On Becoming a Regular

On Becoming a Regular

By Marty Rempel

From my seat at the Costa Café in the Dar Al Shifa Hospital located across from the school where I teach, I enjoy the morning Kuwait Times, or the ever popular Arab Times. The man that serves me knows me by now as I am one of the so called regulars. For some mysterious reason the Costa staff seem to thing I am a cardiologist on staff and give me a discount on my lattes. I don’t disagree with them, it just makes me feel that much more welcomed in Kuwait.


I sit at the Costa and people-watch. It still amazes me how many Arab Women cover completely while their western looking husbands are wearing T-shirts and sporting designer sunglasses. At the same time some women are also dressed in western ways. Everything here is in contrasts. At first I was very wary about being close to “covered women” in a grocery store, at a mall or wherever one goes because I didn’t want to offend any one as I was culturally confused.


Perhaps this is all part of the cultural learning curve that all expats experience when coming to a new country. Having lived in other countries prior to my Kuwait experience I know that part of the process is to experience new ways of thinking and doing things that might be totally at odds with so called conventional wisdom. Here, in Kuwait, I am forced to step outside of my own cultural box and see the world in a different way. Some people might come to a new country and complain because things are not the same as they are back home, where ever that happens to be. My personal happiness and success in my move here depends on being flexible and open minded about new experiences and sometimes it can be a stimulus over load. I have had days, especially after driving anywhere, when I just wanted to catch the next flight home.

Yes, driving is a true challenge in Kuwait. At a typical intersection I have watched as four cars approached each other at about the same time. None of the drivers were willing to yield; so they all moved into the intersection quickly followed by car number five and six. Perhaps, because the drivers all feel entitled no one would yield and therefore their individual actions negated the need to strive for the greater good and a brief horn honking stand off ensued. It was amazing to watch from the sidelines.

Gas stations are called Oulla and I don’t have a clue what that stands for, if in fact it is even an acronym. It could be Arabic for monopoly. I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Pulling up to the pumps you will notice a number of things. Some of them are alarming while others only create mild anxiety. Some drivers smoke and do not always turn off their engines while refueling. What bothers me at the gas stations is that, despite all the cheap labour in Kuwait, no one has ever asked me if I want my oil checked or has offered to clean my windshield.

I always remember to give the gas attendant a tip which amounts to about 20% of the cost of fill up. These guys make so little, they have to survive on tips, but would it hurt them to just once clean my windshield. Where are those squeegee kids when you really need them?

One of my senior students recently told me that all a young Kuwaiti wants is a fast car a free ride and a hot wife. Now I ask by any standard is that asking too much? I think as a student I too wanted a car and I got one, a VW bug. These kids are talking something more substantial. It is very common to see a range of vehicles from Lamborghinis, Ferraris, BMWs, to Corvettes and the like. My most memorable near death experiences have been with high speed pick up trucks which approach from the rear at warp speed 5 or 6, often it seems with Klingon cloaking devices, so you don’t actually see them until they flash by, weave in front of you and do a lane dive from the far left lane to the far right lane in mere nano seconds. I blink. Its over. Did it happen?

U-tube has a delightful section of Kuwaiti road accidents of incredible consequence for those lovers of carnage and senseless destruction. There are video clips of cars that have been totally destroyed and serve as exemplar accidents in that often only one single vehicle is involved. Typically the Kuwaiti police leave the remnants of wrecked vehicles at the side of the road, for all to see, for several days or weeks perhaps as an object lesson to those speeding by. Some call the wrecks Death Sculptures.

I do confess to a certain level of pride in myself as a driver, that despite my initial panic filled drive on the streets of Kuwait I have prevailed, now if I could just find my way.

I arrived in Kuwait in August of last year and was totally over come by both the heat and the humidity. When things cooled down somewhat by November I started to walk to work. I discovered that driving in Kuwait is a risk and being a pedestrian often makes driving the safer alternative. My daily walk to work included crossing Tunis Street.

In my perpetual quest to become physically fit I make the 15 minute walk to school each day and walk back most days. Some days I cheat and take the school mini bus. On this morning I wear my bright yellow nylon jacket. I look like a street cleaner, as many wear brightly coloured jump suits, but the point is I feel safer, like wearing white at night.

