January 2007 Archives

Madrid, The City I Grew Up In (Photograph by Pedro CZC)

I am a 'Third Culture Kid'.

Even though I am a Kuwaiti, English is my first language and the bulk of my life was spent living abroad: London-born, five years in Rome, eight years in Madrid; two High Schools: New English School in Kuwait and The Oxford Academy, Connecticut.; a Washington DC graduate, who additionally worked abroad for a substantial number of years.

But I am not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have had my kind of life. Third Culture Kids are global citizens: creative, independent, cosmopolitan, multilingual, tolerant, higher than average I.Q., we can live anywhere but we never really belong anywhere.

Here are some characteristics from Wikipedia:

90% feel "out of sync" with their peers

More welcoming of others into their community

Some of them come to terms with the tremendous culture shock and loss that they have experienced. They gain a broader understanding of the world through their varied experiences, while others spend most of their adult life trying to come to terms with those same issues.

Lack a sense of "where home is" but often nationalistic

Depression and suicide are more prominent among TCK's

TCKs share more in common with one another, regardless of nationality, than they do with non-TCK's from their own country.

Some of them come to terms with the tremendous culture shock and loss that they have experienced. They gain a broader understanding of the world through their varied experiences, while others spend most of their adult life trying to come to terms with those same issues.

I have many Kuwaiti friends but I also tend to shun those who don't know where I am coming from, the shallow fixated on the material and social aspect of society, ignoring culture and arts - Third Culture Kids need the intellectual stimulation, if it isn't there those people might as well talk to a friggin' wall.

I am positive there are thousands of us in Kuwait and elsewhere; people who went to foreign schools, lived abroad, or lived in Kuwait as expatriates and always seem bound here (the way I feel bound to Madrid or Connecticut or Rome). I have been fortunate, through the miracle of the internet to regain and maintain contact with old friends (some dating back to the early-70s); all my friends stem from different stages in life (elementary, high school, college), all religions (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu et all) and countries, ranging from Brazil, to Egypt, to Australia.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to revisit Madrid for business ('The Iraq Donor's Conference'). However, I was unable to revisit old haunts (i.e. school, home) since it was a full schedule: wall-to-wall meetings. I didn't even have the chance to walk down to the Villa Magna Hotel lobby and just reminisce about the old days.

Later on during a busy day I was standing on the hotel balcony with one of my colleagues, looking down at the beautiful, majestic city of Madrid; an emotional moment for me, I blurted out "You know my family resided here 30 years ago when we moved to Madrid." He glanced at me, exclaiming "So? What's the big deal? I stayed here too during the 70s."

He just didn't get it.

Most people are born and raised in one city or country. They grow up with the same friends, they watch their city gradually change, they have roots, they are part of their surroundings, and the tentacles of stability and familiarity are embedded in their psyche. However, Third Culture Kids feel like they've lived a dozen lifetimes; we are almost always haunted by a childhood memory: an old friend, a city, an old home we no longer live in. Nevertheless, we have the distinct ability to look at a problem from two different perspectives: insider and outcast.

It's strange isn't it? We spend half our lifetimes looking forward to living in our home countries; then spend the other half looking back at the past. We don't belong anywhere.

Are you a Third Culture Kid? Is it a blessing or a burden? How do you feel about life and your purpose in it?

Resources :

Third Culture Kids

TCK World

U.S. State Dept: Third Culture Kids

Interaction International

People who are alert and cheerful before 10 am freak me out.

This post is directed primarily towards my foreign readers and members of the Kuwaiti community who may not have heard of Safat: A Kuwait Blog Aggregator.

If you are interested in a listing of Kuwait-based Blogs and their brief summaries please check out the aforementioned search engine. Dozens of very talented, creative and prolific writers are featured in the Blog Aggregator. Check it out.

An interesting Kuwait Times Article on the obstacles of importing into Kuwait.

Here are a few highlights:

Companies trying to import technology, software and hardware into Kuwait face a mountain of bureaucratic obstacles...

The cost of importing a particular product varies. The time a product will be cleared by customs varies. The process can take days, weeks or longer and many importers won't know the final cost until they have bills in hand...

...According to the report, that has surveyed business people from the 175 countries ranked, the preparation of 11 documents for import in Kuwait takes 14 days. The customs clearance and technical control take another five days to complete. Another four days are needed for ports and terminal handling procedure, the report claims, in addition to four days allocated for inland transportation and handling.

Some of my friends were complaining recently that it took longer to load this blog's webpages and I wasn't sure of what the problem was.

Could the following be the problem:

Bandwidth (this month) 9618.76 / 10000 MB

And the month ain't over yet.

For a very casual (and lazy blogger) I'm a tad surprised at the bandwidth increase.

I guess it's time to buy more bandwidth.

I met some old Foreign Ministry compadres, whom I served with at our Embassy in Washington D.C., for lunch today at Burg Al-Hamam. We were all a little grayer, a little stockier, a little bit more cynical, but the spirit of friendship, of brotherhood was evident.

The leisurely, three-hour lunch was a bittersweet event; over delectable Lebanese mezze and grilled meats we discussed social and political affairs, real estate, pop culture and family - of course, the conversation would almost always be sabotaged by someone's bawdy sense of humor (and by the occasional water trickling from the roof this rainy day).

