Entry #27 The Desert Birthday Party

We just arrived home from a day trip to the desert where we celebrated birthdays for Hudson (who turned 7) and Lucas (who turned 3). It is not too hot yet and beside the flies and the litter left over from other visitors it was a prefect day. Zoe and I have been to this spot once before but this was the first time for Jamie and Isaac. They both loved it and Isaac had a blast. He did not stay still long and wanted to climb up every sand dune he saw. Only one car got stuck and there were enough people there to push them out. So throw in some hotdogs, smores and birthday cake and that equals a great day!
I think I have included too many pictures this time! Sorry!

Entry #26 Pictures

Here are a few pictures I have taken over the last few months.

Isaac fishing off his new big boy bed. He has been sleeping in his bed for about a week now and it is going well. It took Zoe six months to realize she could get out of her bed. It took Isaac two nights!

The kids in their Kuwaiti hats. I bought these for Liberation weekend.

This is a view of downtown Kuwait. There is a great playground here that we bring the kids to.

A short walk from the playground is a fish market. It had quite an odour that reminded me of home. :)

Liberation Day Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the weekend! The last one is me with a face full of foam and I wish I could say that some random stranger sprayed me. Essentially I sprayed myself in the face trying to show Zoe how to make the spray can work!

#25 Failaka Island

On the long Liberation Weekend we took a day trip with a group of people from school to a small island in the Gulf called Failaka. It took about 40 minutes to get on a ferry and it was definitely a memorable trip.

Failaka Island was the first place that Iraq attacked in 1990 when they invaded Kuwait. At the time there were about 2000 people living on the island. One would think that since almost 18 years have passed since the invasion that they would have gotten around to cleaning it up a little. But that is not the case. As we walked around there were bombed out buildings and homes. We stopped and spent some time at a school and it was surreal. Our group found bullet casings and you could see the bullet holes in the walls. Textbooks were still lying around on the ground. It was very eerie. There was some doubt whether the damage could be attributed to the invasion or 17 years of kids vandalising the place. To add to the surreal element, people (visitors and locals) were riding up and down the main drag on old jeeps and dune buggies. It was all very Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome-ish.

We made our way down to the hotel where we had lunch and Zoe and I took a camel ride. It was only about a 5 minute ride but it made her day. Isaac was very keen to try but we decided that explaining how Isaac fell off a camel wouldn't go over well with the Grandmothers. Our next stop was to a tank graveyard where we saw several of the Iraqi vehicles that were deserted when Iraq was defeated. Again a very strange experience. Then we were off to a camel farm. This was my favourite part of the day. You could get quite close and the babies were beautiful. We thought we were going to lose Isaac as he got off the bus and ran directly for a camel. We caught him in time and then he become preoccupied with kicking the camel poo that was everywhere. Good times, good times!

Entry #24 Liberation Weekend

Finally we have the computer and internet working at the apartment so I will be trying to update the blog on a more regular basis!

This entry is about Liberation Weekend. It is a two day holiday on February 24th and 25th to celebrate, you guessed it, Kuwait's liberation from Iraq in 1991. There is a lot of excitment around this holiday and it doesn't seem to involve the memories of a country coming together to defeat the enemy. No, much of the excitment comes from the way in which they celebrate Liberation Day. It is the only time of year where people come out in large numbers to foam, silly string, and squirt random strangers with water guns. I have no idea where the silly string and foam come from. Somehow I doubt that people had stockpiles of silly string tucked away in their homes and when the coalition forces defeated Iraq people poured into the street to silly string each other. Really I have no idea where this all started but I do know that it was a lot of fun!

I took Zoe out in the early afternoon along Gulf Road and already the traffic was bumper to bumper. Apparently at night traffic comes to a standstil and people are running around in the middle of the street spraying each other. We thought the afternoon was safer for Zoe to join the festivities. We would stand at the side of the road and spray cars and then they would pretend to spray us and Zoe would laugh hysterically. Most people seemed very respectful of how small Zoe was. I say most people! As we were waiting for the next friendly car to drive by a car full of young guys came along and just covered us with foam. Zoe wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry but since I couldn't breath from laughing she decieded to laugh. I had only brought along one can of foam and we quickly went through that and had to buy several more from people along the road. We lasted for about an hour and had a great time. Coming home Zoe said she wanted to go foam people again the next day.

Again pictures really capture the day better than my ramblings.

Enjoy!