A Mauritanian public school teacher shares insights into the lives of expats in Kuwait during the pandemic

English transcript | نسخة عربية

Nationality: Mauritanian
Occupation: Teacher
Date of interview: 18 August 2020
Language of interview: English

Sidi likes teaching in Kuwait. He was seconded as an English teacher to the Kuwait Ministry of Education from the Mauritanian government 26 years ago. He has enjoyed teaching English in Kuwaiti public schools, and feels like Kuwait has been good to him. The government provides him with a housing allowance and healthcare and continued to do so during the pandemic, despite the fact that the school was shut down at the beginning of the outbreak. For all these years, he has been able to visit his family every nine months, but next year he will be 65 and will pack his bags for good and go home.

The Mauritanian community in Kuwait is small and dispersed-- they connect via WhatsApp but mostly, his community are his colleagues at the public school where he teaches, the people in his mosque and his online Scrabble community (he is responsible for seven Kuwaiti government schools setting up scrabble clubs and competing locally and internationally).

Sidi has enjoyed the move to online teaching, and his students have also seemed to enjoy participating in this format. His colleagues at work have been extremely supportive and helpful in getting his skills up to speed. However, the pandemic has really changed the ways in which they interact at work—they used to eat together as a community, hug, share breaks, but not anymore. No shared food is allowed on campus, staff must maintain distance and cannot gather. This has been a big shift for them as a close community, but he feels lucky because they all kept their jobs and have all kept safe. Private schools threatened to lay off teachers he knew, without pay, while the government schools were the opposite, supporting and training their staff to adjust to the situation.

He knows his situation during the lockdown was privileged. Although it was hard not being able to go to the mosque, he spent much of his time praying at home and reading the Quran, which he found helpful. He was more fortunate than his neighbors and assisted them when they had difficulty. Sidi reflects on the fact that the lockdown has exposed the Kafala system and the trafficking system, and he believes this is an important lesson for Kuwait. He thinks laws should be enforced with big fines, so that visa traders will think twice about sponsoring people with no jobs. He believes this will lead to more equality and a better demographic balance.

“[…] having spent twenty-six years of my life here, this country is dear to me, you know. It has brought everything for me that is joy, happiness.”

In the clip above, Sidi takes a closer look at the Kafala and trafficking system which was exposed by the pandemic.

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