Death and taxes

Well, taxes at any rate...

I was quite nervous about taxes for 2007 as this is a partial year in Kuwait for us. Well, we just got our taxes done by ExpatCPA and I've mailed them off. So let me give you the breakdown:

First, they filed an exemption request form to extend our *filing* date for 2007 to Dec 2008. This is to make sure we can meet the Bona Fide resident test for the overseas income exclusion for money earned overseas. Interesting thing is, along with this goes the check for our 2007 Federal taxes...because although we can extend the *filing* deadline, you cannot extend the deadline to *pay* taxes. So we *had* to pay taxes before April 15, but we actually *file* in December 2008. Of course, they handle all the timing of this too.

The 1040 was filled out with the stateside work information, and there was an additional foreign income exclusion form with lots of worksheets that made me very glad I didn't have to do it myself.

They also did our state taxes (Oregon), and it is good to know that Oregon will abide by the federal extension and exclusions.

ExpatCPA has been *mostly* good so far, with some exceptions. The number one thing I appreciate about them is that they have been willing to work with my prickly nature, even if they have made some misteps along the way. First, I selected them because they use a 3rd party secure (SSL) website for entering all the needed information. Once done, they download the info and fill out the tax forms. Unfortunately, at one point I had forgotten my password, so I emailed them requesting an account unlock. They then sent me an email telling me my account had been unlocked, as well as my password in plain text. I had used one of my financial tier passwords and this necessitate that I reset all of my financial website passwords. The person who did this accepted my criticism with appropriate contrition and said he wouldn't do that again. Later, when I needed to send scans of my W-2s, they were kind enough to work with me and utilize FilesAnywhere.com to securely transfer the files. All was great, until they sent me the final pdfs...which they emailed to me! Apparently, they don't see the problem with transmitting documents containing private information such as social security numbers and financial information via an insecure medium such as email. Again, they responded well to my issues and worked with me to change the method for sending the updated docs back to me. They charged about $650 total for the Federal and State ($100 or so for state), which is a pretty good median price. I've seen everything from $30 to $1000, so $650 for peace of mind isn't so bad.

In the process, I asked them if because I had to pay some taxes for last year, didn't I have to pay estimated quarterly taxes for 2008? They said, uh...yeah...and made me out some nice coupons. I spent some time figuring out if I could withhold money from my paycheck in lieu of paying quarterly, but eventually just decided to withhold the money myself and pay the estimated taxes. There will be plenty left over in the taxes fund for anything else that I owe at the end of 2008.

So all in all, feeling pretty good about it now, which is great cuz I was quite worried about it before.

In Light of our Recent Trouble . . .

I thought this billboard was rather hillarious the first time I saw it. Now I realize that they actually meant it. You can only have a tiny taste of that cupcake. Call me a greedy American but, when it comes to the internet, I'd really rather have the whole cupcake.

Wonderful Weekend

I keep forgetting to post about what an incredible long weekend we recently had.

On Friday, my Kuwaiti friend Muhammed (abu Khaled), who I met in Fahaheel by chance a couple of months back, invited our family out to dinner in Salmiya. Salmiya is the pointy bit of Kuwait City on the map.

He gave us directions to the "3 palms casino" (really the Palm Palace...must be an arabic thing), which we were able to locate finally near Marina Mall. He showed up in his dishdash (first time I've seen him out of a jogging suit) and with 3 nephews in tow. His sister has been living in the US for some years and his nephews all speak English and were eager to see someone from the States after a year or so of being back in Kuwait. The restaurant was a lovely Lebanese place serving the usual assortment of food we tend to classify here as "arabic" but is apparently derivative of Lebanese. Only this stuff was the best to be had around here. After a (typically apparently) confusing little extended seating ritual involving making sure all the brothers were seated in an age appropriate order, Abu Khaled began ordering stuff right and left, quickly filling the table with little dishes of hummous, moutabel (baba ghanouj), salads, tabbouleh, dolmas, etc, etc.... Piping hot fresh pitas were brought out, puffed up into little round balls, which he then used to serve us various samplings of the dishes. It is fairly expected here that you should serve your guests up with various dishes and I tried to pick up on those cues and do my share of serving too. The brothers were all expected to serve the younger brother, and to keep Rowan's plate full. The brothers were between 8 and 14 I believe. Abu Khaled ordered a couple of shisha pipes with saloum (he calls them 'hubbly bubbly') and we puffed on those through out the evening. Of course we talked a lot about various things, and he again insists he must take us all over the place, starting with some spots here in Kuwait, such as the northern areas, and arranging a trip out to Failaka Island (which his family used to own at one time apparently), and eventually the Emirates, Egypt, and lots of other spots he feels we simply must see. He is really incredibly kind and friendly, and we are very grateful to have met him.

