2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

According to Arabian Business Kuwait ranked 101st place out of 140 when it came to travel and tourism, the lowest amongst the Gulf countries. No surprise there, not even sure how we didn’t even rank lower since its practically impossible to get a visa to Kuwait. Dubai obviously ranked the highest in the region coming in 28th place out of 140. [Link]

Yesterday I was invited to the Peruvian Food Festival that is currently taking place this week at JW Marriott. I wasn’t planning to go at first but then I told myself I didn’t want to be one of those people who complain about nothing to do in Kuwait when in fact there are things to do and I just wasn’t doing them. The food festival is organized by the Peruvian embassy and they brought in three chefs from Peru as well as some Peruvian dancers. During various stages of the dinner the dancers would perform the traditional Peruvian dances and I thought was pretty entertaining. The food was also really interesting with lots of new flavors I hadn’t experienced before.

If you’re looking for something to do this week then this festival is on until the 15th of March. Having dinner while watching dancers perform is something you generally don’t see taking place in Kuwait so take advantage of this opportunity. The cost is KD15 per person (it’s an open buffet) and is from 7pm to 11pm at La Brasserie in JW Marriott Hotel.

Calling all photographers, if you’re interested in taking part in a group activity then this is a good one. Star trails photography involves long exposure shots of either the sky or landscapes where the movement of the stars in the sky form light trails in your shots (similar to the shot above). Not only will you end up with some interesting shots but its also a great way to meet new people.

Here is a list of gear you need to bring:
1. A DSLR
2. A tripod
3. Bring extra batteries or at least fully charge yours
4. A high capacity memory card
5. Shutter release
6. Food
7. Flashlights
8. Mat or chair to sit on

The meetup point will be the Mishref CO-OP parking lot on March 15th at 6PM. For more details check this [Link]

Photo above taken by Saleh AlRashaid

Thanks Kim

In February of this year, K’S PATH received a call about a Hamadryas baboon on the loose in the Friday market. Baboons of this kind tend to compete fiercely for resources, and can be particularly dangerous around food. They are also potential vectors for an astounding number of diseases that affect humans, including rabies, herpes, hepatitis b, HIV, and tuberculosis, to name but a few. A baboon on the loose in a public place, struggling to survive in stressful, unnatural conditions, therefore represents a serious risk to human health. Two of the K’S PATH animal control units therefore quickly responded to the call.

On arriving at the market, we were directed to the Shrimpy’s restaurant, where she had last been sighted. A thorough search of the building, including the roof, led nowhere. Several hours of searching the area around the market and talking to people revealed little except word of an occasional sighting. Eventually we were obliged to go back to our other duties and see what developed.

Later, we received a frantic call from one of the people we had spoken to earlier that day: the baboon was inside Lu & Lu Hypermarket, and people were panicking. This time K’S PATH mobilized all of our units and several volunteers, under the assumption we would have to use a dart gun to catch a baboon inside a crowded supermarket; a very dangerous prospect. By the time we arrive at the scene however, workers had chased the baboon back outside. Now we were faced with the prospect of finding and catching a primate in the dark, in a huge open area. Fortunately, we are experts in animal capture, so we went with our training. With such a recent sighting, we were able to more or less track the animals’ movements through eyewitness accounts. This led to a small cluster of buildings near the main entrance to the manufactured-goods area of the market. Here the trail went cold.

We split up with flashlights and headlamps to see what we could find. The first search revealed nothing. We were just about ready to give up. I was on top of the middle building creeping around looking for what I hoped wasn’t an angry primate, when the beam of my flashlight caught the slightest smudge in the dust inside of an air conditioning unit. A closer look revealed the slight impression of three little baboon prints.

I’m currently in Lebanon for the weekend and earlier today I went paragliding. Now that I’ve tried it I think everyone should when they visit Lebanon the next time since it’s a pretty cool experience. It wasn’t something I had planned to do, I was snowboarding with a friend and during a break we started talking and I found out he paraglides. So I told him I wanted to try it and he called his friend up and we booked an appointment for 2PM. Once we were done snowboarding we headed to the take off location which was high up in the mountain above the area Jounieh. The view was obviously spectacular and the weather was fantastic.

