Failaka Island

Before I tell you about my amazing weekend I just wanted to say I updated my blog so that anyone can comment on a post, so if you enjoy this just leave a note to let me know someone is reading and laughing at my adventures!

Last weekend was probably the craziest and most fun one I’d had in a while. My friend Nathan and his sister Laura invited us to join them and their church youth group on a retreat to an island not far from Kuwait. We jumped at the opportunity, booked ourselves a place, and soon found ourselves in the middle of a crowd of 60 kids, teens and leaders on the dock at the marina. I only knew about 3 people, but that didn’t matter to me, the point was to go and make friends, and by the end of the weekend I had plenty.

We left on Thursday evening after school and started the  1 ½ hour boat ride over to the island. The boat was crazy, people running around going insane, playing cards, looking like monkeys… all I remember is that I was seasick. I really hate boat rides and this one involved choppy waters. Not cool! Laura tried to introduce me to some people, but each time I picked my head up off the table the room began to spin more, so I gave up and just rested on the ride there.

By the time we arrived at the island it was dark and there was little you could see in the dim light. I do remember the buses quite well though because they appeared ancient. No seatbelts, no comfy seats, just 2 big buses with metal benches that looked like they were from at least the 60’s. On the ride there we came across no other traffic or people. When we arrived at the village and found there was only about 5 other guests we realized how deserted the island really was. The hotel that we stayed in is a heritage village. It has a cafeteria, reception, a couple tents, and one big conference room, but each of these is a separate building. You walk around outside in the heat and sand to get anywhere. We roomed in little houses that surround the pool. When you enter each house you are immediately in the courtyard. Off the courtyard are several small bedrooms, a bathroom, a little kitchen, and a diwania/living room. At the side of the courtyard is a steep flight of stairs, but once on the roof you can walk around and jump roofs to get into almost anyone’s room. The houses were cute and very interesting. Whenever you took a shower it flooded the entire room and went down the drain in the center, but the water also drenched the toilet, sink, trashcan, everything basically. So maybe we weren’t living in the lap of luxury, but I can’t think of a better set up for fun.

Friday night we settled into our houses and met our roommates. I roomed with Donna, one of the pastor’s kids who is also 17. We also had a 9^th and 10^th grader in our house who were fun. After settling in we met at the cafeteria for dinner. All week long we enjoyed lots of traditional food. The food was fantastic, lots of rice, chicken, fish, tabuli, rice pudding, Arabic bread, fried bread, mango juice…it was a huge array every night and tasted delicious.

After dinner we wandered around a bit and met up for our sessions. The sessions were all about love and I was amazed at how well Pastor Kyle managed to incorporate something that targeted everyone from 11-20. The main points were that: Love is not an emotion, it is a choice, Love is not an emotion, it is a challenge, Love is not an emotion, it is a commitment.  Pastor Kyle illustrated God’s love for us one night by kneeling and washing every single one of our feet. That is about 60 feet that are stinky, smelly, dusty and dirty. After walking around in the desert sands in heat and humidity, the extremes of what Jesus did just hit you. We enjoyed our worship time too thanks to a group of high school guys and a Filipino lady who led us. We didn’t necessarily know all the songs, but it was wonderful to praise the Lord in the shadow of several old crumbling mosques.

The entire island is so peaceful. There are a couple crumbling mosques, but none of them sound the call to prayer. It was wonderful to spend a couple days not having to hear that. There were few cars or people, so it was just a natural stillness and quiet that was so relaxing. Unlike at some of the resorts here where you can still hear all of the city noises on the beach, while we were there you could lie out on the dock and hear nothing but the sound of your own voice and the waves. 

The second day started with a good breakfast at 8:30, and then a bit of free time. We wandered around out towards the beach and walked out on the long dock. The sea was beautiful, but looking back at the island was so sad. Beyond our little village compound was rows and rows of houses that were just crumbling to pieces. Most of them had missing walls and were so dilapidated; the best ones were marred with numerous bullet holes. All this is a reminder of the Iraqi Invasion.

In the afternoon we cooled off in the swimming pool and played games. I haven’t been burned or even tanned since I’ve been here and stupidly thought I’d be fine. Well, I burned on my back and am still rubbing lotions on it, but I have a tan! Yay! I finally have my tan. You have no idea how proud of myself I am.

