Kuwait Marriage and Divorce 2013
The presentation is a little confusing, but I have to guess that if 19% of the divorces are “non-Kuwaiti” by which they mean that one member of the marriage is not Kuwaiti. So what they are not saying is that 80% of the divorces are Kuwaitis married to Kuwaitis.
They also did not say how long marriages lasted – how many of those marriages were divorced in the first year, how many after many years? If the statistics are accurate, Kuwait is doing OK – more than half the marriages are succeeding.
OOps – found second report in the same Kuwait Times! See below
9,404 Kuwaiti marriages, 4,067 divorces in 2012
KUWAIT: More than 9,000 Kuwaiti couples married last year and more than 4,000 marriages ended in divorce the same year, a local daily reported yesterday quoting official statistics.
The statistics released by the Ministry of Justice and published by Al-Qabas daily indicate that 9,404 marriages between Kuwaitis took place last year compared to 4,067 divorces, or 43.3 percent.
The same statistics also indicated that 4,910 marriages took place between a Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti spouse in 2012, compared to 2,605 divorces in the same category. In detail, the statistics show that 814 Kuwaiti men married non-Kuwaiti women in 2012, while 648 Kuwaiti women married non-Kuwaiti men the same year.
The percentage of Kuwait couples in the total number of marriages last year reached 65 percent, according to the statistics, while 19 percent took place between non-Kuwaiti couples. 10 percent of marriages took place between a Kuwaiti man and a non-Kuwaiti woman, while marriages between a non-Kuwaiti man and a Kuwaiti woman also reach 10 percent.
Regarding divorce percentages, the statistics show that 19 percent of divorce cases happened between non-Kuwaiti couples; 12 percent between couples in which the husband is Kuwaiti and the wife is non-Kuwaiti, and 7 percent between couples in which the husband is non-Kuwaiti and the wife is Kuwaiti.
Regarding academic qualifications, the statistics show that 35 percent of women married last year have university degrees, 30 percent have high school degrees, and 19 percent have diplomas, whereas 29 percent of men have university degrees, 24 percent have high school degrees, 21 percent have middle school qualifications and 20 percent have diplomas. On the other hand, the statistics show that the majority of women divorced last year have university degrees (29 percent), while the majority percentage of divorced men have middle school qualifications (29 percent).
55% couples married in last 4 years seek divorce
KUWAIT: Almost 55 percent of couples filing for divorce in Kuwait have been married for four years only, including 25 percent who are yet to celebrate the first anniversary of their wedding, a local daily reported yesterday quoting official statistics. The statistical report released by the Research and Statistics Department in the Ministry of Justice and obtained by Al- Qabas daily further indicates that out of 5,662 couples who sought marriage counseling, only 20 percent had their issue successfully resolved.
Lack of willingness to coexist was identified as the primary cause for divorce requests, with 32 percent of the requests made by husbands and 23 percent by wives.
The statistics further indicate that 77 percent of couples who attended marriage counseling were Kuwaitis compared to 22 percent non-Kuwaitis.
Meanwhile, 62 percent of those couples do not have children, 34 percent have one to three children, and 2.7 percent have between four and six children.
Regarding age groups, the statistics show that 42 percent of couples seeking marriage counseling are aged between 25 and 34, 22 percent aged between 35 and 44, and 20 percent aged between 15 and 25. And according to the couplesโ academic levels, the statistics indicate that 28 percent of husbands have middle school degrees, 22 percent have high school degrees and 21 percent have university degrees, whereas 27 percent of wives have high school degrees, 23 percent have university degree, 22 percent have diploma and 20 percent have middle school
One Thing Leads to Another
“I’m afraid to go home,” AdventureMan told our son. “She’s moving the furniture.”
“She can do that without consulting?” our son asked.
“Yeh, she can,” AdventureMan responded, “And I count myself lucky that she hasn’t bought another house and said we’re moving.”
Moving furniture is one of those things I do. I get tired of everything the same-old same-old. If I’m not moving, it gives me a chance to re-think things, and try something else to see if that works better.
We have a dining room we hardly ever use. We have never eaten a meal in there. We had too much furniture, and besides, in the family room we have a huge circular teak table that seats eight. It’s less formal and a lot more fun. The dining room is in a very quiet part of the house, so we talked about turning it into a library (see! we talked!) and that is what I did. But when you move a piece of furniture, or get rid of another, or both, you end up also having to evaluate all the things inside that piece of furniture, and having to think through where things need to go.
