She got in her little silver car after a long exhausting day at the office. Already late for her lunch and nap time because of work, she sluggishly pulled out of the parking and onto the traffic light. This traffic light in particular is the worst one she ever stood for, for it takes almost five minutes until it lights up again. Eye-lids drooping dangerously, she feared she might fall asleep on the ride back home so she forced herself to listen to the noisy radio station, cranking up the volume as high as she could. Read more »
There was a block of houses, all white and modern and lovely, being built in our neighbourhood close to our apartment. I passed by everyday, thinking to myself how beautiful they were and how, if one day I ever get to build a house of my own, I’d love to have one just like those. The construction on the houses was finally complete a few months back, a ‘for rent’ sign was put over them for a few days, and then the tragic transformation began. Read more »
This question have been circulating in my mind for quite sometime now. What makes a good blogger? Owning a Read more »
Since 3/4 of Kuwait are now on instagram, I’m sure all of you had encountered the infamous, most annoying comment of last week: Please like 9orat el3o6or ele eb profily.
Dear companies, we realize that the use of Social media outlets have been great for your business. I personally salute you for being modern and on trend. I don’t blame you for holding out competitions at all but please, for the love of god, I beg of you DO NOT have competitions where people with the most number of likes win. PLEASE!
First, its unfair. Some pictures are truly horrible, simply an eyesore that lacks any creativity. Yet horrible pictures win because the person who submitted it is either very popular, have a huge extended family, or simply a shameless beggar who would stop at nothing to harass people, over an over and over and OVER again, for a like.
Why don’t you choose the best pictures yourself? Its not hard, gather the pictures, have 3-4 people from your management vote on them and announce the winners instead of having us, the poor instragrammers, ruing the day you have decided to hold a competition and counting the day until the competition is up.
And you, you beggars, have you no shame? No dignity? Really wallah? You think your horrible picture deserves to win what exactly? A bottle of perfume? Can’t you go and buy it yourself? Its not a Rolls Royce, or a Park Lane penthouse. Have you no regards to other people’s feeling? A bottle of perfume is the price for your own dignity, now that’s it?
If you’ve been annoyed by those instragrammers asking for votes, don’t be shy let it out here.
My husband bid me good buy and went out to meet his friend on Sunday night. I put the news on and snuggled into my warm bisht at home. A few minutes had passed when, at 9:05 PM, an urgent pounding came on Read more »
Yesterday evening we were sitting outdoors in our tiny corridor/make shift tiny garden. Drinking tea and enjoying the post rain weather when a white car pulls out in front of us in the street and the driver honks to grab our attention while Read more »
I had planned on spending a nice quiet Thursday evening at my new apartment alone. My husband went out to meet a friend of his. I had put on a nice DVD “The Lake House”, Settled in on the couch browsing 6alabat trying to place an order for dinner from Salad Boutique, put the iPhone away and on silent when suddenly I heard a knock on my door.
Just so you can get a picture of how invasive the encounter I am about to till you is, I have to describe my new apartment. Its a ground floor apartment with a little yard and a metal gate that we keep closed -but not locked-. In order to open it you need to extend your hand inside the gate and open the latch. Then you have to walk about 3 meters until you reach the front door. The front door has two big windows that we keep covered with a curtain.
Anyways, I heard the knock and I was startled. Who would be visiting me unannounced? I wasn’t expecting anyone and my husband has just left -and he has a key!-.
I get dressed quickly, opened the door a crack, and peered out. A young woman in her mid 20’s wearing a 3baya who didn’t look like a Kuwaiti. She spoke perfect Kuwaiti though and asked me about “How are you living here?” and “How much is your rent?” and “whose the owner of the building because I want to move flats”! She even had the audicty to tell me that “You are showing through your curtains by the way, but I thought I am a woman and you are a woman so its ok!!!!”
Excuse me?
How on earth does someone have the nerve to extends his own hand through the metal gate of someone’s house, push open the gate, walk all the way to the front door, and peer in through “the curtains?” but think its OK because she saw a woman sitting innocently in her own living room and she is a woman fa its OK?
How dare you stand there after you trespassed through my yard and opened my gate and peered through my windows to interrogate me about my living arrangements?
Is this normal? Could she possibly be a woman who was simply too curious o overly malgoofa? Or did she have another agenda in mind? Like check the place out and come back for another visit?
And how could I have been so stupid? How could I open the door to this stranger who simply had no boundaries and no shame? What if she had others hiding with her and they grabbed me? Or pushed through me to the apartment?
