Overheard in the Souk

the grapevine

An expat went to a hospital last week for a follow up visit with his doctor. The waiting lounge was full of people and as he stood in line, he expected he’d have to wait a long while for his appointment.

After standing in line for a token, he was glad to find that there were only ten patients ahead of him. Maybe the wait wouldn’t be so long after all.

As the first two patients entered and left the doctor’s office, he began to make estimations of how long he’d have to wait, a half at best at this rate, he deduced.

Then the led display that displayed the token numbers seemed to stagger, halt and at times even blank out.

This was a result of several interruptions by those without tokens who unabashedly stood by the doorway and entered in before their turn. The half an hour wait turned into a two hour ordeal of watching a culture of entitlement pervade the healthcare system.

Summer vacations are round the corner. And most expatriate families are planning to fly out to their home countries. But there are some that have decided to stay back. Reason: flight fares. The fares are burning hot. Name it and people flinch in pain.

The lucky ones are those who booked a good one year in advance. If you like to live life spontaneously, not planning too far ahead, and not thinking of booking a plane ticket until the homesickness bug bites, then you would probably have to pay through your nose to get a seat near the backside toilet in an area elusively termed J or L class.

While your neighbor, who may have had the better sense to book months before you even began thinking of home, might have just paid half the price. And he may be traveling a different class for all you know, B or C, separated by just a hand rest from you.

The fares are whimsical. But when it’s about flying through the clouds, a little whimsicality is excusable, isn’t it?

The cancelation of the ‘kafala’ or sponsorship system had been much talked about for years now, human rights groups, non-government organisations as well as expats in Kuwait have been pushing for its abolition.

Legislative measures have been drafted and passed on this matter but this has yet to see the daylight especially if some major stakeholders in the labour sector and manpower recruitment industry are opposing it.

Let’s face it, manpower recruitment is a multi-million dollar industry from the recruitment of expat workers from their country of origin to the deployment of workers here. Who benefits from the step-by-step transaction down the line to the upline?

Money exchanges from one hand to the other, hence, if the ‘kafala’ system is abolished, who will lose more? The workers’ big gain could spell out a big loss on some major stakeholders. One can simply do the Math. When will this day come? You can take a look at the glowing crystal ball, it might help you predict the bright future ahead.