Heavy Heart: Police Dog Auction
In today’s Kuwait Times is an ad from the Ministry of Interior offering “28 Trained Police Dogs” for Auction on June 3rd.
Everyone knows there are clandestine dog fights here, where animals are goaded to fight until deeply injured and killed. This is not a dog-friendly culture. Dogs starve here all the time, are hit, beaten, abandoned, stoned, maimed, tortured by children and adults.
The thought of who might buy these dogs and the purposes they might be put to makes my heart heavy. Worse. It makes my stomach heave.
Working dogs do what they are trained to do. The work hard. They served Kuwait! They deserve a good retirement.
Saved by a Scream
This woman had a close call. I am re-assured that the family was taking her to Saudi Arabia to kill her; it implies that the climate in Kuwait does not support honor killings. Another tidbit from the Arab Times:
Screams help officers thwart bid to kill girl for soiling family name
KUWAIT CITY : The Saudi immigration officers manning the Al-Riqei border post are said to have reportedly foiled an attempt by an unidentified GCC family to kill their daughter to save their honor, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
According to a security source the parents with the daughter and another sibling traveled to Salmi post and to prevent the ‘victim’ from screaming for help the family’s relative who allegedly works at the post hurried through the process of stamping the passports to help the family cross into Saudi Arabia as the family waited in their car.
When the girl reached the Saudi border post she screamed for help and told the immigration officers that her father planned to kill her.
The family was temporarily detained at the post until the Saudi authorities contacted the authorities in Kuwait. After the family was returned to Kuwait under guard, the relative who helped them at the Salmi post was arrested and detained for interrogation.
The daily said it is a case of ‘honor killing’. The girl was reportedly involved in an affair with an unidentified youth inside an apartment in Salmiya and she became pregnant.
Meanwhile, the Al-Anba daily added, when the girl was in police custody the brother grabbed his younger sister and threatened to shoot her in front of the building of the Criminal Investigations Department.
He was demanding the release of his other sister who was caught having fun with the youth inside an apartment after a missing person report was filed against her.
A police sniper shot the man in the arm and rescued the younger sibling.
I can’t imagine her life will be easy, if she is pregnant, unmarried, and has a family who wants her dead. I can’t imagine that Kuwait has social services that can help her negotiate a path. Life will be difficult, but it sure beats what was about to happen to her in Saudi Arabia.
Jeep Mercy
I guess the guy felt sorry for me and was giving me a special treat. I always get just a small car, as long as it has four doors. Sometimes they give me something sporty, sometimes something clunky. Sometimes I take them back and say “this car doesn’t drive very well, I want something else” and they give me something else.
When he told me where the car was, I asked “what did you give me.” He grinned and said “You’ll like it; it’s a silver Jeep. I was thinking Jeep like a BIG YUKON kind of thing, but when I saw it, it is Jeep like the size of a Toyota Rav 4, and I really love silver.
On the other hand, I truly hate travelling for 24 hours straight and then getting into a strange car and driving for about an hour on Seattle’s congested freeways at going home time.
I think he felt sorry for me because when he entered my driver’s license it was DECLINED! It had expired! Thank God I had another one, a lifetime license from another country, but I have to run down to tomorrow and get a new Washington State one. I was SO embarrassed.
(Seattle is heartwrenchingly beautiful at this time of the year; blue skies, huge showy rhodedendrons in bloom, it is just gorgeous)
Here is what I saw: congestion congestion congestion – Seattle has outgrown the highways built many years ago. Potholes, bad spots in the pavement, accidents waiting to happen. Oh wait! These are the same things I complain about in Kuwait!
One thing you will NEVER hear me complain about in Kuwait – People in Seattle just drive SO slow. Penalties for speeding and penalties for accidents you cause are so huge, so severe, and people are stultifyingly SLOW!
How We See Things in Kuwait
AdventureMan and I have an ongoing discussion over the cell phone ban while driving in Kuwait. I see people pulled over to the side of the road, at traffic circles, along the major north/south routes, pulled over in complicated neighborhoods. I love to see them – many are using their hands to help understand the directions, waving left, then straight, then left again – it warms my heart.
AdventureMan, on the other hand, he who loves the efficiency of being able to do two things at the same time, drive and do business or talk to me, says he sees people all the time using their cell phones while they are driving.
So I think we are seeing what we want to see.
He kids me, as I track diwaniyyas, where they used to be, those still being dismantled. Friends are telling me that they can now see around dangerous corners where someone had built an illegal little cabin for their driver to sleep in, trees and foliage have been cut back, neighborhoods have a new look. I find it exciting – obeying the law can be tough, it can be inconvenient, and the temptation in all of us is to say “it’s a great law for them, but it doesn’t apply to me.”
AdventureMan scowls when he has to obey a law that he doesn’t think should apply to him. I say scowling is OK, as long as you do it. There are times I am tempted to skirt the law, but this blog keeps me honest – how does it look if I’m always talking about law and order, and then I choose to break the law, too? Having a child keeps you honest – when you face temptation, you know those little eyes are watching you, and it gives you that little extra boost to make the right choice.
Pearls mentioned she thinks people are sticking closer to the speed limits with the new fines in force, and that the roads are much more enjoyable these days. I agree, with one exception, and that is when traffic slows on the major north/south roads, there are still those idiots who use the emergency lanes to get to the front of the line. We need some BIG fines for those guys.
Last but not least, my Co-op seems to be enforcing the no parking in the handicapped section once again, thanks be to God. The poor manager, I keep going in and telling him that “big strong men” should not be using those spots. He keeps thinking I want the spot and I laugh and say no, I am a strong woman and I can walk, but what about the heavily pregnant woman with her five children, or the old man with his walker or cane, or the one with emphysema.
Finally, I suggested that he have grocery packers assigned to watch, and to run out and insist on assisting anyone who parks there, a special service for the handicapped. Sometimes you can accomplish with kindness what you can’t hope to accomplish with signs and harsh words. Whatever he has chosen to do, it appears to be working, people are not parking in the handicapped spots. 🙂
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on A Lawless, Authoritarian … Kuwait Someday on A Lawless, Authoritarian … intlxpatr on Oh Thank You, Amazon! Rivergirl on Oh Thank You, Amazon! intlxpatr on Give to Those Who Ask Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 