How it feels to live as an indonesian in Kuwait? part 1
Never ever my intuition told me I would work in Kuwait for 2 years. Had no slightest clue about it, had no clear vision how my life would run, & never met people who used to work there. Being an opportunist wasn’t my skill, nevertheless I tried training my self to have this capability or I was gonna fucked up by life again & again. With a few of requirements i had fulfilled : able to speak english, & never worked at resto before haha, I got there after 5 months of waiting for calling visa with less than 2 bucks on my hands. I had postponed some of my freelance job in order to focus on processing my documents since I didn’t do it with an agency. I got satisfied after i finished all of needed things like Hulk beats up his enemy : dude I did it by my self without support & help, haha. It’s once in a blue moon to get a chance to work abroad for the first time.
I was gonna work in Murouj, it was February when the winter was still going on. A huge car picked us & took us to each store where we’re assisted. I was the only indonesian female at resto. I wasn’t used to either winter or AC. The coldness crept into my body, i couldn’t bear it although i put on scarf around my neck to warm me up.
The first day of work went well & exhausting. I hadn’t had an uniform, just wore casual ones : red cardigan, black legging, & skirt. I was trained by a nice filifino staff. She’s the same age as mine if I’m not mistaken. She pointed out tasks I had to do. She told me supervisor would me come with closing shift. Time passed by, another staffs came & everyone spoke tagalog. That’s the first moment i witnessed a culture shock trigger in Kuwait, & gonna be one of my challenge. I didn’t get used to it. Months by months, I learned new things on how adapting with new complex culture. My environment wasn’t indonesian anymore, languages i heard wasn’t always english, sundanese, or indonesian anymore.
Unpredictable things just happened outta my estimacy. When I deemed my self as brave, confident, independent, & strong women, I gotta accept “outta comfort zone” offered me a bunch of questions, & hit me up at the same time. Thought I grew up “properly”, & I piped my self down to just look around, to feel that : I would gonna be a new Karina. In order to transform to be better individual.
Adaptation is inevitable
I learned new languages step by step : arabic, indian, & tagalog. I didn’t do it on purpose, just as the result of hearing people at work spoke these languages. I wasn’t fluent. As a matter of fact, I knew some vocabs, & I kept enriching by this long-term condition. This is why when they talked in their languages, I didn’t catch it fully, however I got the point. I became more ecastatic when realized i was basically trilingual which people deemed it as talent. I personally see this as a willingness to learn. If I didn’t perhaps I wasn’t gonna get what they meant.
Besides that, I had different habits than any other expats like should I only put all of my energy into working ass off only? I’d like to catch my breath for instance going outside on my break time, & spent my day off to the fullest. Sharp!.
Funniest part was, everytime I went outside random people talked to me all of sudden in tagalog, when I responded with stressed intonation that I’m not filipina, they got shamed. Or whenever I visited a place such as coffee shop/resraurant, they always asked me & kept staring at me, haha, It’s weird. They thought i was filipina. Not only that, they did the same when I chewed spicy food like nothing, wish guys come to Indonesia & try authentic food here.
I ordered super spicy meals, & I complained it ain’t even burning up my tongue. They couldn’t help showing me up their surprised face.
Trust me, if u live in Middle East, u’re gonna have hard time to find savory-spicy food equal to indonesian culinary.
I shouted out how I craved for savory-spicy food such as nasi padang, ayam penyet, seblak, & so on. Until i went to my preference japanese resto : Yaki Restaurant. Wait i’m gonna cut dowm here as i’m getting hungry whenever i talk about food.
There, indonesian are minority. I confirmed to embassy, there were up to 8000 people. It’s a drop of water compare to filipina & indian. They work in most of sectors from office to hospitality. I could sense it too racism & discrimination are a bomb who'd explode in possible time. This is long-period issue. People just keep being busy to earn.
to be continued >>>