Life in Kuwait - the truth as I see it

Interesting to see the variety of opinions on this topic. Here is my mid-2009 view after being here 20 months.

Anyone considering coming here should think very long and very hard about it, as it is not for everybody. As with any place it has its plus and minus aspects. Here's my take on things:

Salary and benefits are good speaking personally (and tax free), but ask e.g. a poor Bangladeshi guy working for e.g. a cleaning company who gets told a pack of lies about what he will be paid etc, and then he gets here and finds out he has been conned, and then he doesn't even get any pay for months, and he might answer differently! You may be paid well, but bear in mind you are just the hired help with a contract that is barely worth the paper it is written on in the worst circumstances. Abrupt termination of employment for no apparent reason or grossly unfair reasons are not unheard of, so you never really feel that secure. This is even more true due to the economic downturn, with expats being terminated in droves.

There is a strong emphasis on family life, which means that on the whole you can maintain a very good work life balance. Official working hours are not as long as e.g. Dubai ( I worked there too so I know), so that is definitely a positive. Ramadan offers very short working hours even to non-Muslims. However, the working culture can definitely drive you insane. Do not expect the levels of competence and professionalism you find in western countries (or even remotely close), and be prepared to be utterly bemused by things on a daily basis. Although you may be a generously paid expat, don't expect them to pay too much attention to what you recommend, and if you are proposing change, be prepared for some very clever and tenacious resistance and delaying tactics – after all you are just an expat who will eventually leave, and they will outlast you. Then the game starts again with the next guy who arrives. You will need immense reserves of patience. Things take at least twice and often 3 times longer than you think they should, and even then, don't expect them to be done that well. You will be obliged to have a proportion of Kuwaiti staff in most circumstances in some sectors of employment, and let's just say that there has never been a case of a Kuwaiti dying of overwork. Getting them to turn up on time or even at all can be a challenge in some cases, and once they are there, getting any meaningful work from them is not always easy. A commonly shared view here is that you should limit your stay here otherwise your CV will be damaged, and little by little you will find that you are being dragged down to the local level, which to put it kindly is not at all a good thing. Equally, you will have some experiences you probably would not get in many other places (both good and bad), and that will help you become a more rounded individual and manager. Basically bank your money, don't worry too much or take things to heart, and walk away richer in terms of bank balance and life experience when it suits you.

It is safe...well sort of. Serious crime is relatively rare but not unknown, but I strongly suspect that there is a significant under-reporting problem (don't expect any scoops in the press), and a tendency for the authorities to want to sweep a lot of things under the carpet to perpetuate a good image. However, it has to be recognised that crime levels are not even remotely on a par with western countries (if you exclude the zillion driving offences you see every day!), and serious crimes are rare by comparison.

It is safe...well sort of 2. If you are female, western, over 13 and don't look like the sister of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, be prepared for some serious and at times quite sinister unwanted male attention. Outright gawking is not considered inappropriate here, but that's the least of your worries. My wife routinely gets followed on foot and in her car. Our 14 year old daughter in the last 12 months has been followed 6 times when in a taxi by guys or groups of guys, and the driving can be hair-raising. NEVER let them follow you home. Best advice is lock the doors and drive to a police station or phone husband or male friend to rendezvouz somewhere with you. On the whole men native to this region appear to be at the developmental and maturity level of about 12 year olds when it comes to interacting with women. Be warned. If you have a daughter in the teen years, be warned that she will be a magnet for a certain type of Arab boy who knows he won't get far with most Muslim girls, and who has the impression that western girls are "easy". Again, be warned. It is by and large a safe environment though if you take the right sensible precautions.

Kuwait - without doubt the most boring, featureless, uninteresting landscape I have seen, and I have been to over 30 countries. There is not that much to do activities wise, and the extreme heat for part of the year is a limiting factor in that respect too. Every Thursday there is a mass exodus at the airport to Bahrain and Dubai, the nearest places to have some fun and legal alcohol, and it says a lot that the flights are packed with younger Kuwaitis – even they can't wait to get out! You can forget public beaches unless you are male (and they can be quite filthy anyway depending on where you are), and the hotel beach clubs and gyms are damned expensive - about $3500 a year for a family of 3 like us. Restaurants are relatively plentiful but rather mediocre and certainly not cheap, and if you like a beer or glass of wine with food, obviously that is a non-starter. You can of course opt to pay nearly $7 for a mocktail or fancy fruit juice if you enjoy being ripped off. Service in any sort of retail or governmental situation is utterly atrocious. It is so shockingly bad you will be able to entertain your friends back home with stories they will find hilarious.

Accommodation - you can't buy a house or apartment here (quite frankly, who would want to anyway?), but compared to other Gulf states, Kuwait rentals remain relatively affordable, although like everywhere they have gone up sharply in the last couple of years. Interestingly though, it looks like rents are falling because of so many expats leaving after losing their jobs, so there are plenty of empty properties. Quite often utilities and (slowish) internet are included in the rent, and in the better apartment blocks you get a gym and maybe a pool. Villas are very expensive and often vast, way bigger than an average sized western family would need. An option is what is called a floor, which is as it suggests a whole floor of a building, generally the top floor of a Kuwaiti family house. This generally means that your landlords live below you. Be very careful with this, as it can be disastrous. Kuwaitis keep very strange hours compared to most westerners and have a very different attitude towards noise (i.e. they tend to make lots of it). Our first rental of a floor was a total disaster - we moved out after 6 weeks because of noise and other issues, and despite observing the terms of the tenancy to the letter, the landlady decided to steal our deposit, and let's face it, which expat is going to get justice in the courts here? We took the floor plunge again, and have landed in paradise – we socialise regularly with our Kuwaiti landlord and his family, they invite us to some of their extended family gatherings, they are kind, considerate, helpful, generous...they are very dear in our hearts and cannot speak highly enough of them. Just hope you are as lucky. When you do house hunt, check out your distance from the local mosques or you could find yourself frequently being woken up between 3 and 4 a.m. by the first call to prayer.

