2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

A friend recently shared an instagram account with me that contained a lot of cool old photos of Kuwait, many which I hadn’t seen before. The account is called @badshaiji and the guy doesn’t mention the source of the photos, but I don’t think they’re his since I’ve seen a few in other places. I also think he converts a lot of colored photos to black and white for aesthetic reasons.

From all the photos on his account, three stuck out for me. The two above are from 1969 and of seaside casinos (basically coffee shops or social clubs not gambling casinos) that were located in Salmiya on Blajat street. I had never seen these before nor did I know they had existed. The third photo below is of a music shop on Fahad Al Salem street dated 1961. If you want to check out a lot more photos like this then check out the Instagram account @badshaiji

In case you weren’t aware, the MOH Instagram account posts Coronavirus updates daily. What I especially appreciate about the MOH is the fact they breakdown the new cases with details on how the people contracted the virus. They’re being transparent which I like and I’m also pretty sure the lockdown is making it easier for them to track down all the people who were in contact with the positive case.

If you want to see these daily updates then follow them on Instagram @kuwait_moh. For more local official Coronavirus news sources, click here.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The British School of Kuwait (@bsk_kw) on Mar 28, 2020 at 4:14am PDT

Some British School of Kuwait band students got together virtually and performed the Kuwait National anthem online as part of a virtual ensemble. Check out the video above.

Over the weekend I got outbid on some Harvey Llyod slides of Kuwait dating back to 1979. They were being sold as part of an estate find and according to the seller, there were 180 film slides of Kuwait covering a wide range of subjects. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in them but I ended up getting outbid on them by someone I’m guessing is some kind of collector in Kuwait since their bidding history involves a lot of old Kuwait stamps.

So in case whoever won these slides reads my blog, can you please get in touch with me? I was planning to scan all the slides and share them here so maybe we can still do that.

Yesterday the Kuwait Municipality announced that starting today you can only get your coffee delivered. Up until yesterday you could still pick up a coffee from your favorite coffee shop or use their drive-thru service. I’m guessing the reason behind this decision is that having your morning coffee isn’t considered essential and so no reason for you to leave the house or wait in a busy line just to get it. On the bright side, most coffee shops are now on the delivery apps and Arabica have started delivering hot coffees as well.

I’ve been checking Kuwait’s official COVID 19 website daily to monitor the number of Coronavirus cases that get published daily and just a few moments ago they published that there were 0 new cases to report. It had already been on a decline for the past few days and I really hope we continue at this pace. Also:

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus on Wednesday commended Kuwait’s response to the novel coronavirus, especially in view of transparency and reporting.

Speaking to KUNA, Ghebreyesus also lauded Kuwait’s close coordination with the WHO over the fight against the virus, known as COVID-19, pointing out the role of the organization’s regional office in this regard.

He said the Kuwaiti government has a long experience in controlling respiratory malfunctions, citing its response to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as a relevant unequivocal paradigm. Source

I really hope people don’t start thinking everything is OK now. I’ve noticed a lot more people out during the day and I’m worried this is gonna cause the number of cases to increase again or stricter rules being put in place. The local influencer Concept15 had a funny but serious bit on Snapchat the other day (video above) where he talks about how people are treating the situation like Ramadan, where you can do whatever you want before 5 and then after 5 you avoid Corona. We’re going to end up in a full 24-hour curfew at this rate. Stay at home people it’s not a vacation…

Update: They reupdated the website again and it now shows 13 new cases not 0 🙁

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by مركز الشيخ جابر الأحمد الثقافي (@jacc_kw) on Mar 25, 2020 at 11:11am PDT

The song above was created for JACC by a bunch of local musicians whom played their parts individually while in isolation in their homes.

This is really sad.

via @MohammadKAlJass

A couple of days ago my friend was telling me that she went to her local Co-op and spotted the chairs outside with people sitting and waiting to get in. So she went up to the guy in charge and asked him where she should wait. He then asked her if she was Kuwaiti and when she said yes he told her she didn’t have to wait and they let her in. This morning I read a post on reddit about a similar situation where they were also letting Kuwaitis enter without having to wait in line while expats were forced to wait. It doesn’t seem to be happening at all co-ops but it’s still pretty messed up that it’s even happening. It’s like every time I feel like the rift between expats and locals closes, something like this happens to open it up again.

I was out on the balcony awhile ago during the curfew because there was a loud noise down the street. A large group of people were yelling Allahu Akbar (out their windows I’m guessing) so I took out my phone to try and record it when I noticed an undercover cop car coming down the street. I had seen three guys standing under their building so I knew things might get interesting and decided to record the cops. As expected they ended up spotting and then catching the guys.

They didn’t arrest them, they let them go but not sure if they gave them a warning or took their ID cards or something. It’s pretty cool to see my back streets being patrolled during the curfew and with unmarked vehicles which is pretty smart.

So yesterday was the first day of the curfew and it actually wasn’t bad at all. I live in a commercial area of Salmiya so it’s always busy with people out and about and cars always backed up on my street. It’s generally fairly noisy but not last night. Last night my neighborhood was very quiet which made me realize, this is probably how it feels like living in a normal residential area. I’ve not really experienced that since I’ve lived on the exact same busy street all my life so it was a nice change.

The best part of the evening was getting videos on Whatsapp of cops pulling people over who were out past the curfew. I took a bunch of those videos and clipped them all together so you can check them out above. I also added a funny one at the end.

Another thing I enjoyed doing was watching videos people were taking of the empty streets from their balcony. It would have been cool if we had live street webcams but since we don’t you could use the “Snap Map” feature in Snapchat instead. A few people also flew their drones yesterday to capture video of this never before seen situation like the one below.

Overall not bad for Day 1, now just 21 days to go.

As part of the new safety measures, they’re limiting the number of people inside co-op’s at any one time, and every customer will also have their temperature taken at the entrance. The picture above was taken at the Mishref Co-op where they’ve set up chairs outside for customers waiting to enter the supermarket.

I know why they implemented a curfew for us, I think it’s great that they did, but it’s still gonna suck. For someone who is usually constantly out and about, since the public holiday started I’ve spent 99% of my time at home working during my work hours and then playing videogames and watching TV for the rest of the day.

But, whenever I felt like I needed to reset, I’d hop in my car and just go for a long drive. Now I won’t have that freedom anymore. It sounds like something small, but it was my way of coping with the whole thing and it helped me not feel like I was stuck at home.

Like with everyone (I’m assuming), it’s been pretty difficult having to adjust to this new lifestyle. My eating habits have changed, I no longer exercise, I don’t see people and now I’ve got three more weeks of this left at least. I’m gonna end up like Tom Hanks in Castaway at this pace.

How is everyone else coping with all this? Are some of you still going in to work or is everyone now working from home?

Qortoba Co-op are sterilizing all the shopping carts after use and then covering the handles with a plastic seal. I love how everyone is adapting to the current situation and fairly quickly too.

Thanks Aisha