Simply Stinni

I Haven't Even Left Yet

Written by Stinni on Friday, June 13, 2008

And I'm already missing Kuwait.

Off the top of my head, here are some things I'll miss (besides people, natch) from Kuwait:

• Hot and fresh Iranian bread, straight out of the clay oven for a whopping 20 fils. For those of you in the States, that's about 7 cents. One can never go hungry here.
• Warm and fresh pita bread.
• Pulling up to a bacala, beeping my horn and having friendly Iranians bring what I need to my car. Bread, soda, juice, milk - you name it. By the way, none of them hate Americans, not to my face anyway, and some are convinced that I'm Lebanese or Syrian even though I speak to them with full-on Khaleeji Arabic.
• Having my eyebrows threaded for as cheap as KD1. In fact, I have a friend who owns a salon (a very good thing) and I can get anything done for KD1. My favorite hairstylist works down where I live though, and I'm faithful to her when it comes to my hair. Last night I had my roots touched up, had a color rinse to make my hair look more natural and not so streaky, had a cut and a blow dry (seshwar) and only paid KD25. Love it.
  

Sidenote: Speaking of the salon, there were about 30 women in my salon last night, and I'm guessing they were getting ready for a wedding. Wow. I mean, in what universe does looking like a witchy transexual corpse equal beautiful? They had their hair straightened out, poofed up, extensions put into already thick hair, makeup a la Lilly Munster, and these were just guests of the party, not the bride. Yuck. But then again, I prefer the natural look.

[Embedding the video wasn't possible, so check this video out to get a sense of what I'm talking about, and multiply it by about 100.)

• Italian television. Even though most of my shows are on hiatus for the summer, I'm still going to miss programs like "Chi l'ha visto?" which is sort of like "Unsolved Mysteries".
  

Sidenote: One time my husband came into our room and I was watching "Lady Channel" (Videolina). He asked what I was watching and I said, "It's a Mexican soap opera, translated into Italian." He told me I was pathetic or crazy or that I had issues. And I replied that he should be content to have an eccentric wife who is satisfied with free Hotbird/European channels instead of a whiny average one who begs for Orbit AND Showtime.

• Kuwaiti and Arab hospitality. Nothing beats it. Nothing.
• Free medical and dental. The key is finding the right doctors and dentists and then you're golden.
  
• Al Kout Mall. I love this place, it's beautiful and believe it or not, the weather is still good enough to sit outside. I took the kids there last night and we sat outside to eat our gelato (from Gelatini), watching the dancing fountains. It was perfect.
• Palm trees.
• The gorgeous light blue waters of the Gulf.
• Oranges/tangerines from Lebanon, Turkish lebnah, Turkish kebab and shewarma by Pinar (if you haven't tried the turkey shewarma meat or turkey kebabs from Pinar, you're missing out. They sell it in plastic tubs in the frozen meat section, for just under KD2.)
• Shish tawook.
  

There's more but I'm off to pack and call friends to say goodbye. I'm excited to be going to the States but at the same time I'm sad to be leaving people and pets behind. And yes, my country, I will miss my country.

Summer Anthem, 2008

Written by Stinni on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Counting down the weeks to our summer getaway. Life has been super crazy recently, or "off the chart" as Tom Cruise would say during an Oprah interview. (God, what a waste of time watching that interview was. It was so boring it put me to sleep.)

Anyway, this year I've picked "Shine" by the late and great Luther Vandross for this year's Summer Anthem.

more about "Summer Anthem, 2008", posted with vodpod

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Written by Stinni on Thursday, April 24, 2008

A few nights ago, I saw something scurrying in our front yard and like an IDIOT, ran after it, asked my husband to run after it with me, thinking it was a small lizard or something but come to find out it was a scorpion. A beige one. A long one. I ordered its execution and it was carried out by my fearless husband.

Here it is, after being smacked hard with a shoe, three times, just to make sure it was really dead:

Need a Good Laugh

Written by Stinni on Thursday, April 10, 2008

And I found it here: List Of The Day: Great Olan Mills photos.

My Lovely New Neighbors

Written by Stinni on Monday, April 07, 2008

We had a bunch of Korean workers renting the house next to ours and they were lovely because they were hardly home and when they were home, they were really quiet.

