Memory Lane I

In response to Nora-Cassandras last comment on my last post, I'll write the story of my life in brief.

I grew up thinking I was anything, and always will be, anything but the norm. In my minds eye, I would be the first one to break out of the mold, kill the stereotype of what a typical Kuwaiti girl should embody.

As I've said before, we spent 7 long years living in Germany. In Moenchengladbach, right outside Dusseldorf, to be more precise. Went to a British school, Hampshire Primary, on a British army base. The RAF. The school was predominantly full of the army workers kids. You could only get in and out of the base with an ID card. Shopping at the Naffy was only permitted if you had an official ration card.

How I loved my Marmite, my Scampi Fries, my Bon Jovi cassettes, my flake ice-cream, my Magnum ice-cream, my My Little Pony magazine, my Cupcake toys, my Spy magazine...

I learned how to play the Clarinet, was in the church choir (though I was extremely upset when I was the only girl forced to wear trousers when all the other girls wore skirts due to the limited number of skirts, and the boys unwilling to sing in a church choir, of all things - or maybe it was to cover up my abnormally un-British, Persian hairy legs). I cried when I was forced to eat during dinner time in school, when I would leave my lunch box at home on purpose, eat the school dinners and pay 89 Pfennig, even though it was Ramadan. I learned to play Tig (what you guys call Tag), run in the school field and make daisy-chains, became head of the Sprinting Team, won medals, went on 10 kilometer marathons, was the organizer for Sports Day, had a part in all of the school plays, joined the sewing club, the story-writing club, pottery club, baseball club, football club, and just about every other after-school activity you can imagine. I even went on a bicycle try-out, and got a legal, government license permitting me to ride my bicycle. One of the privileges that came with it was I was allowed to ride my bike on the street, instead of just on the pavement.

I'd be out of the house at 6 in the morning and wouldn't be back home before 8 in the evening.

I still remember that one time where I'd been holding myself all day, because I'd been bad and my bathroom privileges were taken away from me that day, and on the public bus on our way back home, I peed myself, right there and then, on the bus while sitting on the plush blue seat. The blind man who always seemed to be on the bus, a staple of the 17 bus, knew all along.

Mom stopped us from using the public transport buses after that incident, and paid an Irani driver, our neighbor, to drive us to the school bus stop and back for the next 2 years. I was 9 then, and utterly embarrassed and ashamed of what I had done.

I loved morning assemblies, the honor of being one of 20 students allowed the privilege to sit on the bench, while all the other kids had to sit on the gym floor for the duration of the daily morning prayer, followed by the school singing in unison to some tune Ms. Paxton played on the piano, followed by the headteachers' daily morning talk to us.

I learned to hate daddy-long-legs, and pull their legs off when they came to bother me during break time when I was busy trying to win a ping-pong match. I learned to fall in love with William.

William was my first crush. I was so grateful that he would be on the same bus as me for the next 7 years to and from school. Our bus was named the Tank Bus.

I would smuggle stuff out of the house and give them to William every chance I could get. Brylcreem, Bacon flavored Walkers crisps, Marmite, audio-cassettes, anything I could get my hands on. That was what love meant to me. Giving stuff away to the person I loved.

I kept a diary, and I remember writing about how much I loved William, compared to how much I hate my dad. Dad found the diary and was utterly amused. He still rubs it in my face, to this day, how he came across my diary and found out that I'd been writing about how much I hate him.

I never felt un-Kuwaiti. I was too dark to pass for anything other than Indian. I spoke Arabic at home, English in school, and German on the streets. I was always looked at as this exotic creature, from some exotic country, far far far away. We had ART at home, Dubai tv, MBC, though I was much more a fan of RTL, ViVa, and MTV Deutschland. And I loved knowing that I was different.

Grandma, my aunts and uncles always visited whenever they could. How could they not? Free accommodation, free food, all they had to bring was pocket money for shopping. Uncle J. even brought his new bride and stayed in a hotel out in the woods. They claim the chocolate they were given was stale, but I doubt it.