After I curtly answered her quesions and asked her to go ask my next door neighbors I locked the door and adjuted the curtains. Heart pounding I almost hit myself for my stupidity! When I told my husband he was furious! He said I had no business opening the door to a strange woman who just opened our gate and trespassed through to interrogate us.
Should I be more careful? It didn’t occur to me before. I’ve heard -and seen- crazy women who would barge in houses pretending to be a neighbor and ask about money but even those women rang the bell properly! No one ever had the guts to just wander inside our yard like that!
So what am I going to do? 1- Get a “Beware of the Dog” sign and hang it on the metal gate. 2- Lock the gate for good and 3- Look for a self defense martial arts class 4- Visit the shooting range more often and look into getting permits to owning a gun for such occasions!
Needless to say my evening was tainted with fear and incredulousity! I wonder if I should have called the police for her instead?
Have you ever encountered something similar before? What would you have done?
Its unbelievable! If the AC is off you are sweating and the air is stifling hot. When you turn the AC slightly on you feel comforted in two minutes then you are freezing cold. You turn it off again and your are hot all over again, you open it and you are freezing again!
Even in the car! You turn the AC on and your freezing. You open the windows and its okish but the dust will smother you. You close the window and the AC and you are suffocating.
I think the most used Kuwaiti phrase in March is “9ekkaw eltakyeef, ba6law eltakyeef! 9ekooooh bard! Ba6loooooh 7ar moot!” Then they complain that people take a lot of fake sick leaves! Guess what? I am always sick in February and March!
I hate March!
Ever since I could remember I have seen this horrible ugly chair in Kuwaiti homes. I’ve always hated it and thought it was the ugliest thing ever. Who cares if its comfortable? Who care that it can arch its back and extend its legs? Who cares if its called a lazy boy and is intended for the man of the house to sit on it like its a throne?
Its ugly. Its horrible. It goes with absolutely nothing. I used to banish it to Bu Tootee’s office room but now there is no space for it hence the only place it can be displayed is my very own precious living room!!! Its ruining everything! Every time I look over and see it I want to cry! I want it out of the house, plain and simple. But the man won’t let go. You would think I was asking him to give up a kid for adoption! He made it even uglier by putting a back massage device on it :'(
Do you suffer from the same horrible piece of furniture sitting in your living rooms? Do you have any ideas on how to mask its horribleness or turn it into something less of an eye sore? Would you be willing to break into the house and steal only it and I will give you a 150 KD for that?
Hmph.
1- Even though the elections are held in schools there is absolutely no where to park because the school parking is sealed off! Laish y3ni? Not everyone can afford a driver you know!
2- The crowds! Especially given that elections happen inside schools. The way these women fight to enter the election room in that school vividly takes me back to maq9af fighting days. No respect for a queue whatsoever and they demand political reform. 3aib Wallah.
3- Elsha66a elzayda in the women or girls who come up to you as you are going to the elections room and they scream “Flan Al-Flany remember haa” or “3lanata el3lantany mo tensain!” EXCUSE ME!? Do you think that I came to the elections center without thinking about who to elect? Do you think that because you, a complete stranger, reminded me of the existence of someone in the elections that I will vote for him or her? Leave me alone! For the love of god leave me alone and go harass someone else! Wj3!
4- El emkhozar. I don’t get why I need to get dressed up to vote especially given I will be waiting a long time on my feet. I know khezny o akhezik is Kuwaiti’s favorite activity but can’t you for one day in your life control yourselves and realize elections doesn’t really need to be accessorized with loubies and berkins?5-
5- Searching for raqam elqaid! I dont remember what that is, I got so nervous at the thought of having to memorize it I almost forgot it!
6- The hushy hush feeling inside the elections room. I always get nervous and scared whenever I am inside. I always feel like I will do something terribly wrong. Madry laish?
7- When you are handed the paper, the names are all printed out closely together and you suddenly lose the gifts of sight and memory. Last time I had trouble finding the people I was voting for
8- This year they had chipped wooden chairs for us to sit on while waiting our turn. Whenever someone goes inside we all had to slide down musical chairs style. If you are not careful your beautiful knit cos blouse will catch on the shards of the chair and bye bye blouse!!!
9- When you are done and while you are walking out no one talks to you, no one looks at you and no one even offers you a cup of water! Masra3 ma nesaytona!
