Search: “maki”

A few events got canceled this weekend because of the storm but below is what’s still on as of this post. Battle of the East is taking place on Friday and Saturday so if you’re into competitive sports thats something to check out. Shakshooka is also back for the first time this season, they’re going to be at The Secret Garden this Saturday night. Make sure you double check the actual events instagram pages before you head out just to make sure they’re still on. Below is the full list of events taking place this weekend:

Thursday
Exhibition: Still (Curated by Mark Dean)
Play: Stepping Out
Mask Making Workshop

Friday
Play: Stepping Out
Book Club Meeting
Battle of the East
Kuwait Global Education Fair
Fright Night

Saturday
Battle of the East
Kuwait Global Education Fair
Yoga at the Park
K’S PATH Shelter Open Day
Writing at the Park (Teens)
Shakshooka Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Three really good friends of mine recently launched a brand of Portuguese tart pastries called Al Nata. It’s not a home business, it’s a legit operation with a proper setup (I’m in love with their kitchen). The tarts are called pastel de nata and are very common in Portugal, since one the guys is Portuguese he started making them and bringing them during gatherings and they were always a huge hit. They have a delicious custard filling and I could have them all day long if I didn’t put a limit on myself. And I’m not saying that because they’re my friends, the tarts are actually delicious.

They’re currently being sold exclusively at Sultan Center where they are being baked on site. My friends are also visiting different Sultan Center locations where they’re offering visitors free samples to try out. Today they’re going to be in Al Kout and Salmiya and then Jabriya over the next two days. But, a box of 6 freshly baked natas costs KD3.600 so just pick up a box the next time you’re at Sultan Center. They’re available right now in Salmiya, Shaab, Souk Sharq and Al Kout branches and you can add Jabriya to the list starting from tomorrow. Here is a link to their instagram page where they have a ton of mouth watering pics [@al_nata]

Markaz Al-Kuwait has started selling the collectors edition of Halo 5: Guardians seven days before the world wide release date and for KD150. Amazon in comparison is selling the collectors edition for $250 which is around KD75, so it’s obviously a lot more expensive here.

No word on if the regular version of Halo 5 is out yet, chances are shops will try to sell as many as these collector editions before making the regular, more affordable version available!

UPDATE: As Yousef points out in the comments, the Collectors Edition doesn’t even include a CD of the game, but a code to download it. So even if you buy this version of the game you won’t be able to play it until the release date.

Shakshooka, the nomadic farmers market is making a come back this year. If you are a passionate person who likes making things from scratch, are crafty and a foodie then they’re looking for someone like you.

To be part of the Shashooka market contact Mimi on [email protected]

I was at the Kuwait airport before Eid heading to the States and was waiting in line in emigration when I noticed this really good looking emigration officer walk by. He was tall, great body, had a nice beard with great hair, like a super good looking guy. So as I was admiring his looks in the most heterosexual way possible, he does something really messed up. He goes up to a South Asian expat standing in line and yells at him. The expat froze and didn’t understand what the officer wanted so then the officer punches the expat hard on the chest and opens and closes his fist yelling passport passport. I was like WTF?! I was like thats messed up, the officer is clearly all jacked up on steroids and just punched this poor expat. He then gave him back the passport and yelled at him to go to another line. He then sees a group of South Asian expats in line and shoo’s them all to another line like cattle. I thought about complaining to someone in charge but then realized if I did I might not end up flying out myself.

A few moments later I’m still in line still trying to grasp of what I had just seen when another incident takes place. There was an expat at the front of the line waiting for the emigration officer at the desk to stamp his passport and I overhear the officer making fun out of the expat cuz he’s wearing an earring. Not only that but the officer gets the officer on the adjacent desk involved as well so they’re both poking fun out of the expat now. Not quietly or in secret but literally in front of the expat while pointing at his ear and asking the expat embarrassing questions.

To have incidents like this still take place in this day of age is bad enough but to have them take place at the airport by airport employees is just ridiculous. Someone told me recently they replaced the over-maked-up female officers because people were complaining about them but if this is what they’ve replaced them with I’d rather we go back to the female officers again.

