We took a cab and went through new high-rise after high-rise to our hotel. Hungry, we stopped by the Lebanese restaurant at the hotel where they were showing a Madrid vs. Barcelona soccer match projected onto the side of the building. We ate delicious Lebanese cuisine that Wissam said rivaled his mother’s and watched the match. We smoke shisha (tobacco in a water pipe) and enjoyed the evening. A good match, and, oh, what great food. The hummus was crisp and lemony. The meats were lean. Oh, so good.
The next morning we woke early and went to the outskirts of Kuwait City to operate with some Kuwaiti surgeons. Surgery is such a small world that the Kuwaiti surgeons and I immediately bonded over a mutual friend who, though Kuwaiti, trained in California and Texas and now practices in Minnesota. Our world is a small one. We, together, completed a fairly complicated case with little drama. The OR’s were clean, large and filled will folks who were obviously very well trained. They challenged me on why I did certain things and how I could do it better. I liked this dialogue. I liked the fact that they did not just accept what I was doing but wanted to know why. These guys, I told myself, were going to be great surgeons.
We finished our case early and decided to go to lunch. I was taken to a restaurant on the Persian Gulf known for their fish. The local reps, all Egyptian pharmacists, joined us. This was the only conversation I had on this trip that was political and, wow, was it informative. As an American, I think we tend to get a perspective that may not be representative of Arabs. We had a long, frank discussion over phenomenal seafood, fragrant shisha, and a desire to understand one another. It was quite an education…. And meal. The Persian Gulf glistened, and I reveled in the luxury of having frank discussions with people of different perspective who could teach me their perspectives.
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