live and work in Kuwait

2012-10-01T23:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, I lied. I said the last post would be the last one in this series. This one is the last. Really. It's about traveling/living overseas. Wherever you are from, you are an Ambassador of your country, in many ways, probably much more important than an official State sanctioned Ambassador. You come into contact with all types of people from many different countries and your actions, dress, words all make an impression upon them. They in turn go home to their families and tell stories about the (in this case) Americans they met, what they did, said, how they acted. Your actions can either leave a figurative bad taste in their mouths or a smile on their faces. You can be a jackass and have people who you have interacted with tell their friends and families about the jackassery they experienced, or you can treat people well, no matter who they are or what type of work they do. My father always told me that the measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do absolutely nothing for them.
This quick little ditty is about Gwyne. While we were living in Kuwait, pretty much every day, she would walk up or drive to a local sandwich shop that served falafel. She would buy two sandwiches every day (100 fils each) and she somehow made friends with the Syrians and Egyptians who run the shop. I say somehow because their English is limited (there is nary an English sign/word in the shop) and my wife's Arabic is pretty much non-existent. My wife is gregarious and very loud. She would babble away in English, they would natter right back in Arabic. They smiled and laughed and joked, many times without words, or at least words that both parties understood. She showed pictures of her children, asked them about their families, pointed and somehow made herself understood, at least a little. There was only one interaction I chided her about - the sandwiches are 100 fils each (that's about 36 cents) and at one point, she told them they should charge more, 100 fils wasn't enough. Thank goodness for the language barrier there, they must not have understood and kept their prices the same. I like to save my fils.
Over the course of a year, and through her persistence, she and the sandwich shop folks really did become friends. They called her sister, she called them brothers. She's facebook friends with a bunch of them now. That group of Egyptians and Syrians is going to have a greatly enhanced, positive image of Americans in the future. She discovered a great app (about a year too late) that translates many languages; over the last week, she would type something in English, it would be translated to Arabic. It was touching the last few days to go there with her (I used to go to work at zero dark thirty, so I didn't get to see all of the interactions she had with her Egyptian and Syrian brothers) as they typed back and forth. One of them wrote, "I like America and Americans. I would like to go there someday." Those of you who know me well know that I am very sparing with my compliments, they sometimes have to be squeezed out of me. And even then, after the squeezing, the compliments just come out in drips and drops. This post is for Gwyne Taylor, who did a great job this last year as an unofficial American Ambassador. Well done, well struck!

2012-09-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Leaving Kuwait. It's not as easy as getting on a plane and flying away. Remember, when you move here, you legally emigrate to Kuwait. For defense contractors, prior to being allowed to get on a plane to come to Kuwait, you have to pass a fairly rigorous physical and get a Police Clearance Certificate in your home of record. There are sometimes additional background checks, depending on the type of work you perform. Then a business visa (Visa 14) is requested for you by your sponsor and you get that upon entry. Oh yes, the sponsor. Every expat working in Kuwait has to have a sponsor, a Kuwaiti owned business that registers you and your salary certificate with the Ministry of Labor. You are digitally fingerprinted, you get a blood test to ensure you have no communicable diseases, an additional police check and have a chest x-ray. Once you've cleared those wickets, your Visa 14 is transitioned to a Visa 18 (resident visa) and you get your Civil ID and hospital card. The hospital card allows you to use the government sponsored hospital in the district you live in, but there are some fine boutique hospitals in Kuwait. You don't see a lot of Kuwaiti's in the government hospitals.
The Civil ID is a nifty national ID card that every resident has. If ever stopped by the police, you will have to produce your Civil ID. When I left the last time, I took a walk down from where I worked part time in Farwaniya and took some video of what I termed the intersection of death. It is a four way intersection with stop signs that NO ONE stops at. It is something. It is also right next to the Ministry of Immigration. I took some video, and then heard, in Arabic accented English, "You, stop." I kept on going. Then I heard it louder. I stopped. A plain clothes officer had seen me taking pictures, thought I was taking pictures of a government building and asked me to produce...you guessed it, my Civil ID. It had been turned in for cancellation. My Arabic: pretty close to zero. Just the pleasantries. His English: marginal, at best. My innards, quite literally, quivered. It ended well, I had to delete everything that was on my camera and I safely escaped the country. But I later got another short video, here it is.