10- In the next few months when you read the newspapers and realize that you did nothing at all to change our politics and therefore our future. That you’ve been fed long and wide dreams and that nothing is going to change.That is the worst thing about the elections ever 
When you are minding your own business lost in whatever you are doing, then hear your iPhone bleeping with the sound of a mention in Twitter. You open it and you find several mentions from several followers telling you that someone you don’t know is on some TV channel, then asking you to “Please Retweet”?
Excuse me?
Oh so you know how to use the word please eh? Now wait a minute. Who on earth do you think you are telling me to retweet something? Eb amarat shino? Do you understand how twitter work? Do you know me? Do you know my political interests? Do I care about that man on TV? How DARE YOU ask me to retweet about him? 3la ay asas? Do you think by adding the world please baste7e o basawee retweet? o ana shako feeh?
Eb kaif mino ana asawe retweet? Eb kaifi. Why do I retweet something? If I like it, or think its important some how according to my own set of rules and likings, then I will retweet it out of my OWN FREE WILL! You have no right, absolutely no right, in asking me to retweet about anyone. You do NOT own me. All right?
I am not liking Twitter at the moment. Bad layout. Too many creeps, too many politics, too many people coming in for the first time and lecturing us about “what to tweet and what’s not”, and too many people thinking they have the right over you to tweet or retweet whatever you want. I miss Twitter back in 2009 when there was a handful of tweeps you knew and you could rant or spill out your life and you’d still be anonymous. 7safa 3la twitter wallah :'(
Does privacy mean squat to people in Kuwait?
If you know me, and I trust you enough with my phone number or any other personal details that doesn’t give you the right to act on my behalf and distribute it to other people. If anyone asks you about my phone number for any reason on earth, you should first contact me, let me know that flana X wants your number, and then give out my number after MY APPROVAL!
I am getting weird calls and calls from numbers I’ve never known in my life giving me lectures on who to vote to! When you are given a phone number it comes with a certain amount of trust that you will keep it private, its the unspoken rule.
From now on I am not going to answer any strange numbers that are not saved in my phone book. Period. I repeat again: If you have my phone number then its a sign that I trust you to keep it private. It is NOT for local -or global- distribution. Full Stop.
Have you ever given out someone’s number without checking with them first? Have your number ever given to someone you don’t want to talk to by someone else? Doesn’t that make your blood boil?
I was trying to read something in Wikipedia when all of a sudden this black page comes on and won’t budge! What legislation? What happened? I thought the politic turmoil was concentrated in the Middle East? Has it reached the USA and effecting the internet?!
I am already imagining life with limited internet and I am panicking! What is going on? I don’t want to read on and on of political rubbish. If you can explain it simply to me please do. Should we do something? If it is a US legislation thing can our voices be heard? If not then it is totally unfair for our voices to be cast away when when a decision like that is going to effect every single human being using the internet on the planet!
Bel Q8y elfa9e7: Shel Salfa? Tra mo nag9een!
OK for some reason this post keeps erasing its contents. Let me rewrite it again.
I read somewhere that a worked from a supermarket had collapsed and died from meningitis. Meningitis is basically a disease that effects the thing that covers the brain and the spinal cord and is very dangerous. Now I am not one to Read more »
1- The odor! Its like being wrapped like a mummy in bandages made of cheap wet wipes for hours on end!
2- The reclining seat in front of you that suddenly blocks your airway when the person occupying it decides he wants to be comfortable.
3- The tiny bathrooms with the noisiest flush on earth that scares the hell out of you and the sneaky door locks that I can never figure out.
4- The fact that there are no trash bins and you are stuck with your own trash for the entire journey g63.
5- Babies screaming bloody murder in every single flight that takes off on planet earth. Can’t there be a baby free flight? Or seats or zones?
6- The seat trays! Useful yes but the plastic used to make them is ugly and if they are dirty they would be so disgusting you just want to kill your self!
7- Turbulences. They scare me. They always happen and when they do I am almost reduced to the point where my entire life plays in front of my eyes. I hate them.
8- The annoying safety videos played in the very beginning which you must pay attention complete with the emergency exit signs. We have them memorized by heart! And frankly after watching LOST I doubt anyone would be organized in case of emergency!
9- When you order a vegetarian meal and they mistake you for a goat and fill your tray with every kind of unidentifiable green produce available to munch on! What’s wrong with Spaghetti and tomato sauce?