My thoughts are premature as a white Toyota van carrying school kids to the Pakistan Happy School merrily swerves towards me. I felt that the three inches to spare between the van’s mirror and my chest was another near death experience. The driver probably felt three inches was a wide margin for error.

As I walked on I noticed that an older Egyptian man, warming himself by a fire in front of his parked front end loader, was laughing. He had obviously been a witness to my near miss. I gave a shrug indicating who can explain crazy drivers. He then pointed at his own chest as an indicator that he acknowledged my bright yellow jacket. I ran my hands along the length of the jacket and shrugged again. I felt like a third base umpire as I communicated with my hands. Without language we had shared a moment in Kuwaiti traffic history.

My walk takes me passed many sights and sounds and tactile experiences enough to stimulate any learning style. On the side streets and in the absence of anything resembling sidewalks, dexterity is essential to maneuver around the garbage dumpsters, parked cars and the variety of urban flotsam and jetsam that abounds. I wear very sensible shoes, with good traction and thick soles. I have reflexes like the feral cats that inhabit the dumpsters along the route. I am sure footed and alert. Actually, that’s mainly a crock. It’s 6:30 in the morning. I’m slow and semi comatose and in no mood to talk to another living person. I am walking a gauntlet.

Along the way I must cross Tunis Street one of two main streets in Hawally, the suburb in which I live. Kuwait was never designed for the pedestrian. This is an automobile society. The traffic is thick, continuous, fast and evil. As I approach Tunis from a quieter side street I feel my adrenaline rise, or it might be bile. I begin to awake from my stupor knowing full well that I must soon be at the peak of my game in order to cross this busy road. Life, as I know it, is in the balance.

I tentatively walked on the sidewalk (now there was one) parallel to the constant flow of TATA buses, scooters, trucks, taxies and foul smelling diesel engines. I turned and scanned the horizon for a gap, even a subtle, tiny one, in the line of traffic. Looking for my window of opportunity. Horns blared. I controlled my panic. Knowing I must do this thing. I must get to class my students need me. They depend on me. They hang on my every word. The future of the free world depends on my crossing Tunis. It’s a bogus little pep talk I give myself before launching across the street. Sometimes it works. Today, I think not.

I was about to go for it, cross Tunis that is, when to my utter surprise my mobile phone began to ring. It was Cheryl, my wife, on the cell phone. I was then able to give her a real time narration of my crossing of Tunis at morning rush hour. I felt like my hero Jack Bauer.

“I want you to know that what ever happens I love you. I have to cross the street now” I stepped off the curb. I was dizzy. Grit, from the wind generated by the stream of traffic, was flung into my face and blurred my vision.

“I see a gap.” I cried into the cell phone. “I’m going for it.” I had to dodge left, zig right; there was constant enemy fire from my left flank as mortars and light artillery fired from the northern trench. I feared for my life even as my men exchanged fire. I could still be the victim of collateral damage, a victim of friendly fire on the way to work. I would not have it. Flak had hit my port engine and I was flaming out. Bullets pierced the thin skin of my aircraft like a knife going through butter. There was no time to write a decent simile. I instructed my crew to bail. Hot engine oil was spewing through my cracked windshield. Black smoke screened my visibility. I was losing altitude fast. I had to act quickly.

Immediately, I dropped and rolled and tossed my backpack even though it contained some vital supplies. I was now lighter and could move faster. I had bought a few precious seconds. I lurched forward. “Bogies at 12 o’clock,” I screamed into the cell phone. Smoke again blurred my vision. I saw an opening and went for it. I had reached the median.

Here blue helmeted UN troops patrolled. It was a temporary safety zone. The air grew calm as in the eye of a hurricane. Still on my cell to Cheryl, she asked me to stop by the store and bring some milk back on my way home. I explained that I was under fire, (she may have thought that was a metaphor), and did she want skim or 2%. I stepped off the curb and left the safety of the median.

Tear gas drifted toward my sector. I tore my shirt sleeve off and wrapped it around my mouth in order to breathe. My life did not pass before me but every movie cliché that applied to crossing busy streets in war-like conditions did. There were only three. I shouted out to who ever would listen. “You looking at me?’ You’ll never take me alive you dirty copper.” Finally, “There’s no place like home.” In desperation I quickly clicked my heels three times.

