Failaka Island. Please note that the first four letters of the island name spell FAIL.
It looks nice enough from a distance.
As Lindsay would say, what a shitshow. We had heard that the island was nice, and that there were still aspects of the Gulf War to see. We figured we’d get some Kuwaiti culture in and have a nice day on the island. WELL.
It took us a bit to get this trip arranged. We ended up booking for a group of 13 people, which was fine. The more the merrier, right?! We went to Marina Crescent to get our tickets on Tuesday (and we also toured the mall there). The man told us we needed to be there at 10 am. No problem. We were there at 10, and we didn’t need to be there until 10:30. That was a little crappy, but Marina Crescent is all restaurants and coffee shops. I had a large coffee, and oh, was it delicious!
The crew.
The ferry finally left a little after 11. We got to the island before noon. Once there, the tour group had buses waiting to take us to Heritage Village. It sounds like a pleasant, historic kind of place, right?
Our fabulous bus. It reminded us all of a prison bus (not that we'd been on one). Some of the seats were held together by string.
A map of the village.
The main square. This is right when you walk in.
There was a Baskin Robbins here, a little tea shop, and a restaurant where we ate lunch.
It took us about 20 minutes to walk around the village. That included the time we spent playing on these fun little exercise things:
And Lindsay’s camel ride:
I couldn’t do the camel ride. The poor thing looked absolutely miserable and the guy hits it to get it to stand up.
A pathway that led to the small villas you can rent.
Men were making these traditional dowd models.
We were ready to leave by 2. The ferry didn’t leave until 8.
So, I did what any sane American would do. I went exploring. Don’t tell my mom, but I went through an old school that no longer had a ceiling. It was a fascinating look at what happens to a country during a war. Generally speaking, in America we are really lucky. Most of the time the wars that are fought are done elsewhere. To walk through a place that had been occupied by the Iraqis during the Gulf War was chilling. To walk through a school, a type of building that is near and dear to my heart, and to see it utterly destroyed by a group of people who didn’t like what another group of people said/did really pisses me off. Who are we to judge? If anything, it makes me realize that we all need to try harder to accept people for who and what they are. There is no need for hate.
The outside of the school.
A hallway on the ground floor.
A classroom on the ground floor. Well, what's left of one anyways.
I may or may not have walked up a staircase that was somewhat questionable to go up to the 1st floor ;)
Going up the stairs... This is such a simple photo, and I know it's not the best quality, yet it hurts my heart in a way the other bullet-ridden buildings didn't.
This view shows what is next door to the school.
The hallway on the 1st floor.
A classroom on the 1st floor - there are books in that pile. I wanted to cry.
Other pictures from around the island:
A bullet-ridden house. This is another example of what is left from the Gulf War.
I also smoked some sheesha on the beach. What else was a girl to do?
It was BORING there! However, there is talk that they’re going to make the island a drinking part of Kuwait. This is just talk, however, if that comes to pass I may just be spending my weekends there!
Really? There may be no construction debris but there sure is a lot of 20-year-old war debris still there!
A street in the town. Seriously, it's like a ghost town. People used to live there, and I think a few do. Some families do own homes there and go there on the weekend.
Some fairly nice homes on the island.
We walked out on the jetty. Why not? We still had 5 hours to kill.
I'm a sucker for the sunset.
If you look REALLY closely you can see the skyline of Kuwait City off to the right of the sun.
I suppose you think I'm being a bit of a bitter Betty in my complaints of the island. Looking at these pictures I see that we did have a good time. We did what we could to make it better. The main thing would have been if we had options as to when we could head back to the main land. That, and if the boat tours would have been operating.
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