This is another topic inspired from my last trip. I noticed something almost everywhere I went that made me think .

I dont know if it was just our luck, but during our trip to London, all the women seemed to either be pregnant or have a baby in a carriage and they traveled in herds! I remember at one coffee shop my wife and I noticed 4 fully pregnant women sitting together, and at another cafe, there were 4 different women with their baby carriages sitting together! Its a rare sight to see a fully pregnant woman walking around in Kuwait, and it is even rarer to see a Kuwaiti women with a trolley or baby carriage.

Oh yeah, and guess what? Obviously NONE of them had maids! Since we got back, I have seen 3 families (I only went to Souq Sharq) consisting of a father, mother, baby, and maid! So the 2 parents cant handle the tiny little kid?! Or are they not bothered to spend time with the kid?

I remember a disgusting sight I witnessed a couple of years ago. I went to starbucks, and I saw a girl that I know, she was there with her baby boy (less than 4 yrs old), and TWO maids! Not just one maid, but TWO!! She actually sat at a table alone reading her newspaper and drinking her coffee, while her son was sitting at a different table with the two maids, who were feeding him his croissant or whatever it was he was eating!! Absolutely disgusting scene!

I dont get it!

What happened to our women here in Kuwait? Why is it that almost everytime I see a young mother with her kid, she always has a maid with them?! There really is no excuse for that!

Kuwaiti women have one of, if not the longest maternal leaves in the world (read something about that last yr in the newspaper). They definitely don’t have the 9-5 schedule that is followed in England and other countries. They have more support from family here in Kuwait than they do in England, because of our culture which is heavily influenced by family ties.

What is it then? Why do women here automatically have to get a maid as soon as they have a kid?! Are we as Kuwaitis so lazy? or is it that our society is so dependant on others in everything that we even use help to raise our own kids?? How can a mother or father even feel comfortable with a stranger taking care of their kid when he or she starts crying at night or whatever?

I don’t have any children yet, and my wife and I hopefully do not plan to have a kid in the near future. Inshalla some day definitely, but not quite yet. I would love to know what you women out there think about this, and especially any mothers.

I remember when we first got married, people automatically started recommending maids for us! I cannot imagine having a stranger live in the same apartment that my wife and I live in! It would be extremely uncomfortable for everyone, and why in the world would two people in their twenties need a full time maid?! We do get someone to come and help once or twice a week for less than 1 hour, and even that is a luxury and nothing more.

This topic will be discussed again soon with a related issue….I want ur thoughts and ideas first.

On a lighter note…

US President George Bush wrote this note to his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, during a UN meeting.

It read: “I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible?”

The guy who should be able to make big decisions like going into war or something similar, has to ask his Secretary of State for permission to go the toilet! LOL!

This article comes today from AlQabas -

I think this famous Kuwaiti saying summarizes many things about our politics and life in general.

For u none Arabic speaking (or writing) people, the saying اقضب مينونك لا اييك اللي اين منه is loosely translated as ’stick to ur crazy person instead of risking getting a crazier one!’

The 88% win for Husni Mubarak in the Egyptian elections last week is one example. I’m sure the vote is not very honest or accurate, but he wouldve won anyway even if it was! And he isnt getting it for improving the Egyptian econony, or creating a better Egypt, or anything positive. He probably stole more money, along with his son, that the country can afford! Still, he has been there for a long time, and that saying applied because he has already run the country dry and made enough money, and probably wont need to do that any more, unlike any new person who will probably be looking for new ways to make the most of is time as president. اقضب مينونك لا اييك اللي اين منه

The same applies to many other places! Look at the gulf area, how good has the Saudi leadership been to their citizens? Not much, right? The country that should be the richest in the world has a population that earns less per person than all other gulf countries except Oman! But what is the alternative? An even more Islamic force is the only other option, yet if an election is done, the Saudi leaders will still probably remain in charge. Same applies to all gulf countries, if given a choice, the people will vote for the royal families in all the states only bcz they know what to expect. اقضب مينونك لا اييك اللي اين منه

I just think its a funny saying, and an excuse for things to remain the same, a way to cover our fear from change.

This post has been updated, look below!

I just got back from my trip last night. It was a much needed تغيير جو and it was just perfect in terms of time, not too short and not too long.

There were many things worth posting about during the trip, but I will start out with what I think was the most interesting topic. My wife and I visited the Tate Modern, which is a national gallery of international modern art. The place is incredible! With more than 22 million visitors in five years only, it has become the most popular modern art museum in the world and last year surpassed the British museum as the most popular museum in London.

Anyway, we went there to check it out as well as the Frida Kahlo exhibition going on till October. I have not seen the movie Frida, and have read very little about her, but I remember watching a program about her once.

The exhibition was beautiful! They show 80 works of art by her as well as tell you her life story as you go on to know what period of her life she painted a specific painting. If you are visiting London and will be there until 9th of October, it is definitely worth a visit! She has become one of my favorite artists overnight, and I think I will check out the movie.

Well, other than the fact that the exhibition was excellent, what surprised me was the number of visitors! We literally had to wait in line for every painting! There were hundreds of visitors at the time we were there. Just walking within the gallery took forever because of the crowds. It took us around 3 hours to finish the exhibition, which consists of about 11 rooms.

The crowd there was an excellent mix of young people, old people, couples, families, asians, americans, africans, people on wheelchairs, punks, nerds….and so on. Every kind of person could be found there! And the exhibition, unlike the museum, was not free! You had to pay for an admission ticket, still, the place was packed! I especially loved seeing a family where the mother would explain the art work for her children who were 7 or 8 yrs old!

I have been to the Museum of Modern Art here in Kuwait four times. I have yet to see another visitor while I was there! The place is huge, and is in a great location, and in four times, I have seen 1 other person, who turned out to work there!

