Day 33, Wednesday - Kuwait

After lunch today, Qadria and her son (who I had lunch with last week) took me around for the evening.

First we went to the old souq, called “Barqia.” I had been told about this old market - it is definitely the place to go for local and traditional items - but I had no idea how big it was. The maze of small shops has pretty much everything from fabric and traditional dresses to spices, toys, blankets, purses, etc. It was fun to watch Qadria bargain with the shop owners as well.

 

We decided that you really need a whole day at the souq to see everything, so I only got a small taste.

After the souq we went to the Science Center for the premier of this film about science, the Quran, and a pharaoh. It was mostly in Arabic, so I followed parts, but Qadria seemed bored so we left part way through.

I told them that I wanted to try to find some children’s books and movies to help me practice my Arabic, so we went first to a book store and got a few books then to a movie store where I got an Egyptian comedy. The idea of the books is for more vocabulary exposure and just to practice reading to become faster and more accustomed to the sentence structure. The movie is to help me practice listening with the storyline giving me context and visual ques. Plus, if you have ever seen an Arabic comedy, they are pretty funny (think old Jerry Lewis films).

The place where I got my books.

After all our shopping, it was time to go to dinner at Qadria’s mother’s house. This is best described through pictures:

 I am pretty sure I tried every dish on the table, and they were good.

Qadria’s mother was so sweet and kept telling me the whole evening how much I looked like my father and that I was her daughter now. Everyone in the family was so nice and I wish I had more time to spend with them but two weeks is going by very quickly. They were very generous with me and I hope that they come to Seattle soon so that I might repay their kindness.