Saturday, 27 March 2010 - It was a very eventful week here in Kuwait. First of all, we have officially been here a month. :-) We are settled in, have met really wonderful people and both of us like our jobs very much. The CSA contract officially expires 31 March, so there has been a lot of uneasy feelings at work while people wonder what is going to happen to everyone next week. That was answered on Thursday, when we all received 6 month extension contracts...so we will definitely be here working for CSA until 30 September.

The other big event was a horrible accident that impacted BJ's department. The dog of an employee in BJ's area was hit by a car, and while he was tending to his dog the employee (Jesse) was hit by another car. It was a really bad accident, and Jesse is not expected to survive. That honestly is the biggest safety hazard about being here...the driving. Many of you have gotten emails from me about that, and now there is proof (terrible proof) that I wasn't exaggerating...the people over here can NOT drive, and they drive way, way too fast. I am infinitely more worried about my safety when I am in a vehicle than I am about terrorism or being in a war zone.

Other than that it was a regular ol' work week. We bought a grill, so today will be our first official Kuwaiti cook out!! And we tried the bar-b-que restaurant owned by a CSA employee that is from Texas...thank God it was really good, so we have our Jim N' Nicks substitute! Now if we could just find somewhere that makes good sweet tea we will be set.

Oh, before I sign off, let me describe what a "regular ol' work week" is over here. Kuwait has a mandatory 48 hour work week. So both BJ and I are up at 3:30 am. It is painful. BJ leaves about 4:05 because he starts work at 5 am...I leave at 4:45 and start at 6:00. It takes about 25 minutes to get to the base, and then another 30-45 minutes to get through security check points before we are on base. That is the worst part, but obviously it is a necessary evil. I get off at 5:00 and BJ gets off at 6:00, but because of traffic I only beat him home by about 20-30 minutes. Then I walk on the treadmill and he swims. We eat cereal for dinner most nights because we only have an hour before bedtime at this point, so we don't want anything heavy to eat. We fight over the computer for that hour trying to keep up with emails, then it is time for bed so we can do it all over again. Now I only work 5 days a week most weeks, but BJ does this 6 days a week so he has it worse than I do. It definitely makes for long days, which means we are pooped and sleeping like babies when it is bedtime!!

Tomorrow's Blog will feature our Friday Market adventures from last week...stay tuned!