A reader sent me the two news articles below to check out. Both covering the same story but each with their own interpretation on the nationality, airport and container the marijuana was found in:

Kuwait Times
Customs officers at Sheikh Saad Al-Abdallah airport foiled a Sri Lankan man’s attempt to smuggle two kilograms of marijuana inside two cans of dried chili. He was sent to the Drug Control General Directorate (DCGD) for questioning. (Sep 13)

vs

Arab Times
An Indian expatriate was arrested at Kuwait International Airport for attempting to smuggle two kilograms of marijuana into the country. According to an informed source, when customs officers were checking the luggage of the passengers who arrived in the country on Friday, they noticed that one of the passengers was nervous. They checked his details to discover he is an Indian expatriate and they checked his luggage to find marijuana hidden inside a pack of almonds. He was arrested and referred to the Directorate General for Drug Control for necessary legal action against him. (Sep 13)

Why is there so much discrepancy between the two articles? If they can’t get a simple story right how badly are they doing on more complicated ones? Last month Arabian Business was also caught making shit up related to Kuwait as well.

On top of those inaccuracies, I’m not an expert here but how the hell do you fit 2KG of marijuana in your luggage yet alone in a chili can or a pack of almonds? So much of the above doesn’t make any sense. Check this video on YouTube to see how 2KG of marijuana looks like [YouTube] (Spoiler: It’s huge)

Update: Arab Times have posted the same news story again for a second time today with a slight adjustment.

Arab Times (Try #2)
Customs officers at the Sa’ad Al-Abdullah Airport recently foiled an attempt by a Bangladeshi to smuggle 2 kilos of marijuana in to the country, reports Al-Anba daily. According to security sources, the suspect arrived at the Kuwait International Airport from a neighboring country. The drugs were reportedly hidden between chili powder packs.

Note they don’t mention its a correction, they just treat it as a new news story. So they basically could be copying pasting old news as new news to fill up their pages and no one will be any the wiser.

Last week a reader called Abdulai Shani left the following comment under the post “The rescue of a domestic worker in Kuwait”:

I’m happy I came across this page. To be frank I’m fascinated as to how most Kuwaitis respond positively.

This is my own story and how I got to Kuwait. It all started somewhere in February this year, I met a guy back in my country in Africa, that is Ghana to be specific who told me he have some “connection” as normally termed in Ghana here in Kuwait and that a reputable company needs security guards to employ. I showed interest because he said I will be paid $1000 per month. I was happy and more than willing, so he demanded I pay $1500 for the processing my my visa and tickets which I paid. When I arrived at the airport of Kuwait on the 1st of April it was a different scenario. I was taken to an agency in Jahra and was told I’m going to take care of sheep on the desert. That was a blow I haven’t recovered till now, because I’m trapped in the sense that I quitted my job which is 100 times better than what I’m doing right here in Kuwait. And the wages i was promised never manifested instead I receive 70kd a month. I can’t even call my mom to tell her what I’m going through because I fear I might break her heart. I Fasted 30 Days during the fasting and can tell you it was hell. I Iive in a tent and the weather is extremely hot. I Have been on the desert for five months now. It’s I’m not the only one over here, we are trapped. We work 24hours a day and no day off and this will continue for 2years. We don’t go any where ,we just work even at night because we have to stay awake and look after the sheep. I’m a muslim and what I have been taught is that a man should not be ashamed of his work if it brings you good deeds and avoid you from stealing, so I’m not ashamed of being a shepherd although I’m well educated but the thing is my freedom have shackled. And the funny thing is our employers call themselves Muslims but will not allow us to go to the mosque on Fridays. All they do is they want us to always work,t hey don’t care even if we don’t pray. Hmmm on the day of Judgement Allah will fight for what they are denying us. Maybe someone reading this will say why we don’t run away or protect, but I tell you if we try to run away they will file a false case against us. And another problem is abuse, they beat my co workers although non have tried that on me yet. We just hope one day our two years contracts will be over. So that we can go back peacefully to our various countries.

After reading that I had no idea what to think. It didn’t make sense, the person who left that comment speaks English fairly well, was able to find my blog and was also able to leave a comment. How is this guy a shepherd? At first I thought it might be a prank but I emailed the guy anyway asking for his number so I could contact him and confirm his story. He sent me his number and I proceeded to chat with him via Whatsapp. Again I was very suspicious, how does a shepherd know what Whatsapp is? In the end he sent me his location and I decided I would drive out to meet him. Friday, after brunch with some friends, I drove an hour and a half alone into the middle of the desert so I could meet a stranger called Abdulai. I honestly had no idea what to expect which is why I had passed the location to my friends… just in case.