Later on, the real dinner arrived...plates of mixed roasted meats with incredible flavour (chicken, lamb, beef, kebab), which we gorged upon until feeling quite full. The meal lasted several hours and it was almost 11 when we decided to leave. Of course, he insisted on paying for the meal, which we anticipated, but still...I believe the total was over 50KD! At any rate we had a fabulous time and plan on hooking up with Mohammed again when we can. He is currently our only (but an exellent!) contact with actual Kuwaiti's and we hope to meet more of his family if we can.

And that was just Friday night!

We had heard from somewhere that Liberation Tower was going to be open to the public on Saturday...part of the local festivities (National Day, Liberation Day and Hala February). So we had planned on taking the bus (first time as a family) downtown to see if we could go in. The last time we tried to park our car in that area we spent about an hour just trying to find a parking spot. We ended up waiting in a line for a full parking garage for about 30 minutes before we were able to park. So we figured that taking the bus, even if it takes a little longer to get there, was well worth it for not having to park. As I've blogged before, the bus fares are very reasonable at 250 fils per person to ride all the way downtown from Fahaheel, and Rowan was free. We were able to catch a bus right outside on our street and it took about an hour to get to our destination, the KPTC bus station right next to Liberation Tower. We were hungry by that time so walked across the street and found a lovely arabic food restaurant, much much cheaper than the Palm Palace, and had way too much to eat of shawarma meat, hummous and moutabel, plus freshly baked flat-bread of two varieties. Heading over to the Tower it was clear that our information was incorrect and it was not open to the public. In fact even the lower sections were closed for the holiday. Ah well, no trouble, we decided to walk around the area and I showed Kerri some of the other malls/souks I had found in my wanderings. Eventually we made our way back to the bus station and headed back for Fahaheel. The only hiccup in our bus outing was that on the return journey, for some reason the same bus line does not go back along our road, but takes a slightly different route that necessitated walking home some distance. Nothing compared to how much we had already walked...but still...we had already walked a lot. We'll have to figure out how to get dropped off closer to home. Aside from that it was a huge success and Kerri's already talking about how nice it is to feel that sense of freedom of having one's transportation options increase. The taxis are nice enough, but very expensive when going long distances, and unfortunately I have to have the car to get to work as there are no other people we know at our compound that I can carpool with. We experienced no strange looks or uncomfortable situations on the bus and she is feeling very confident about being able to use the bus system to get around.

That evening was Saturday and the maid we have employed comes in later on Saturday at 4pm and stays til 8pm. This is so that Kerri and I can go out once a week by ourselves and leave Rowan at home (woot!). After living downtown Portland for several years and not having any regular babysitting options it is really nice to be able to have that one evening a week where we can just get away for a while. So that Saturday we decided to walk directly into Mangaf instead of down to Fahaheel where we have been going, and do some good old fashioned exploring. First I had to show Kerri the Bebo juice place that is so close to us and have some yummy juice. Then we went further afield through the strangely run-down building blocks, past some small butcheries, and eventually stumbled across one of the greatest finds so far! In one small shop was a counter filled with inset large pots with lids on them. Eventually the proprieter appeared, speaking very little English, and he began to lift pot lids revealing various stew-like mixtures made from who knows what, except that they smelled delicious. Also he had fool beans and garbanzo (chickpeas) beans all cooked and ready to buy. A generous container of each item costing only 300 fils. We were very pleased with this find and started back down the road, only to find next door a hot kiln-like oven and men baking fresh large flatbread, somewhat Iranian style, but with a little more thickness. 200 fils buys you a huge stack (10-15) which you then wrap up in a newspaper and take away with you. We immediately resolved to eat from these places as soon as possible. We continued our walk, which was pleasant, all the way to Mekka road and back down to Fahaheel, through the souks there, stopping only to smoke some shisha at a (literally) back alley shisha spot. From there back to the Coast road, and then to our place. We arrived right at 8pm (for the first time staying out the entire time!) knowing our calf muscles would be sore the next few days from all the walking we'd done, but still had a great time. We didn't need dinner due to the huge lunch previously.