The Civil ID is also used in various transactions - any hospital, purchase of a cell phone, rental car - it is all registered and all feeds back into a data base. When you leave, you have to get your Visa 18 cancelled through your sponsor, who in turn, requests cancellation through the Ministry of Labor. And there, the Civil ID is checked to see if you have what every expat lives in fear of: the travel ban. If, for example, you rented a car and somehow did not pay what was agreed upon or if you hit a camel and were found to be at fault (really) and you owe money, you may have a travel ban. The travel ban prevents you from traveling, period, until the debt is settled. And you really don't have options. To the south is Saudi Arabia. You could theoretically sneak across through the desert, but then you'd be in Saudi and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Countries) are all linked in on the travel ban. Head north? Iraq. Still not looking pretty. East? After you slip over a slice of Iraq, you'd find yourself squarely in Iran. Helllloooo Ahmadinejad, I'm American! For many reasons, we still don't all just get along. When you leave, you're getting on a plane. So, if you have been in an accident and were found at fault, if you didn't pay your cell phone bill, if somehow you managed to do something stupid in the Islamic State of Kuwait and had a run in the with the police, you may have a travel ban. It is not uncommon and it is not pretty.

My passport and Civil ID was submitted a week+ ago for cancellation. It hasn't come back yet, but I'm a good boy, so I'm not worried. It's been another good year in Kuwait, but it's time to leave the sandbox.

2012-08-20T02:44:00.000-07:00

A cycling friend of mine summed up the work situation in Kuwait neatly by stating there are typically three reasons expats come here to work:

Teaching
Oil and...
working for and in support of the Military

I can't speak to the work situation for the first two, but for defense contractors in support of the military, I can paint a pretty typical picture of what the work is like for defense contractors and the lifestyle is in general for the rest.

In the defense contracting world, there are all kinds of jobs, from Base Support (think running a small town, recreation, utilities, fire department, finance, HR, library, computer support). There is also some of the technical communication secret squirrel computer geekish-ness work that has to be done, and then there is the direct support of the military equipment, tanks, Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles, Supply functions and the clerical support that helps get people wend their way through the maze of requirements to emigrate to Kuwait. That's right, when you come to work in Kuwait for a year (or more), you actually become a resident and are subject to the laws of the State of Kuwait, which include no alcohol (although I'm told it is widely available, for a hefty price), no co-habitation with the opposite sex unless you are married. That's the State of Kuwait party line, and if you don't toe that line, you'll find yourself in jail with 10 new best friends named Mohammed (no offense to all of my friends out there named Mohammed). I've seen the jail in my line of work, visiting an employee who was thrown in the calaboose for purchasing alcohol. It was not a pretty scene, about 35 people lying down on thin mats with one toilet. But I digress.

Back to the work. Expats come to Kuwait to work and make $. And you work. A lot. Different contracts have different requirements, but a in a typical work week, folks work 6 days a week 12 hours a day. That's an exhausting schedule and I am in awe of the contractors who find time for a girlfriend on the side after working those hours. But there I go showing my age, at 52 after putting in a 12 hour day plus travel time, I want to unwind, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again. Yay! I know, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but Kuwait has some plusses that attract people and keep them here. You can make some decent coin. It's not that much money; what makes it huge is what you don't have to pay for - the two biggies: housing and transportation. Housing is provided and is typically shared (you get your own room and bathroom and share the common area) and transportation is in a bus. Managers are usually given your own apartment and car. And gas, although it is about 78 cents per gallon, is typically reimbursed as well, if you have a company car. Associated with housing are utilities. They can be a fairly large bill elsewhere, but in Kuwait as an expat, at least in the defense contracting world, they are usually paid for. Internet? It's wireless in the apartment. And then there is the third fiscal advantage - your income is also tax free from the U.S. up to 95K or thereabouts. It all adds up to disposable income that most rank and file employees didn't have and would really never have had they stayed in the U.S. and worked wherever they were working.

