Overheard in the Souk

the grapevine

Only in Kuwait! My friend was agitated early this week when she discovered that their electricity in the flat was disconnected while she was preparing for work after the long Eid holiday.

She tried to check the main switch, hoping that it was a simple case of short circuit but to her surprise, the electricity was totally cut. She went to ask the Harris or the building watchman in broken Arabic and all she got was a frustrated look from the Harris and with the hand language, yes, the electricity was cut by the staff of the Ministry of Electricity and Water that morning with no notice at all.

Much to her surprise, she did not receive any electricity bill or even notice of disconnection. With the scorching 50 degrees this summer, who do you think can last for a day without A/C? She went straight to the MEW to inquire and pay.

There was a long queue that she had to battle with and waited for her number to be called. She waited and when it’s her turn, the cashier window closed and it was only 12:45. Pure luck! She almost freaked out as the cashier said “Khalas, bukra!” What an excellent government service! Can’t they accommodate those with numbers? Thank God! There was a good Samaritan, an MEW employee who saw her and helped her do the payment online.

After that she had her receipt stamped by the manager then she proceeded to the technician’s room and asked the technician to go with her and reconnect the metre. Imagine the trouble! Well, things are different here and sometimes, you have no choice but to live with it. Lesson learned, pay your electric bill monthly to prevent the unpredictable inconvenience from happening.

A lot of opinions on ‘pretty football’ were dished out at the end of the Euro finals with complaints of the game not being exciting or entertaining enough making the rounds. It is interesting how the ‘worthiness’ of a team is always brought into question as if the mere act of winning a game wasn’t merit enough. Why should a team be criticised for not being spectacular when they have chosen to play to their strengths and be effective and it no longer surprises me how easily ‘luck’ is injected into the narrative of unlikely heroes by adamant snobbery. All of this negativity makes it all the more satisfying to detractors down with an improbable, impossible score line.

Thanks to the strict visa-issuance process undertaken by the ministry of interior, begging in the Ramadan was not as rampant as it used to be. People used to stream into Kuwait during Ramadan on visit visas to make a fortune from begging at mosques and return home rich.

Begging for these people is an enterprise. They borrow money to procure a visa and a flight ticket to Kuwait. That’s their investment.

They come here and apply the trade with such studied brinkmanship and artfulness that they raise a couple of thousand KDs before the end of the month.

And now the interior ministry has officially outlawed it. But what some beggars do now is go knocking on doors to solicit for funds. That is still begging in the shadows!!!

I don’t know if it was the same for most of you or some of you, but to some, it seemed that family gatherings during the Eid holidays were a little bit different this year.

Maybe because some have grown in this one year? Know more things therefore saying more things in conversations while the other one started zipping it? Some of the older people learned something about another person and now the whole dynamic has been altered.

The Kid lost interest on riding his uncles back and would rather fiddle around with the smart phone. But the funny thing is that if you interact with this individual’s in separately, it seems that nothing has changed, given you haven’t changed.

I’m no philosopher, but change is constant, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society nowadays. For that reason, no sensible decision can be made any longer, without taking into consideration not only the world as it is today, but the world as it will be tomorrow.

The current Parliament always boast of being able to enact many laws and being able to cooperate with its government counterpart to ensure that all plans and objects are achieved. Certainly, this parliament must boast of passing many laws than any of the previous parliaments such as domestic workers, anti-Corruption Public Authority. On the other hand, the opposition inside and outside the parliament have downplayed these so-called boasts and achievements of this parliament.

The opposition argues that even though many and important laws have been passed by this parliament, it has made only little progress and achievements because many of these law are not put into practice. In other words, important laws such domestic workers law and anti-corruption are still not implemented by the government despite their passage since more than six months.

The opposition still sees this parliament as failure despite enough time it has at its disposal to force government to implement laws that benefit the country and its people. It is now certain that opposition and pro-government will continue to fight and argue on who is the best and who really made great strides and achievements during their time.