“Medic! I need a medic” and I was on the curb. I had crossed Tunis.

I noticed people on the sidewalk were looking at me oddly, must be a cultural thing I thought. What, have they never seen a person cross the street before? Regretting the loss of my backpack and my torn shirt, I got to work only five minutes late.

I have lived in Kuwait for almost a year now and to my surprise find when I return from a holiday trip I have a feeling of familiarity. Despite the cultural shock and the comic relief I get from describing driving, walking and living in this small desert nation. I am also beginning to feel more like a regular.


Marty Rempel

Artisans and Minor Misdemeanors

Artisans and Minor Misdemeanors

One of my favourite places to go on a Saturday morning, despite the crowds, is the Mennonite Farmers’ Market in St Jacobs. I am told, because I have not really done any significant research in order to write this book, that next to Niagara Falls and Graceland, St Jacobs is the greatest tourist attraction in Southern Ontario. This could be yet another rural myth. Whatever the stats say Canadians have a passion for anything Mennonite, which may explain why you bought this book in the first place. As observers we revel at the opportunity to see Mennonites in their natural habitat. Mennonites are a modern day enigma.

Now I would be the first to admit that there are lots of things at that farmers market that have nothing to do with either farmers or Mennonites, in fact I have no idea why certain obviously non-Mennonite vendors are there other than sheer opportunism. In addition to the genuine Mennonite products such as pork sausages, pork chops, pork by-products, pork bacon, complete living pigs, (sorry I am writing this while still living in Kuwait, a Muslim country with a hate on for all things pork and I am hallucinating), one can also buy cheap toys from capitalistic Red China, plastic models, tube socks, velvet paintings picturing sad street kids and Hispanic looking women with large eyes, and once I bought a soft and cuddly blanket with a picture of a zebra on it. My wife got a toe ring; so there is a range of items from which to choose. However, the genuine Mennonite produce and products are characterized by a high level of skill, quality and craftsmanship.

As a Mennonite in the more ethnic sense of the word, coming from good German/Dutch stock I too take great pride in my own craftsmanship, although I’m not really known as a technical person, a handyman or even the type of person a woman would call on if something needed fixing. I did replace a light bulb once. I hasten to add, as I rise to my own defense, I did, as a kid, make a pretty mean alley-gun. Some Mennonites, in the true Gandian sense of the word are well steeped in the realms and philosophical constructs of non-violence and passive resistance. While others like myself and my childhood friends thought that a “people’s underground militia” was not necessarily a faulty back up plan.
Remember that scene in the movie entitled Witness, starring Harrison Ford in which he posses undercover as an Amish? In this particular scene he is baited into a fight by some secular asshole, and as the Harrison Ford character rose to the heckler’s taunts, he struck out and punched one of them. It was a good clean punch by any standard. This scene has high viewer ratings (I just made that up); I still remember it though, because everyone likes to see the underdog win. It is part of the American ethos.
What’s the moral of the story? It’s this, as a result of Ford’s most excellent, well placed and timely punch the secular-asshole-hecklers gave the Amish a wide birth and maybe lived to respect, or maybe even fear the potential threat posed by any Amish male. Assuming for a moment that Harrison Ford actually is Amish, and Hollywood movies are real, his actions may, i.e. that of a single person, be generalized to the larger non-Amish population to the point that all Amish can be viewed as potential and latent secret urban street fighters and therefore should not be messed with.
Obviously some degree of transference had taken place for me personally, when as a kid, and despite the fact I had not yet seen Harrison Ford play his Amish roll, I wanted to be that secret Mennonite super hero with the black cape, the speedy black stallion (buggy optional) with a long whip, and a hot Amish girl friend modeled after Penelope Cruz. I guess much like a modern day Mennonite Zorro. I think I look good in basic black.
As a kid I took great pride in Mennonite craftsmanship and tended to embrace the concept of “urban Zorro-like street fighters” because of my fascination with guns. And so it came to pass I fabricated my first marble gun, so called because it fired a small alley or marble with an incredible muzzle velocity enough to severely dent the door of any moving vehicle. I know.
I can’t actually take credit for the invention of this crude but effective weapon because living in the shadow of my more technically ept brother who probably got the idea from a friend and this tradition has been passed on likely since the early days of the Protestant Reformation. However, in 1958, lacking the capacity to Google building instructions for hand held weapons, as spoiled kids are able to do today, we had to improvise. Times certainly have changed and literally knowledge is power.