It was around 1PM when I pulled up outside Abdulai’s tent. I had called him up minutes earlier trying to figure out where his tent was exactly and the first thing he asked me was if I had driven through the valley of dead sheep. I surprisingly knew what he was talking about since just before I called him I had driven on a strip of road with dead sheep on both sides. A horrific scene mind you. As I was getting out of my car Abdulai had a big smile on his face, I walked up to him and we shook hands before we headed inside his tent. Abdulai lives on a farm, no, I can’t call it a farm since it’s really not but not sure what else to call it. It’s just a 4×4 tent (his home) with a small sheep pen outside it and that’s about it. It was very hot and although I was sitting inside his tent in the shade I was sweating profusely. He doesn’t have electricity so there is no air conditioning. Before we started I asked him if I could post his full name and his photo and he said yes. I told him I didn’t want to get him in trouble and if he wanted to stay anonymous or not be in a photo that would be ok. He told me he didn’t care since this was his reality.

Abdulai Shani is a high school graduate but dropped out of university. He’s just 25 years old and before coming to Kuwait was teaching 7 year olds English and Mathematics at a school in Ghana. Like he stated in his comment on the blog, he was offered the opportunity to work in Kuwait as a security guard with a starting salary of $1,000 which was more than what he was making teaching in Ghana. So he took the chance, paid the agent $1,500 in fees and flew out of Ghana on March 31st of this year to come work in Kuwait. He didn’t have a copy of the contract before he left since his agent told him he would get one on arrival to Kuwait. When he arrived in Kuwait he was greeted by a man who he assumed was his boss. That man took his passport then drove him to a house in Jahra where he was locked up with three other people. He was told his sponsor would be coming to get him in a couple of days and was then asked if he was informed on what he would be doing. He replied saying he did, he would be a security guard. The person told him no, he was going to be a shepherd. Abdulai responded saying he was told he would be a security guard by the agent. The man then asked him if he knew how much he would be getting paid. Abdulai told him $1,000, the man told him he would be getting only KD70. Abdulai didn’t understand and at that time he had just arrived to Kuwait and so he was scared and didn’t know what to do. Three days later his sponsor came in the evening. His sponsor paid the people holding Abdulai and he was released into his custody. He felt like he was a slave being traded.

Since April Abdulai has been working at this sheep pen out in the middle of nowhere. His meals are bread for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. He doesn’t have electricity except for a small solar panel that charges his phone and his flashlight. The sponsor gave him a smartphone with a phone line that has internet which is how he is able to get online. He found my blog while researching slavery in Kuwait trying to understand what rights he had and why things are the way they are. According to Abdulai he is getting paid although he ran into an issue recently. His first two salaries he had the sponsor send to Ghana since it wasn’t safe to keep his money in his tent. Then the other 3 salaries he told the sponsor to keep with him. But when he asked for them at the end of last month the sponsor wouldn’t give it to him. After an argument he was told to give back the mobile phone. Abdulai gave him the phone but told him part of the contract says I get a phone so if you’re taking it back then I want to go back to Ghana. So they took him to the agency who gave him two choices.

1) He leaves to Ghana but doesn’t get paid.
2) He stays and he would get paid. He chose to stay.

At this point I wanted to know what he wanted out of all of this so I asked him. He replied telling me he just wanted to get the word out that slavery still exists. He told me back in Ghana he didn’t live in a tent, he lived in a home, a decent one. He told me two months back when the weather was really hot he started to bleed from his nose. So he told his sponsor he wanted to go to the hospital to check and see why he was bleeding. His sponsor told him he wasn’t going to take him to the hospital but instead should just wrap his head with a shemagh. I asked Abdulai if he wanted to go back to Ghana or if he wanted to stay and get a better job. He told me he wanted to stay but get a better job since that’s why he originally came to Kuwait.

On my way back to the car he gave me a tour of the property. Right outside his tent door was a bench, that’s where he sleeps at night since it’s too hot to sleep inside the tent. He then showed me the sheep pen which he attends to all day long, seven days a week. He doesn’t understand what the sheep are for, in the five months he’s been there none were sold or taken or anything. We walked together back to my car and said our goodbyes.

