Tarek Rajab Calligraphy Re-Visit
Oh, the Tarak Rajab Calligraphy Museum is such a treasure! This time we went back just to have time to watch the entire film on calligraphy, the cutting of the quills and the mixing of the ink, how the paper is prepared and burnished, how ornamentation is developed . . . every time we visit this museum, we see something new, and we learn something new.
This time, I was looking for details. Oh WOW.
Here is a little of what I found:
Kuwait is blessed to have such a gem of a museum, and open to the public free of charge, in a beautiful building, with gracious spaces. You can find more information on their website for both museums (The Tarak Rajab Museum is just around the corner) at The Tarak Rajab Museum website.
Woo Hooo Al Ahmadi
Great sign, Al Ahmadi!
I would love to see a Keep Kuwait Clean sign, maybe a series of them. The one I see features one of the beautiful, pristine beaches, and then the green green of the gulf. That contrast always takes my breath away, and it breaks my heart to see them filthy with fast-food wrappers, and detritus washed up from the boats.
Nicole B / Rainmountain, who has a photography and blog site has a one woman campaign to keep her segment of the beach clean in Mahboula. God bless you, Nicole!I think many of the schools also have beach clean-up days, and some clubs, too.
What would your sign feature? I’m not very artistic – those of you who are, would you do a sign, link to this blog entry so we can come visit?
New Minarets in Fehaheel
I love going out to Fehaheel; it’s kind of got a wild west feeling, with no regard to traffic lanes, no regard to traffic laws, it’s just not the city – it’s a step back in time, even with the beautiful Al Koot and Al Manshar Malls.
Two years ago, they tore down the old minaret on the mosque in the center of town on the Gulf Road, and the wrecker that tried to knock the minaret down got tangled – and fell over! It took months to clean that mess up, and then for the last two years they have been building the new “> twin minarets.
Recently the scaffolding came down. Here is how they look now – a serious facelift for a delightful old lady.
Bowen: Cruzatte and Maria
Peter Bowen’s tales of Montana in transition are an acquired taste. When I first started reading them, at my sister’s recommendation, I had a hard time getting past the dialect. The main character, Gabriel DuPre, speaks English differently; he is Metis, a mixture of French, Indian and who knows what, here before America was America, as he says “long time gone.”
You get used to it. It still makes me think he should be in New Orleans, speaking as he does, it sounds very Cajun, but you get used to it.
Peter Bowen’s Gabriel DuPre is another treat to myself (like Donna Leon.) Reading the latest book I bought, saved for just this time, a cold wintery January, brightened my outlook considerably.
The first book I read, Wolf, No Wolf had to do with environmentalists putting wolves back into the mountains where once they had flourished, but where now, for a couple centuries, people have been raising cattle. Guess what? Hungry wolves love cattle. It makes for some very hostile feelings.
That theme – local culture against intruding environmentalists – continues in this book, where DuPre is hired as a consultant on a film being made about Lewis and Clark. The locals in the Coronado area are no happier with all the film crews and tourists than the ranchers were with the wolves – and people end up dead.
In addition, DuPre’s friend Benetsee and his daughter Maria spend time together in the sweat lodge, and later, his daughter, Marie, sees a mound and is revisited by a vision she had. She tells her dad, DuPre, to dig, and he uncovers a trove of treasures cached by the Lewis and Clark expedition. Partly, it is the incursion of the spiritual and supernatural that I find so intriguing in these books; there is a reality, and then a greater reality, and they co-exist. Bowen makes it seem and feel entirely natural. I love it.
The book has some highly entertaining, laugh-out-loud moments, takes great pokes at the eco-tourist, and at the same time deals with some serious issues. We get to hear DuPre fiddle his old Voyageur songs, we get to hear what people are saying at the local bar, where cheeseburgers are the plat du jour. It is a great way to pass a winter’s day.
Stop Means Stop!
From time to time, we can hear the police pulling people over outside our residence. It gives us a big grin. One of the things they say, in English, is:
“Hey Buddy! Pull over!”
And the other thing they say is:
“Stop means STOP!”
We hear these two phrases over and over, so it must be part of their training.
Stinni’s New Blog?
About twice a day for the last few days, I have seen new blog messages from Stinni. Stinni? you there? Hello?
What’s going on, Stinni? I am guessing you are trying some new formats, maybe working on moving your blog from one place to another?
We are waiting, Stinni! We are eager to see what you come up with! All these teasers are building up the suspense!
Leon: Friends in High Places
After reading two stinkers, I needed a read I could rely on for a good fix. I needed escape, mixed with good food, good clothes and some social awareness. I needed Guido Brunetti, Donna Leon’s Venetian detective, and his smart, savvy wife Paula, and his family meals of pasta with soft shell crabs and risi e bisi, his children, his disgust for the politics that impinge on his doing his job.
If you think Kuwait has “wasta” (doing business by connections, influence, calling in favors), you aint’ seen nuthin’ till you’ve seen how Byzantine Venetians operate.