A marble gun is actually a simple project. The main raw material is a piece of pipe about a foot long, either copper or lead and readily available at most residential construction sites. Today kids can buy the pipe at Home Depot, but where’s the fun in that? The pipe must be flattened at one end, but not sealed. This procedure is easily done with a hammer also available at the above mentioned outlets. To fire this handheld instrument one only has to insert a fire cracker, which must, in diameter, correspond to that of the opening of the pipe. The wick of the fire cracker should extend through the slit at the flattened end of the pipe. Insert one marble being cognizant of the fact that the closer the marble diameter is to the inside diameter of the pipe the more forceful the fire power, as little energy will be wasted. A marble too small or a pipe too large would be an ineffective weapon, or as I like to say, a kinetic toy. Now try to imagine those same directions I just gave you done by an IKEA artist using key Swedish terms and I think you are at a mastery level.
Now there you stand with pipe in hand, loaded and all that is lacking is a target. Stationary targets pose little challenge and we, my friends and I, quickly graduated to moving targets, and really what moves better than a car, a rhetorical question I know.
Disclaimer:
It is safe to finally come out of the “closet” so to speak and tell this story now as I am a grandfather and soon to be 60 years old at the time of this writing, which means the statute of limitations has by this time run out about five decades ago. I am no longer liable in a legal, and I’m sure in any moral sense, to any of our youthful pranks, miscellaneous misdemeanors and lives I may have ruined along the way.
It was a warm summer evening about dusk near an abandoned warehouse at the edge of town. I have always wanted to write those words in a story, but since they don’t really apply here it should actually read: It was a warm summer evening about dusk as my friends and I walked through a vineyard about a half mile north of base camp, a tent in my backyard. We had been practicing with our alley guns the previous week and soon grew to know the characteristics of each in terms of range and force. Shooting at and denting metal garbage cans was fun for awhile, but our quarry that day was anything with wheels on Vine Street.
In debriefing with my cognitive therapist many years after these events transpired and when asked, by my support group, the fundamental question. “Why would you do such a dumb-ass thing?” I really couldn’t answer. I would like to say I was just following orders, or it was all about peer pressure, or simply I suffered from some mal adaptive personality disordered caused by generations of suppressed aggression due to the Mennonite propensity towards and support of a passive resistant life style. Who really knows? Maybe I just liked Harrison Ford.

In our adolescent minds the parallel rows of a vineyard were much like the rows of trenches used in World War I land battles on the Western Front. We fancied ourselves soldiers. Each row in a vineyard has a mound supporting the roots and probably keeping in moisture which also served as a good place to hide behind and observe the enemy. Kurt, Walter, John, Marv and I lay side by each waiting for the first car. We really only had American automobiles to target because our automobile markets had not yet been breached by cheaper high quality foreign imports. The phrase, “What was good for GM was good for America” still had some meaning back then. In retrospect I view our collective actions as a very early preemptive strike against NAFTA. We weren’t delinquents we were enlightened political activists and as in any righteous protest their would be some collateral damage. Retrospective rationalization is a marvelous tool.

I lit a match, held it to the fuse of my alley gun, stood and held it away from my face. I led my target by about fifty feet, it, a 54 green Pontiac was at a range of about 100 feet and then the ensuing explosion. My hand recoiled slightly there was a pause, the acrid smell of gunpowder and then nothing. I missed my first shot. Shit!
If nothing else my religion had taught me to be persistent and like Nelson at Trafalgar we held our firing line and waited. Each of the five alley guns was primed and loaded. We timed the lighting of the fuses with the next approaching car and then bang, bang, bang we fired in quick succession. Just as in a firing squad no single individual knows who hit the target, but we all knew that someone did.