Life is so different. As an Army wife, we entertained all the time. I hit the sales in Czechoslovakia and have bar ware and wine glasses for our 48 closest friends, and we just don’t entertain like that any more. We don’t even drink like that!
We do entertain; we host the monthly book club some months, I have my quilting group in frequently, and we have dinners for family and dinners for visiting IVLP delegates. We entertain people we like. It’s a whole different world when it’s a choice. I’m getting rid of a lot of pieces I’ll never use again and I’ll never miss once they’re gone.
I’m getting rid a lot of irrelevant things, including an old TV cabinet, you remember them? They enclosed an old fashioned TV, had shelves for videos (remember them?) and little drawers for CDs? I’ve been using it as storage for art work and a thing that plays music from an iPod or two. I’ll hang some of the art work, get rid of some, and find another place for the MP3 player.
Yesterday was the big work, the figuring out how to change furniture and carpets into new positions. Of course, once you move something, you have to clean the places no one ever sees, so it takes more time, but you’ve got to do it right.
Today was the small but time-consuming work of getting things put away in a kind of order so that they can be found again. When I put books on the shelves three years ago, it was like fiction here and non-fiction there, and I never went back. Now, I have them sorted into subjects and country, art related, or religious. Got rid of about half my CD’s but still have too many.
It’s a messy process; you take something fixed, turn it into chaos and slowly, slowly, bring a new pattern into being. Tomorrow I need to hang some more art work. It’s been three years.
Then we live with the changes and see if they work for us. If not . . . the process starts over, but in the meanwhile, got rid of some stuff! One of these days, need to tackle the closets . . . Have an entire closed full of evening clothes I never wear, and can’t bear to part with . . . yet.
Adventures in Chenega Bay
By the time we reach Chenega Bay, we are READY! The departure board tells us we only have a half an hour, but a half an hour is enough to hike to the top of the hill, see the church, take some photos and return. Actually, it took us more than half an hour. It didn’t matter. The ship needed to offload and onload, and the Chenega Bay residents needed their fix of hamburgers and ice cream.
As it turns out – and we should have known this by now – we really had a lot longer. It took a while to load the snow plow and all of its accessories ๐
Chenega Bay was totally wiped out in a tsunami following an earthquake. Here is what their official site tells us:
Chenega IRA Council
PO Box 8079 * Chenega Bay, AK 99574 * 907-573-5132
The Chenega IRA Council is a federally recognized Indian Tribe that serves the Alutiiq people of Chenega Bay, Alaska. The Chenega IRA Council operates a variety of social, cultural and economic development programs designed to enhance the quality of life within Chenega Bay.
Chenega Bay – Description & Location
The village of Chenega Bay is located on Evans Island in Crab Bay, (42) miles Southwest of Whittier in the Prince William Sound. It is one hundred and four (104) air miles southeast of Anchorage. Until the March 27,1964 earthquake, Chenega was an Alutiiq Native tranquil fishing village located on the southern end of Chenega Island in western Prince William Sound. Founded before the Russian arrival in the late 1700s, Chenega was the longest occupied village in Prince William Sound at the time of the earthquake. Moments after the earthquake, a tsunami destroyed all of the buildings in Chenega village with the sole exception of a single home and the village school. Over a third of the village residents were killed and the survivors were taken initially to Cordova and then were later resettled in the village of Tatitlek by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
With the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the former residents of Chenega formed the Chenega Corporation that acquired the right to select 76,093 acres around the old Chenega Village Township. The Alutiiq Natives enrolled in the Chenega Corporation selected their new village site at Crab Bay on Evans Island in the Prince William Sound in March of 1977. This site was carefully chosen following extensive research as the site best able to meet the needs of the residents’ subsistence lifestyle. The Chenega Corporation and the Chenega IRA Council worked together to obtain funding for roads, a water and sewer system, electric generators, a boat and floatplane dock and a school. The new village named Chenega Bay was finally occupied in 1984 following the construction of 21 Housing and Urban Development homes.
Chenega Bay is an isolated community accessible only by air or water. Charter airlines provide the majority of the transportation and the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry System provides weekly ferry service year round.
