You Always Want What You Can't Have

It starts innocently enough. Sometimes it starts as simply letting someone know that you are hungry. Next, you begin to describe what you would eat if you were able to eat anything you wanted. Before you know it, it’s out of control. You are describing mouth-watering meals, foods you can’t have, and drinks that aren’t allowed. It’s dirty. It’s wrong.

The conversation on the ride home from campus usually goes something like this:

Cory: “I’m hungry.”
Jill: “Me too.”
Emily: “Oh my gosh…you know what sounds so good??? A burger from Mike’s.”
Cory: “Mmmm…I love burgers. I want some chip and dip with my burger. I could eat the crap out of some chips and dip right now.”
Jill: “Me too. I love chips and salsa. And queso made with Velvetta…in fact, I could just eat the Velvetta plain and be happy.”
Emily: “You know what goes good with burgers, chips, and dip? Chocolate. Like a flipping pound of it.”

It’s not to say that we can’t get the food we want because we can. At least once a week, we stop at the Sultan Center where we can get our fix of Old El Paso items, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, or even the biggest jar of Pace Picante Sauce you can find. The Sultan Center is the westernized grocery store, and it’s about two or three blocks from AUK. They have a great variety of fruits and vegetables, and pretty much any name brand food we can get in the US. BUT…we still talk about food. All the time! I think that we all have an idea of the first meal we are going to have once we get back. Right now, I’m thinking about Mexican food. I have to stop. This could get out of hand.

People have been asking what I have been eating. For the most part, I’ve been eating the same as I would in Blacksburg. I’ve been trying to eat as much vegetables as possible, and Justin bought a 5KG bag of rice, so we’ve had lots of rice. I’ve only eaten out twice. The first was at a place that I’ll call “Panera-ish”. It was pretty tasty. Then, the director of the writing program at AUK took us out to eat at an Indian/Chinese restaurant. I had “chunky beef” and rice. We also had some excellent hummus. The meal was great! There are plenty of familiar restaurants, but they are much more expensive than they are in the states, so we’ve avoided them. But, we are planning a trip to “Taco Time” in the near future.

Our latest eating adventure came last night. All along the streets there are small shops that have a rotisserie out front cooking chickens. We’ve driven by them and commented on how good the chicken looked, but for some reason, we’ve been hesitant to try them. I mean, seriously, who wants to get salmonella from an undercooked chicken from a street vendor in Kuwait? BUT, our new friend Kevin tried one the other evening and said it was amazing. So after we got home from campus, the five of us took off in the search for chicken. Surprisingly, there was a shop less than block away from our apartment building! For 2.5 KD, we got two whole chickens, some pita bread, and a spinach salad. They were amazing! I think I could eat a chicken everyday for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And the best news is that, at this point, no one has been visibly ill.

Not only do we talk all the time about food, but now we’ve started to talk about technology. Yes, there is still no Internet at the apartment even though they told us “three more days” about six days ago. We joke about spending too much time on Skype, texting each other, or checking for things online. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but we are pretty funny.

Students at AUK
I wasn’t really sure what the students at AUK would be like. I hoped they would be very similar to the students that I have taught in the past, and I can say they pretty much are. There are a few differences though. The students at AUK are some of the best dressed and accessorized I’ve ever seen. They are very conscious about how they look, and it is pretty evident. The girls in my class carry designer purses and wear designer sunglasses. They LOVE their Blackberries! Even the boys on campus look much different than boys in America and are much different than the boys on campus at VT. I told Justin and Jill that I felt like we needed to print off the Armani logo and tape to our shirts for the first day of class. Maybe then, we’d look like we fit in. Let’s not even talk about the cars that they drive. Now, I can’t be sure, but I’m betting of the students in my class, we’ll have several Mercedes, BMWs, maybe an Toyota FJ or two, and probably several other SUVs. I can’t wait to get out to the parking lot and take a picture of the variety of kinds of cars.

Before I got here, I was curious as to how my students would dress. I was assuming that most of my students would be Muslim, and I thought that most would wear traditional Muslim attire. In my class, I have a mixture. Around a quarter of my students do not wear any of the traditional dress. If you were to put them in a room with Americans, the only way you would be able to tell who was from Kuwait would be to listen to them talk. Around half of my students wear a hijab. The hijab is a headscarf that covers their hair and neck. But, their headscarf is still quite trendy and colorful and most also wear big sunglasses. One or two students wear an abaya, which is a black, long sleeved floor-length robe. I have not seen many students at AUK that wear a burqa, which also covers the face. No matter what they are wearing, they are very well dressed, and I can tell they take pride in their appearance.

Aside from the obvious differences or similarities, I will venture to say that my students are very eager to learn. They are very, very polite (excuse me, Mr. Professor) and they even raise their hands when they want to talk. I’ve been teaching just as I would if I was teaching American students, and they are responding nicely. The first time we did a “teach back” they weren’t quite sure about it, but they ended up doing an excellent job and seemed to enjoy it.

Our first presentation is on Thursday, and I am anxious to see how that goes. I’ll report this weekend.

Other items
The Dunkin’ Donuts is still making progress. They’ve put a door in the new sheet rock they have put up. I’m sure that in no time, I’ll be getting my fill of delicious donuts fresh out of the oven. Okay, that was sarcasm. I hope it is ready for the people that come next year.

We got a cell phone today. When we got to thinking about it, it probably isn’t a good idea that we have NO means of communicating with anyone once we leave campus. The director of the writing program was pretty concerned and suggested we see if we could get one. The university hooked us up. We have one phone for our entire group, and we were explicitly informed it only makes local calls. Good thing Pizza Hut and Papa Johns are local. We even programmed the number for the US Embassy…just in case.

We finished season one of Weeds. Wow. Good stuff. Between our chickens and the four episodes of Weeds we watched (including the season one finale), yesterday was a big day!

My brother asked me the other day if what I missed most from home. I’ve come up with some items: curtains/blinds on my bedroom window, a full-size washer and dryer, English speaking TV channels, and my coffee pot. Other than that, all is well at the Amman Street roundabout.