Aunt W.'s new husband bought a bag of bacon-flavored chips, and when I pointed it out to him, he called me a lame prankster and continued munching on the chips.

We were back in Kuwait every winter holiday, and drove through Europe all the way to Spain in my moms Opel every summer.

I grew up thinking a crush was enough to get a girl pregnant. I tried to force William out of my head, but to no avail.

I grew up thinking I wouldn't share a kiss with anyone besides my husband- whoever he turns out to be (William or anyone else).

I grew up thinking I would be an outcast when I returned to Kuwait, because I would be the only English speaker there (haha), and that I wouldn't know how to communicate well with anyone.

Imagine the shock, when at the tender age of 12, we returned to Kuwait, and I found out that not only were there private schools in Kuwait, but they were English schools too!

The next 2 years were traumatic for me, to say the least. My parents returned to Germany, and left us to live with my Grandmother, in a house full of busy aunts and uncles.

I was made fun of in school for my thick British accent (which I lost over time- now people claim I don't have any discernible accent, whatever that means), made fun of for my hairy legs, for not knowing what Mojama3 Zahra is, what Salhiya is, who or what Al-Subah are, what Kara3een was, yada yada yada. It's a good thing dad forced us to learn Arabic when we were at home back when we were still in Germany, so at least the kids couldn't make fun of me when I was just as good as they were when it came to Arabic class.

I hated grandma. She broadcasted a public announcement to everyone she knew, everyone in her phone book, when I got my first period. As if that event wasn't traumatic, embarrassing and utterly nerve-wrecking in and of itself. It was bad enough all the women in the house knew, but they had to share the delightful news with the men too!

I failed my summer IGCSE's. I was too busy having fun I guess, and my grades showed it. Straight U's (Ungradeable), save for that one A in Literature (oh how proud I was). I retook the exams in winter, and ended up getting accepted in the faculty of Engineering at KU, where I spent 3 years, before confronting my mom. Mom was vehemently against the idea, and said that I should stay at home and learn how to cook and knit if I wasn't going to end up an engineer or an MD like the rest of the family. I shattered the family tradition when I changed my major to Linguistics, to the shock and horror of all my relatives. I was the bad seed, the black sheep, and treated as such.

I started rebelling when I was in high-school. Smoking my Peter Stuyvesants, hanging out with the boys, going to house parties, always absent, always late, skipping class by hiding in the bathroom and chain smoking, for which I was always caught, and suspended.

My first kiss was when I was in summer school in Margate, age 14. Abdul-Kareem Al-Soufi was his name. A Saudi from Khubar. Hence my fascination with anything remotely Saudi ever since. I learned how to use Yahoo and Paltalk, and met plenty of boys who were willing to take advantage of anyone who didn't know better.

I've lost track of the countless flings, countless people I met off cyber space, countless kiss-and-runs, first dates that never evolved into anything more.

Then I got my drivers license, and a new-found freedom (as if I didn't have enough freedom already).

I allowed Pandoras box to be burst open when I invited my boyfriend to sleep over at my place (mom was away on vacation as usual, and dad was buried with work like he always was), and had my first anal-sex experience. Everything went downhill from there. There wasn't a single barrier I hadn't broken, so why not go further down that dismal road? Booze, drugs, unprotected sex with countless flings. I would go so far as to call myself a sexaholic, in need of serious professional help.

I am anything but not "stereotypical". I'm the poster child for the Kuwaiti stereotype. In my quest to break the mold, I'd done the exact opposite. I was a failure in school, a failure in my personal life, just like everyone else around here. Crass, careless, irresponsible, immature, you name it. I'm the epitome of what the norm seems to be in this country, if not like every other adolescent in the entire world. Even if it was on the low-down, this is basically the life story of every other youth here, save for a few changes here and there. Nothing exceptional. Just another screw-up.

To be continued...