Sunday was our jaunt downtown to Wataniya headquarters, and from there to Marina Mall where I needed to buy some new shoes (my old ones being in such a state of disrepair that they are literally coming apart at the seams). I ended up buying some casual Ecco shoes which are a bit tight, but I'm assured they will loosen up eventually. I had been looking around at the cheap stores, but was unable to find the style I like, and when it comes to shoes, I literally wear them til they fall apart, so this is one area where hunting for a bargain is not the best way to do things. Luckily the shoes I got were of last year's set so I got them on a Hala Feb sale for 29KD.

We drove home for lunch as we wanted to try the bread/stew combination from that nearby spot in Mangaf. Rowan and I walked over there this time and I got 3 different stews to try them all, and 200 fils worth of bread. We ate the delicious food for lunch, dinner, and some more the next day.

Monday (which was a holiday for me) we continued our quest to locate a place to buy the benches we want for our porch. Our porch is *huge* and gets lots of shade during the day, so we want to put the type of benches usually found outside the shisha places. These are long, tall benches with wide seats and cushions in a particular red, black and white pattern that appears to be common here. We'd like to get 3 of them and arrange them in a horseshoe on our porch so we have a comfy spot to sit outside that is easy to maintain.

Unfortunately, we have been having a hard time finding out where to buy these benches that appear to be everywhere. We looked a little bit at Friday Market once (not much, we were there for the first time and quite overwhelmed) and have asked a few people in Fahaheel. Most are quite puzzled by the question, but we did get the tip to look at the Fahaheel metalworks area. There are several shops near the auto/mechanics area that make various metal things such as bannisters and tables. We stopped over there and asked around, having to describe what we were looking for. One quite was 40KD per bench, and a carpenter quoted us 50KD per bench. This is a little steeper than we were hoping for. But a guy here at work (Pakistani born, but raised in Kuwait) has told me that if we go back to Friday Market and look around more, we may find some there, perhaps also in the used furniture area. He has told me that the term for these chairs is "outside diwaniya" bench (directly translated), and he wrote the description down for me as well as drew a little picture of the chair for my use in talking to people, which should come in handy when we go back this coming weekend.

Otherwise Monday was pretty uneventful and restful. Nice to veg out a bit in preparation for returning to work. Although it was a 3 day weekend it, it was so much fun it felt more like I got a whole week off!

I'll try to be better about posting more regularly so my posts aren't so freaking long.

I do not think it means what you think it means

I thought some might appreciate our recent experience with customer service here in Kuwait.

In the US, we have not had a television for years, preferring to download our TV from the Internet. So aside from the usual email, bank sites, and blogs we read regularly, it is also our primary source of at home entertainment and a critical link to everything back in the States.

When I first arrived I tried the options available from our rental office and none of them were worth the money as they were almost unuseable for simple browsing. I finally broke down and went with one of the 2 mobile providers here in Kuwait: Wataniya. Wataniya's aircard service provided speeds of up to 3.2 Mbps, and the plan was unlimited data download, and I explicitly asked concerning limitations and was told there were none. We got a winter special on the sign on fee and hardware costs, so I thought we were set. The downloading began!

A month or so ago, everyone in the Middle East was hit by the cable cuts. We were affected too, and for several weeks had either no service, or very slow service. We were unable to download any TV for that time, but we had plenty stockpiled so were ok. Numbers of friends of ours were dissatisfied with Wataniya's service during this time as they heard from others that the competitor's service (Zain) was up and functional long before Wataniya's stabilized. I believe Zain is actually Vodafone, which may mean they had greater resources for re-routing the traffic.

However we stuck to our guns, not least because Wataniya had us in a 6 month minimum contract which meant paying the difference on our hardware if we broke it. By the way, both services cost approximately the same each month, around 30KD or $110. Zain's maximum speeds are7.2 Mbps, but in reality the Internet connection is much lower, but enough to get things done. After about a month, Wataniya's service returned to its pre-cut levels and we were pleased with our decision to stay with them...until...

About 3 days ago, we received a telephone call from Wataniya telling us that due to customer complaints in the area we live, they were dropping our connection that very night! The person said there was nothing to be done. We could go down to a branch office in a nearby mall and ask tomorrow. We were stunned, but there was nothing we could say that would change this person's mind. Sure enough, 1 hour later, our aircard started getting rejected.

