Overheard in the Souk
the grapevine
The weather is getting better each day as the mercury starts to drop. Summer will soon be over and here comes the fall. Though, there is no colourful foliage in Kuwait but a prelude to winter is a refreshing time. As the season changes, the season of allergies is also on!
A pediatrician friend has been busy as a bee this week after parents have been rushing their kids to her clinic with asthma, cold, cough, flu and other allergies brought about by the changing season. Even adults are not exempted from seasonal allergies. Allergies happen but may be prevented. Stay away from the allergens or the stuff that trigger your allergies. A few tips may include staying indoors when levels of pollens are high or very high for those that you’re sensitive to; wear a mask; wash your hair at night; ditch the carpet; take antihistamines. Stay healthy and manage your allergy properly!
The season of less traffic on the commute to work is over. Now we tarry along the motorways with phantom jams and accidents to slow us down. A collective shift in our driving habits would go a long way in easing the lags. Too often we give in to the psychology of braking needlessly, step on ours in cases where a release of acceleration would suffice. While many expound on the many ways we can avoid ripples of delay, the optimal way to drive would be with the flow of traffic. Going faster or slower than everybody else creates situations that need to be reacted to by those around you, and the more reactions, the more traffic or accidents.
The threat to grill ministers is continuing as Kuwait’s Parliament will soon come back to sessions, but most will target the ministers of social affairs and labour and education and higher education.
For minister of social affairs, her fault, according to her critics, is her appointing or employing expatriates instead of citizens in her ministry and education minister’s error is that his inability to make some of the schools ready to enroll students due to lack of teachers even though new academic year has started.
Lawmakers know that expatriates number is more than twice the number of citizens and they also know that expatriates occupy many jobs in the country and thus their demand to not only reduce expat numbers but also stop employing them in government institutions especially fields that can be occupied by citizens.
Some concluded that the expulsion and deportation should not affect the expatriates who are productive for the country rather than the unskilled ones and those who violate residency law.