And now on to the lifestyle. All of a sudden, folks who prior to coming to Kuwait were cobbling together a paycheck to paycheck existence in Kansas (or wherever) get used to flying to Dubai or Jordan or Abu Dhabi for the weekend. And yes, it is pretty cool. So that's definitely a plus.

Kuwait itself is quite interesting, a very different part of the world. The Middle East Business model is built on oil and the accompanying revenues that allow the GDP of most Middle Eastern States to be some of the highest in the world. But the work is not done by the Middle Easterners who were fortunate enough to have been born on the sand that houses the oil, no my friend (to channel a bit of John McCain), it is done by others. Different nationalities seem to be pigeon holed into specific types of work. I went to get my car washed and cleaned today, inside and outside (I had to pay for that myself, btw). The guys who were doing the washing were pretty much Egyptians. The inside cleaners were Indians or Bangladeshi's. So, from my observations, if you are working as a ________ in Kuwait, you are most likely:

Construction worker, you are most likely Pakistani.
Security Guard in Kuwait, you are most likely a Bangladeshi.
Fast Food worker or are in retail, you are most likely a Filipino.
Barber, you are probably from Syria or Turkey. Perhaps Lebanon.

Indians and Filipino's have varying levels of education, some are working at lower levels, and some are working at extremely high levels, amazingly skilled and competent, so there is spill over from the pigeon holing. All of the rest of the folks from Arabic speaking world also kind of fall into this category (Lebanese, Syrians, Turks, Egyptians, apologies to anyone I left out) can be in business or in the trades

This is the guy I was sitting next to today
when I was getting my car washed.

Really, what this add up to is an incredibly dynamic living situation - and please don't forget the Kuwait's and all of the other Arabs here - unless you are living in New York City or London, you just don't get exposed to that kind of diversity. And yes, that is very cool.

2012-07-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Beautiful Dance

Prior to coming to Kuwait, many of my relatives and friends urged me to ‘stay safe’, implying there was some level of danger in Kuwait. The underlying current was that there are Muslims over there in Kuwait. They wear different clothes and speak different languages. They wear head coverings that do not look like trucker’s ball caps and have silly slogans on them. There is, without question, danger in Kuwait. It doesn’t come from radical Islam, however, it is found on the roads in the form of maniacal drivers.

There are written rules and unwritten rules – here I delve into the unwritten rules of how to survive driving in Kuwait. Most of the drivers here follow these rules unknown to almost all before spending some time on the roads in Kuwait, so it is important to blend into the local culture and drive like you are impervious to getting in an accident as well. A colleague of mine said of drivers in the Middle East, “They can smell fear.” And that’s true – if you exude fear, you won’t make it out of the first roundabout. That being said, here are a few scenarios and how to not just survive, but thrive on roads in Kuwait.

This was on the way to work one morning.

On most of the roads, but particularly on the highways, the name of the game is speed and flow. Yes, this does result in frequent grisly accidents, but that’s how you need to play. When merging on to a highway, the tactic everyone seems to employ is to speed up and not look back. Looking to see if someone is in the lane you are merging into is for Westerners and weaklings. The way it works is that when you see a line of cars merging in front of you, it’s time to edge into the next lane to give way to the mergers. Please don’t use your turn signal. They are superfluous and are not used in Kuwait. Speeding was once a huge issue, but has now abated somewhat now that cameras are in place and a 50 KD ($187 USD) fine is assessed when the speeding scoundrels are caught on film. However, should you ever find yourself in the fast lane, where 120 kph is the speed limit, keep your eyes on your rear view mirror. You will undoubtedly soon see a young Kuwaiti in a huge SUV flashing his high beams. This is a signal for you to get out his way. Quickly. If you don’t, then it becomes a game of chicken, where he sees how close he can get to your bumper and how long he can stay there without you soiling your shorts. Come to think of it, soiling your shorts would probably result in bonus points for the young Kuwaiti. At that point, however, you are stuck. Trying to get into the middle lane may result in one of the famous grisly accidents, as he may try to pull around you, or he may just go around on the left side, where there really is no room to pass, but what the hey, you’re in Kuwait. So, if ever in the fast lane, the rule is 70% of your time you spend looking in the rear view mirror so you don’t end up in that situation, 30% looking ahead. The danger is from behind.

