Day 24, Monday - Kuwait

Another of Lina’s sisters is Rima who runs an investment company which I will be job shadowing at a little this week. Between the few meetings I had today and yesterday (at Lina’s offices), I am starting to get a feel for Kuwait’s market and economy. 

A bit of the skyline. Rima's office is in the shorter cream-colored tower, Al Dhow Tower

When I walked into her office, Rima commented that I look like my father. (In case you don’t know, my parents have known the Al-Harbi family for something like 30 years and my father travels to the region fairly regularly, so they know his mannerisms quite well and apparently I have some of them. My mother also knows the family, but she has not been back to Kuwait in many years, though I know she would love to come.) Here are a few pictures from the office:

Later in the day I saw another of the sisters, Seena, who first said that I look like my father and then she changed her mind and said I look like my mother. I usually laugh and tell people I look most like my sister.

After spending a few hours learning about Rima’s company, I returned home for a quick lunch and then went to a movie with Maha and her sister Delal. The movie was called Devil and had some well-known actors in it but I had never seen it before. It was a little creepy. (Thank you, Ben, for prepping me for this with other scary movies.) After the movie, Delal invited Maha  and me to join her at a Zumba class that evening, which we did. 

I had heard of Zumba before, but I didn’t really know what it was. If you don’t either, here is a brief description of what we did: we were given an exercise ball which was placed on a bucket so that it was elbow height and didn’t move, and a pair of drum sticks. For an hour we did a sort of aerobic dance/percussion work-out, which involves keeping beat on the ball with the drum sticks while jumping, lunging, stepping to the side, arms up, arms down, cross to the other side, bend down and up and left and right, etc. By the way, when you step outside after the class, there is no cool air to greet you. I thought it was fun and entertaining, not to mention another experience to check off my list. It really is something to try. 

After the class, we went back to Seena’s house where I met her other children and one of Maha’s two sons. Maha and I watched a movie on tv called Love Happens which, as it turns out, is placed in Seattle, so I gave her a bit of a tour as the movie showed shots from around the city. 

Finally it was back home for a late snack and chat with Aunt Lina (which has become a regular occurrence) before going to bed.