Calling All Cars!!!
You can’t believe how many SUVs there are in Kuwait! They do love their Land Cruisers; I’ve also been seeing Jeeps, Denalis (who makes Denali???), Cadillacs. As for cars, many are large, such as Chryslers, BMWs, anything with lots of horsepower. We saw a cool Mustang the other day. Of course, gas guzzlers are okay over here because gas is cheap; I’ve heard $.85 up to $1.00/gallon. Even cheap gas can get expensive in a guzzler, but so many people here have money that it really doesn’t matter. Bigger IS better!
Trash
I take my trash out to the stairwell and put it down a garbage chute…where it goes from there is anybody’s guess!
As for other people’s trash, it is in the street, on the sidewalk, and in the parking lots. People here do not feel that it is important to put trash in its place, and so they don’t. I remember the first Earth Day (yeah, yeah, yeah, try to count THAT on your fingers!), and made myself a pledge that I would not be a litterer, and I'm not. I pick up trash around me, even when it isn’t mine. I remember how important it was to me to keep the Black Hills looking beautiful….that thought just wove its way into my value system. I wish Kuwaitis thought the same way.
Ooooh ooh ooh, Baby Baby
I am surrounded by girl babies! My friend Jennifer had one two months ago; Amanda, my niece is due in September as is my friend Erica – both with girls. Now, I have a friend here, Wedad, who is also due in September with a girl. It must have been a cold January this year, and girl germs were spreading all over the place!!!
Wedad is a young woman from Lebanon who teaches physical and environmental science. She is new to the school, and we met at new teacher orientation. She’s 28, the same age as Amanda, which is cool. I told her that I would be her baby's “grandmother” and babysitter. That is how I intend to get the baby “fix” that I will be missing back home! She also has an older son, just like Erica, Amanda, and me!
Housekeepers
Yes, I now have a housekeeper. My apartment is so small that it would not take me very long to clean it myself, since I am not a messy person, but the housekeepers at the school make so little money that it is a good idea to spread around some of my “wealth.” So, when I was asked if I needed help, I said yes, and it helped someone else.
Our school has housekeepers rather than custodians. There are maintenance men who actually keep the physical plant (for want of a better word) up and running, but the housekeepers do all the day to day things like cleaning and moving things. Which brings me to the story I want to tell: “How I Almost Got in a Fistfight with a Housekeeper.” I had to move all the tenth grade materials from a room on the 3rd floor to my room on the 4th floor. I had a housekeeper with a trolley helping me. When we were finished with the books and files, we had a bookshelf that needed to be moved, also; it was kind of big, but it wasn’t a heavy, wooden bookcase. We loaded it (sort of) onto the trolley and got as far as the elevator. There was no way that we were going to get this thing on the elevator. Along came Tim, a new MS vice principal, who looked at the situation and said that it would be much simpler to carry this up the stairs. I agreed and asked if he would help me, meaning that I would carry my end, of which I am perfectly capable. Yep, that was the plan. Well, Tim picked up his end which left the housekeeper and me at the other end. I reached for it and she reached for it. I said no, I was going to do it, but she wouldn’t let go. I elbowed her and said, “Let me do it.” We struggled like that for a few seconds and she finally backed off when I used my teacher voice. We carried the shelf unit up the stairs with no problems. I have to say, she looked kind of scrawny to me and probably couldn’t have done as good a job as I did! LOL The end.
You can’t believe how many SUVs there are in Kuwait! They do love their Land Cruisers; I’ve also been seeing Jeeps, Denalis (who makes Denali???), Cadillacs. As for cars, many are large, such as Chryslers, BMWs, anything with lots of horsepower. We saw a cool Mustang the other day. Of course, gas guzzlers are okay over here because gas is cheap; I’ve heard $.85 up to $1.00/gallon. Even cheap gas can get expensive in a guzzler, but so many people here have money that it really doesn’t matter. Bigger IS better!
Trash
I take my trash out to the stairwell and put it down a garbage chute…where it goes from there is anybody’s guess!
As for other people’s trash, it is in the street, on the sidewalk, and in the parking lots. People here do not feel that it is important to put trash in its place, and so they don’t. I remember the first Earth Day (yeah, yeah, yeah, try to count THAT on your fingers!), and made myself a pledge that I would not be a litterer, and I'm not. I pick up trash around me, even when it isn’t mine. I remember how important it was to me to keep the Black Hills looking beautiful….that thought just wove its way into my value system. I wish Kuwaitis thought the same way.
Ooooh ooh ooh, Baby Baby
I am surrounded by girl babies! My friend Jennifer had one two months ago; Amanda, my niece is due in September as is my friend Erica – both with girls. Now, I have a friend here, Wedad, who is also due in September with a girl. It must have been a cold January this year, and girl germs were spreading all over the place!!!
Wedad is a young woman from Lebanon who teaches physical and environmental science. She is new to the school, and we met at new teacher orientation. She’s 28, the same age as Amanda, which is cool. I told her that I would be her baby's “grandmother” and babysitter. That is how I intend to get the baby “fix” that I will be missing back home! She also has an older son, just like Erica, Amanda, and me!
Housekeepers
Yes, I now have a housekeeper. My apartment is so small that it would not take me very long to clean it myself, since I am not a messy person, but the housekeepers at the school make so little money that it is a good idea to spread around some of my “wealth.” So, when I was asked if I needed help, I said yes, and it helped someone else.
Our school has housekeepers rather than custodians. There are maintenance men who actually keep the physical plant (for want of a better word) up and running, but the housekeepers do all the day to day things like cleaning and moving things. Which brings me to the story I want to tell: “How I Almost Got in a Fistfight with a Housekeeper.” I had to move all the tenth grade materials from a room on the 3rd floor to my room on the 4th floor. I had a housekeeper with a trolley helping me. When we were finished with the books and files, we had a bookshelf that needed to be moved, also; it was kind of big, but it wasn’t a heavy, wooden bookcase. We loaded it (sort of) onto the trolley and got as far as the elevator. There was no way that we were going to get this thing on the elevator. Along came Tim, a new MS vice principal, who looked at the situation and said that it would be much simpler to carry this up the stairs. I agreed and asked if he would help me, meaning that I would carry my end, of which I am perfectly capable. Yep, that was the plan. Well, Tim picked up his end which left the housekeeper and me at the other end. I reached for it and she reached for it. I said no, I was going to do it, but she wouldn’t let go. I elbowed her and said, “Let me do it.” We struggled like that for a few seconds and she finally backed off when I used my teacher voice. We carried the shelf unit up the stairs with no problems. I have to say, she looked kind of scrawny to me and probably couldn’t have done as good a job as I did! LOL The end.
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