In some ways Abdulai is lucky. He’s educated and speaks English which is how he was able to reach out to me and now I can shed light on him and hopefully with the help of the blog find him a better job. But this also got me thinking, what about all the other people who don’t speak any English and don’t know how to reach out for help? And what if this was the tipping point for change? With local telecoms phasing out regular phones and pushing out smartphones with internet access to all their customers, are more and more people like Abdulai going to come forward and share their story with the world?

Yesterday I asked if Kuwait Airways were flying their new planes to London and it turns out they are. One of my readers put me in contact with a friend of his who recently flew to London with Kuwait Airways and he sent me a few pictures. At first I was really impressed thinking I was looking at pictures of the Kuwait Airways business class but then I found out this in fact was the Kuwait Airways first class and my excitement dropped. But I was only looking at pictures so I decided to ask the reader about his experience flying Kuwait Airways and this is what he had to say:

Considering Kuwait Airways history with appalling planes, these are brand new and clean. You can see that the staff are glad and proud to serve you because of the state of the plane. They’re more lively now and very friendly. The touch-screen is huge and has a 3-D map of the trip. The movies are not old, I can say that much. The food, I feel, has always been good but the variety now is vast and tasty. The bathrooms are clean as well. The seat is very spacious and you can slide it down all the way to make it into a bed (Not completely flat, maybe 150-160 degrees).

I haven’t traveled first class on KA for a long time but since they got the new planes, I felt like I needed to experience it again. It is worth it but obviously nothing compared to Qatar Airways and Emirates. KA have a long way to go but they’re on the right track IF they can keep the planes clean and up to standard because I feel like they won’t be able to keep them like that. It was first class and they send you a chauffeur to pick you up and drive you to the airport and vice versa. Its all included in the ticket. Very fancy Mercedes. Qatar Airways have their own lounge in Heathrow, I was granted access to Gulf Air lounge, which isnt bad but Qatar Airways and Emirates is much better because of the benefits. For example, if you book first class on Qatar Airways, you can ship your car with you for free. Furthermore, in business class on Qatar Airways, you flatten the seat completely and they give you a comfy bed to put over your seat and the lounge is amazing.

Oh yeah! Theres no wifi on the plane! Once there will be, it won’t be for free on KA. In Emirates first class, you can take a shower on the plane and the bathrooms are quite large for an airplane. On either Emirates or Qatar first class, the chef can cook you anything you like.

According to the same reader the business class seats on that flight were just over-sized economy seats with larger screens.

I flew economy with Kuwait Airways a few months back to Lebanon and had a positive experience. They’re now my second airline of choice when flying to Beirut and the only reason they’re not the first is because MEA flies over Syria making the trip an hour shorter as well as the fact they serve alcohol.

If you want to view a larger version of the first class images above here are the links:
[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3]

Thanks David and Khalid

Kuwait occupies the 64th and last place of the overall ranking, particularly due to its low score in the Ease of Settling In Index. In fact, 53% of respondents are unhappy with the general friendliness of local residents. The opportunities to find new friends also leave a lot to be desired for one-third of respondents.

Unfortunately, the situation is similarly grim when it comes to the overall quality of life. Many expats are not satisfied with the available leisure options, while others see their personal happiness suffering. Only for the Job Security and Language subcategories does the country receive some decent results, making it to 26th and 25th place, respectively.

InterNations, the networking group for expats yesterday released the results of its latest annual survey. The organization asked expats in a bunch of countries a wide range of questions about their life and impressions of their adopted country and the results were charted. Kuwait came last which we could sit here and debate all day but what was surprising was the fact that Saudi Arabia was ranked as a better destination. How the hell is that even possible?? [Link]

Thanks James

I would like to thank Mark again for giving me the opportunity to write here, and I know I don’t write as often as I should, but I thought it was very important to share with you what has been taking place behind the scenes of the blog.

I get a lot of emails on a daily basis from people who find my posts while searching for help online. The majority of the emails I get are from expats being mistreated in Kuwait, from CEO’s to blue-collar workers, they all seems to have issues but the worst off are the domestic workers. With that said, there is also a lot of humanitarian work and compassionate people in Kuwait and that in itself makes me very proud to be Kuwaiti.

I want to share with you a story of a domestic worker in Kuwait, how she came here, what happened and how she escaped. Most importantly though, I want to share what we can learn from her experience and how we can make Kuwait a better place.

The lovely woman is from an African country and I will give her the name Malika to respect her privacy. She wanted to move to the Arab world for better opportunity, so she started applying for jobs online. A few weeks later she got offered a job position to work as a supervisor and was promised a lucrative salary of 800 USD – 1,200 USD.

