John Belushi Isnt Dead!!

John Belushi is actually alive and well and living in Kuwait. And in true comic fashion, he's running for a seat in Parliament. No Im not photoshopping this, this is a real guy running for parliament. Anyway, after a long break I actually have a bunch of things to write. Going to start with politics.

At the beginning of June the Kuwaiti's began their Parliament election process. I dont know how often they do it or exactly how it works to tell you the truth. I know they start nominations in late May or early June and the elections are June 29. With only 1 month to campaign, the candidates here make our local city council candidates look like amateurs. As you can see from the few pics Ive put here, instead of simple 3' x 4' signs with someones name alot of the parliament candidates here put up full billboards, 8' high signs and such with full color glossy glamour shots of themselves.

As if the barrage of signs wasnt enough they also set up areas to entertain potential voters. I've put a picture of that here too.
Right off one of the main highways I use to get to work there are half a dozen or more tents. Apparently they feed people, serve them drinks, non-alcoholic of course ;), and try to win their votes. They have camel rides for the kiddies and sheep to pet too.


On a more serious note the newspapers are of course always full of election stories. Not really because there are any big issues but because this is the first time women will be allowed to run for Parliamentary seats. There are about 500 candidates for Im not sure how many seats. About 10% of the candidates are women. And all manner of women at that. From women in full birkha covered from head to toe to very western type women like you'd see at home. There is no lack of defacing women's posters and angry remarks in the papers about women holding a man's position. Its quite interesting to see something that we dont think twice about generate quite a bit of controversy here.


Cool fact for today - Kuwait has very little infrastructure water. Most houses have 500 or 1000 gallon tanks on the roof as a water source. They fill these from tankers that run around selling water. Water costs approximately $5.86 per gallon. Gasoline costs approximately $0.87 per gallon.

Work and People

So my Aunt Joany asked what I’m doing for work and what I think of the people.

WORK

I’m working on projects for the US Military. Even though they talk a lot about pulling out of Iraq and such the US is actually increasing its presence in the Middle East. It's all temporary construction, at least temporary for the US, but there's a lot of stuff going on here. The main installation we're working at is about 2 sq miles.

I’ve got projects in the works at three installations. From the image I included here you can see a two of them (Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem AB). The third is not identified on the map. Actually there is great detail for that third place on Google it’s just not called out as a military base, I’m assuming for a reason. I got that map right off of Google Earth so its not classified or anything. There’s even more detailed info at www.globalsecurity.org although that info is a bit dated, probably intentionally.

It’s a bit humorous actually. They won’t let me take pictures on-base without an escort, they won’t give me electronic maps of the bases, but I can get a picture from Google with enough detail to count HMMVs in the parking lots.

Anyway, I’m rambling as usual, essentially the work we’re doing is constructing small (or maybe not so small) cities. The projects are running utility lines (water, sewer, electric) and erecting buildings for various uses (vehicle maintenance, dining facilities, etc). Routine stuff nothing that’s Top Secret or Classified, just things that generally make soldiers’ lives a little more bearable out here. Which I suppose is probably why I can tolerate working for the military. I honestly was a little conflicted about coming out here since I’m generally opposed to war, Iraq in particular. I actually find it more nerve-wracking eating lunch with a few hundred 18-20 yrs old guys carrying automatic weapons than I do walking around the streets of Kuwait at night.

PEOPLE

Actual Kuwaiti’s make up less than 40% of the population of Kuwait. My real contact with true Kuwaiti’s is limited to about 6 people, mostly business owners of either subcontractors or of our corporate sponsor here. Kuwaiti’s and most everyone I’ve met in Kuwait are very nice people. Very friendly, very laid back. I’ve not met anyone here that I didn’t like or even felt that anyone really disliked Americans. Maybe I’m naïve but they don’t seem judgmental at all and seem very accepting of others. It’s certainly not a country of religious zealots hell bent on the destruction of western ideas.

The people are super polite. I’m "Mr. Robert" to everyone, with an occasional “Sir” thrown in when dealing with Indians usually. I’ve taken to the same way of addressing people since they seem to like it that way.