The driver of the target car, the one with the huge dent in his door, slammed on his brakes and leapt from the car and ran wildly into the vineyard. Our “target” had the advantage of an angry adrenaline rush cursing through his veins. He ran like a madman. By this time we took off like Jack-the-Bear at warp speed. If we had Klingon cloaking devices we would have used them. We did have the advantage of a head start and our foolish energetic youth. We also had the adrenaline rush from extreme levels of fear. Our big plus, which put us over the top was that we knew the terrain. We had home team advantage. We also had trained for years in many of our hide and seek games as to how to travel between rows of a vineyard at top speed. It was all about drop and roll. Leap through the vine, roll, stand, two steps and leap. It was all about pace and rhythm. We were poetry in motion. We also knew that when we got out of the vineyard into the residential streets on the other side we had to split up in five directions and not return to base camp.

But, after all is said and done and the dust settles, what did we learn from this bizarre and scary foray into the dark side? And I hasten to add that we only did that same dumb stunt with the marble guns one more time before finding some other mindless diversion. I’ll talk about potato guns in a later chapter.
I can tell you in all honesty I, and I can’t speak for the others, learned lots. I learned that with proper training, practice, steely nerves with the use of a strategic group plan with proper communication and logistics one can accomplish almost anything. We were apt students. Growing up meant living on the edge. I think we did our Anabaptist ancestors proud. They often had to flee from their Catholic oppressors; somehow history has an odd way of repeating itself.
Marty Rempel

From..
“Growing Up Mennonite”

Snow Days

Snow Days

Today my car started with reluctance. The high tech on board thermometer told me erroneously that it was -25C. My Blackberry told me, by googling a weather web site, that the temperature was actually -34C without a wind chill. A modern enigma, who do I believe my car or my phone?

It just felt cold and if ever there was a reason to stay home from school this was it. Now I am vexed with a moral dilemma and of course I had to go to school. I am a teacher. Right? I would leap buildings with a single bound etc if it came to that, however, when I get to school I find that I can’t even trust my Blackberry for accurate weather forecasting, it was -38C the buses weren’t running and 60% of the student population was not to be found.

I also discovered that on this day the winter road had just been declared officially open, the gates to freedom and consumerism had lifted and half the town had driven South to balmy, exotic Fort McMurray. I pondered this development for a moment and wondered about the apparent irony as to how kids could not get to school, but with their families they could travel 280 km south to the Oil Sands Capital of the World.

I had just moved from the Middle East to Northern Alberta and my body and soul were still in transition and shock. My Kuwaiti students were masters at finding ways and means to miss school in a school year already 20 days shorter than out own. If the severe dust storms, high humidity and debilitating temperatures did not keep the kids away the Kuwaiti parliament would, by declaring, at the last possible moment, yet another national holiday. Missing school is universal and cross cultural and we only have ourselves and nature to thank.

In all fairness I have to admit I was no better as a kid. I prayed to the Christian God and many pagan gods, whoever was listening and available at the time, for snow days. In a world with only 13 channels one could not flip to the weather channel to determine if school was likely to be cancelled. We had to rely on first hand observations. If the snow drifts covered the front stairs and the kitchen door to the back porch was blocked by snow there was a good chance that I would not be going to school that day. In practical, logistical terms there was always a margin for error and so I often found it prudent, as I made subtle comments about the depth and breadth of the snow drifts and added a few insights about the end of times, to add a small convincing and persistent hacking cough, in a desperate bid to influence my mom to rule the day as a no fly zone, official stay at home and play day.

A chill ran through me, independent of the weather, as my mother turned from the window, reached for her coat and advised me to do the same. I had no recourse to justice. I wanted to hide in a bunker. I was going to school. The argument about the other kids not going to school had no merit at this juncture as my mom would know I was just making it up, like most of my stories. I was mortified as mom bundled me up and loaded me into a sleigh, the type with the curved metal runners. To my great embarrassment, consider I was in grade three at the time, she pulled me through the mighty drifts all the way to Prince Phillip Public School. I felt like Dr Zhivago, when Lara had been taken from him.