The problem is not with our museum, its with our culture.

———————————————————————

Tuesday, September 13th UPDATE -

For everyone who hasn’t heard of the Museum of Modern Arts in Kuwait, and wants to know the location, please check out this great post with lots of very nice pictures of the place too.

I know I said I would comment on my latest post about blog anonymity, but due to very limited internet time on vacation, I decided to post a new topic and then come back to the latest post.

Today, some friends and I were discussing the effect of blogs on the culture, and how incredible it is and about the potential it has to change things, and that discussion brought us back to another form of communication that was extremely popular back in the day, mIRC.

mIRC is still alive today, but I dont know anyone who joins regularly. The funny thing is, that from my generation, everyone has a personality or a nickname that was used on mIRC several years ago! This goes back to the blogger anonymity post in a weird way.

I think that everyone using blogs now was a mIRC user back in the day. We used nicknames and aliases and there was a whole culture raised using that chat program. My nickname back then was `3efreet. I rarely joined chanels like #kuwait or but I know for a fact that many people did, and many bloggers were regular IRCers.

So what was ur nickname then?

And how is blogging any different than blogs? Is it just another passing phase?!

This topic came from a discussion with a friend of mine who does not really ‘blog’ or surf any blogs.

Why do we all hide behind our online ‘names’? I am sure we all have a reason to blog. We all have a long term plan. We all want to or aim to change something about Kuwait. But is hiding behind an ‘online identity’ a sign of fear or weakness? Are we hypocrates in that we show a personality online that is not our own personality in real life? Do we really not have freedom of speech in Kuwait so we keep our identities to ourselves “just in case” (especially after the disappearance of abu7afs)? Are there family or social reasons that stop us from discussing what we are discussing in blogs? Is it lack of faith in our abilities to write?

I personally know many of the Kuwaiti bloggers out there, and many of them know me personally too, but still, I would not feel comfortable about telling everyone my name. I have my reasons, which are probably a mix of a few things mentioned above plus other unique things, but I would love to hear ur reasons or what u think about it before I tell u my reasons.

Oil has reached a record high at $71 a barrel. This is a huge contrast to the lows of $14 a barrel a few years ago! Oil producing countries are making incredible amounts of money, with record budget surplusses announced left and right in the region!

I am currently traveling outside the country, and during my transit in Dubai, I saw the headline in the newspaper which was extremely interesting and I just knew I had to post about it!

This comes from the Forbes.com website, the same peice of information -

————————————————————————————–

UAE hikes fuel prices 30 pct

08.30.2005, 01:53 PM ABU DHABI (AFX) - The United Arab Emirates, a member of the OPEC oil cartel, announced a 30 pct rise in the price of petrol and diesel at the pumps because of soaring costs.

The price of a gallon of petrol rose by 1.5 dirhams, around 0.40 usd, to between 6.25 and 6.75 dirhams, 1.71-1.83 usd, while diesel went up 1.4 dirhams to 7.70, the official WAM news agency reported.

The price rises, due to come into effect Thursday, were introduced despite the UAE being a major oil producer, pumping around 2.5 million barrels per day.

Crude oil futures Tuesday surged to an all-time record high of 70.85 dollars per barrel in New York amid concerns about the damage to production facilities caused by Hurricane Katrina.

WAM said the domestic rise was necessary to offset ‘the financial losses of distributors over past years, to the point where they could no longer sustain the losses given the unprecedented rise in oil prices’ on the world market.

‘At today’s prices the loss per gallon is over 4.10 dirhams for petrol at the pumps,’ said the state-owned oil company ENOC.

The UAE became the first Gulf producer to hike the price of petrol since crude prices started soaring on world markets. A minor increase was introduced in April.

Like fellow producers, the UAE, which relies on oil for some 80 percent of its revenue, has enjoyed a windfall from rising crude prices.

Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest of the seven emirates making up the UAE, accounts for some 90 pct of output.

In October, two major petrol retailers threatened to shut their outlets unless prices were raised by 30 pct.

Eppco and ENOC, both based in the emirate of Dubai, cited heavy losses caused by record high oil prices at the time, though their threat to shut down did not materialize.

Even with the increase, prices in the Emirates still compare favourably with other countries. The price of a gallon of petrol in the US has climbed to more than 2.50 usd.

————————————————————————————-

I started thinking, will this happen to us? We are currently obviously in the middle of an inflation, so prices are generaly increasing! But oil prices for the country are subsidised which means they are kept to a minimum regardless of cost outside. What if the private gas station companies are operating? Would they have to pay for the gas to sell it or do they only run the facilities like a supermarket and so on? I would think that they would have to pay for the gas and then resell it to the public to start making serious money, just like ENOC and Eppco in the UAE, otherwise they will just be companies that are baqqalaat (minimarkets)!

I dont know if what I am assuming is correct, I dont know if the companies will pay for gas from the country or if their prices will be subsidized. I am just assuming that they will use the same business models as the UAE companies.

If that is the case, then how would our great parliament react if the prices will increase? Even if its 5%! They already gave people extra money in the 200KD a few months ago, plus the 50KD increase in salaries, as well as cancelling all their electric bills which might be in the thousands for each person, so what will happen if, for a change, people are actually required to pay something!??!?

What if the UAE had our parliament? Would they not let the 30% increase pass? This would mean that the private companies mentioned would continue heavy losses and might go out of business, which will probably lead to government run stations like the ones we have with low service quality, the opposite of privatization!

In other words, privatization needs a free market, not a market controlled by government pricing policies. So with the current situation in Kuwait, privatization would be impossible! We would be pushing private companies to a government-dependant market!

I know I went off subject, but this issue really made me think about many things. Back to my question….do you think gas prices will increase in Kuwiat?