With the exception of their driving (which makes Boston look like the Pike from Sturbridge to the NY border) they don’t rush to do anything. Their way of doing business is exactly opposite of the US. It’s more about relationships than contracts. A typical business meeting is about 30 minutes of tea/coffee/water and socializing followed by a 2 minute business discussion then one more cup of tea and handshake and goodbye. They push to get a promise to do business but actually getting a contract and doing work takes time. There’s an Arabic word “enshala” which means “god willing” that basically personifies the Kuwaiti attitude. They do everything at their own pace and “enshala” the work will get done. The typical “I need it yesterday” American way just doesn’t cut it here. It’s a bit frustrating but it makes for very relaxed easy to deal with people (at least on the Kuwaiti side, our American clients still operate in the American way).

Other than Kuwaiti’s the population is mostly Indian, Phillipino, Sri Lankan, Egyptian and Lebanese. Only Kuwaiti’s can actually be citizens and own businesses so essentially everyone else here is on a Residence Visa that has to be sponsored by a Kuwaiti employer. The Lebanese seem to run all of the restaurants. The Indians seem to run most of the laundries. Indians, Lebanese and other Arabs also hold a lot of the banking and finance related jobs. Most of the engineers are Indian and Phillipino. And the physical labor force (servants, hotel workers, construction) is mostly Phillipino, Sri Lankan and a variety of other people from “developing countries”.

The culture here is very mixed. I’ve added a couple of pictures taken from the
Marina Mall. They’re blurry but you can see that a lot of people are dressed in jeans and t-shirts. There are just as many dressed in the traditional “dish-dasha” which is the traditional white robe and head-covering that you think of when you think of Arabic culture. There most common dress for the muslim women that I see is a combined thing where they wear a head scarf showing their face completely, then a kind of long shirt that has a skirt ending just below the hips, and jeans.

There is plenty of western culture here. The malls are filled with a lot of the same stores as back home. The malls are full of kids having a great time hanging out with friends and going to the movies (there a 6 theater cinema at the Marina Mall). And they all cruise the food court looking for members of the opposite sex. There are no bars or nightclubs per se so the mall is the place to be. That or they talk to each other between cars as they drive up and down Arabian Gulf Street.

I also attached a picture of the hotel swimming pool. The non-traditional women here wear bikini’s and the men wear Speedos or shorts. There are certainly women around that don’t put on bathing suits at all but there are plenty of locals who dress the same as they do in the states for a day at the pool. There is an uptight side to the culture but everyone is friendly to everyone. Its not uncommon to see different levels of dress within a family, a woman in full robes sitting and talking to a woman in a bathing suit in the pool.

OK its hard to talk about the people without getting into a million other subjects so I’m just going to stop here. More later . . .

I see dead people . . .

So I lied. I said the next installment would be about similarities between Kuwait and Miami. I decided however that it would be totally uninteresting for me to ramble on about every little detail of my trip and tell everyone how similar it is here to home. So instead of telling you about palm trees, sandy beaches, wave runners and hot weather . . .


Every morning I open my hotel room door and like every other hotel in the world I am greeted by a newspaper at my feet. But there are no USA Today's here in Kuwait. No moderate commentary or oddly interesting little front page polls.

Sunday morning I opened my door to find the picture you see here staring up at me. No its not an add for the newest Johnny Depp Pirates of the Carribean box office smash. Its an actual picture of a skeleton found in a mass grave in Iraq.

Journalism in Kuwait is blunt to say the least. I dont think a day has passed where there havent been full color pictures of dead bodies in the paper. From car crashes to babies killed in earthquakes its all here. A startling dose of reality. It's mostly car crashes here because Kuwait has one of the highest automobile fatality rates in the world but theres always a good shot of a guy caught by a car bomb with no skin on his legs or some such story. And the odd part is that there is rarely a story to go with the picture. There's always a caption but most likely the editor has simply stuck the photo in the middle of a page of unrelated stories, as was the case with the pic I put here, no story just a picture and caption surrounded by stories about the upcoming elections.

I cant even imagine what would happen if US papers started printing stuff like this on a daily basis.