I find that in the here and now, on those frequent high pressure, blue sky minus 40 days in beautiful Alberta when the wind may subtract a few degrees of warmth for good measure, I think of my mom and her Protestant, German work ethic which I have grown to respect and sometimes emulate. I have to admit that when tensions are high, the work load deep, the students onerous I find myself in my classroom looking out the window patiently studying cloud patterns in the hopes of predicting a snow day, or if nature has its unpredictable way a sand storm of Biblical proportions would due.

When is Ramadan this year?


Marty Rempel

Etchings

Etchings

Walking the long meandering trails
through the dense Spruce forests
one moonlit winter eve,
I noticed upon looking up
The trees were all
at least ten degrees off centre.
Nothing grows straight
or
True,
as life just doesn’t work that way.
The forest knows this lesson
and so I learned it too.
Bent branches only etch
what the wind allows them to.

Getting there...

Think of your own journey to work as you read this…

Getting there…

We all have our unique patterns, habits and routines associated with life and living and part of that is getting to work each day. For teachers that means getting to school. When I worked in Fort McMurray I once got a speeding ticket in a school zone. The officer issuing me that ticket could probably read the shame in my body language and assured me that I was not the first teacher so caught, that in fact, the officer confided, he catches a lot of teachers.

After a while I find that my journey to school can be completed on mental auto pilot. I can drive thinking of other things and then suddenly wonder how I got to my present location and curse myself for not paying attention. Sometimes I have this feeling of being teleported, maybe that’s how I got my ticket.

In Kuwait I had a twenty minute walk to school when it was cool enough in winter to actually walk, or a half hour drive to the same location with heavy traffic in the hot season. Walking was a life threatening process in a neighbourhood not designed for pedestrians or cars. On narrow dusty litter strewn streets with the cacophony of rush hour horns and diesel exhaust I circumnavigated garbage bins inhabited by feral cats living on garbage. Crossing Tunis Street to reach Fawzia Sultan School across from the Dar Al Shifa Hospital, with six lanes of traffic in a country where driving etiquette does not exist was always a life threatening adrenaline rush. But even there I could eventually negotiate the streets and avoid the construction sites, where fallen debris has killed pedestrians because there are no safety barriers, and reach my dusty wall enclosed school building.

In the Bahamas, while teaching at the St John’s Anglican College, I learned to negotiate traffic circles while driving on the “wrong side” of the road in this former British colony. Eventually, no matter where our journey to work takes us, we do learn to cope and the routine soon becomes just another part of the day.

This morning, with the wind chill factor thrown in, it was -48 C, the school buses were not running. I pulled on my several layers of clothing, over my long underwear and managed to get on my Sorel boots over thick woolen socks, to begin my walk to school in the dark. Everywhere one walks here in Fort Chipewyan stray dogs, usually friendly, will come and greet you as you walk. The sad cases are the ones tied by a short chain to an engine block living in perpetual cold. I pat the friendly ones. I can hear the crunch of snow underfoot, I glance up at a crescent moon in the pale morning sky, I hear dog barking and ravens cawing as I make my walk to school. It is cold, yet soothing journey.

I recall spring mornings in Ontario where and when three young boys, brothers I think walked up the hill past my house on their way to school often lingering to pick up branches from the forest floor to use as swords and walking sticks. Most mornings, getting ready for work slowly sipping my second cup of coffee in front of the fireplace I watched the boys on their way to school, into the woods, playing tag, follow-the-leader and any manner of child-like games.

I marveled that they ever reached a destination delayed each day as they were by innocence and curiosity. On one winter morning they passed by looking like miniature astronauts with giant life support “backpacks” walking stiffly and rigidly with little flexibility allowed by their bulky snowsuits. I watched as they tried to climb a snow bank at the end of my driveway and then as they meandered slowly and disappeared up the hill.

I didn’t think of them again until driving to my own school over the same route I no longer see wishing all the while that I was a child astronaut with a long wooden walking stick strolling the lunar landscape aimlessly.

Marty Rempel

Inshalla: Literacy and Censorship in Kuwait

Teachers’ Lives

February 19, 2010

Marty Rempel

My introduction to Kuwait’s desert climate occurred when I left the air-conditioned airport for an August nighttime temperature of 44 degrees Celsius with 80 per cent humidity. My wife, Cheryl, and I had just disembarked from a 14-hour direct flight from the Dulles International Airport, near Washington, DC. This was the first day of my two-year contract with an international school in Kuwait. Now well into my second year, I’ve made my peace with the climate, yet I find myself still adjusting to the quirks of the culture and the many challenges I face as a teacher.