Luckily, it was the start of a long weekend, so the next day we went straight to the Wataniya kiosk in the mall and ask (nicely) WTF is going on? The mall guys were stunned, they had never seen this before. I saw one look up the code on our account and read an internal circular titled "customer abuse", but ultimately they told me I had to go downtown Kuwait and visit the head office. Of course, this was Friday, which is the start of the weekend here, so I had to go on Sunday.

Skip to 2 (internet-less) days later, and we are at Tech Support in the Wataniya head office. They look my account up and chat back and forth in Arabic for several minutes. Much concern is expressed. Finally they tell me that it appears that due to a new internal policy, they have dropped the most heavy users of the unlimited data plan, and that we can return on Wednesday to receive our reimbursement for how much we have paid ahead. I expressed my stunned disbelief, but was met with unbending resolution. The guy said that it appeared around 214 other users had been dropped as well. They just terminated the contract and blacklisted the SIM cards. I told him that this was unnacceptable and did he realize he was basically begging me to go to their competitor, and he said yes, he understood that, but there was nothing to be done.

We were incensed, and resolved immediately to find a Zain outlet and get set up. It took a while as this is a holiday season, but we found one at the Airport Mall and signed on. It cost 60KD for the hardware and 6 KD for the rest of February, but we were able to defray the cost with the saved up 30KD for next month's internet bill and the expected 22KD refund from Wataniya. It was a quick and painless process, but not without some interest. I was very specific about asking if there were any hidden limits in their "super unlimited" package (noting the asterisks and the "Fair usage applies"note). The representative said that Fair Usage means up to 30gb. At which time they clamp down on the bandwidth provided so that it is possible to browse the web, but not practical to download TV and such. I pointed out the brochure description where it said the Super Unlimited package allowed "downloading media all day with no restrictions" and asked if that jived with the "Fair Usage" restrictions, and he admitted that it didn't, but didn't seem concerned by such terms as "false advertising." This is Kuwait after all.... I asked if there was a way to monitor our usage statistics and he said the software provided did have a statistics counter that could be reset each month if we desired. When I asked to see the limitations written down (couldn't find them in the contract) he could not provide them, which seemed...odd, but oh well. At least we were getting internet and wouldn't be cut off permanently when we hit the lijmit on the unlimited plan.

All this reminds me of a quote by Inigo Montoya from A Princess Bride: "You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The word here being "unlimited." I'd heard of unlimited plans for cell phones containing hidden limits, and the odd story of people running torrent trackers and hub sites being axed due to excessive bandwidth, but while we may be heavy users, we are not in that category. There doesn't appear to be anything to be done about it though, except to tell our story and warn everyone we know away from Wataniya's data service if they plan to download lots of data. When it becomes practical, we plan on switching our cell phone service over to Zain as well. It's the only way we have to express our displeasure in a way they might understand.

The Rules of the Road (with pictures!)

As Jesse mentioned in an earlier post, I have started driving and I seem to be adjusting to the way things work just fine. I haven't yet had any near death experiences and finding my way around town is much easier than I thought it would be. The pictures in the slideshow might give you some idea of the problems that the Kuwaiti government faces in trying to make people obey the traffic laws. I just hope that some of the suggestions pack a bigger punch in Arabic.

The main problem is, of course, the speed at which people decide to disregard the rules. I have been in a lot of places where no one obeys the "rules" at all. Usually when you have this kind of chaos the traffic is so jammed that it's impossible to go faster than 25mph, so loss of life and limb is greatly reduced. Because we have these nice wide roads going every which way and a small population, you don't usually run into traffic jams, which means that all of the manuvering and competing to get ahead happens at lightning speeds making loss of life and limb very likely. There are a few (ok, maybe one) rules that people do follow (the only one I can think of is stopping at red lights).

Some of our favorite common practices are:
Driving between two lanes. You know, to keep your options open.
Stopping anywhere you darn well please (a round about, the middle of the road, etc.) putting on your hazards and getting out of the car to do whatever it is you need to do. We call these the "magic flashers" because no one ever gets told to move.
Driving inches behind a car flashing your headlights trying to get the car in front to move out of your way.
The list could go on, but you get the idea.