Her agent told her that she would meet her boss at the airport but when she arrived to Kuwait she was shocked to hear she was going to work as a maid.

“We were all taken to a room once we arrived at the Kuwait airport, many girls from many countries, some from Philippines, some from Nepal and many other Asian countries. Young girls even, some as young as 16 or 17, some thinking they were going to work as beauticians, but from my experience we were all there to work as maids”.

The girls waited in the room for hours at end, without water, food or any money, as their possessions were taken away. A woman then came and took them to an office where each girl had to wait for her employer to come and pick them up. Malika’s employer came and picked her up from the office and as soon as she got in the car with her new family, they asked her “Do you have a phone on you? You’re not allowed to have a phone, if you need to call someone, you need permission and you need to use the house phone”. So Malika quickly hid her phone on her.

She describes the house as being busy with a big family of 7 kids living there, she was shocked to see the situation as her agent had told her that she was going to be a supervising maid at the house and only be working from 7am-4pm, she described to me her feelings;

“The first night I couldn’t sleep, because I was crying and crying, I had a phone but no SIM card or money, so I used the phone to search the internet (wifi). I was so depressed working all day, from cooking to cleaning, the work was so much”

She told her employer that she wanted to leave, her employer responded to Malika that if she wanted to leave she had to pay 700 KD. So after some online searching she found her countries embassy’s number that was located in another GCC country. She used a VOIP app to contact them, they didn’t help her though, so she kept on searching online.

She kept fainting at work because the workload was inhumane, and her employer did not bother to take her to the hospital but instead took her to the agency and said that she wanted her money back. She accused Malika of being weak and lazy because she was fainting. The agency ended up beating her. But by going to the agency she found out that her sister and her sister’s friend had come to Kuwait as well, they were told that they would each work here as a nanny and as a waitress.

She was then taken back home by the employer, and she kept searching online for help when she found one of my posts on Marks blog’s. She said “I found out that I have rights and that I can leave. So I sent an email and I was so happy when I got an email back.” When I received her email, I assessed the situation and realized that the best person to help her would be Bibi Nasser Al Sabah from the Social Work Society of Kuwait, who have been aiding many workers in Kuwait over the past few years and I must say are making a huge difference in the lives of many here.

Bibi told Malika about her rights as an employee in Kuwait as well as the rights of her sister and her sisters friend who she was able to get in touch with. Bibi also told her there was a shelter available for them so all three ended up running away from their houses to the shelter. When they arrived to the shelter, Malika was searched and her possessions were taken away except for her clothes (thanks to Malika, the policy has now changed and the ladies at the shelter are allowed to keep their possessions). On Fridays, calls are allowed to be made from the shelter for 1 KD. One of the ladies at the shelter managed to sneak in her phone, Bibi transferred 20 KD for them and the ladies started contacting Bibi till she got them tickets and passports to get back home. They were there for around a month except for her sister who had to stay longer because she had a case against her that turned out to be fake accusations.

Malika says that being in Kuwait was one of the worst experiences in her life, she says that she has domestic workers at home and she treats them with respect and she would never treat anyone like this. She also told me something important;

“I don’t want to judge Arabs, even though I kept hearing mean stories at the shelter from the girls. I can’t judge because Bibi is Arab, so is Fajer, and so was the driver that helped me from the shelter to the airport. They were all so nice.”

Malika was lucky that she spoke fluent English, had internet access and was tech savvy that she was able to reach us at the blog. She is also a very smart lady that understands that issues need to be spoken about. Because of Malika the Social Work Society of Kuwait were able to help 24 other women at the shelter who Malika put us in touch with. I hope that we can learn from her experience and realize that yes there are really corrupt people in Kuwait but there are also a lot of passionate people like Bibi. We bring these topics up because we want to see change and I am positive that one day, Kuwait will be a better place.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to annanounce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

Kuwait has suspended home delivery licences in a bid to reduce traffic in the crammed capital.

The Interior Ministry is preparing to regulate home delivery services because it requires too many vehicles to be on the roads, Kuwait Times said. [Source]

Here’s one more last funny article for the day but this time I’m also gonna share my friends rant below (who’s Kuwaiti by the way for those of you who want to tell him to get the fuck out).

