Damn I Wish I'd taken that-Part 2

A while ago, I posted an entry with this title and also some fabulous pictures that, quite frankly, I "wish I'd taken".

Last night, I wish I'd had a CAMERA with me to TAKE THE PHOTO of what I witnessed. Sometimes life is too darn precious and funny. As I've said for years, "Fact is Stranger than anything you can make up".

So, as I tell my students, ""put on your imagination hats and picture this"...

I'm in my favorite taxi (the BFFs vehicle) and we're in "Old Kuwait City", a place that is, duh, older than the modern part. Construction is everywhere as they attempt to rebuild, or construct apartment/office buildings. As stated, the national bird of Q8 is the construction crane.

All of a sudden, we look to our left and we see a HUGE crane lifting a huge backhoe AND THERE IS A GUY UNDERNEATH IT guiding it with a rope. Seriously. There are four giganitnormous chains around this backhoe, it's lifted at least 10 feet in the air, hoisted up by this HUGER CRANE and it's being moved 90 degrees. I'm not sure why it wasn't just driven over there--literally it was ike picking up a toy in the sandbox with your right hand and placing it by your left hand. AND AGAIN THERE WAS SOMEONE WALKING UNDERNEATH IT guiding it. We watched in awe (and fear that we would see the too real site of a Squished Kuwaiti).

And me without a camera.

The construction "rules" here are amazing, or should I say the LACK of rules. Surely, OSHA has never made it across the OSH-EAN. Construction works stand on scaffolding or rather (and I've seen this a number of times) boards tied together with ropes. Stories and stories in the air and all they're standing on it something that looks like my 6th grade class put it together.
(and they ain't too careful, trust me!) There are no hard hats, no safety harnesses, no yellow vests, no steel toed boots. I think they must sell steel toed sandles--at least that's what these guys have on.

I'll start carrying my camera and see if I can capture the moment. At least I'll make sure there isn't a crane above my head before I take the photo.

While the hilarity of this scene stays with me, so does the reality. Just 20 minutes earlier, as we sat in the Outdoors in the Old Souk (Market) eating a lovely meal, we were approached by a young man from Palestine who showed us his injuries and was asking for money. He'd been injured in a construction accident, and, as there's no insurance or workman's comp (things we just take for granted in North America), he was reduced to begging. It was sad. This was no scam, he truly was injured and unable to work. He flashed through my head as I watched the crane swinging in the air.

So many times, in North America, I have bitched about regulations, rules, safety seminars etc. No longer, The ability to even have rules, guidelines and regulation is being added to my ever-growing list of "THINGS THAT ARE TAKEN FOR GRANTED BY NORTH AMERICANS list. Unfortunately, the list is quite long and I've only been here 3 months.