Commercial fishing and subsistence activities are an important part of the lifestyle of the people of Chenega Bay. Commercial employment is primarily with the local school, the Tribal council, health clinic, and commercial fishing.
The primary business area of the village includes village council offices, a community center, the Russian Orthodox church, small boat harbor, the Alaska marine highway ferry terminal, and a future local display facility.
It felt so good to be able to get off and do some hiking. It was also a little overwhelming trying to imagine living in a village this small. Almost all the houses I saw looked exactly alike; maybe the tribe built them all. It is very very small and very isolated, the boat comes in once every week. There are no scheduled airlines, only charters.
The Russian Orthodox Church, The Nativity of Theodokos, is very new, and very beautiful. We wondered where people sit? Or maybe there are chairs hidded away that are brought out for services, or brought from across the street at the Indian Affairs office? I always check, I love it that so many of the ikons look native. ๐
This last photo from the church is St. Herman of Alaska. Here is what Wikipedia says:
Saint Herman of Alaska (Russian: ะัะตะฟะพะดะพะฑะฝัะน ะะตัะผะฐะฝ ะะปััะบะธะฝัะบะธะน, c. 1750s โ November 15, 1836) was a Russian Orthodox monk and missionary to Alaska, which was then part of Russian America. His gentle approach and ascetic life earned him the love and respect of both the native Alaskans and the Russian colonists. He is considered by many Orthodox Christians as the patron saint of North America.[1]
The patron saint of North America?! Who knew?!
The Johnny Totemoff Museum is sometimes open – not today – and also sells homemade jams made from salmonberry and high mountain cranberries. I would have loved to have some of that! Johnny Totemoff was a local fisherman who always knew where the fish were, and was always coming to the rescue of other in troubled times. I love it that they named the museum after him. (Don’t you wonder how I knew that? On board the ship, they have a notebook at the Purser’s office they put out before you reach each stop. I read about the Totmnoff Museum in the Purser’s book.:-) Now you know.)
We loved watching the kids play – two of them were waiting for their father to come off the ship with their ice cream. They reminded me of my mom telling me of all the times she wanted to kill me because I did unsafe things, but oh, what fun!
Local transportation:
This is not the Homer otter, this is the Chenega Bay otter, and totally by chance and not by talent, I caught him catching a fish!
Too soon, it is time to depart.
Presenter Ses Condolรฉances
Some things you do. Some things are hard, and you do them anyway. I always think of them in the formal – pour prendre conge’, respondez, pour rendre petite assistance . . . must do’s, societal niceties, the grease that keeps civilization running, never mind smoothly.
I had to call a friend this morning to tell her how sorry I am that her husband had died. When she came to the phone, I was initially shocked. For months, since her husband’s stroke, she has been subdued and tired, but this morning she sounded happy and energetic.
“He’s free!” she said to me. “”As it says in the Bible, his passing was a breath; if I hadn’t been holding his hand and paying attention, I wouldn’t have known he was gone. It was so easy.” She was joyful. We wept together, for joy. He was free of the burden his life had become.
What I thought was going to be a sad call turned out to be a joyful call. She loves her husband still. They had years and years and children and grandchildren together, and she let him go with joy because he was ready.
Thanks be to God.
For Unto Us a Child is Given . . .
I am hearing those wonderful lines from Handel’s Messiah, because on this wonderful day, just after noon, a new child came into this world, a treasured girl-child, a warrior-princess is born. Thanks be to God, al hamd’allah!
Her Mother’s prayer for her is that she be the child that God created her to be. She hopes her daughter has courage, and a heart for adventure. When we met her, this amazing daughter-in-law, she played rugby, and she went off to France for a year to teach English.
We all pray that she will be healthy, and compassionate, with a heart for others. Courageous and passionate, and a woman of strength who will, like her Father, “give voice to those who have no voices.”
It is taking all our strength not to run to the hospital to visit. We feel very Middle-Eastern at this time; I am remembering my friend who went to Hamad hospital to have her babies. I took her daughters there the next morning, laden with canisters of coffee to serve guests.
“Guests?” I thought to myself. I had NO idea. Our Western idea is to give the new parents and their new baby time to recover from the physical and mental exertion of giving birth, time to bond as a small family unit.
When we got to Hamad Hospital, my friend had a huge suite, like a hotel suite, and her hospital bed was maybe King sized, with a curtain that could be drawn around it. She had a wall of mirrored closets and a seating area for about twenty people. No. I am not kidding.
