We sat quietly in the clinic waiting room watching cartoons. The seating was divided by a see-through partition and we sat on the other side.

On my right an abaya clad woman sat with her teenaged daughter. The woman clasped a white Ministry of Health envelope which I presume contained a chest x-ray. She looked tired. Her daughter rested her head on her mother’s left shoulder, her silky black hair falling across her face in an attractive manner. She wore low rider jeans, a pink t-shirt to conceal her midriff, and another pink long-sleeved top over it. Soon it was her mother’s turn to see the doctor.

Behind the partition sat a frazzled mother of three. The baby boy was being nursed by a weary Filipina nanny. The other two children slowly drove the mother into a nervous frenzy.

When her mobile rang, she spoke in perfect Egyptian dialect. How so? Minutes before, she had been speaking to the soft-spoken receptionist in a Kuwaiti dialect. I looked at her carefully. She was dressed in trousers and long shirt and a matching hijab around her head. Not long after she conversed with the nurse in a Palestinian dialect. Why did she not speak in Kuwaiti dialect and be done with it, I mused?

The girl in pink got up to go to the toilet. Not long after her mother came out and not seeing her daughter, paid her bill and left.

The mother of three was soon called in and carried her sick baby to the doctor’s office, warning the other two children that they should stay with Nanny and not come with her because the doctor had an Ibrah (shot). The two noisy children were momentarily subdued as they contemplated the menacing jab.

However it was not for long. The older girl entertained herself with her mother’s mobile phones. But the young toddler had taken his sandals off and was running all over the waiting room. He went over to the tea tray and demanded some sugar from the sugar bowl. He wanted a drink from the cooler. Soon, he was howling and laughing as he dashed around in circles. Everyone else in the waiting room was quiet and looking at the noisy toddler.

The girl in pink returned and sat in the same place. Soon her mother rang her mobile and told her to come out. As she got up, a Kuwaiti woman in an abaya followed her with her eyes and continued to study her clothing through the glass door as she stood at the lift. The woman was with her teenaged son and he barely looked at the girl as she sauntered past. He had a light hair on his upper lip.

I admired the girl’s haircut. It was a full, perfectly cut length.

When the lift opened, a youngish woman in a hijab and a fashionable figure-enhancing outfit came out with two young girls and a man wearing a dishdashah but no ghutrah. His hair was slicked back with some sort of wet gel and his skin was a rich brown color in contrast to her and her daughters. They sat on the other side of the partition. I looked up as the man held the hand of one of the little girls and asked her to sit next to him on the one person chair. The girl refused shyly and backed away smiling. Up to this point I thought the man was the father but he was acting as though he was seeing them for the first time. Soon the woman leaned over and whispered in his ear, giggling and excited. She held a large white envelope in front of their faces to hide what she was saying from those in front of her.

I felt like a spy as I watched her from behind the partition. She looked like Nancy Ajram with a hijab on I thought quickly as I averted my gaze. She had noticed me sneaking a look! Well, I thought to myself in a huff…she certainly wasn’t acting very wifey. It was certainly very odd! Why was she bringing a strange man with her to the doctor’s office? Was it her lover? Her fiancée? Was she the auntie and not the mother of those girls?

The noisy little boy continued to make screeching noises as the Nanny played a dinosaur game with him. I was just about to stand up and scold him. Instead, I caught his eyes and looked at him squarely, widening my eyes and holding my index finger to my lips, in the universal sign meaning: Quiet, please!

He ran to Nanny but as soon as he had escaped my sight, he started howling noisily again till his mother came out of the doctor’s office.

”Get your sandals on!” She commanded as she paid her bill and strutted out of the office followed by her mini entourage.

The couple behind the partition continued their tête-à-tête as we got up to see the doctor.

When we finished, and paid at the reception, the soft spoken receptionist with the grayish green contacts, informed us we could return for a follow up visit anytime. She spoke in a low musical voice and smiled softly, her teethed still encassed in metallic braces, which seem to be all the rage now amongst those young women who never had them as teenagers.