Driving - the English language needs new adjectives to describe quite how bad it is here. To give you an idea - the Kuwait press recently reported that death in traffic accidents worldwide is the 9th most common cause of death. In Kuwait it is the 3rd most common. Standards are shocking, but not a surprise considering that some Kuwaitis get a driving licence without even passing a test, and many drive cars that are way more powerful than they can safely handle, especially the youngsters. A factor in the driving is of course that there are so many different nationalities here, but also that Kuwaitis are a remarkably arrogant people by and large (even other GCC Arabs warn you about this and tell you to beware, and the irony is that in the view of all non-Kuwaitis I have spoken to, the arrogance is completely without any foundation), and they drive like that too. In our experience it is largely the Kuwaitis and other Arab nationalities who are the most dangerous. A good rule of thumb is to expect people to do exactly the opposite of what they should do in terms of common sense and the law. Defensive driving is a must, as is a car/SUV with more of an emphasis on safety features than luxury. Carry a camera in your car, because you will see the most amazing smashed up cars regularly, and quite frankly friends back home will think you are exaggerating until they see the evidence themselves. It might be worth saving up for jaw surgery as well, as you will find your jaw hitting the floor pretty regularly at some of the most brainless, thoughtless, reckless, dangerous and insane driving you will see on the planet. I am not exaggerating when I say we barely go out at night – we just value our safety too much for that. My favourite memories are: while driving at the speed limit on the highway, I was overtaken by a fully-laden cement mixer; I was almost hit from behind by a guy (presumably) steering with his knees while he arranged his hair with both hands in the rearview mirror; and I sat at traffic lights and watched a guy coming from the other direction take a corner with a cigarette in his mouth, a coffee in his left hand and his mobile in his right hand. I am not making this up – seeing is believing. Hardly anyone wears a seatbelt, and the running joke is that cars in Kuwait come with an additional anti-theft device – they won't start unless the owner's mobile phone is in use. Both are of course against the law, but as you routinely see police driving around with no seatbelts, breaking traffic laws, using mobiles and even texting, what can you expect?

Corruption/wasta – corruption is rife. The whiter the skin, the less you will find it affects you generally speaking, but you may still find yourself being asked to pay a “gratuity” to “expedite” processes in the public sector. If you need any sort of permit or licence for anything, don't be surprised if you have to flash some cash to get it approved in the same calendar year or at all. If you have a brown/black skin, be prepared to be failed repeatedly for no apparent reason other than you have a brown/black skin, although the colour of your skin seems to become irrelevant if the right amount of bank notes are offered (although we know of one poor Pakistani guy who after being maliciously failed 5 times running paid the exorbitant bribe and was still subsequently failed! We also know an Indian guy who was asked to parallel park between 2 cones, and smelling a rat, he paced out the space between the cones and then did the same for the length of his car. Guess which was longer?) Wasta, or influence, is effectively the reverse. You can have mountains moved in miliseconds if you have the right Kuwaiti connections. This also has a sinister side....

Socialising and activities - this is not a great place for single people, or so many single people tell me. Although eating out is a national pastime (along with wandering aimlessly round shopping malls or spending inordinate hours in coffee shops doing nothing in particular), there is an active expat social scene through dinner parties as this allows alcohol (illegally) to be consumed. Methods of acquiring alcohol are as previously described in the thread. If you do like eating out or coffee shops, be prepared for the ever-present (and in our view disgusting) smell of tobacco smoke. Kuwait isn't socially advanced enough to have taken steps to ban smoking, and even if they did, everyone just flouts rules and laws here with virtual total impunity, so it wouldn't make much difference anyway. With the good work life balance, you actually have more time for friends and family, but your options are somewhat limited. Failaka Island is worth a day trip however, even if it is just to see how the Iraqis wrecked it and how the Kuwaitis haven't quite found the time (?) in the last 18 years or the money (?) to repair the place. Unlike the UAE where you can jump in your car and go to interesting places like Hatta, Dibba, Fujairah, RAK, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and even Oman, your choices here are north to Iraq or south to Saudi Arabia. Do I need to say more? And the airlines, whether called low cost or not, are not that cheap, so a getaway is not cheap especially if you want to take a family, need hotels etc.

Schools – I can't comment on anything but the British private ones. They are good on the whole, although as with anywhere there are some ropey teachers. Make sure you choose one with teachers mainly qualified in your home country. A good job will mean school fees are paid as part of your package. Our daughter has enjoyed school here and has thrived.

So, for anyone who has read this far, I hope you got some benefit from this. It is my warts-and-all realistic view of Kuwait. At the end of the day I couldn't care less who comes or who doesn't come and live here – it's up to them - so I have no axe to grind like an employer who is desperate to only emphasize the good things. Despite its faults, overall we have enjoyed our time here and have benefited financially and in other ways, but we wouldn't like to pretend it is a great place. It serves a purpose for us, nothing more. When we leave we will miss the friends we have made, our Kuwaiti landlord's family, the nice working hours, but precious little else.

Ben 01 Jul 2009, 09:43 - Report