Jan 17 - Wake up to heavy rain. While waiting for it to let up, I venture out with some items I want to send back to the US. I have the location of the main downtown post office. Despite this, it takes and hour, and asking six different store owners, to find the entrance. It is on the side of the Public Transport building, an unmarked doorway at the end of a loading dock. I am dripping wet by now, and as soon as I enter someone informs me that the office is closed to business, or at least to the business of sending parcels.
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Defeated, return to the room and we get everything ready for a 12:00 check out time. Take a bus to a large mall, where the intention is to find a movie to watch, or do anything, really, that doesn’t require getting rained on. Unfortunately none of the movies are both well-timed and suitable for kids. The mall itself is very elegantly done, obviously geared toward big money customers.
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Head back to Souk Al-Mubarakaya, where there are covered pedestrian walkways. Not a lot open today, but find another outside restaurant and brave the cold wet tables to get our lunch.
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Collect our bags and go to the airport for our 21:30 flight out. It is curious to me that during check-in, they asked for our Kuwaiti visas, and then again at immigration (where they took them away from us). I assume this is done to double check that ‘guest’ workers haven’t been overstaying their visas.
A bit of last minute reflection on Kuwait. Overall, we found it an easier and more pleasant place to hang out in than just about any city we went to in Saudi Arabia. Kuwait has been in the business of presenting their face to the outside world since the beginning of the oil boom. The public transport system works well, and a great deal cheaper than taxis. Naturally they are filled with foreign workers (roughly 80% of the service level workers here are foreigners).
There is much said (good and bad) about the perks of being a Kuwaiti citizen. They are:
1) free healthcare (hard to see anything bad in this one, from the viewpoint of a citizen of the USA)
2) free education (though it is only in Arabic, parents wishing their children to be fluent in English must pay for it)
3) A grant of land/house for married couples. This sounds great, but it can take 10-20 years to get approved.
4) Free money from the government. This also sounds great, but has contributed to inactivity among Kuwaitis who might be better served by stronger motivation to earn their own way.
The government here is in the business of looking after people lucky enough to be considered citizens. I do not clearly see that it will translate into a productive and innovative future for some of the above reasons. As for the legions of guest workers (who have no path to Kuwaiti citizenship), as long as they are available in droves and oil profits continue, Kuwait can continue to hold up the current model.
Our flight leaves late, so we are technically in Kuwait until the end of today.
Kuwait