Teaching in Kuwait is a challenge. To begin with, I am a Canadian teacher teaching American history to Kuwaiti special education students as part of an English as a second language program. Although liberal Kuwaitis wish to westernize as quickly as possible, the more conservative elements within society pull in the opposite direction. For example, Bedouin members of parliament would like to see music classes removed from the public school curriculum, as Bedouins consider music and dance an offence to the purity of Islam, whereas the more liberal parents want to see their children enrolled in European and American universities and colleges.

At the time of this writing (December 2009), the Kuwaiti legislative and legal affairs committee approved gender segregation laws in private schools that were already in force in private universities, such as the American University of Kuwait. The law was introduced for religious reasons.

Another challenge is government censorship. In my classroom, posted on the wall under pictures of the emir and the crown prince, are two pages of censorship guidelines. All textbooks, novels and videos that I use have been stamped, indicating that they’ve been examined, censored and approved by the ministry of education.

Although my textbooks are from the United States and loosely follow that country’s curriculum, some text and pages have been blacked out by Kuwaiti officials. For example, the Persian Gulf is now called the Arabian Gulf and any reference to Israel (Occupied Palestine) has been removed. I can only reference the Holocaust if I show historical balance and discuss genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia or the former Yugoslavia. Allegations that Muslims persecuted Christians or Jews can’t be made, nor can references to pork or alcohol products, human intimacy, homosexuality or evolution. Criticizing the government or Islam is strictly forbidden.

Although teachers are cautioned repeatedly to check the guidelines and not stray from orthodoxy, my students can access uncensored information on YouTube, Facebook and Google. Even with government firewalls, one need only plug into a server in Germany or elsewhere to access blocked websites. Many of my students believe that censorship is futile.

Typically, Arab culture is not a reading culture. My students at the university (where I teach first-year students the intricacies of writing academic papers), students I tutor privately and those I teach in high school do not read for recreation. I’ve never seen a public library here, although I’m told they exist.

Reading material is not in abundance, but I’ve seen bookstores where numerous Sunni and Shi’a interpretations of the Quran are found (audio format is available for those who prefer not to read or who can’t read). I am told that Arabic novels dealing with love themes exist, although human sexuality in any genre is a misunderstood and murky area rife with taboos.

The population of Kuwait is about 3 million, of whom 1 million are Kuwaiti and the rest are expatriates. The country’s two-tier school system has both public and private schools. The latter follow a business model and are designed to make a profit. Only wealthy students attend the best schools.

The expat community, of which there are about 6,000 Canadians, is divided along Western and Asian lines. Westerners hold the higher-paying professional and managerial positions (teaching is on the bottom rung of the ladder). Asians provide cheap labour that keeps the economy going.

Should the expats ever leave Kuwait, the country’s economy will collapse, as Kuwaitis do not have the skills or the motivation required to maintain the economy, nor does the country have an educational system geared to meet its needs. Kuwait has become almost totally dependent on outside labour and management skills. Consequently, Kuwaitis’ expectations are unrealistic in light of the country’s economic reality. In an economics course I teach, when I discuss the American Dream and ask my students what an equivalent Kuwaiti Dream is, the boys respond: “I want a free ride, a fast car and a hot wife.” The girls’ comments follow domestic themes and are more in line with the realities of Islamic life.

It’s difficult to motivate students to learn or to work toward specific academic goals, because their wealth is an impediment to lifelong learning and development of a work ethic. On average, Kuwaitis work a 20-hour week, with incomes supplemented by the government’s oil revenues. Students have a sense of entitlement; teachers are hard-pressed to give realistic marks because of repercussions from parents who expect their children to receive higher grades. Another obstacle to success in school is the culture’s nocturnal nature, perhaps a tradition born from living in a desert climate before air conditioning. Many students are up late or all night and are too tired to work or do homework.