10- When your watching a movie, if you are lucky to have your entertainment screen working that is, and they keep interrupting the program to announce something over and over again in every spoken language known to man kind on planet earth until you forget what you were watching all together and the whole movie is ruined for you!
May god help me for I am boarding a plane back home tonight. Happy new year every one. See you tomorrow back home insah2 Allah 😀
Lets say that there is a movie that you’ve been waiting forever to see. Its finally released, you finally get tickets, You make it to the movie just in time for it to begin. The theater is booked full. You are equipped with your favorite snack and drink. The show begins.
Suddenly… there is something tingling around your nostrils. An odor so bad it fills your eyes with tears as you suffocated trying to gulp for air. Its from the person sitting right next to you. They smell horrible, they must have just cooked their lunch and come. Something garlicy and spicy and very smelly indeed.
Then the odor intensifies. There is a newer odor. Something temporarily but lethal coming from the same person. You rue the day you came to sit in this chair watching this damn movie for one and a half hours. You want to leave but then you have to convince people to leave with you. You will lose your tickets. You might not have a chance to come back and watch this movie you really want to watch. Yet at the same time you are dying slowly and you no longer follow the plot of the movie because you are busy trying to breathe for your life.
So what did I do? Cursing, I wrapped my entire face except my eyes with my 7ejab which is scented with dehen oud. Even though I was fully wrapped my neighbour’s “temporarily” odors kept creeping back into my nostrils. Bloody hell!
What would you do if you were in the same situation and if leaving the movie was not an option? Tell her off? Ask the management to kick her out? Bring a mask just in case? Even nachos do suffocate people sometimes… good grief!
Fee Kalemat min asm3ha or agraha I get a mini nervous break down. 99% of people use it, like it, and think nothing of it. Keifkom of course I am just stating that these are words that get on my nerves when I encounter them.
1- 9a3roora. Otherwise known as a bump on the head. It makes me visualize a balloon filled with puss that is about to burst at any moment.
2- Na63a. I always imagine it with a smack of the lips. Ma a7ebha! 7arf el6a2 ma3a el3ain wayed ethqaal feha!
3- 3an jadd. I don’t mind it much when ra’3eb 3lama sings it. I hate it o cannot stand it when its used in a Kuwaiti jomla. 7alat.ha used by ahal el sham only!
4- Fedaitik/Fedaitich. Still around, still being used, still thaqelat 6eena. Ya rait people move on to another habba word ya rait!
5- 9aba7oo. 9aba7oo shino b3d? Min a7ad ygool 9ba7oo wedi at.hawash wyah!
6- Ambaih. Especially if said by a fake daloo3a! Yobooooy!
7- Foogah. Foog what exactly? Shelle foogah b3d? Qatheetha!
8- Chillaxing. Kills me. I don’t know what is it about the word that makes me go crazy but it does. Ma a7ebha!
9- Qaz Baz. A q8y name for some medical condition. I always visualize the blue gaz tank and smell H2SO4 whenever I hear it. Urgh!
10- Ta’3reeda. I want to rip my hair out whenever I listen to someone refer to a tweet by ta’3reeda or to a tweep by mo’3ared. Wayed heligiya eb9ara7a, mo eshwaya!
I first noticed this 7ejab style when I was in the airport this last Eid holiday. A Kuwaiti lady with her children were rushing in to check into their flight and she had this look. Its not the turban look no. Its a cotton 7ejab wrapped exactly like every one else except that its folded at each ear in a way that the entire ear shows. Of course on each ear lobe there was a huge gleaming earring. Showing the earrings is the purpose of this look after all.
I dismissed it as one lady with that look. But then over the Eid holidays in the malls I’ve seen more and more women wearing that exact same 7ejab style! Cotton, covering everything except the two ears peeking from below the two folds on the side, and huge earrings to decorate the ear lobes, reminding me of the old song in fereej el3atawiya “Tarchiya weya Tarchiya 9arat Tarachee el sha3biya!!!”.
The look is weird and I don’t like it. I’d rather people stick with their turbans if they wish to show off their ears. O ykon a7san if they take off that little piece of cloth and toss it somewhere else. Ya tet7ajeboon 3adel ya malah da3i hal halagat.
Next thing we’ll see is two horns peeking min t7t el7jab. Y3ni new look!
If you are a Twilight fan you would know that the 18th of November is the worldwide release of the first part of the last film in the series. You would also be counting the days and thinking that in 3 days time you will be able to go to your nearest cinema, purchase a ticket, and watch the movie with the rest of the fans on the planet.
