driving

remember when you first got your driver's license and your friends would say things like, "stop signs with white outlines are optional," and for the geometry lovers, "stop signs shaped like octagons are also optional"? if you lived in kuwait those little jokes wouldn't apply. first, there are very few stop signs. second, stop signs are always optional.

every day i risk my life, and not in the way you may think. crossing the street. where few stop signs abound, traffic circles abound all the more (please don't be fooled, there are four-way intersections, like the one by my apartment that have neither.) seem like a good substitution? wrong again. traffic circles are tricky, especially when traffic lanes are obsolete.

imagine this. you are walking home from school in at least 110 degree heat (neil likes to remind me we're in the desert and this should come as no surprise. it doesn't, but it's still hot.) you have just passed the kuwait karate federation, the landmark which signifies the end is in sight. and then you hit it. that intersection with no stop signs, no traffic circles, and cars coming from literally every direction. who has the right of way? no one? every one? surely not the pedestrian. you wait on the corner. a taxi honks asking if you need a ride. you think, "yeah, across the street." finally, a break in traffic. there's your chance. you're about to go for it. then what!? where did that car come from? still on the corner. waiting.

drivers in kuwait are acutally quite good. not in the organized two-lane fashion we all may be used to, but in the, how are there not more accidents kind of way. apparently one explanation for aforementioned driving is something called wasta, or influence. please remember kuwait is an extremely rich country. rich in a way i think few of us, myself included, can really understand. for starters, kuwait has oil (which makes gas about 0.85 cents/gallon!) so, wasta, i guess it works similarly across the board. people with power and money get things. in kuwait one of those things is a driver's license. no questions asked, no test required.

the whole being rich thing also means people drive ridiculously expensive cars. ridiculously fast. i've seen about five honda's here, no joke. it's brand new bmw, jaguar, mercedes, and land rover's galore (ugh, i have never seen so many suv's!) and that's just the low to moderate end. so, right now i'm thinking about walking home. only problem is i'll have to face everything i just told you about.