Day 39 - The Scientific Centre, Kuwait

After coffee with Ilka, and a short trip to an interesting antique shop (which I will write more about in another post), Lenny and I went up to the Scientific Centre of Kuwait. Firstly, we went to an Imax film called 'Arabia' which was a pretty interesting film about Saudi Arabia and it's history. 

Then we went to the Discovery Place - I had my doubts after visiting the Paris Science Centre which was so very amazing, but Kuwait's is not too bad. Lots of fun things for Lenny to do including taking the tyres off and on a pretend race car, and lots of great little experiments.

While Lenny ran around playing with the stuff, I read a new book I bought in the gift shop, about a very interesting woman called Violet Dickson. She lived in Kuwait with her husband for 61 years - originally from the UK. Her husband worked for the British government, and then later for the Kuwaitis as Chief Local Representative for the Kuwait Oil Company. So they lived here through the period when Kuwait went from a nomadic desert society to being one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Oil was discovered in Kuwait in February 1938

'This is the remarkable story of Dame Violet Dickson, an extraordinary Englishwoman affectionately called 'Umm Saud' by the Arabs, who became a legend in her own lifetime. She lived in Kuwait for about 61 years, first as the wife of the British Political Agent to Kuwait, Colonel H R P Dickson, and later as a widow. During this time she lived through the age of ancient Bedouin traditions into an era of affluence and ultimately with the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, a period of horror.'

 

 She sounds like a remarkable woman - Freya Stark stayed with them when she came to Kuwait in 1932, and she wrote: 'The air is buoyant, and one does ot mind the heat. The Dicksons love the Arabs, and it is not a bit 'touristy' - we had our dish of rice and sheep and ate it with our fingers. The women come to talk - they have black veils with two holes for the eyes.'. 

Someone should really write a TV series about this time - Downton Abbey meets Lawrence of Arabia. These people, so Victorian, yet so adventurous - it's hard to imagine what life must have been like for them.

Here are a few pictures from the book. I plan to go and visit Dickson House, where they lived, soon. It has been preserved as a museum. (Dame Violet Dickson - Umm Saud's Fascinating Life in Kuwait from 1929 to 1990 - by Claudia Farkas Al Rashoud )

This is Kuwait in 1927. 

And Kuwait now!

And finally, a beautiful photo of Violet and her friend Amsha, making coffee in front of a Bedouin tent.

 

 

Comments

[Carol]

Hi Janet,

What are those slight bumps on the ground, circa 1927 in Kuwait? Is the long wall an edge of the cemetery? And that mysterious line up of four sinous pots of coffee in front of Violet and Amsha? What a character to find, I think she must be the Patron Saint of Kuwait Ex-Pats.
Cx