The day continued with lots of crazy activities; boys positioned on rooftops with water, throwing leaders into the pool, building towers out of soda cans, running around like crazy on an itty bitty playground, and generally just acting like fools because there was no one around to care. After our afternoon session a group of girls decided that we wanted to go exploring. We asked permission to go see the horses, because well, the crumbling buildings were just a wee bit beyond that. 


We went  to the petting zoo first, though there’s actually no one out there and no way to pet the animals. But it was cool to see the peacocks, ostrich, deer, goats, horses and monkeys. I felt so sorry for the poor animals because there was little shade and this little zoo looked so incredibly old. The monkeys had a little chain link fence area, and their indoor portion was an old train car. It was a very strange place.

Just a little beyond  the petting zoo sprawled the town of crumbling houses that loomed on forever. We walked cautiously along the ruins, because in places it was several feet deep of rubble. It was so incredibly sad to see these homes that weren’t set up like they might be had the place been turned into a museum. Everything was left the same. There were no ropes, no boundaries. We walked inside to see old couches, shoes, cracked dishes, shattered windows, dolls, books, newspapers, soda bottles, bones… most everything was broken in some way.

The girls wanted to be adventurous and tried to do stupid things on several occasions. Like climbing up onto the roof of a crumbling building, or walking into a room with bullet shells everywhere. Laura even decided to pick up the skull of some beast that had died in one of the homes. At one point there was a building that looked like the top half would collapse in any minute. Emily and Laura stood under it and politely requested a photo. Those two are insane! Whenever one of them would do something stupid the other would look on and laugh, but then soon join in. Those two more than any are the crazy dumb blondes. We walked around in the desert for quite a while, 3 hours actually, and since it was Ramadan we weren’t carrying any water. Every once in a while we’d poke our heads inside a building we passed and see something interesting, though I think the entire time the girls were staring through the rubble for any type of old explosive. And they found one, they found a rocket that was several feet tall lodged in the ruins of a building that a second rocket had struck. This rocket was perfectly intact and hadn’t exploded. Sound dangerous? YES!

The four of us had fun exploring and laughing at each other. Emily and Laura did so many stupid things. Climbing on ruins, touching nasty likely disease ridden stuff, and claiming that a hole for a fence pole was likely a “German fox hole with barbed wire coming out of it.” Donna kindly pointed out that the Germans never had anything to do with a tiny island off Kuwait. The most interesting thing we saw was the old mosque. It was huge and though crumbling, still grand. The girls claimed they wouldn’t actually go inside of it out of respect. But they kept inching closer and closer. One of them spotted a trap door in the corner. The tiles had been removed and there was indeed a door and tunnel underneath.

We  were totally amazed at all of the findings we made and the experience that we had. I think due to health and safety reasons this is one of very few places we could ever have that much freedom! Eventually it was time to go back and we had to practically drag the girls away from the ruins and back to the cafeteria for dinner.

That evening we had fun chilling and playing basketball and soccer. I didn’t actually play, I just talked to people and made more friends. At about half way through the first basketball game someone came running and told me ethan was sick. Oh great… Poor kid was in Emily’s room with a high fever, cough, sore throat, dizzy, light headed. Emily and I first looked at each other thinking swine flu! Somehow I wouldn’t have been surprised if he did have it, but in the end it was just strep throat.  We had an interesting evening taking turns at his bedside and running around looking for cell phone service and talking to the leaders. Basically the conclusion was that if his fever was the same the next morning he would have to be taken by is leader to the Military Hospital on the opposite side of the island and then taken back to Kuwait City by the Coast Guard because there was no other way off the island except for our boat the next evening.

Ethan spent the night in Emily’s room and his leader climbed up onto his roof and over into their courtyard to peek through the window and make sure he took his meds. With all of the care he was feeling better by morning and once he was drugged up his leader caught him running around with the other boys and had to command him to go back to bed and rest. Ethan spent the day taking it easy and chilling and went to the hospital after he got home to find out he had strep throat.

