Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to all of my friends and family! I have been so busy recently to write but I will try to update you on the past few weeks!
I am happy to report that Goodman’s Sweet Shop (my entrepreneurial baking adventure here) was very successful at the bazaar I participated in on December 24. Not only was my booth profitable, but I was able to gain new clients who really loved my recipes J. Another great thing was I was able to understand and speak enough Arabic (Kuwaiti and Lebanese) to conduct my business when I needed to! This was such a proud moment as I have struggled with these different dialogues but finally had my aha moment where they all came together.
After the bazaar, Fiance M and I headed into the Kuwaiti desert for an event hosted by a local restaurant here. It was nice to experience the desert (tents, sheesha, food, and music) without being SO authentic like my adventure a couple weekends ago. During this desert outing we were with a Kuwaiti friends family and we ate on the ground in tents with our hands, we sat around the campfire singing Arabic songs (clearly I did not participate in this), and rode ATVs (buggies). This is where women and men sit in separate tents and it looks like a freaking National Geographic film. Nice to experience once for a few hours but I was really over it after being outside in the dry, skin-chapping, cold desert wind all day and into the night.
So after the few hours in the desert, Fiance M and I went to his mom’s house for a Christmas Eve dinner. Unfortunately Fiance M failed to understand that this was the “big Christmas celebration” that his mom had been planning for me so not only did we show up late (because Fiance M didn’t think it was a big deal) but we were not dressed up as we thought the celebration was the following day. His mom was a little pissed but I wasn’t up for any sass after being exhausted from the week of full days preparing for the bazaar, not seeing Fiance M at all because he had so much work during the week, and overall pissy-ness from being stuck in this Godforesaken country with not a public display of Christmas anywhere during Christmastime. Anyway, everything turned out fine and it turned out to be an amazing evening. I was so impressed by how much Fiance M’s family and friends cared about making this holiday special for me. Everybody brought me gifts, prepared a yummy Arabic (yeah that’s a first Christmas cuisine experience), and danced the night away for a Christmas celebration. It was sooooooo special to me and really meant so much. Not to mention Fiance M’s mom surprised me with a beautiful Hermes scarf which I am soooooooooo stoked about. And good job Fiance M for actually listen to me blabber about how amazing Hermes scarves are (riveting conversation for him I’m sure) enough to tell his mom to get me one hahahaha.
After the Christmas Eve festivities, Fiance M returned to another busy week of work and I returned to another busy week of sleeping until noon, cleaning up after Devil Puppy (who has now lost his canines and his adult ones are growing in…awwwww), and watching endless hours of CSI, ER, and CNN. Fantastic….I know.
So then New Year approached. Fiance M’s mom wanted to go to Bahrain or Qatar for the weekend so we could get out of here and party but last-minute tickets were too expensive and not worth the lack of planning for New Years. No one was looking forward to celebrating here and New Years was looking pretty bad. Have no fear though, the Mini-Martha in me (yes, that’s a Martha Stewart reference to those who don’t know me as well) decided to bring my party planning passion to these party poopers.
I decided that instead of another gathering full of Arabic meshewee (grilled meats with bread, hummus, salads, etc.) which we eat at literally every gathering, I decided to switch it up. I planned a make-your-own pizza party and made pizza dough and got toppings for everyone to assemble their own pizza. While we waited for the pizzas to bake we snacked on veggies and onion dip and an antipasto platter that I put together. And for all my American readers, I even found Hillshire Farm Lil’ Smokie sausages (a Christmas tradition from my childhood) that turned out to be everyone’s favorite here. Hahahaha oh God Lil’ Smokies. I also made a fabulous coconut cake that was pretty with the sparklers on top for the midnight slicing. Again, we danced and threw confetti and even had some smuggled in Stoli vodka that spiked my pink lemonade punch well J. It was such a fun night and everyone really loved the food and the atmosphere. Not bad for a Kuwaiti New Years.
FIance M’s mom is very into horoscopes and astrology as many of the people are here and told me that she’s going to miss me so much when I leave and I jokingly said “Well, don’t worry, who knows when we will leave” and she responded with “It’ll be soon, I know it.” Then she proceeded to tell me about how this year is going to be a really good year for me and how everything I want is supposed to come true. Nice horoscope J. Now let’s let that astrology work now, shall we?
I am doing another bazaar on January 15 so I will be busy preparing for that and Fiance M is really mad about gaining 15 kilos or 30 pounds since he’s been back in Kuwait so we are going to start P90X again this week. Since we’ve had our own apartment and I’ve been cooking healthy food instead of the normal fare at his mom’s (full fat everything, 75% of everything is deep fried), I’ve lost about 5 kilos or 10 pounds so I’m not complaining. But alas, the little baby wants to start working out so I’ll do it with him and maybe Devil Puppy will join as well.
Ok so I’ve been too busy to have any Kuwaiti adventures that piss me off enough to write about. Maybe it’s my new outlook of trying to be more positive for the New Year (don’t worry, I’ll never lose my sass), or maybe it’s my Rapunzel-like life where I’m trapped in my tower waiting for my prince to rescue me hahahahah (not quite, but I can be dramatic since I have the time now J) so I haven’t had much Kuwaiti interaction to write about.
I hope everyone’s holidays were full of family, friends, and great food and I look forward to spending time with all of you this year (I hope so!). I also look forward to receiving the damn visa (which by the way we were told by the Department of State that it is currently undergoing background checks from twenty one different agencies so we just need to continue to wait until it is done) to see all of you lovely people! I hope everyone’s New Year is full of happiness, prosperity, and progress!
With love and peace from the Middle East,
R.