Yes, Kuwait, keep chipping away at our quality of life instead of doing anything serious to remedy the dire situation of our roads.

Metro? Let’s keep delaying that indefinitely… Because, you know, talking about it since the 1970s has brought us that much closer to realizing it.

Public transportation reforms? Forget that, bus drivers seem to drive with contempt and face it, who would want to ride one of those dilapidated deathtraps?

New highways? With an average completion time of seven years for a stretch of a few short kilometers and haphazardly-marked diversions, you might as well do nothing at all.

License regulation? Please, with rampant nepotism and string-pulling guaranteeing that every untrained moron with a pulse gets one, I don’t believe shit. Just take it all out on the expats the way you normally do, government.

Funny as it is, I’m dreading going back to Kuwait almost purely because of the road situation. People seem to actively disregard the rules and do things their own way because they know that our hilariously inept police force isn’t going to do jack about it except pass unimplemented law after unimplemented law, we have over 1.5 million cars on a road network with a carrying capacity of around seven hundred thousand vehicles, round-the-clock traffic ensures that what should be a ten-minute trip takes at least an hour, there’s no emission control or any form of environmental regulation and my chances of being killed because of someone else’s idiocy are exacerbated to the nth degree.

For a country with the potential and resources to make something absolutely incredible of itself, it’s moments like this that make me want to facepalm until my face bleeds.

– Khaled

Update: According to the news article on the Ministry of Commerce website, the ban is temporary and only because the MOI are currently overburdened with requests [Source]. So it looks like Kuwait Times are making shit up. Also it looks like Arabian Business is now making shit up because their source (Kuwait Times) never mentioned anything about traffic being the reason for the ban.

According to the blog Kuwaiti Trailmix, Kuwait recently subsidized gluten-free products making it the first Arab Muslim country to do so in the Middle East. Kuwait Flour Mills have started selling wheat-free products for reasonable prices including:

Hamburger Buns: 690 fils
Vanilla cupcakes: 390 fils
Hot dog rolls: 590 fils
Loaf of Bread “Toast”: 700 fils

Check out the full post [Here]

A redditor shared a scan from an article in The Economist dating back to 1965 on the alcohol prohibition in Kuwait. I typed out the article since the scan wasn’t clear and have decided to share it below:

———————————————————–

International Report – The Economist – February 6, 1965

Kuwait
Bootleggers’ Boom
From a correspondent in Kuwait

Drink has had an odd history in Kuwait and its latest episode, resulting in total prohibition, has been characteristically idiosyncratic. In 1961, when the British political agency was demoted into an embassy, one of its traditional functions – the dispensing of alcohol to non-Moslems – was handed over to the British firm of Gray Mackenzie. With it went the job of issuing drink-permits, allotted according to socio-economic status on the presentation of the right religious credentials.

This neat division of the population, into Kuwaitis who did not drink and foreigners who did, was obviously too pastoral to last. Kuwaitis grew rich, travelled abroad, and learnt forbidden tastes. Since alcohol, like water, finds its own level, it tended to leak across the religious barrier to the richer Kuwaitis. Poorly paid Indian and Lebanese clerks could easily be induced to hand over their ration to Kuwaitis with money. Smuggling from neighboring countries (Iraq produces both beer and arak) was no difficult and made up for any short-fall in the supply. With good whiskey at £1 a bottle, Kuwait was a drinker’s paradise; the fall was sudden and uncomfortable.

In November the Mejlis passed an amendment to the penal code under which sentences of up to 10 years’ imprisonment can be imposed for the import, manufacture or sale of alcohol. Existing stocks may be discreetly consumed (an earlier proposal would have banned this too) but there will be no more. Two conflicting passions converged to bring this amendment about: moral indignation and commercial jealousy. People now find it hard to remember which came first.

The mortal indignation was understandable though, as is often the case, naive about the value of prohibition as a solution. Drink had become a social problem. Alcoholism among Kuwaitis was growing; accidents from drunken driving were increasing and, worst of all, drink was reaching the young. A decision-making scandal (suppressed at the time) was a case of drunkenness in a secondary school.

Meanwhile the fact that drink had grown into a business worth £500,000 – rumor put it even higher – had not escaped the attention of Kuwait merchants who began to agitate against Gray Mackenzie’s monopoly. Their resentment was rational in a free economy, but they overlooked the fact that Gray Mackenzie handled drink precisely because Moslems were not supposed to.