We got there around seven in the morning, and within fifteen minutes, guests started arriving, all women, of course, come to give congratulations to the new Mom. Each came, greeted the new Mother, sat and drank a couple cups of coffee served by the delighted older daughters, greeted their friends, cousins and new arrivals, and then departed. Waves of guests arrived, and, thank God, waves of re-inforcing coffee pots.
So so different from our own customs, but today, oh, how I would love to fill a canister or two and be at the hospital sooner, rather than later, to greet the parents and to meet my new little lion-hearted grand-daughter, who insisted she would arrive when SHE wanted, LOL, not on schedule.
Here is the quilt I made for her:
And here is the guide to the colors; I bought the border five years ago:
When AdventureMan say it, he said “that doesn’t look like a baby quilt” because it is so black and white, but, if you have eyes to see, it isn’t all black and white, it also has shades of purple, fuchsia, and a celery Spring green. I made the center Kaleidoscope pieces with a variety of blacks and whites, because babies LOVE black and white, and it can fascinate them and calm them.
I call it “I See Things Differently” because no, it doesn’t look like a baby quilt, but it is very much a baby quilt, it just doesn’t meet our cultural expectations. The longer I live, the less I meet any one’s expectations, LOL!
Thanks be to God! Thanks be to God for the safe delivery of this precious baby!
God Laughs; Life’s Craziness
One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 2, which advises us to humbly submit to the will of Almighty God or suffer the consequences of our own actions. I’ve heard God laughing all week, sometimes at me, sometimes with me.
Psalm 2
1 Why do the nations conspire,
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and his anointed, saying,
3 โLet us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us.โ
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord has them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 โI have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.โ
7 I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, โYou are my son;
today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron,
and dash them in pieces like a potterโs vessel.โ
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear,
with trembling 12kiss his feet,*
or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Happy are all who take refuge in him.
I’m a planner. I figure out what I want, and then I figure out how to get it. When we decided we wanted to take a trip to Alaska, we booked – and paid – a year in advance to get the kind of room we wanted. We also planned to buy a new car, and started saving for that, being pay-cash kind of people.
Then, early in the year we discovered we were going to become grandparents to a granddaughter! She would arrive shortly after we get back from our Alaska trip.
This week, God laughed. The doctors told our son and his wife that she needed to go on bedrest, and that this baby will be coming early. All the grandparents have been helping with childcare through the summer, now we just ratcheted it up a notch.
Do you know why God gives children to YOUNG parents? LOL, a three year old has SO much energy! So much curiousity! We have such a good time with him and when at the end of the day, we return him to his parents – we need a nap!
We are also trying to pack and prepare for our trip, get the Qatari Cat prepared for the cat hotel, get the guest suite prepared for the people who will stay while we are gone, and oh yes, finish up the purchase of that new car.
I had thought the first week in August would be a snooze, isn’t it always? Those long, hot humid days hit Pensacola, often one of those violent and emotional thunderstorms that clears the air in the late afternoon, lazy day after lazy day, right?
Not this year. This year was fly to Seattle for my Mom’s 90th birthday celebration, fly back, take care of our grandson for a week, do whatever we can to help out our son and his wife while she is on bed rest, buy and sell two cars, do our normal volunteer work – oh, and we had scheduled two meetings at our house, so we had to be presentable, and have some delicious things available. I could hear God laughing.
In the midst of all this, we are healthy. We have a good roof over our heads. We have the means to get a new car and travel to Seattle for Mom’s birthday. We pre-paid much of the Alaska vacation. Our little grandson is happy, and strong, and articulate, and fun to be around. Our son and his wife are wonderful, loving parents, and hard workers, and are preparing for this sweet new arrival. God laughs, and we thank him for his abundant blessings, and his abundant patience with us thinking we have any control over the months that come. We pray for the safe and healthy arrival of this little granddaughter who may arrive while we are gone, for a safe delivery, and a speedy recovery for her mother, and for strength and courage for her father, our son, who is a valiant man. We welcome your prayers.
Family Culture Early Rising
There are some great things about being with family. You know how things are done. You know what people mean when they say things. You exchange ‘looks.’