Emily and I had a fantastic Saturday. After breakfast and the morning session we were given 2 hours of free time. Emily had discovered a horrific smell from her freezer earlier that morning and found about 10 crabs in her fridge. She was totally grossed out and blamed the boys for it, so she and Laura came running to me with the crabs in their backpack claiming we needed to devise a plan of revenge. After a bit of conniving we climbed up onto Emily’s roof and ran around, ducking behind the water tanks and creeping along the roof. By the time we came close to our target we discovered a tin roof lay between us. Laura wanted to test it and climb across, but I refused to let her and we had to sadly back down. Trust me, we did not give up and decided to try and pick the lock to their room. Emily came close to getting it when the leader and Nathan caught us. They were so convinced that we couldn’t actually do anything to them so they let us into their room. Turned out they had cleverly locked the individual doors, but we easily picked that lock and got inside. They were amazed and tried to initially lock us in the kitchen, but then hauled us kicking and screaming out the door, and double locked and bolted everything.

We ran around for a while trying to find more roof access, and ended up trying to pick the lock next door to them. It actually worked! We got into the courtyard, climbed up onto the roof and jumped down into the courtyard of our target. Emily managed to pick the lock once again to the individual rooms and Laura and I kicked and pushed until the bolts came loose. We were in! Laura pulled out the crabs and scattered them in the boys luggage while I grabbed every pair of boxers I could find. We then soaked the boxers, wrapped a crab inside of them and tossed them into their freezer. Emily locked all the doors behind us and we disappeared.

Because we still had some free time left and didn’t want to look too suspicious we went to the pool. It was soo hot so we sat around soaking our feet in the pool. The leaders came along and threw us in! I didn’t think they’d actually do it, but after ethan assured them we had spare clothes we found ourselves in the pool. It was definitely refreshing, but swimming in jeans is not my idea of fun. We made the best of it though and had a good time.

At lunch we walked in and started receiving high fives from the boys. We were laughing and asking what on earth was going on? Turned out that they weren’t mad at us, they thought we were geniuses. They wanted to learn how to pick a lock, how to catch crabs that huge, and hoped we would share in our tactical brilliance. The leaders even came up to us congratulating us because they never knew girls could be so evil and were happy we joined in and weren’t afraid to touch guys boxers and get dirty. After numerous praises and congratulations the entire cafeteria gave us a standing ovation. We were laughing the whole time, but noticed 2 guys were missing and assumed there would be pay back after lunch. Well, I was the lucky room. We walked into our room smelling the nasty stench and found crabs everywhere. They weren’t just scattered in our stuff though, no, they were hidden cleverly. I opened my make up bag to find my brush and found a crab lodged in there. By now the crabs were oozing and dying after being in the heat for so long. My make up sponges and brush had soaked up this ooze. It was nasty! Other girls got surprised when they put on clothes to find crabs crawl out. The guys were so mean!

As we found the crabs Emily and Laura ran off with them and started throwing them at the guys on the roof. The guys retaliated with buckets of water, so we made mud and threw it back at them. Soon we were pelting each other with crab claws and guts, mud, and water. Everyone was drenched, the girls had crab guts in their hair and the boys were smeared in mud. But it was so much fun!

I ran away after being drenched and changed into yet another outfit. We were supposed to be packing so I was surprised when I heard the door ring and found a group of guys at the door. I tried to yell at the girls to stay inside their rooms cuz something was up, but it was too late. Hannah walked into the trap and was drenched by one of the boys who had climbed up our window onto the roof. I figured they couldn’t possibly have another trash can full of water so went to go find revenge, and was drenched yet again. I  saw the guys on the roof and ended up running after them and chasing them across the rooftops. At one point I thought I would surely die and fall off the roof. I chased Nathan back down towards my room but slipped right before the stairs and fell down the entire flight. Ouch! I still have bruises down my spine. It was painful, but it meant the guys took pity on us and sent Micah to clean up the mess they had made in our courtyard.

After this we called for a truce, and it held through the boat ride back to the island and through the unloading. But we had planned a little surprise for the guys, so after the group photo Lydia yelled “get ‘em” and every single girl, leader and child alike pulled out a water bottle and drenched the boys. I’m sure we attracted attention from the Kuwaitis along the Marina, but we had fun going crazy.

The whole weekend was a wonderful experience. I formed new friendships, explored war ruins, and learned so much about love from Pastor Kyle. I can’t wait till we have another youth event!