Horrified at the thought of drink being sold freely at every street corner, the moralists acted. A Moslems revivalist group called the League of Social Reform organized a monster petition. Sermons were preached in all the mosques. Pressure was brought upon the members of the Mejlis. Caught in the coils of its own morality, Kuwait’s establishment was helpless. Known drinkers were the most zealous to pay their tribute to virtue, and the crowning irony was when, in the final open session, the only deputy to vote against the amendment was teetotaller.

Prohibition could certainly never have happened without parliament. But Kuwait is now a mercantile democracy and the voice of both souk and mosque is stronger in the two-year-old Mejlis than they would have been in the ruler’s antechamber, where the urbane tones of oil company representatives carry more weight. The government is now committed to carry out prohibition but no one feels that its heart is in it.

It will take some time before stocks are exhausted, though whiskey has already gone up to about £15 a bottle – and is still rising. But the effect on clubs and social life is lethal, and Kuwaitis who employ foreigners are afraid that they will now have to dangle even juicier carrots. The economic consequences of boredom are impossible to assess, but one of Kuwait’s main problems is to keep its population at home and grow roots. Prohibition will probably do nothing to help.

A weightier argument against prohibition is that its social problems are likely to prove worse than those of drink. Already 30 people have died from methyl alcohol poisoning and another 55 are in hospital. Ea de cologne, cough syrups and surgical spirit have gained a new, sinister importance. The weekend traffic on the Basrah road has quadrupled. Smuggling, racketeering, corruption, substitute addictions are other unpleasant consequences which a paternalistic and progressive government cannot ignore.

There is currently a major garbage crisis in Lebanon and it made me think about the one I have in my backyard here in Kuwait. I’ve got this landfill behind my building which has been a garbage dump for years. I’ve posted about it a bunch of times (check this for example from 2010) and the issue hasn’t gotten sorted yet. I mean it gets sorted when I post about it, but then a week later it goes back to garbage overflowing everywhere. I took the picture above at 4PM, that’s just the garbage accumulated since morning, imagine how much garbage there will be by the end of the night!

So what do I need to do to get this shit solved? Do I have to post a picture on the blog everyday of the garbage dump and hope that the international embarrassment it will bring to Kuwait will get someone to act on it? Should I set up a live video stream of the dump and have it displayed in my blogs sidebar? Seriously I’m open to suggestions (don’t tell me to move or GTFO). Thankfully there is the Deera app but it gets annoying having to report this issue every single day.

The bigger issue is this has become the norm in Kuwait. It’s normal to see garbage on the floor everywhere or dumpsters overflowing. I miss the old anti littering campaigns from the 80s. They should bring those back.

The brutally honest review below was making its way around whatsapp earlier today:

Review by Mark Stableford (Kuwait) 10th July 2015
This has to be one of the worst, most confusing and incompetent airports on the planet. Departing, there is not one single check-in hall, but four – each at completely different ends and corners of the airport. You can only get into two of them from the outside, while the other two are burrowed deep inside where you would not expect them, each of them again at different ends of the airport. It is completely confusing and time consuming to find where to check in, involving walking in and out the building (bearing in mind its 50c outside) and across large distances through what looks like a refugee camp. It takes many visits and missed flights to eventually get some idea of the layout and check in process. If you do manage to check in, you then have to encounter a myriad of incompetent, slow and lazy barriers from security through immigration. If your boarding pass is printed on a piece of paper instead of cardboard, you will be sent back to do your check-in all over again.

On arriving in the country you can spend hours trying to get through immigration along with teaming masses of other poor souls (South East Asian migrant labour) with people running between queues as one is closed whilst her majesty there takes a phone call, wanders off to the toilet, or just simply closes up her booth having lost interest. You can end up at the back end of a queue again many times doing this. The airport completely lacks any signage or common sense. Asking for help or information is a pointless waste of time. Nobody knows, or nobody cares (unless you are lucky enough to find an Indian or Philippino member of staff), but then they are almost always completely powerless to help. Its also filthy.

Unfortunately it sums up almost Kuwait infrastructure and management. What a contrast to places like Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Worst of all, this was not too many decades ago the most advanced and progressive country in the region. What a absolute shame. 0/10 is all this miserable horror of an place deserves. Unfortunately the minimum one can give is 1/10.

The average score for the airport is a 2/10. We need the new airport now more than ever. [Source]