It's more like playing a video game than driving. But like I said, I haven't had any bad experiences and seem to get along just fine. It's all part of the adventure!

We're Doing Science and We're Still Alive

Rowan loves science. It's definitely his favorite subject and he wants to do experiments all the time. We got a hold of a bunch of old Bill Nye the Science Guy videos and he watches them over and over. So yesterday he was taking a bath and he managed to sneak in a small piece of coral that we had found on the beach. I was curious why he wanted to bath with coral and he told me that he wanted to see if barnacles would grow on it if he left it in the water long enough. What could I do? I let him keep the coral and conduct the experiment. Alas, no barnacles formed and he decided that it might just be something that happens in the ocean. Oh, the things we do in the name of science!

In other news, we finally hired a maid! She is a lovely lady from Sri Lanka. She is coming five days a week in the afternoons. She cleans and also cooks our evening meal. She is an excellent cook and a really hard worker, I couldn't be more pleased. She comes on Saturday evening and stays with Rowan so we can go out! All this for the bargain price of $200 a month! Well worth it since keeping the dust down means cleaning all the floors and dusting everything every day. We were laughing the other day that we can have a maid, but we can't afford Starbucks! Labor is one of the cheap things in this country.

The weather is starting to warm up a bit and being outside is a real pleasure. We go out and play at the beach for hours and people are starting to come out a bit more. I've been meeting more of our neighbors and seeing a lot more kids about. Once it finally gets warm enough to swim I'm sure we will get to know all of the kids around here.

Our internet is slowly but surely getting back to normal. I was afraid it would never be the same, but I think it's getting there. Let's just hope no more cables get cut. That's all the news for now.

Sick, sick and more sick

It started with Rowan a few weeks back. The day he got his PPD test and another shot, he started coming down with something. Fevers, chills, sleeping all the time. It developed into a nasty cold/cough thing. Fevers went away and we thought we were in the clear...then it came back, went away, came back again.

Finally we took him to the doctor. That day I came home early cuz I wasn't feeling too well and I wanted to be there when we first went to the doctor (German Clinic, nearby us). It was an interesting experience...they don't take our insurance, so we had to pay up front and get reimbursed later (our insurance is pretty awesome about that). The doctor (a woman from Indian I think) managed to poke and prod Rowan a bit, though he was very much not being cooperative. He was very unhappy to be there and was quite worried he might get a shot or something (recent experiences), and in general is a miserable child when sick. Not pleasant to be around at all. She said it was probably just allergies to the dust. After she asked if he had drunk chocolate milk, cuz that sometimes caused allergic reactions in kids. Huh. Not exactly confidence inspiring. Anyway, she prescribed some antibiotics (for dust allergies?) and some expectorant, put him on a nebullizer for a bit, then sent us home.

I went to sleep upon going home and stayed that way the entire afternoon, then went to sleep again that night. Woke up feeling awful, but went to work anyway as I had something important to work on that day. Having completed that, I stayed home the next day (friday) and slept most of it. I had the fever/chills thing going on, coughing, etc... yeehaw.

Saturday I felt a bit better so went out with Kerri and Rowan to IKEA and to try and go grocery shopping. I barely survived that, walking around like a zombie all day. Oh, I forgot...Friday night I woke up in the middle of the night and had to throw up. Dry heaves. No idea why. I suspect the nighttime flu meds I took. Blech.

Sunday I said I wasn't going anywhere and stayed home with Rowan while Kerri got out and did some shopping. She'll have more to say about that I'm sure. Still felt pretty weird all day Sunday, could barely keep my eyes open til bedtime.

Rowan is doing better, no more fever/chills, but still coughing like crazy. My cough is much better, no more fever/chills, just bone weary and sleepy. Well that was yesterday (sunday), today is monday morning, 3:45am, and I'm off to work, so I'm going to say that I'm all better now as I have to be.

The Cable Is Out

Just a quick note here to explain the lack of posts.  It seems as though we are having a little "undersea cable" trouble.  In case you haven't heard the news, two cables under the Mediteranian Sea were cut.  Apparently another one just off of Dubai in the Gulf was also cut a few days later.  This has meant either painfully slow internet or no internet at all.  They are esitmating Feb. 12th will be the day we get back to normal, but we'll see about that.  So if you don't hear from us and we don't respond to your emails, that is the reason.  I'll let you know when we are back to normal.