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!
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