A Little Information Please

Having made many postings from Wonderful Wafra, I thought I'd better include a map showing the exact location of where I am working. The red star shown in the above map image indicates that we are in southern Kuwait, a short distance (just a few kilometers) north of the Saudi-Kuwait border. Our oilfield is in what is termed the "Partitioned Neutral Zone". Basically, since Saudi Arabia and Kuwait could not decide exactly where their mutual border was situated, they simply decided to split the oil production 50% / 50% from that area. The US-based company for which I work is the official contractor to the Saudi government and as such we are in charge of producing the Saudi share of the oil from the PNZ.

People ask me what's it like to work over here and I simply respond that as an American living in the Middle East, Kuwait is probably the second best area within this part of the world (the best being Dubai, of course) where an American can ever hope to be assigned. At least the people over here don't hate us as much as may be the case in other Middle Eastern countries (whose names I shall withhold for obvious reasons!). Furthermore, the infrastructure is sound - the water is safe to drink, the power is on 99% of the time, I can get CNN, BBC and Orbit News, a few newsstands sell The International Herald Tribune (THE American expat's favorite newspaper when away from home), and there are many fine hotels where we can eat a very decent meal and relax on the weekends. Alcohol is illegal in the country but I don't care as I don't drink that much anyway. Christians and other non-Muslims can worship as they please and there is a huge Catholic cathedral in downtown Kuwait City with a big cross out front. Overall, I find this a very tolerant country. Not as liberal as Dubai but still a nice place in which to work.

In the interest of shedding a little bit of light on an area of the Middle East with which many folks (particularly Americans) may not be aware, I will try to answer any questions posed by readers about this part of the world.