And then there are the turn arrows painted on the roads. I ask myself, “Why? Why waste the paint?” Like the good rule follower I am, I sit in the lane that has a left hand only turn painted on the road. To my right, the arrow signals you may only go straight. In other countries. In Kuwait, that means that both lanes are turning left into the one lane road. As soon as you accept this fact, you learn to flow with the vehicles, never making eye contact, and exert your dominance (unless the gentleman on the right is an Arab in a large SUV) and go. Remember – they can smell fear. There are also a few places in Kuwait where three lanes inexplicably turn into two. But that doesn’t seem to stop the drivers from driving three abreast instead of two. How to survive? Squeeze those cheeks together, blend in and flow. When you get to the main intersection, remember, all lanes will turn left, so if you needed to go straight and you happened to be in the middle lane, enjoy the pleasant diversion. And the lines on the road? It is perfectly acceptable to straddle the lines, taking up two lanes instead of the one allotted to you. At least it seems perfectly acceptable.

And, if you should be an unfortunate pedestrian in Kuwait, please read this carefully. Here, I describe what I call the beautiful dance. Kuwait is a city state of over 1 million souls, 1/3 of them Kuwait, 2/3’s of them, well, not Kuwaiti’s. The Kuwaitis are driving and many of those from the two thirds that comprise the non Kuwaitis are on the footmobile. The vast majority of the footmobile expats appear to comprised primarily of people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Lebanon and other economically impoverished nations. In some of the more populated areas, as three lanes of cars are squeezed into two lanes of road, pedestrians will be at either side of the road, and on the median, waiting to begin the beautiful dance of crossing the road. It is really quite exquisite. You will see the Bangladeshi’s, after a long day of work standing on the side of the road, head cocked quizzically, mouth slightly agape, or perhaps a group of Pakistani’s, in their native garb waiting, waiting, waiting. The traffic is non stop. The dance, then, begins with the pedestrian leaning in, signaling their intent to cross as cars approach them at 80 kph or more. If the car engaging in the dance were to slow down slightly, the pedestrian would walk right into the moving car. Do not slow down, you are now a participant, willing or unwilling, in the beautiful dance. When executed properly, the pedestrian will be able to touch your brake light as he crosses behind you, and touch the headlight of the car right behind you. A pirouette would seem appropriate after completion of the dance, but I haven’t seen that yet. The only room for improvisation in this dance is on the part of the second car. Slowing down is optional. So if you should be driving in Kuwait, when you see someone who appears as if they are going to walk into your car, remember – don’t slow down.

My wife was at a meeting at the Kuwait Oil Company, looking at pictures of the board of directors hanging on the wall. She stopped at a picture of a person with a very long beard with piercing eyes in full Kuwaiti garb. Her colleague said to her, “He looks like an extremist, but he’s really a nice guy.” The danger in Kuwait is definitely there, and it’s mostly on the road. Drive safely.

2012-06-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Being transported to pick up trash.
Be nice to these guys when you see them.

As in most other countries, life is very stratified in Kuwait. Demographically, 2/3's of the population in Kuwait is non Kuwaiti. Who are they and where do they rank, status wise? Starting at the lowest of the low would be the Bangladeshi's, who wear yellow jumpsuits, pick up trash at the side of the road or work as security guards. It's no fun to be a Bangladeshi in Kuwait. Moving up the ladder, you have low paid laborers from Southwest Asia, Pakistan, and a certain lower class of Indians, Nepal and Sri Lanka. They are generally either maids, construction workers or provide some type of semi skilled labor and are always dangerous as they cross the roads - you never know when they are going to walk out in front of your car. If you happen to find yourself in Kuwait, or another Middle Eastern country where this social structure exists, be nice to the folks at the bottom. Say hello to them, learn their names. They are paid poorly and have crappy living situations - 6 - 10 to a room and the rooms really aren’t that nice either. A little kindness and respect goes a very long way. There is also another class of professionals - Philippinos and Indians who are well educated, work in banks, government service, decent jobs that have decent pay, but they are definitely not treated decently by Kuwaitis, who look down on them as the servant class, otherwise known by you and I as those who actually do the work. Next up would be anyone from the Middle Eastern countries of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon - they speak Arabic, and are generally businessmen/women. They usually have a higher level of education and corresponding salary. Some of them are quite wealthy. But they don't quite match up with the next level, the Western expatriates. The Westerners come from all over the developed world and by virtue of the big bucks they earn here as expatriates, are treated a little better. The Americans are at the top of the heap because most of them are war profiteers (contractors) and as such, are paid very, very well. Most of them also spend their copious earnings like drunken sailors, which endears them to everyone else here. Next up would be folks from the Gulf Coast Countries - Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, UAE and Saudi, with the Saudi's, again, due to their wealth and free spending ways, find themselves at the top of the pecking order. Then you have the Kuwaitis, of which there are also three classes, from bottom to top - the Kuwaitis of African descent, Kuwaitis of Persian stock and the Arab Kuwaitis. It's a funny little world, but that really sums up who fits where on the social structure in Kuwait.