When I am with my family, there are some funny things that make me feel at home. Both my sisters have smashing views, one looking southeast at Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier and the other at Puget Sound and the Olympics. Growing up on the side of a mountain with a view of water, game and mountains, it just feels ‘right.’ Not a lot of mountains in Florida to build a house on the side of. Or to view . . . sigh.
Staying at my sister’s house, I was the last one up. My body time was two hours earlier then all of theirs, but I was the last one up. They are early-to-rise people. I totally love it – for so many years, I’ve been an early riser living in countries where the day starts around noon and runs well past midnight . . . especially during Ramadan. In Kuwait, I took photos of the sunrises for this blog; my friends told me it was the only sunrise they ever saw, LOL.
Being around other early risers – aw, what a joy. As I left the house for the airport, Little Diamond was already up eating breakfast and I was able to hug her one last time before departing.
The photo above is the view of the I-90 bridge crossing Lake Washington in a cool, breezy pre-dawn.
Non-Essential State Department Personnel Ordered to Leave Yemen
I know, I know, it is not a funny headline. But here is the thing. People have egos. You might wonder why anyone would stay in the face of a threat so grave. It isn’t by coincidence that so many prisoners were busted out of prison – hundreds in Iraq, in Yemen, also if I remember correctly, in Pakistan.
These countries, under international understandings and agreements, provide security for one another’s embassies. Like WE provide security for the Saudi and the Yemeni and French diplomats in the United States. When a country suffers massive prison breaks, it is only prudent to wonder how well they might be able to protect international diplomats – it’s all security.
But – and here is why a very serious headline can make me laugh so early in the morning – who wants to be “non-essential?” I’ve lived through similar situations; people want to think themselves important – you would be surprised how many people will choose to stay, knowing the dangers, because they want to consider themselves “mission-essential”. ๐
WASHINGTON โ The State Department on Tuesday ordered non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen to leave the country following the threat by al-Qaida that has triggered temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Middle East and Africa.
The department said in a travel warning that it had ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel from Yemen “due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks” and said U.S. citizens in Yemen should leave immediately because of an “extremely high” security threat level.
“As staff levels at the Embassy are restricted, our ability to assist U.S. citizens in an emergency and provide routine consular services remains limited and may be further constrained by the fluid security situation,” the travel warning said.
The U.S. Embassy is located in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.
The State Department on Sunday closed a total of 19 diplomatic posts until next Saturday. They include posts in Bangladesh and across North Africa and the Middle East as well as East Africa, including Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius.
This is only an excerpt from AOL/Huffpost World News where you can read the rest of the story by clicking the blue type here.
Breath of Fresh Air in Seattle
Miss me?
I’ve been in Seattle for a truly grand event, my Mother’s 90th Birthday. She was queen for almost a week, with visitors and well wishers and a smashing party with friends and family and faces she has known and loved for years – many many people.
When I arrived in Seattle it was cool and cloudy and everyone told me how sad it was that I had missed the glorious weather they have had for weeks. Coming in from the airport I was shocked to see all the scorched grass; it looked more like California than green green Seattle.
I wasn’t sad to miss the warm sunshine at all. I have all of that I need in Pensacola. What I loved, from the moment I arrived, was the fresh air.
Seattle smells good. Seattle smells like mown grass, and flowers, lush flowers everywhere. Youcan drive with your windows open. I slept with my window open, and when it got COLD in the middle of the night, I used a BLANKET! This is the best luxury for me, cool weather, fresh air, cool breezes, even a little thunder and lightning and rain.
The days were warm and sunny, and the nights were cool and fresh. I was in heaven.
It wasn’t that I forgot about you – I have all kinds of material – but blogging with the iPad just doesn’t work for me. It’s fine for picking up e-mail and checking the news and playing a game or two, but it isn’t a real computer, with real capabilities. If blogging gets to technical, I’m not going to do it, life is too short. I love WordPress for making life so easy, making it so easy to put in all the photos I want, easy easy easy. I just had too much going on, and didn’t have time to fiddle. The iPad just doesn’t do it for me. I wish I had a computer small enough to just stuff in my purse like the iPad, I wish I didn’t have to pull the computer out of my purse, like the iPad. The iPad is convenient, better than slogging a lot of books on the plane with me, but . . . What I really want is an iPad sized computer . . .
Home again, on the flight in the pilots must have mentioned the heat and humidity in Pensacola six times. Ahhh . . . .for those sweet cool breezes and cool nights . . .
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