It was me and another girl who were planning to paraglide. It’s a tandem flight meaning you fly while strapped to an expert. You start off high up in the mountain and end up down right next to the sea (where I am pointing in the picture above). There was only one expert so the girl went first and I waited for them to land and get back up. The spot we were taking off from is a popular location and right after they left, 3 military men (I think they were French) arrived and also took off in sequence.

To take off the wind speed and direction need to be right and when it was my turn we didn’t have to wait long to go. I was strapped to the paraglider and when he told me run I had to run. Then suddenly just like that we were up in the air. It was an incredible feeling and surprisingly not very scary. The only parts that were freaky for me was when I was Instagramming the picture above live while up in the sky since I was worried I would drop my phone while doing so. The second scary part was when he gave me the controls to fly for a bit. It’s pretty simple to work but still the idea that I was flying the thing was freaky. The whole flight took around 20 minutes.

So yeah if you’re in Lebanon the next time you should definitely give this a try. The whole experience cost me just $120. To book an appointment call Caroline on +9613559992 or visit their website for more details [Here]

Christian Louboutin will be in Salhiya on Sunday at 3PM for the Christian Louboutin exhibition as well as a shoe-signing. Not sure if the shoe-signing is open to the public but it’s worth taking your shoes and trying.

Sleepz is bringing something new to the Hip Hop scene in Kuwait with his crew KD Makers. He and this group of talented artists are set to do big things. Their main goal is to show the world what living in Kuwait can be like. “Started off broke” is Sleepz love note to Kuwait. It is followed by a little taste of “What Their Missin” a song we will be filming the video for in Dubai. Sleepz and the whole KD Makers crew are out to have fun and help put Kuwait on the Hip Hop map and it shows.

[YouTube]

These are just too damn creepy. They’re by Kuwait based Al-Hamad Design:

Each of the lamps features a touch sensor in the hand with three dimmer settings. Shake hands and the lamp will turn on. The men include a built-in-speaker in the torso.

Check them out on the Al-Hamad Design website [Here].

The Kuwait International Film Retreat have just opened up their registration. If you have a short film that you produced in the past two years you have until April 10 to submit it.

The 2nd Edition of the Kuwait International Film Retreat will be a 3-day mini-film festival bringing together filmmakers and enthusiasts from around Kuwait and the Region to take part in short and feature film screenings, workshops, social gatherings, the red carpet, and an awards ceremony showcasing the best short films in competition.

Last year the Film Retreat earned a lot of respect and praise when they decided to play the movie Tokai at the event even though the Ministry of Information had banned them from doing so.

So if you’re a filmmaker this is a great event to be part of and a great way to get noticed. For more information visit the Kuwait International Film Retreat website [Here]

In early December of 2012, I was asked to participate in a program to sterilize dogs on the Bahamian island of New Providence. The program, organized by the non-profit Animal Balance, was a joint endeavor between Bahamian veterinary and animal welfare organizations, Animal Balance, and a wide array of veterinary professionals, animal catchers, and volunteers from seven countries whose combined goal it was to sterilize an incredible 2,000 or more dogs in a mere two weeks.

The issue of loose dogs on New Providence has been a concern for citizens, government, visitors, and animal welfare supporters for many years. Many communities around the world face the difficulty of managing large populations of free-roaming dogs, and the island of New Providence has a population of approximately 20,000.

Operation Potcake?
Traditionally, potcake refers to the inch or two of compacted, charred remains of rice and peas at the bottom of Bahamian pot-baked dishes. Instead of being discarded, this rice cake was put out for the street dogs as their primary source of nutrition. In time, the islanders began to refer to the dogs themselves as potcakes, and the name has stuck. Generations of tourists coming to enjoy the pristine scenes of the Bahamas have fallen in love with potcakes and given them a reputation throughout the world as loveable street dogs.

