Grief in Kuwait

End of one life

Sudden long weekend

On wednesday I had a normal morning. I woke up at 6.50 being tired as usual and I was swearing my miserable life and worst job on earth. I had my breakfast, packed my laptop and put on my company's cap. I was ready to face the day's challenges. On the way to work I thought I had finally became so tired that I had slept several days and woke up on Friday morning instead of Wednesday. The roads were quiet, almost like midsummer traffic in Helsinki. At the airport I parked my car at totally empty parking lot and I wondered why nobody has came to work on that day when I am finally on time at the office. I called my kenyan friend Francis who had tried to reach me earlier that morning. He briefed me about the situation. Emir HH Sheikh Sa'ad Al Abdullah Al Sabah had died last night and Kuwait had declared a three day long mourning period. This meant that I had a long weekend and my prayers about longer time to sleep had been heard of (I am sorry if this had any influence... I did not mean it). My deepest condolences to griefing people and to those who can not stand my sense of humor.

Vera's mother and brother left Kuwait last night. It is quiet here now. They wanted to do some last minute shopping yesterday but all shopping malls were closed. At the airport before they took off we followed how masses of house maids to be arrived at the terminal and marched like ducks after the recruitment company agents. It somehow reminded about the feeling I had on the first day in army many years ago.

So far we have spent this long weekend mostly by swimming in our pool and relaxing in moderate heat of fourty degrees celsius. My freestyle has improved - I don't feel like drowning anymore. Today I swam around one kilometer and I am proud of that. To compensate the lost calories we drove to Avenues mall and wanted to have our almost weekly national finnish dish called swedish meat balls in IKEA - with lingonberry jam. But, damn, it was closed. So we decided to try relatively new italian restaurant in Avenues, called Al Forno. Kuwait is full of fake ethnic restaurants - american style. But I think this restaurant is pretty good. I have had my meals in Venice and Rome and despite my not so much appriciated taste buds I am sure you will like the food in this restaurant - unless you happen to be a snobbish italian who's mamma is the best cook in the world. And I have had my worst pizza and pasta in Rome. Downside is that you can not have your red wine with your meal here. Service was fast, efficient and friendly and the food - as I told was excellent. For two of us the bill was 11 KWD.

During the visit of my mother-in-law we visited pretty many places and Vera took them around when I was working. Some places worth to mention are as follows:

Friday market
Here we found a lot of stuff we don't need. Interesting place to explore and bargain. Open every Friday and Saturday. They bought some inexpensive arabian style dresses and small souvenirs. Egor got his dishdasha (the white long cloth for men).

Heritage souq
This souq in the downtown of Kuwait has propably the most traditional local arabic atmosphere you can get here in Kuwait. It is nice to explore narrow alleys with meat markets, fish markets, modest outdoor restaurants with great smells and spice shops plus some gold, souvenirs and a lot of chinese crap. Here we found koutra (the cloth men wear in their head) for Egor.

Desert (camels)
Of course, this was included in the week. SILENCE! That was great out of the city. No noise, just heat. Wonderful. Silence especially is something a Finn needs to live. We found the camels on the north-east part of Kuwait somewhere in the end of Mutlaa ridge.

Lebanese restaurants
Nobody was impressed. I have been to lebanese restaurants here several times. Once I have got a food poisoning and this time a suspected one from one of the lebanese restaurants. At least it did not help my confused stomach. Now I have decided that until some lebanese national takes me to the best lebanese restaurant he knows and if I am not impressed, it must be that I am not friends with their cuisine. Everything is soaking of lemon, it is bitter taste in everything, meat is always charcoal grilled and causes heartburning. I have good memories of arabic food from Saudi, but for some reason here in Kuwait I haven't tasted food with heavenly tasty spices. Well, as a finn I should not criticize any cuisine. I still think that lebanese restaurants here in Kuwait are best for smoking sheisha.

Al Boom restaurant in Radisson SAS
Very impressive restaurant in Kuwait. "Set sail aboard the Al Boom steak and seafood restaurant, housed in an authentic Kuwaiti dhow in a dry dock. Famed for its nautical ambience, extensive salad bar, and outstanding steaks and seafood, the Al Boom welcomes diners every evening." We had our "Vappu -dinner" there on first of May. The interior is really amazing and the food was excellent. Full dinner was around 11 KWD per head. With some service fee and additional stuff the bill was around 50 KWD for all of us. I was especially impressed by their excellent scandinavian apprtizers like very good smoked white fish and salmon.

Fahaheel and Ahmadi
In these locations the main intrest is architechture of the mall in Fahaheel (Al Kout) and different atmosphere in Ahmadi. About Ahmadi I have written earlier in this blog. Recently we even followed a nice play in the british "Small Theatre" there. I had never before seen so many westerners in same time in same place here in Kuwait. I liked the play even it was difficult to understand the british accent. The play was called "Honey I'm home". Mostly I enjoyed the "intellectual cultural atmosphere" in an establishment somehow close to my own background and culture. In Al Kout mall the security attacked me by telling my big camera is not really desired and using tripod was a big no no. Photographing with "small camera" was OK. I have had this problem many times with ignorant managers of public places. He was following me all the time so that I could not use my tripod and the result was shaken photos. In Ahmadi the security also caught me telling that a permission is required for photographing there. I said I had none and showed him a nice photo of a lamp post asking if this was a strategic target and that I considered it to be very beautiful piece of art. He gave me a permission to shoot all Ahmadi if I wanted.

Egyptian cafe
Layali cafe or something like this. It is situated somewhere between Salmiya and downtown on the seaside. This is a nice place to chill out in usually relaxed and quiet atmosphere. The place is very well managed and clean. One can almost think he is not in Egypt. Egor smoke sheisha there and we enjoyed warm sea wind from the gulf late in the evening. This place is really worth a visit in Kuwait. Quiet arabic music creates nice atmosphere and the interior is harmonous somehow. The sea right next to it adds comfort.

Tareq Rajab museum
This is a museum based on personal collections from Central Asia, South Asia and Middle East. I had never visited this small museum before but I am happy I did. The collection of small items from this region and Asia is impressive. If you wonder why Afghan women don't wear so much jewellery nowadays, the answer is that they are all in this museum. In Yemen they still have their daggars even in this museum it seemed that most of the tribes were already disarmed.

Shopping malls
Mostly boring. But it is amazing what kind of stuff is available in this country. Forget about gray opressed arab women. They love to buy clothes and show off, much more than their sisters in Finland for example, where looking like a man is a virtue. And what is hidden from the public is unbelieveable. Egor got his girlfriend such daring lingerie from here you can not even dream of in liberal Europe. Once I was explained (by kuwaiti) that arab men tend to get bored easily. Women are so kind here that they spend a lot of money for sexy lingerie and really fetish stuff to keep their men out of their diwaniyas (places where men gather to talk politics) and more occupied in their shared bed. This if anything is sex obsessed culture - believe or not.

Sheisha shop
Small shop in Salmiya which name I can not remember but it is not far from the gigantic Burger King and Diva's restaurant along the Gulf Street. Egor got inexpensive, nice set of sheisha pipe (or hookah) from there. Smoking this stuff is very common here. There are many nice flavours available. I haven't got this habbit yet but we spend some time usually with our friends on weekends going out to drink coffee and smoke. Many people, especialy egyptians are total addicts of this drug. If there is some interested business partner there, I have thought about sheisha option for cars. Here they have fridges and many other non necessary options already. I have thought about some central sheisha consol for their cars where is hands free gas mask device which they can use for breathing this smoke while driving. I am sure it would be a success.

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