There was a girl with a zipper on her face…really hard to explain but part of her face was normal and part was zombie – use your imagination. One teacher-friend was Ms. Frizzle, our esteemed colleague was Batman and another friend was Robin…they got all their costumes custom made by a tailor nearby! All the KG1 teachers were crayons and the KG2 teachers were highlighters (black outfits w/ neon yellow wigs)…they looked great! Jeff and I were super creative too – we went as muggles. Yupp, it was quite the costume 😉 I was actually most impressed with this costume (you can always count on Jenna Marbles for some crazy shit).

On Thursday morning at 8:45am, the pre-k, KG1 & KG2 students (2-6 year olds) paraded through the school. All the upper elementary and middle school students lined the parade route cheering them on. Jeff and I made it a priority to attend. It was one of the cutest things we’ve ever seen! Each class formed lines by either holding on to the classmate in front of them (see below)or they all held on to a rope led by the teacher. TOO cute!

Our colleague was the Grand Marshal of the parade 🙂 Masks added to protect privacy of students.

Throughout the day we were really surprised at the number of students who went all out with their costumes. Students of all ages came in full costume. In the US we’ve seen a huge decline in the Halloween celebrations at school since we were in elementary. Here, they are all about it! At the end of the day all the classes in the elementary school had parties. We took a stroll around during last 20 minutes of the school day…we’ve never seen anything like it! Each student brings enough for the entire class – the amount of food is INSANE! I heard about a student whose driver dropped off 30KD (~$100) so she could order KFC for her entire class. One student’s dad owns the local Baskin Robbins…so he brought enough single scoops for several classes. Another student’s dad owns the Subways…her class ate a little healthier. One class we stopped by had the biggest cupcake I’ve ever seen.

Stolen photo 🙂

The sheer amount of food was sickening. I wish I would have had my camera to capture the craziness! We tried to be responsible, but I will say I ate two of the best cake balls I’ve ever had!

So tasty!

The students went home to their parents (read: nannies) on a sugar high and the school maids went home with massive amounts of food. The rest went home with the teachers and we enjoyed it at our own Halloween party last night 🙂 There were several more impressive costumes…and Jeff and I rocked our muggle disguises. Happy (belated) Halloween everyone!

A day of firsts

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We are currently enjoying our first vacation. Eid Al Adha was yesterday…so we have a total of 5 days off school! We go back Tuesday 🙂 We took a day trip on Thursday and will share soon.

This morning we woke up to clouds…lots of them! Today was the first day since we’ve been here (9 weeks & 1 day!) that the weather has been mostly cloudy for most of the day! We had waffles and watched old-school morning cartoons with some friends downstairs – fun! I went to the gym for some yoga. When I walked out the door an hour later (1:15pm), I heard thunder for the first time since arriving. A couple minutes, the sky opened up for the first time and it rained! It rained hard for a solid 30 seconds and I got fairly wet… I couldn’t help but smile! It sprinkled and continued to thunder on and off on my way home, but I was mostly dry by the time I got back to our apartment. The day stayed cloudy with random sprinkles, thunder…and Jeff saw lightning – another first! Update: It’s 6:30pm and there is tons of lightning and thunder! That’s 5 firsts in one day…dang! 🙂

We’re really hoping that the rest of the day in the US goes well – we’d love to wake up tomorrow morning to a Tiger win over the Giants, a Notre Dame win over Oklahoma and a UofM win over Nebraska! Here’s hoping! Love & kisses to all 🙂

The crazy clouds that stayed the whole day!

The thunderstorm came…and went.

Daily Routine

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Surprisingly, we’ve had a lot of questions regarding what it is we do all day/every day.

The secret is…. about the same thing we did in the States. But slightly different.

Similarities:

– We get up at the same time and go to work at about the same time
– After work we go to the gym, cook & eat dinner, maybe have something special to do (Arabic classes), and go to bed. The order in which we do these things differs on a nightly basis.
– On weekends we get things done around our apartment, work out, go shopping, etc.
– We wear fairly similar clothes as we would in the states, though I don’t wear shorts very often and Lissa dresses more modestly. The only times Lissa has worn an Abaya or Hijab has been during a cultural event where increased sensitivity has been asked of us.

Differences:

– We grocery shop more often. Produce goes bad quicker here and fresher is better in regards to unprocessed foods.
– We walk almost everywhere.
– The scenery is pretty drab 😦
– Compared to where I’ve lived before, the streets are dirtier and less kept than I’m used to. Holland does, after all, keep their streets pretty clean.

Like I said, it’s basically the same. In fact, we live in a more developed area here than we did in South Carolina.  I’d post a map with where we go, but that sort of thing isn’t a good idea even in the US 😉 We walk 5 minutes to work, 15 minutes to the gym and 10 minutes to the grocery store. It’s pretty normal stuff.