Recently, the house has been rented by a (*roll of eyes*) lovely (*sarcastic tone ends here*) family with around eight children? Ten children? I can't count them all. Until recently, they had chickens who would come into my hosh (tiled front yard) and shit all over the place. I politely asked their houseboy to fence them in instead of letting them run wild through the neighborhood but maku faida (no use). It doesn't matter now because during one of their neighborhood walks, someone nabbed them. That's right, they got birdnapped. At least now I don't have to obsessively hose down chicken shit in my front yard because my paranoid hypochondriac brain couldn't stand the thought of my children accidentally riding their scooters through bird flu infested chicken poop.

Anyway, they still have their pigeons. And when their pigeons try to escape the wrath of the children's torturous ways, by flying up to our roof, those lovely children throw rocks at them, nearly missing our windows. We've had to yell at them several times.

On one hot afternoon,I went out to water my garden in sweatpants and a t-shirt. The neighbor's children were standing at the edge of my yard and watching me. They asked my name. I told them that my name was Um Mishari. Then they asked why I was showing my arms. Huh? Then I realized that I was wearing a t-shirt and they were asking why I was showing my bare arms. I laughed and told them it was hot out, that's why. Then one little boy asked me if I was hindi. When I told him that I was not hindi, he asked what I was.

"Ana Kuwaitiya wa Amreekiya" I'm Kuwaiti and American, I told him. He stopped smiling and started frowning. "Enty haiwana." He basically said that I was an animal, more like being called a bitch.

He's about four.

I'll do the rest in English but the conversation took place in Arabic.

"I'm an animal?"
"Yes, you're an animal."
"Why?"
"Just because. You are an animal, just because."

Funny, they're running around in bare feet, stepping all over chicken and pigeon shit, wearing filthy clothes and pajamas but I'm the haiwana.

At this point I just shook my head and continued watering my garden. Then one of the boys grabbed a six-foot long stick. He told me he was going to hit me with it. I was like, whatever little boy. So then my children hear what's going on and they run out and start calling the children words like peepee (bola) and caca (zega), giggling and then running back into our gated yard. As I was done watering the garden, I followed them into our gated yard, shut the gate and told my kids to just ignore the children from next door.

My kids are sitting on the front stoop and I'm sitting by them. The children from next door walk up a few feet from the gate. They say, "Um Mishari, come."

"Why? So you can do something naughty?"
"No, no, I swear, nothing naughty", says the boy holding the stick.

I open the gate, walked up to him as calm as could be and asked him what he wanted. He told me he was going to hit me with the stick.

"Why? Why do you want to hit me?"
"Just because."
"What have I done to you?"
"You know what you did!"

And then he says something in Arabic that I don't understand, but something to the effect (or is it affect?) that I did something to their house.

"I didn't do anything to your house. Where's your mother?"
"Inside."
"Tell her to come here, I want to talk to her."
"I'M GOING TO HIT YOU!"
"Yallah, yallah, go home."

I walked back into my yard, shut the gate and then they started throwing rocks at us, through the gate, giggling, because I suppose it was hilarious to them. I told them to stop, to go home but they kept on taunting us.

My husband came home at that point and all it took from him was to say, "Shteboon?! Yallah...yallah!" ("What do you want?!" Go...go!") and they RAN home.

Why couldn't I have been born with a penis?

Bringing Pets to Kuwait

Written by Stinni on Monday, April 07, 2008

I brought three pets to Kuwait but that was ten years ago and I was moving here permanently. I'm sure the rules have changed since then.

Intlxptr has something on her blog about it though, so she would be the person to ask.

I believe the people at Bitzer's blog brought a dog as well.

I remember some paperwork from my husband's side (Kuwait) but don't remember doing anything special on my side (U.S.) for my cat. I had my parrots go through a complete checkup though and had bands put on their legs so that if I ever had to bring them back to the States, they had ID and it would be much easier and less quarantine time. The funny thing is that they were labeled as "casco" (African Grey parrots) on the paperwork from Kuwait and I got a funny look from the customs guy because I was coming through with cockatiels.

**Update**

Some posts on bringing your pets to Kuwait from Mark:

Import Papers for Importing Dog to Kuwait.

Geo's Arrival.

Amazon Parrot Singing Kuwaiti Songs

Written by Stinni on Thursday, March 13, 2008