After we left the pit-stop area, tiredness set back in and I fought sleep while I was getting a look at the cities. It was so surreal, less than 24 hours prior I was in an American airport and now I was cruising down a highway in the Middle East. Kuwait lights its highways well, they must have a lot of money to pay for a streetlight every 10 feet on both sides ;) It's not like they have the fifth most oil reserves in the whole world or anything. A lot of locals don't even use headlights at night. (I will get to the amazing driving habits of the locals later.)
The neighborhoods that I saw consisted of large apartment complexes cuddled right next to each other. Most were thee or four stories tall and had flat roofs. From what I've been told, whole extended families will live in one of those. The elders get the best room in the complex and their kids live on a different floor, uncles, aunts and cousins all live in the same building. These were built VERY nice, a lot of them had marble exteriors and looked like museums on the inside complimented by lush landscapes outside. The only reason I could see everything so well was because EVERYTHING was lit well. Kuwait isn't all about energy conservation haha. Once we got out of the city I got a better look at the odd lit-up squares that I saw from the airplane.
They were surrounding little tent cities. From the airport to the in-processing center there must have been thousands of tents scattered throughout the desert, all surrounded by lights on a string, or lights placed into the ground. I asked later about this and here is the explanation. So, from October to February all of the males will leave home and go live in these large tent communities to get back to the way life was back in the day. The irony of this is, they are all lighted by hundreds of fluorescent lights on the ground, have electricity inside and there's satellite dishes everywhere for TV. The males still commute to work but will go back to their tent every night. Some live out there for months. They pack up in February because it gets too hot during the day, so they escape back to their air conditioned homes. Roughing it huh? HA!
We arrived at the in-processing center and had a short brief. My senior NCO was waiting to get me and the other soldier I traveled with. After waiting what felt like forever, they finally opened the semi with all of our checked baggage and everyone started going through it. It wasn't long before we found our stuff and threw it all in the truck that my NCO brought. We all got in and attempted to leave base. The only problem was the soldier from my office that was with lost his ID somewhere between Atlanta and Kuwait. No one can enter or leave a base in the mid-east without a military ID. We were turned around and had to wait for him to fill out an MP report for losing an ID (Security Violation) and wait for a new one to be made. By now it was going on 0100 and I just wanted to get some sleep! We all waited in the truck for a good hour until he was all taken care of. FINALLY we were on our way. Being tired and it being night, Sarge took a wrong turn and we went the wrong way for a good half hour before he turned around and got us back on track.
Other than the millions of lights lighting the highway, the desert was pitch black except this bright area off the horizon. The closer we got to it the more I thought that maybe the sun was coming up, it was so bright. We took a turn, went over a hill and we were all blinded by the military installation that was going to be my home for the next several months. That was the light off the horizon that I saw. You can walk around here at night and it feels like an eerie daytime. Generators are everywhere with bright spotlights attached. We had to go through three security checkpoints before we even got onto the camp and we finally made it to where I am sitting right now. The temporary barracks. It was 0330 and I was beat. I was told that I didn't have to come to work the next day and I should take a day to catch up on sleep. I got to my bunk, called Rachel to say I finally made it safe and passed out. In the matter of 24 hours I had one of the most amazing journeys of my life and it had all JUST started.
The neighborhoods that I saw consisted of large apartment complexes cuddled right next to each other. Most were thee or four stories tall and had flat roofs. From what I've been told, whole extended families will live in one of those. The elders get the best room in the complex and their kids live on a different floor, uncles, aunts and cousins all live in the same building. These were built VERY nice, a lot of them had marble exteriors and looked like museums on the inside complimented by lush landscapes outside. The only reason I could see everything so well was because EVERYTHING was lit well. Kuwait isn't all about energy conservation haha. Once we got out of the city I got a better look at the odd lit-up squares that I saw from the airplane.
They were surrounding little tent cities. From the airport to the in-processing center there must have been thousands of tents scattered throughout the desert, all surrounded by lights on a string, or lights placed into the ground. I asked later about this and here is the explanation. So, from October to February all of the males will leave home and go live in these large tent communities to get back to the way life was back in the day. The irony of this is, they are all lighted by hundreds of fluorescent lights on the ground, have electricity inside and there's satellite dishes everywhere for TV. The males still commute to work but will go back to their tent every night. Some live out there for months. They pack up in February because it gets too hot during the day, so they escape back to their air conditioned homes. Roughing it huh? HA!
We arrived at the in-processing center and had a short brief. My senior NCO was waiting to get me and the other soldier I traveled with. After waiting what felt like forever, they finally opened the semi with all of our checked baggage and everyone started going through it. It wasn't long before we found our stuff and threw it all in the truck that my NCO brought. We all got in and attempted to leave base. The only problem was the soldier from my office that was with lost his ID somewhere between Atlanta and Kuwait. No one can enter or leave a base in the mid-east without a military ID. We were turned around and had to wait for him to fill out an MP report for losing an ID (Security Violation) and wait for a new one to be made. By now it was going on 0100 and I just wanted to get some sleep! We all waited in the truck for a good hour until he was all taken care of. FINALLY we were on our way. Being tired and it being night, Sarge took a wrong turn and we went the wrong way for a good half hour before he turned around and got us back on track.
Other than the millions of lights lighting the highway, the desert was pitch black except this bright area off the horizon. The closer we got to it the more I thought that maybe the sun was coming up, it was so bright. We took a turn, went over a hill and we were all blinded by the military installation that was going to be my home for the next several months. That was the light off the horizon that I saw. You can walk around here at night and it feels like an eerie daytime. Generators are everywhere with bright spotlights attached. We had to go through three security checkpoints before we even got onto the camp and we finally made it to where I am sitting right now. The temporary barracks. It was 0330 and I was beat. I was told that I didn't have to come to work the next day and I should take a day to catch up on sleep. I got to my bunk, called Rachel to say I finally made it safe and passed out. In the matter of 24 hours I had one of the most amazing journeys of my life and it had all JUST started.
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