Wajbat

I love the way the sound of the azan (call to prayer) welcomes me every time I visit the Middle East. Upon my first encounter, the sound rising louder and louder in a low eerie pitch gave me the feeling that I was in a haunted desolate ghost town. Now, my perception has changed -it is a welcoming gesture, one that reminds me of the beauty and spirit of the region. It doesn't wake me up anymore, more often I stay up to hear it.

I slept three hours my first night here. Any hopes of sleeping were dashed with the excitement of my first day in Kuwait and worries that I wouldn't wake up on time. I've come to realize that my body has a pretty good internal clock when it's really worried about oversleeping. And I didn't have a minute to lose!

At the wedding I had made plans to go to breakfast with some of the girls. When they ask if they could take me out for lunch or dinner and I politely turned them down because I already had plans for both meals, they insisted that they take me to breakfast at 8:30 (which really means 9:30) since my teacher was picking me up for lunch at 1.

The girls called up to the apartment and I headed down to the car. The girl driving brought her little brother along, and I wasn't quite sure if he was supposed to be our "male gaurdian" or if she was just trying to be sweet and bring him along. One of the girls announces that we are going to The Avenues for breakfast. The Avenues is the new rage in Kuwait- an atrociously huge mall that was just recently built with shiny sqweaky floors and a Starbucks everywhere you turn. Honestly I wasn't the least bit surprised. The cross-cultural fascination certainly goes both ways. At least I was able to persuade them to have breakfast at the Lebanese restauraunt in the food court!

A couple girls met up with us at the restauraunt, neither of which I recognized fully clothed. I was only able to identify them once they said, "she was the one wearing the green dresss" or something to that affect. I really need to start paying more attention to people's eyes.

Both before and after breakfast we participated in a widely practiced Arab ritual: the walk around the mall. It totally baffles me how many people go to malls here. Every time I've been it's taken at least 20 minutes to find a parking spot. And for what? People don't really go to the mall to shop. They're there to check out everybody else and chat with friends and to window shop. An occasional purchase will be made, but mostly people buy some sort of fruit drink and sit at a restauraunt watching people pass. The girls kept commenting and laughing at how everyone was staring at me because I was walking around with four other girls who were wearing the black abaya and hijab. We even heard someone say that I was Russian (which is NOT a good nationality to be in the Middle East).

For lunch my teacher picked me up and started driving, without giving mention of where we were going or asking if I had any preferences. I recognized the road we were on because I had just gone that way earlier. Out of curiousity I ask him where we were going. His reply: "Well I thought I'd do something quintessentially Kuwaiti and take you to The Avenues." I kind of smirked and told him that's where I'd been earlier that morning. "Wow," he says "I guess I'm more dead on than I thought!"

Needless to say, I didn't have my first real Kuwaiti meal (which was actually more Iranian) until that night when the Fulbrighters and some embassy folks went over to the house of a family member of one of the current Fulbrighters who had invited us for dinner. There was a chicken dish, rice with currents, tabouleh (my personal favorite), a spinachy keeshy type dish, and a few other things I'm now forgetting.

I don't remember the last time I've had three full meals in a day. I slept well the second night.