Friends in High Places opens with Commissario Brunetti lying on his couch re-reading Anabasis when he receives a visit from a building inspector, who determines that the apartment he owns, on the very top of a building in Venice, was probably built illegally – there are no plans or restoration approvals on file at the bureaucracy regulating residential buildings in Venice – and may have to be torn down.
Wouldn’t that be a shock? It’s a shock to Brunetti and to his family, just as it would be to us. We learn all the ins and outs of housing codes, the impact of becoming part of the EEC, and how the clever Venetians devise ways around the codes, all while Brunetti is investigating one murder – and then three other murders.
It is a VERY satisfying book. I will share with you a lengthy quote from Friends in High Places as Guido and Paola discuss how to deal with the problem:
At no time did it occur to him, as it did not occur to Paola, to approach the matter legally, to find out the names of the proper offices and officials and the proper steps to follow. Nor did it occur to either of them that there might be a clearly defined bureaucratic procedure by which they could resolve this problem. If such things did exist or could be discovered, Venetians ignored them, knowing that the only way to deal with problems like this was by means of conoscienze: acquaintances, friendships, contacts and debts built up over a lifetime of dealing with a system generally agreed, even by those in its employ, perhaps especially by those in it’s employ, prone to the abuses resultant from centuries of bribery, and encumbered by a Byzantine instinct for secrecy and lethargy.
I am sorry to tell you that the only copy of this I could find on Amazon.com cost $99.98. I must have bought this one in England, where, I promise you, it was the normal cost of a paperback book.
I will warn you in addition, I was looking forward to reading a second Leon novel, Quietly in their Sleep, only to discover when I started that I had already read it, as The Death of Faith. The books published by Leon in England are often retitled for the American market. Leon fans, beware!
New Fatwa; Sabeeh set to survive
In today’s Friday Kuwait Times (it’s not online today, so I can’t reference it directly) is an article by B Izzak stating Sabeeh set to survive vote.
It’s a very interesting article, telling how some of the key players are lining up.
In paragraph five, we find this:
In a related development, MP Duaij Al-Shimmari, a member of the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), or Muslim Brotherhood, yesterday distributed a Fatwa (or religious edict) which clearly supports women being appointed as ministers.
Duaij said he received te Fatwa from Sheikh Ajeel Al-Nashmi, a highly respected cleric, which said that a minister’s post is allowed by Islam for women and thus supporting the no-confidence vote against Sabeeh or opposing it should entirely depend on her replies and not on her being a woman.
Wooo Hooooooooo! Equality means just that – judge women, as men, on the issues and their performance. Hold them accountable – just as you would a man.
Kuwaiti Women, Minors from Cradle to Grave
In an article in today’s Kuwait Times sure to raise discussions throughout Kuwait, staff writer Ahmad Al-Khaled brings up the laws requiring Kuwaiti women to have a husband /father/ guardian present to apply for a passport and other legal papers:
Published Date: January 15, 2008
By Ahmad Al-Khaled, Staff writer
KUWAIT: The issue of gender equality under the law has come under fire of late after an exasperated Kuwaiti woman wrote to a local Arabic newspaper telling the tale of her frustrated quest to renew her passport and was told the law required her to be accompanied by her male guardian. “It is frustrating that we are not considered equipped to act as our own guardians in 2008,” said a middle-aged Kuwaiti wife and mother of five, Um Talal, who read the woman’s letter describing how she was denied the right to renew her passport unless her husband accompanied her to the ministry.
While Kuwait is a Muslim nation, Kuwaiti law is not solely Sharia based, although it uses Sharia as a primary source of legislation according to the Constitution. Adult-aged Kuwaiti women are required under the law to be accompanied by their husband or father to renew their passports. If their father and husband are deceased or should they be divorced from their husband, they may be required to provide authorities with proof of their male guardian’s death or proof of their marital status.
“Why should we be required to offer such proof. It is insulting to be treated as if we Kuwaiti women are in need of guardianship. Shame on the government for continuing to allow such a law to remain in the books,” said a 30 something Fala Jassem. “It is not Islamic to treat women poorly, we are not children! Shame on anyone that calls this law Islamic,” said 65-year-old Bedour Bader.
While Kuwaiti women speaking to Kuwait Times were staunchly against the law, Kuwaiti men were divided with some going so far as to call the law a necessary requirement to keep their women protected. “It is a husband’s duty to act as a guardian for his wife. We must lead our families and this includes the wife,” said 53-year-old father of four Abdullah Nasser.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
Favoring Co-ed Schools
Fascinating defense of integrated classrooms in today’s Arab Times, entitled Students Will Be Made More Comfortable under Co-ed written by Kuwait University student Dalal Nasser Al-Otaibi.
I learned how American Universities became co-ed, and why. (I had no idea; you grow up thinking these things are a given.) This article must have been used as a paper for a class, as it is well documented, cites sources, etc.
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