"it smells like farts"

**the picture to the right is the kids sitting on Tricia and Vince's couch here at the IKEA in Kuwait. If you look closely, you can see the information sheet in Arabic**

Sometimes as parents, we innadvertantly do some terrible things that have incredible ramifications. Rob and I did one such horrible thing right before we came to Kuwait. While packing our life away, Kathy Griffin (comedian host of the TV show, My Life on the D-List) was playing in the background. Though we thought our kids were naively doing their thing and keeping to themselves, Rob and I stopped packing and focused on her comments about her trip to Kuwait, where she worked with the USO to bring comedy stand-up to the troops. As she talked about her experience, she reflected the smell in Kuwait leaved a bit to be desired. Kathy thought it was so bad, in fact, that she said, "it smells like farts." This isolated comment was funny but has quickly lost its humor. Everyday since we've arrived, we walk out of our apartment building and those are the first words out of little Anouk's mouth. Damn comedians.

Besides the occasional foul smell, Kuwait has shocked me in many ways. Yesterday, we took an interesting trip to the state hospital for HIV blood tests and TB X-rays. All 33 newbies were loaded onto buses and taken to the state hospital here in Salmiya. Kuwait's state-sponsored hospitals cover Kuwaiti citizens and immigrant workers alike (yeah oil!). The advantages and disadvantages of state-run health care were evident during this experience. The 7 men of our group were whisked away to a men's waiting room with Kuwaiti and other arab men, while the women were excluded to an outer waiting room with expatriate men from India, Sri Lanka, and China waiting for anyone who knows someone to get in before us. This oddly inappropriate experience is one example of the many contradictions here in Kuwait. But the bizarreness was just the beginning. To get our TB X-rays, the ladies were sent to a second hospital. The latter being a hospital with the capacity to see women. This means-- after waiting in one line, waiting in another line, and then being told to wait in line #1 again, 26 expat women followed one man to the point of no return--a heavy door with a handmade sign warning men that they could not pass. (In Kuwait, though not as strict as Saudi Arabia nor as liberal as the Emirates, there are still a lot of rules that must be followed--men at the doctor's is one. A man must escort his wife to the doctor, speak to the doctor, and be present during the examination--except in the rare occurance of needing a TB test.) During this experience, women bond, amused in unison at the shared experience of standing around in orange kaftans without men and without bras. This was our Red Tent.

This bare bones experience was rewarded by a trip to the Avenues--an enormous shopping mall with such stores as: IKEA, Foot Locker, H&M, Claire's Botique, Tag Heuer, Carrefour, Chili's, the Body Shop, and 7 Starbucks, just to name a few. It's so interesting to see such conflicting lives intersect here in Kuwait--the traditional versus the cutting edge, the sexist versus the sexy, the old versus the new. After an entire day of learning about curriculum and culture here in Kuwait, it is evident that these kids have one characteristic that sets them apart from most kids in the world--they must learn to live in both words without rocking the boat too much.