For dessert? A thick slice of nostalgia.

Since the abysmal summer water and electricity crisis we keep hearing of Ministry of Energy tenders, rejected bids, companies withdrawing from the tender, disorganization, corruption within the Ministry and so forth.

Forget the Tender Committee, forget the Ministry of Energy, forget the local agents and representatives, forget the bureaucracy and corruption. We need the government of Kuwait to follow what Dubai is doing concerning upgrading its power needs and we need the government of Kuwait to hire the best people and make the deal.

We need leadership now. Not committees, discussion and kick-backs.

Shuweihat Power Plant - Abu Dhabi, UAE.

From the Reuters report:

International companies which have pre-qualified to bid for one of the largest independent water and power projects in the United Arab Emirates have nominated their contractors for the plan, a magazine reported. Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate in the UAE federation, which is building the $3 billion project known as Fujairah 2, pre-qualified at least 20 international developers in November for the bids which are due on March 29. "All the prospective developer bidders have now nominated their contractors for the 2,000 megawatt power island and 130 million gallons per day desalination plant, although several have still to confirm their bank groups," the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) reported in its latest edition. MEED said Belgium's Suez Energy International had nominated Germany's Siemens and Italy's Fisia Italimpianti as its nominated contractors. Singapore's SembCorp had selected GE Energy of the Unites States and South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction. The developer group of Dubai-based AES Oasis and Japan's Sumitomo Corp had nominated South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries Co and Japan's Hitachi Zosen Corporation. The team of Britain's International Power and Japan's Marubeni Corporation had picked Paris-based Alstom Power and France's Sidem.

The Cabinet assigned Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy on Sunday to take necessary measures for building new electrical power plants to cover the country's demand.

In their regular weekly meeting presided by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, ministers reviewed a report prepared by the ministerial economic committee on the country's demand for electricity in the summers of 2007 and 2008 and necessary precautions and emergency procedures that needed to be taken in this regard.

They also reviewed steps taken for implementing these recommendations as well as how to overcome obstacles that were faced during the process.

I would like you to note the words in the article: reviewed, assigned, committee, necessary precautions etc. Not exactly assertive words are they?

It's January 2007 now. There are three Months left before the expected Kuwaiti heatwave hits us. Now whose opinion would you respect? The Tender Committee? The Kuwaiti Cabinet? The Ministry of Energy? They'd pick the cheapest tender and overall worse deal for the country.

I'll take the opinion of Britain's International Power or Suez Energy International or the other specialized entities in determining what is the best, most effective technology to suit our power needs, not some Kuwaiti biased entity with an eye on some 'pay off' down the road (don't tell me I'm overtly negative or exaggerating; after all, according to the Kuwait Audit Bureau, we just lost track of One Billion Kuwaiti Dinars in oil revenue, but that's another story).

HH The Prime Minister - based on what I hear and on my gut feeling (and I do trust my instincts) - is a reformer; the man wants to make a positive difference, but the problem here is the system: our antiquated, bureaucratic, slow as molasses, corrupt, gridlocked cobweb of civil affairs hell.

The UAE almost always picks the best and rarely cut corners. They do the research. They bring in the expertise. They make the decision. They then build it. And most of all, they maintain it. I respect that. Kuwait is too busy attending insipid Arab and Third World conferences concerning the Environment, IT, Water and Power etc, signing memorandums of understanding that will never benefit us: the blind leading the blind, indeed.

You know, once in a while I start thinking about the movies I grew up with (in my case the 1970s) and the popular culture (films, music, theatre, literature) one was surrounded with at the time.

For some reason I remembered this disturbing little thriller with Richard Burton and Lee Remick called THE MEDUSA TOUCH. I remember seeing it in 1979 at an in-house hotel cable service in London and was a big fan of the film at the time - it seemed like a bastard child of two genres: the horror film (i.e. THE OMEN) and disaster movies (i.e. EARTHQUAKE).

I managed to track down a trailer at You Tube. There are a couple of VHS tapes on Amazon, and two Australian Region 4 used DVDs that I are listed; it seems like a film that has gotten lost in time. The trailer makes the film seem quite dated; you know you are getting old when the shows or films you grew up with look like relics.

Do any of you ever remember seeing this?

I have just returned from The Hajj.

At this point in time I am at a loss for words to effectively describe my Hajj. Suffice it to say it was an amazing, spiritually-uplifting and moving experience. Additionally, I was part of a great group and made many friends.

Here is a gargantuan collection of pictures from the pilgrimage (taken with the Samsung SGH-X820). Unfortunately, the best pictures were the personal ones (and I am not publishing those!). You will have to settle for these.

Arriving in Jeddah

A Checkpoint

The View From The Hotel In Aziziyah

The Hotel Entrance

A Sermon Following A Regular Prayer

By the time you read this I’ll be performing the Hajj.

I have enclosed the following You Tube videos taken from the excellent DVD 'National Geographic - Inside Mecca' in order for our readers to gain an insight on the Hajj ritual and Islam.

Inside Mecca Part 1 (LINK).

Inside Mecca Part 2 (LINK).

Inside Mecca Part 3 (LINK).

Inside Mecca Part 4 (LINK).

Inside Mecca Part 5 (LINK).