Putting it Together
Community based sterilization programs set out to achieve three basic goals: Improved quality of life for street animals, improved quality of life for residents, and decrease the number of animals on the streets. The recent clinics on New Providence did all that and more. In all, five clinics were set up across the 20-mile long island. Residents were encouraged to bring their dogs to the clinics for sterilization and basic treatment. Teams of veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and volunteers at each site documented the animals, processed them for surgery, nursed them through recovery, and made them comfortable until they were reunited with their owners or returned to their territory. Meanwhile, the team I was a part of was tasked to go out and catch dogs that otherwise would not make it to the clinics either because of distance, lack of transport, or because the dogs were not owned.

My Perspective
In Kuwait, I manage a program that has been catching dogs at a rate of 1,500 per year for nearly two years now. Many of our dogs are exceedingly difficult to catch because they have faced so much intentional cruelty like being shot at, having things thrown at them, and being chased by vehicles. They are, as a result, very difficult to catch, and it requires a unique skillset to do so. I was therefore very interested to see how my experience, which has been limited to Kuwait and a few Asian countries, would hold up on an island in the south Atlantic.

Once on the island, I was assigned to a team of four including an animal control technician, a veterinary technician, a local volunteer, and myself. We were given a number of humane live traps (photo above) and a quota for the number of animals we needed to bring back to the clinic every day. Our destinations were low-income neighborhoods where loose dogs were prevalent. We could guess what kind of dogs we would encounter, but we had no idea what kind of people we might meet. It turned out that most of the people we met were absolutely wonderful. On arrival in each area, residents would expostulate: “What are you doing with that dog!” With an explanation that we were taking the dogs to be sterilized and treated then returned within two days, their wall of concern would immediately break down and they would engage all of their friends, neighbors, and family members to bring us their dogs. It was incredible to see. When we found a dog that didn’t seem like it lived in front of a particular house, we would just ask. Someone always knew if the dog was “owned” (some dogs were kept in yards or chained while others were ‘owned’ but loose) or not. People knew every dog on their street. If the owner was inside or away from home, someone would go and get them or make a phone call and set up a time for us to collect the animal. News of our presence would spread like wildfire on every street, and it seemed like every man, woman, and child was ready to help in some way. I was especially amazed and pleased when I caught a dog named Pablo whose brindle coat and friendly personality made him an instant favorite. After placing him on a truck and driving to a different neighborhood to collect more dogs, two kids came up to us on bikes and said “Hey! I know that dog! That’s Pablo!” It was very uplifting to see the communities so engaged in improving the lives of their dogs.

After the first day in the field, we realized that much of our work was not going to be the complex system of trapping difficult dogs I had become so used to in Kuwait. Rather, we found we could simply enter these little micro-communities of a few houses on a side road and tell them what we were doing and how it would help them. We therefore didn’t have to do very much difficult capture. Most of our work became opening cage doors, doing paper work, and carrying the ‘trapped’ dogs around the trucks and clinics. Still, there were plenty of dangerous dogs that required more skill to catch and handle. There were also some truly feral dogs to catch, and I was happy to see that the methods we use in Kuwait are pretty much the same as those people are using around the world.

Bringing it Home
In the end, Operation Potcake sterilized 2,315 dogs in 10 days—a truly phenomenal number. But the true success of this project was not in numbers, no matter how impressive. Operation Potcake proved that when a few passionate people put their hearts, and just as importantly their heads, together toward a common goal, they can bring together communities, change the thinking of a government, inspire a people, and give new value to even so humble a creature as a Bahamian Potcake. Operation Potcake is now a five-year program that will build upon itself and work toward the goal of sterilizing most of the 20,000 dogs on New Providence, and because of the success of the initial operation, the government has now bought into the program. They are now adopting sterilization as a primary method of population control throughout all of the Bahamian islands.

Kuwait has an even bigger problem. We have close to 10,000 feral dogs roaming areas outside of the city, and no one can even estimate the number of cats on the streets. There are certainly hundreds of thousands of the latter. K’S PATH, with our limited funding and staff, is only currently able to handle a few thousand animals each year. However, we have worked tirelessly over the past five years to gain an expert understanding of the root cause of the problem, and we have the knowledge to implement solutions. Industry, namely Kuwait Oil Company and Saudi Arabian Chevron have already taken notice and made us their exclusive contractor for animal population management. For us, our “Operation Potcake” has been completed many times over. We retain the proof of our accomplishments, and we’ve submitted them to the government of Kuwait. We stand ready to act, but we simply cannot do this alone.

