There are things to learn before moving into Kuwait. Moving into a new country is not always easy to settle. There are a lot of factors you need to be prepared for.
Things to learn before moving into Kuwait
Weather
In Dubai, it is humid and it is the humidity that is emphasized by expats in Dubai, as much here in Kuwait, it is really the heat since it is, and sometimes it exceeds 60 degrees during the month of August. People live in shops, malls, offices, cars, and at home and people live in air conditioning almost 24 hours a day. And even if you have looked at the map of Kuwait, you can see that there is a huge desert and it is the case since it represents almost 90% of the territory, Kuwait is an urbanized country.
Spots
But if you are looking for nature, if you are looking for a forest, if you are looking for your mountains, if you are looking for a beach similar to the Maldives, you are in the wrong country because it is not in Kuwait that you are going to find it. It is difficult to feel at home when you are in a country where you are systematically dependent on someone and this is the case with visas since, either you are sponsored by your employer, or you are sponsored by your husband or a member of her family, either you are on an entry visa/visit visa, and in this case, you are sponsored directly by the country.
Driving License
And unlike Dubai where you have the possibility of self-sponsoring through a license that you can obtain to be independent and set up your project as a freelancer etc. In the meantime, this is not the case and since it is not the case, it is difficult to feel at home when you are dependent on another person. Driving licenses are a real problem for expats in Kuwait and there are many who, today suffer from the full brunt of the procedure, and the systematic refusal to obtain their driving license.
Residency
So there is a whole procedure to obtain your license in Kuwait: the first thing that hurts: you have to have two years of residency in the country. Two years as a resident, not necessarily with the same employer but two years of residency. You have also to belong to certain socio-professional categories. Those who struggle the most from this rule, are women and more particularly wives.
Women who move to Kuwait, who do not have a university degree, that is to say, a master’s or even a doctorate, and who have no children, means no “excuse” to bring and pick up kids from school.
It becomes a little more complicated and it goes through the famous solution of wasta. The notion of wasta is a simple notion of: “I am helping you, you are helping me later.” It costs money, you have to be patient because it is not because you have someone who will help you, or several people who will help, that it will be done within the next three days, and this person does not guarantee the success of all this patience, this money and this procedure that he will put in place to serve you.
Visa/Passport
You have to be strong enough to help your wasta the day that this person asks for a favor in return. This is something that people find it hard to understand here and they think wastas are: we knock at the immigration, we call Mohamed we have fifty thousand available, we choose one, we get our visa, and the next day, we invite him for a dinner. that’s not really how it goes.
And for the driving license of wives, it is even more sensitive because very often, when we inform women that they do not work because they are sponsored by their husbands and that we tell them that they will not be able to drive for the next five years because the state does not consider them as a priority in obtaining driving licenses:
either they take this issue “quietly” and their expat life is not necessarily the most successful, or they ask to go back home, or they go through another visa which is less flexible to stay here for a long term. she ends up choosing the tourist visa and we saw what happened to women on a tourist visa during the Covid.
All of them found themselves stranded in their countries for almost two years. It should be kept in mind that the driving license is not granted systematically, that very often the two years are to be respected and when we manage to remove this condition from the procedure, there are other criteria that come into account and we must be patient.
It wouldn’t surprise that there are expats who report to future expats once they leave permanently Kuwait by telling them: “if you have children if you have three kids, don’t dream about expat life in Kuwait, or in another country in the Middle East. , Except If you negotiate an allowance that will pay fully the scholarship of all your kids with your employer.
We live almost 24 hours a day with the AC on. Dumpsters are replacing some parking spaces, garbage cans are buried in the desert and I’m not even talking about the hundreds of thousands of tires that were burned in the desert recently.
Transportation
Families have an average of 2.5 cars per household. If you are considering carpooling throughout your stay: forget about it. When you add the heat peaks, humidity, pollution, and excessive use of air conditioning, it can prevent people, particularly people who have small kids from moving to Kuwait. This part will hurt. In Kuwait, we use several apps to renew our residencies, and our Kuwait civil IDs, recently, Kuwait launched the renewal of driving licenses via an app (each time different applications or websites) but we are still very, very far from what is done in Dubai or Qatar.
CiVIL ID
And we often end up going to immigration, going to the PACI, by going to the Traffic Department, to obtain the documents that we have been waiting for a few weeks or even a few months. We don’t like that in general, we want things to be done quickly and clearly, and not to end up with 32 signatures 8 stamps 56 photocopies. When we arrive at counter number 152, you are sent to counter 3084 which does not correspond to any counter in this building.
We must therefore change location. And often, when, finally, you have obtained everything, the stamps of the four colors, the signatures, the 24 papers, half in Arabic that we have been done at the writer’s house.
You find yourself in front of a closed office and the guy in front of you says: “come back tomorrow and the next day, in general, the guy is not there, it is another person who tells you: it is not at all how you should do that madam, come back and this time, come back the day after tomorrow because there is my colleague who works and He will explain the procedure to you. “In the end, it is exactly the same, but the person did not understand you or you were not clear.
Scams
Another point that can scare expats in Kuwait, especially when they just arrive and who are looking for furniture, vehicles, or apartments, is scams. And it is true that in Kuwait, there are more and more scammers and especially since the start of the Covid. We’ve all, I think, heard of a guy who got ripped off buying his car, selling spare parts, and renting his apartment (realizing his neighbor pays almost half of the rent he pays). It is a scam. And it doesn’t matter if the expat is haughty, nice, not nice, this should not happen…It is an offense and should be punished by the law.
Cars
For people who go to look for a car when they arrive in Kuwait. Usually, the car for sale is really for sale, the car looks good, but sometimes it’s not at all. And unless you’re an experienced mechanic, it’s sometimes hard not to be fooled. There is also another scam, consider it a scam and that can scare some expats, it is the scams between expats. The person is going to sell his car for a price higher than the price he bought it five years ago. Everything can and should be negotiated here. even if it’s online even if the person has fixed the price and refuses to change.
Find the solutions
Find the issues, and the weaknesses of the product you are going to buy, whether it is an apartment, a car, a motorbike, or a bike. Find the flaws and negotiate the price. If you don’t like negotiating, this is not a country for you because here, in Kuwait, everything can be negotiated. Almost everything. Obviously, a lot of people will tell me but you have not yet spoken about the most obvious thing that scares expats. Some, think that they are moving to Dubai and not Kuwait and therefore they will see the Ferris Wheel, the 2020 Expo, and the beach clubs in Salmiya.
So we don’t have the huge wheel but we have the Jaber tours. we don’t have the DJ on the beach mixing his music but we have a few activities. If you are keen on kitesurfing, paddle boarding, parachuting, if you are keen on motorbikes, motor racing, if you are keen on the barbecue, and going to the desert. Well, it is not the Moroccan desert but it’s still a desert it’s still sanded, it is very cold in the evening and very hot during the day. If you are keen on running if you are keen.
Conclusion
If you are moving to Kuwait thinking that you are owed everything, it will be complicated. If your main assets are patience, perseverance, and composure, there is no reason that all of these elements should be an issue to your expat project and expat life in Kuwait. It is you who are building your expat project, it is not the country that welcomes you.
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