Students study American history but appear to know little about Kuwait’s history, Arabic history or Islam. They have been plunged into Western culture and are only two generations removed from desert life. They are caught in the cultural headlights, so to speak, and live in two worlds. One part of society is eager to blend cultures, while the other fights the erosion of their culture. My Kuwaiti students have grown up with iPods and headphones, flat-screen plasma TVs and fast cars on crowded streets. The life their parents knew is disappearing fast.

The entire Arab culture in Kuwait is permeated with the belief or lifestyle of inshallah, translated as “God willing.” Inshallah is a laissez-faire, noncommittal way of living that requires no personal responsibility—because life is always in God’s hands. In this way, an entire society can’t be held accountable for anything. A student who receives homework may tell me that it will be done for next class, inshallah. I tell my students that they are learning in an “Inshallah-Free Zone.” I have made baby steps but perhaps in the wrong direction.

Despite the unique and challenging nature of living and teaching in Kuwait, along with students’ sense of entitlement associated with their wealth, I find my Kuwaiti students refreshingly naive. Discipline problems rarely exceed the he-called-me-a-name level, a food fight or mild teasing; I’ve never witnessed a serious fight. Students respect Western teachers and listen to them—it amazes me.

I am thriving thanks to the positive attitude students have toward their teachers in Kuwait, and I may just renew my contract for another year. Inshallah.

Marty Rempel currently teaches special education in Kuwait City, Kuwait. A story by Rempel appeared in the December 1, 2009, ATA News.

Elusive Inclusiveness

Elusive Inclusiveness

The keynote speaker at the Celebrating the Challenge Conference, Minister of Education Dave Hancock, spoke to the theme of inclusion within the Albertan education system. He defined inclusive education as, “...a values based approach to education accepting responsibility for all students.” This is an admirable goal for any education system and one I endorse and try to achieve within my own school. Sadly, the reality is that we may approach the achievement of this goal, but we will never quite get there and in some cases I do not think that inclusion is the best policy for some complex needs students.

In his address to Special Education teachers he painted a “word picture” describing a typical school of 500 in Alberta. To educators the statistics used by the Minister regarding those below the poverty level, the prevalence of ADHD, other emotional issues or the existence of physical disabilities within the student population are the current realities in which we all work and these stats no longer have the shock value they once had. The norms have changed significantly, a simple truth of modern society.

I teach in a northern community in this province and certainly the current funding model does not work for us. Our geography, accessibility to specialists and even the availability of paraprofessionals, retention of teachers and maintenance of existing infrastructure are all factors which make it challenging to offer consistent programming and an inclusive model of instruction. The minister is quite correct in that the present funding model does not work well for many schools and I would add that it hardly works at all for remote and isolated communities.

Because of the near failure of the funding model in the North those of us who teach there do not feel the inclusive model applies to us as teachers and therefore with such a glaring gap in resource availability we are stretched to provide inclusive programs for our students. I would like to be inclusionary when in comes to guidance, sports, art, and computer programs within our own school. The sad fact is we don’t have such programs as we lack the funding and the resources for even the basics. We do not have a speech pathologist or a teacher for the deaf even though we urgently need access to both. Video conferencing is a valuable tool which we use, as alluded to by Mr Hancock, but it does not come close to the personal one on one approach to instruction, nor can we do utilize it often enough to achieve effective results.

The minister also spoke of the inadequacies of funding in regards to coding students as a method which focusses primarily on deficits in student ability. I would have to agree and would hasten to add that so many dollars are spent in the actually process of testing leading to coding and few dollars are available to follow up on the needs that are identified by these same tests.

Learning coaches is another initiative mentioned by the Minister which certainly has merit, but again in the North it is difficult and sometimes impossible to find volunteers or suitable staff to work as TA’s or SA’s. Trying to achieve a reasonable level of student centred collaboration “where all students feel welcome and supported” is also an additional challenge in many communities not just in the North. The Minister asks teachers to be patient as we strive to manage additional diversity in our classrooms, and to be patient for the advent of a new funding formula, as well as other initiatives from his department, for certainly change and reform is coming.

I am a patient person, but any new innovation or funding formula may work best in mainstream urban schools and not be quite as effective in rural and isolated communities. Some schools, such as mine are truly unique and have never been adequately covered in any past funding formula and I have little faith that it will happen soon given the present woeful financial situation the government of Alberta finds itself.