And oh, the war profiteers (patriots) in Kuwait who work on the American bases. They are, as a rule, the most uneducated lot of brutes I have ever been exposed to, but they sure do know how to fix a broken tank or drive a truck up to Iraq (back when we were in business up there), which allowed them to make (and spend) those big war profiteer (hero) dollars. And yes, we are also very stratified. It's easy to break down by who you work for, what benefits you get, where you are housed, but you can really shuffle that all aside and determine a contractor's social status based on what kind of transportation they have to get to work. First of all, the lowest of the low: those who ride to work in a mini bus. Shared transportation. If you are in that mini bus, you slither on the ground like a snake. You are an insignificant bug. Hissssssss. Then, there is the shared vehicle. A step up, but still, you are most definitely not walking on two legs. You share a vehicle with a group of your colleagues and have to drive with all of them and coordinate who gets the car when. Hope you have a good group of people you work with, because you are stuck with them for the long commute, there and back. Next up, you have the individuals who suddenly find themselves flush in cash and buy a Mercedes or Jaguar so they can drive to their job as a mechanic. They are close, yet they are so, so far when they show their true social colors as they pull into the park and ride and wait for the bus to take them the rest of the way onto the base. Ouch. Kind of like getting dressed up in a suit and tie to go to work as a janitor. You feel good as you leave the door, feel good on your way to work, driving in your luxury vehicle, but then dang, you get to work and get on the bus. And then there are those who walk upright and have individual cars assigned to them, paid gas, with base access, well they are up at the top, but there are still big differences in what kind of car you drive. If you are in a ubiquitous 4 wheel drive Toyota Prado or similar big boy car, you are at the top of the heap, A number 1, King of the Hill. It all goes downhill from there. Everyone recognizes you are still a force to be reckoned with when you are assigned a sedan like a Toyota Camry, but everyone also recognizes that you are a few rungs short from the top. If you have something smaller and below the Camry, you are really on the low end of the totem pole. It's almost embarrassing to be driving around post in a small sedan. You've made it, kind of, but really, not.

Living and working in Kuwait is never, ever boring.

2012-06-02T03:46:00.000-07:00

A little slice of the U.S. in Kuwait

Very few people come to Kuwait to visit. All the expats I know come to work. I've been a defense contractor in Kuwait for a few years - this blog is to share some of my experiences, let people know the good and bad of life in Kuwait, particularly in defense contracting. Ever since the Gulf Wars, there have been U.S. military bases in Kuwait that have relied heavily on civilian defense contractors (primarily ex-military, enlisted) to do the heavy lifting, so to speak, of the work that supported and supports the troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. And for some unknown reason, when contractors come to Kuwait, every shred of morality seems to be left behind in the good 'ole U.S. of A. I've seen some nasty stuff.

The good about living in Kuwait as a U.S. citizen working as a defense contractor as a rule:
1. You'll have a job.
2. Your earnings (currently) are tax exempt up to about 93 K/year.
3. You will be provided a place to live, usually a room of your own w/your own bathroom. Depending on where you are in the employment food chain, most employees share an apartment.
4. Transportation is typically provided to and from your place of employment.

