Middle East Reboot

I recently moved to Kuwait.  Other than a quick visit to Egypt 25 years ago, I have little Middle East experience and didn't know what to expect. I knew it would be hot, but I wasn't prepared for the kind of heat that hits you like someone has lit a furnace and is blowing it in your face.  We arrived at night, but that made little difference to the temperature outside the plane.
The airport of Kuwait City is a mall with some some officials sitting behind desks ready to stamp you into the country or sell you a visa.

I found myself trying to take in the new sights and reconcile them with the very familiar. Burger King, Caribou Coffee and Cinnabon sold to elegantly robed Kuwati men strolling by holding hands. The women awkwardly perched their sunglasses on the veils of their burkas.  Ben followed a sign to the toilets, only to come back confused..."There is no stool."
The next day started early with a call to prayer at 3:30 am.  I got my first view of the city with its sand colored buildings and mosques.  I can hardly bare to go outside, it is so hot.  But we need groceries and phones.  So we head to the biggest mall of the city, the Avenues.

They have all our needs inside a covered area made to look like small streets complete with palm trees and cafes.  Many of the women are clad in black, but that doesn't stop Victoria Secrets from displaying their underwear.  We look at cable TV packages which include all the channels we have in the US, but the man who sets up our new phones is clad in traditional dress and head cloth.  But most of the people working here are not Arab.  The lady getting our turtle mocha is Filipino, and many of the small business owners are Indian.
Everyone speaks excellent English except for our taxi driver. We had just come from IKEA, which has a prayer room right next to the toilets. Jon was confused why they required you to remove your shoes to use the bathroom.  Outside a man was anxious to take us home by taxi.  We agreed on a price and he led us down into a parking garage.  There we climbed into a brand new vehicle and set off towards our neighborhood.  As we approached it was obvious that the driver did not know where to go, and neither did we.  We had to drive around until we saw the palm trees that border our apartment complex.

This is the only green in the neighborhood.  Of course, the driver had no change and so we ended up giving him far too many KD$.
It is not the first time I have been overcharged by a taxi.  After that, shopping seemed easy.  We went to the familiar grocery stores with western products.  I was surprised to see bacon, but everything is beef or chicken.  Then I came upon the dried food all laid out in open containers: dried fruit, nuts, grains and rice.  I might get up the courage to try them all out, but not today.

We were anxious to get WiFi and went across the road to see what the local shop had to offer us.  Unfortunately all the new teachers had the same thought.  There are about 30 new hires who all arrived the same day, and live in the same apartment complex.  So the store was crammed and the Indian owner was doing his best.  In excellent English he dished out tech advice, took cash, offered us all Red Bull and joked that his wife was waiting in the car.  I noticed his son hovering outside the door. His wife entered and pointed out that they were late for a party.  As the store cleared out, she entered again and waited with an impatient face by the door.  I felt her pain, and told her husband that we would come back another day.  The WiFi could wait, he could go to his party.
It had been a long day for us, and I couldn't begin to write about all the new we were seeing and experiencing. But I make the effort to recall the details, because soon those same experiences will become mundane, and I will no longer see the point of recording them.
The next day we visited the American School where we will

be teachers.  Now I am quite at home in international schools, and have visited many. For this reason I felt I had the right to judge and compare, often not favorably, what I saw.  This is not nearly such a satisfying way to approach a new experience or job.
Later that night I decide to try the washing machine in our apartment.  I turned it on, but nothing happened.  There was no manual to read, no one to call, and I jiggled buttons and tested taps. Finally I simply turned it off and restarted the machine.  It came on with the sound of water running and proceeded to wash my load. This is a great way for me to approach my new home, with fresh eyes, and without bringing too much baggage along.