The only problem is, even though Cinescape has shown all the previous installments of Twilight, they have decided not to show thing one. They have tweeted about it today. Why? For the love of god WHY!
Is it banned? Most likely it is. WHY! What is there that is worth banning? I’ve read the book THREE TIMES already! There is nothing in the book that is sooo different that the previous books and absolutely nothing worth banning. Let me get this straight, Hangover 2 is not banned, was butchered and shown in Kuwait, but Breaking Dawn is? Seriously?
What am I supposed to do? I am literally suffocating! Do I book a ticket to Dubai to watch the movie and come back on the same night? At least it won’t be butchered beyond recognition there! For the love of god I am 31 and I am fully capable of choosing what I watch! 3/4 the Kuwaiti population had read the book and know what will happen already! Yanantoona tra! Bs 3ad!
When someone asks me how was Bu Toote’s 7aj trip, I reply by saying it was a horrible trip indeed. His overpriced 7amla denied him food, starved him, gave him stale leftovers at 2 AM in the morning, lied to him, and made his one week in Mecca more stressful than it should have been. But that deserves another post entirely.
When he boarded that Kuwait Airways plane, my Read more »
When I was packing my husband’s bags for 7ajj I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to surprise him with something when he unpacks. I thought about stuffing the No3man dolly but then I was afraid No3man would decide to stay in Mecca and never want to come back. I thought about writing him a love letter, then I immediately remembered WHY I have sworn never to write the man a love letter again. As a matter of fact I have Read more »
Tra ma9arat! Shelsalfa?
For en entire couple of days I’ve been disconnected from the world! I’ve spent most of those 48 hours away from home and yet I’ve been the loneliest I’ve ever been since before the Smart Phone age! I miss my Tweeps, the ability to browse for everything and anything, my Whatsupp, my BBM, and access to my email! I miss being able to take a shot of something freaky and send it to share a laugh or a picture of some product that I need someone’s opinion on! I don’t miss my work emails though :p
I am lonely, and I need my friends and family’s support at these days especially. I am a busy person, I have put my faith in RIM to provide me a consistent Blackberry service. RIM let me down once yesterday which is forgivable. Bad things happens and it got corrected. RIM let me even further down today, the final knockout, when for the 2nd day in a row they stopped my service. Whatever mistake they have done yesterday could have been avoided today. There is no excuse this time. Strike two is strike three.
Now I am looking for a BB replacement. Sorry RIM, I am too lonely to wait for you to get your act together. Bye!
Every day when on my way to work we get held up for a long time in the Jabriya exit to 5th ring road. Rude drivers usually attack other drivers standing in line waiting for their turn to get out, therefore a police car and a group of traffic cone were set up to help organize traffic and stop the angry rude drivers taking others turns.
How successful was that? See for yourselves… Read more »
Lets have a show of hands here… how many of you think I am a guy and how many of you think I am a girl?
If you read my blog then of course you would know my gender. The problem is when people who do not know my blog and hear the name “Danderma” they automatically assume I am a guy! A guy, a his, a sir, a man! I don’t know about you but what part of the name Danderma is masculine exactly?
At first it was OK. I laughed it off. But now I feel like I have two personalities: Danderma the Dude and Danderma the real girl! Danderma is a SHE not a HE… SHE! Do I have to dress my blog in pink and put a ribbon on top and add a girl’s name to my nickname to be considered a female?
So the next time you decide to address me, email me, contact me, reply to my comment, talk to me, tweet me, retweet me, quote me, facebook me, remember this… I am a SHE not a HE. Do your homework! Make that very insulting mistake again and you will be ignored. Make it twice and you will go on my black list of blocked people.
Wallah!
For the past week or so I’ve been seeing the very civilized scene above every time I get in or out of my car. Every day I come back home wishing i had disappeared. Every day I see its still there, if anything its getting worse because more trash is being added on top.
We live in Jabriya, which is supposedly an OK area to live in without disgusting trash residing for a week besides our home. Every time I see that mess I wonder if it was washed down with clorex or dettol before being taken out of service to rot in the street. Why isn’t anyone picking that up? Why is there no more “proper” rules and punishments against this type of vulgarity? You get fined if you throw this kind of trash outside your house in the UK. Why can’t we get that kind of punishment here?
Do you know a number I could call to come have them take this trash somewhere? Anywhere? La3at chabdi tra g63 ma 9arat!