All that adds up to pretty big savings - your primary dwelling costs you nothing, transportation is provided and you avoid a pretty big tax hit. That typically gives contractors more than a few extra coins jingling in their pockets that they probably didn't have when they were living and working in the U.S. That sometimes leads to poor behavior, which leads me to...

The fat Westerner and the *hot Asian

They are absolutely everywhere you look in Kuwait. Fat, sweaty Westerners holding hands with tiny, hot, usually very young Asians. To be fair, the Westerners are not all fat. Some are old, dentally challenged, not that well educated, balding and definitely not, by any stretch of the imagination, what one would consider a catch. In short, not the type of person you are absolutely thrilled to bring home to mom and dad. They all have one thing in common: they would have an extraordinarily difficult time getting a reasonably educated, attractive women in the West to cast a second, or even first glance of interest in their direction. And even if they did manage to secure the interest of a good looking woman who managed to, for some odd reason, look their way, they would then have to open their mouths and string together a coherent sentence. The game would be over as soon the babbling began. “Yo baby, you want to hook up? What’s your number? You know how it is, c’mon now.” Try looking under Wikipedia under pickup lines that don’t work. Doh.

Now I believe there is someone for everyone out there. But that someone is usually close to your equal, or what I think of as someone in your weight class. Boxing has various weight classes to equalize the odds. Heck, even if you’re in the same weight class, you have to have a similar win/loss record to get in the ring, to be a contender. Just as it would be manifestly unfair for a flyweight to enter the ring with a Super Heavyweight, the war profiteering (pigs, in most cases) Westerner has no chance with the unattainable woman in the West. So, if the Westerner were to remain in the West, then the chafe would separate from the wheat and they would end up with someone in their weight class – same educational stature (low), intellectual ability (loooow), relative physical appearance (lower) and interests in life (debauchery, it would seem). Things seem to work out that way. It’s not that folks in the lower weight classes aren’t attracted to good looking people, it’s that they don’t have a chance in hell of ever having a relationship with someone in the heavyweight category. They can gaze, they can fantasize (and oh, by the nasty talk I hear, they most definitely do), but it’s never going to happen. Really. How do bright, capable, accomplished and attractive people respond to, “Yo baby, check this shit out?” Haven’t seen that one work out yet.

But in Kuwait, the fat Westerner can use their limited Simian like repertoire of introductions (Sup? You’re looking gooooooood!) and end up with the hot Asian. And this works because there are some major equalizing factors. Summed up neatly, they would be: The Westerners have Western passports and jobs that pay very, very well, and the hot, tiny Asians come from economically deprived countries where there are no jobs, or if there is one, you are still in your economically deprived country with spotty utilities, questionable housing and a day to day existence that is cobbled together in an never ending, quite unpleasant cycle. And then they come to Kuwait. The Westerners come to live the fat life of an expatriate, the Asians to escape their drudgery and to provide the inexpensive labor that drives the economies of the Middle East. The Westerners get what they want, the female of previously unattainable good lucks and the Asians get what they want – the hell out of their country, new clothes, jewelry, utilities, appliances and some sense of stability. That is the unspoken Kuwait marital contract. Of course, many of the war profiteers (dogs) in Kuwait have no intention of getting married. They flit from one Asian trollop to the next where a meal and scant attention gets the trollop in your bed, so I’m told. And then there are the men who come over married, discover that hot young Asian women abound and take what is known in the war profiteering (slime) world as a Kuwait wife. The wives in the West don’t know about the Kuwait wives. It certainly leads to some interesting questions. “Can I put my wife on my insurance? I just got married.” “Absolutely – just provide a marriage certificate and ensure that you provide the documentation within 30 days and we will certainly accommodate.” And then the anvil comes down. “Will my wife in the States find out about my wife over here being on the insurance?” Uh, yes. You’re allowed one wife on the insurance at a time.

To be fair, I have seen a small number of these relationships which were originally started on a great imbalance of power result in loving, long lasting marriages. But the vast majority of them seem to end very, very badly.

*Full disclosure. I’m married to a hot Asian. She’s half Japanese and was born in East L.A., college educated, had a U.S passport all of her own before she met me and has had a very successful career. I married in my own weight class.