Kuwait.
I was employed in Kuwait by Yusuf Ahmed Alghanim & Sons as service manager at their Construction Equipment and Engine division. Susan was employed by Bechtel International in their head office in Safat.
| Life in Kuwait in the mid 1970's was directed more towards work and business than anything else. There were only 3 hotels in the country. The Hilton, Sheraton and the Messilah Beach hotels. Salmiyah was the edge of town and there was great open space of desert between Salmiyah and the Messilah Beach hotel. I understand it is now very significantly built up. For us, it was long hours of work at least six days a week, and generally very little by way of entertainment. |  |
During our time in Kuwait, I did some work in Iraq and we managed to visit Jordan, Syria, Israel and Cyprus. We travelled by road into Israel across the Allenby Bridge. We found ourselves in Israel at the time El Al airline was on strike, the only other airlines were PanAm and Olympic, and people were camping in their offices. It was fairly clear we were not going to get out of the country by air, so we took a taxi to Haifa and went as deck passengers on a ferry to Cyprus. It was probably the worst sea voyage that we have ever made. Just about everyone on the vessel was sick before it was over. I really think that this ferry trip is what has caused us to stay clear of boats and boating ever since! After only a 12-hour journey we arrived in Limassol looking seriously wrecked and went to the Apollonia Beach Hotel. It was at least 24 hours before we stopped feeling the motion of the ship and started to look healthy again.
After Kuwait, we returned to England with the idea that we would look for a job in Kenya. Things were a bit different in those days, getting a job was not such a massive problem and we actually managed to source two opportunities in Kenya. One was with the Government department of roads and transport and the other was with Mowlem Construction Company. We chose to go with the Mowlem Construction Company and we arrived in Nairobi in mid 1978.