The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath—already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the seachange of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.























Annually during the Liberation Day celebration in Kuwait (from the British Occupancy in 1961 and from Iraqi invasion in 1991), the whole of Kuwait Oil Company community in Ahmadi becomes alive with perhaps the grandest of lights that one can see. Even during the Christmas season, the Catholic Church in Ahmadi is lit up magnificently. During ordinary days, Ahmadi streets can sometimes be dreary and provincial but during the months of December to March, walking through the streets in Ahmadi is like walking in Wonderland with white tiny lights draped from the tall trees, colored lights figured into different artistic shapes, and lamp posts hanged with Kuwaiti flags. Very festive and the efforts that went into designing the lights are truly admirable.