"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
--Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Colorado Cuz sent this quote to me this summer while I was preparing to depart for the Middle East Adventure Series. I've saved it, thought of it often and today it seems to fit.
First a word about transportation in Kuwait. There is a bus service, but we aren't brave enough to figure out how it works. Now that we have our Civil IDs, we could purchase a car but again we aren't brave enough to figure out how this works either. So we either rely on friends with Cars (FWC) or we take a taxi.
Now there are two types of taxi drivers here (in my humble opinion). The kind that you can depend on and the kind that try to take advantage of you. (Just for the record, I don't think this is unique to Kuwait). We have our dependable drivers-Robin a kind, gentle Indian man who has lived here for 30 years driving taxi and Mohammed, an energetic, make things happen kind of dude. They are who we most often call if we have long distances or are going somewhere where we want to make sure we arrive safely.
Today David, CC (another newbie) and I were out shopping at the Friday Market picking up a few good deals and we decided that it was time for one more stop. Because taxis are generally cheap here and because we had packages from shopping, we hailed a taxi in line and had him take us literally around the big corner (maybe 3/4 mile) to the Iranian souk. The taxi driver (a scary looking man in the first place) tried to charge us 3 x the fee we should have paid. David (who is, as you all know a very calm person) ended up yelling at the man "Drive me back to the place where you picked me up and I will walk here for free instead of pay you that amount" (for the record, I leapt out of the cab right away so he couldn't hold me hostage!) The taxi driver ended up throwing the money back in our faces and leaving (well, excuse me!)
So we were a little leary when it was time to take a taxi home.And of course we had aquired more packages including a beautiful, inlaid, hand-carved set of stacking tables from India that cost me about a day's wages. We stood out on the road and David said, "Wouldn't it be our Karma if we got the same taxi driver again?" (no-we didn't) We held up our hands to hail a taxi and lo and behold this white little Toyota pickup pulls up along the road and asks "Would you like a ride?" We said sure (after double checking how much) We agreed on the price and hop in. As we were hopping into the pickup, a real taxi pulls up behind us. For a moment I was afraid there was going to be a fistfight but the taxi driver stayed in his car.
As we're cruisin' along the highway, I slowly realize that we are in this guy's pickup--he's not even a taxi cab driver! We don't know him from "Mohammed" yet we've trusted ourselves (and my new very nice inlaid, hand carved tables!) with this person. Thinking he could speak English well, I asked him where he was from and he didn't respond. Okay, I thought, now we're going to die because he's not speaking to us. So I asked David (who was in the front seat) to ask him where he was from.
Oh-an important part of this story is that as we are cruising down the 4th Ring Road (very very busy this time of day) I am telling our friend CC that Ben will be heading to Iraq in February and I hope he doesn't get hurt, etc. And so when our new Best Friend (as in the one whose driving skills were controlling my life's outcome at the moment) says "I am from Iraq"--I just froze. Surely I thought, we have seen the end of our lives.
Later on, David started a conversation and it turns out the driver thought we were German (so he probably didn't even hear the conversation--or else he was pretending). When he found out we were American he smiled and said "OBAMA!! Good Job!"
We smiled and our smiles grew even wider when he said "Bush-finish". We may be on opposite sides, but on this issue we are united.
Now I will tell you that Mohammed, my faithful Tuesday evening Taxi driver (he takes me to sailing lessons) is also from Iraq. His english is pretty good. We have many conversations about how our countries are fighting and how neither of us really understands what is going on. I told him that Ben would be going there in February and he said basically the same thing my Muslim aquaintances have said to me ("God will protect him").
Now, lest you think I've gone totally "PollyannaWacko" over here in the sun, I'm not naive enough to state that a taxi driver and a teacher should be solving world problems, but I think it would make a difference if those in charge could sit down together and talk things over without all the hubbub and fanfare and posturing and machismo and whatever else is involved. I don't understand War, I never will.
All I'm saying is that now that I've gotten out of my "own little corner of the world" (above quote), I have made connections with people who are supposed to be "the enemy". And they have been good encounters. Maybe we should stick world leaders in a taxi and let them drive around Kuwait for a while. They wouldn't need to go on a battle field to see their life flash before their eyes, that could be accomplished in one 20 minute taxi ride here!
BTW, the image at the top of this post is a "Bedouin Redneck mobile" (what our friends call the lil' pickups) with a couple camels in the back. I have yet to see a camel although I know they are here (someone recently told me it's too cold for them to be out in the desert so they are now in tents..THAT (to quote my friend HC) would be bloggable!
I thought the picture was cute. Although, it wouldn't surprise me if I do one day see a camel in the back of a pickup. Anything is possible in Kuwait!