Post by John Peaveler
Managing Director
Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and Their Habitat (K’S PATH)

This Friday Chris ‘Douggs’ McDougall will be BASE jumping off the top of Al Hamra Tower. The event is free to watch but I’ve got two VIP passes to give away (to 1 person) courtesy of Kromozone. These tickets can’t be purchased and they give you access to the enclosed VIP area outside near the fountain and will have seating, bean bags, food and drinks. It will also have it’s own private entrance from the mall so you won’t have to deal with the crowds.

If you’re interested leave a comment below.

Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If winner doesn’t respond another winner will be randomly chosen.

Update: I closed the post for commenting at 11PM and using random.org the first number I drew was 42. But, that person got disqualified for posting two comments. The second number I drew was 39 and the winner of this giveaway is Noura. I also drew a third number as backup in case Noura doesn’t respond and that number is 69 Karan. Thanks everybody.

There’s currently a vintage car exhibition taking place at Al Hamra Tower with around 14 classic cars on display. The cars are from Omar Alghanim’s private collection of vintage first-grade restored vehicles from the 1940s to the 70s. The cars are all located in the basement and they will be on display until March the 16th.

Over the holidays one of the cities I traveled to was Rotterdam and while there I was lucky enough to meet the mayor of the city Ahmed Aboutaleb. Before I left Kuwait my friend in Rotterdam told me he managed set up a meeting for me with the mayor and that we would have 30 minutes of his time followed by a private tour of City Hall. I was pretty thrilled, I hadn’t been to Rotterdam before and getting to meet the mayor on my first visit was really exciting.

We got to City Hall early because obviously we didn’t want to be late for the mayor. Once there we were given a very friendly welcome by the mayor himself and his staff who all met us outside at the entrance of his office. Once inside the mayors office we were led to the seating area where I was told to sit opposite the mayor. On the table in front of us was a little stand with three flags, a Dutch flag, the flag of Rotterdam and the Kuwaiti flag since that’s where I was coming from. Their hospitality and professionalism made me feel like I was someone very important.

We started talking about the weather first since that’s always a good ice breaker and then the conversation shifted towards the city and finally to the way the mayor runs the city. One thing I loved is the fact he checks his emails personally. Everyday he receives on average around 50 or 60 emails from Rotterdam citizens regarding various topics and he reads them all himself. Then depending on what the email is about he assigns various members of his team to follow up and sort the issues out. Rotterdam is the second largest city in Netherlands but the way he runs things hands on you would think he’s running a small town like Pawnee. I loved that.

After my 30 minutes were up I was given a parting gift by the mayor and then had a photo taken with him. I was then given a tour of City Hall before I ended up leaving for lunch. It was such a great and inspiring meeting that it made me more determined to want to be the Mayor of Salmiya one day.

Does anyone know what the hell this is? I’ve noticed around 4 so far located on the side of the road in various areas. It looks like some kind of antenna. I’ve noticed them near traffic light intersections so I’m just taking a wild guess here but maybe they’re a wireless remote traffic light management system?

Update: A reader has suggested it could be a radar unit that counts traffic. This makes sense. [Link]

The British Council is launching a new radio show on 99.7 starting next week called The Selector Radio Show. The show will be presented by the famous British radio presenter Goldierocks and feature the best contemporary British music. It will air every Wednesday from 4 to 5PM. On the occasion of the launch of the show, a musical event will be held this coming Friday at Marina Crescent featuring live music by local bands. Below is the event details:

Event: The Selector Radio Launch & Music Showcase
Date: March 8th Friday
Time: 2:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: Marina Crescent

This collaboration between the British Council and 99.7 is pretty cool but just one hour once a week isn’t enough. 99.7 should consider more of this collaborative work preferably finding something to replace the current morning show with or just BRING BACK LATINA MINA!