Arrival

Imagine this:  walking off a plane into 120 degree heat at night after traveling over 24 hours including two layovers, a rescheduled flight and several vain attempts to reach your future employer.  Deliriously tired but full of confusion and adrenaline, you aimlessly walk around until you fumble into a line that is supposed to be where you get your entrance visa.  You survey the area, and you hear a lot of a language you don't understand, smell smoke from all the lit cigarettes inside mixed with an unusual perfume, and you see men in white dresses and women in black with their hair covered.

When your number is called, you explain the situation and they give you a piece of paper and unhelpful directions(in a thick accent) to the next place you have to wait in line.  This line takes another 20 minutes, and you begin to reconsider whether looking for a job in the middle east was a wise idea while praying that you will be able to get to some shelter, privacy and rest.  Once you make it through the next line, you find where you collect your bags by watching what other people are doing just to figure it out, but realize that your bag is not on the machine, and you have no idea what to do.  After asking several people, you get some sort of general explanation why your bag isn't on the plane, a phone number to call with an unusual number of digits and a plus sign, along with overconfident reassurances that everything will be okay.  

You make your way through another checkpoint, where all bags and carry-on items need to be scanned for contraband, and then walk through some big doors into the the airport main lobby and arrivals which is full of people waiting for friends and loved ones.  You look around anxiously for someone to have your name on a piece of paper, and you feel as rejected as your were in junior high when you don't see anyone immediately.  Eventually, you talk to someone who refers you to someone else who is waiting for you, and he makes you exchange money to buy a cell phone and then has you get into his van.  

At this point, you begin to realize that you don't have any confirmation that this person is who he says he is, and he could be a con artist or a murderer and dump your bodies in the desert.  However, you have no choice but to trust this man, or get back on a flight home.  

This was exactly the experience that my wife and I had when we first came to Kuwait, and after five years of living there, that initial experience is as vivid now as it was then.  However, I've learned to love that airport and all the sights, smells and experiences that goes with going back to Kuwait as I get ready to launch into another school year.