خارجي ٣٢٩/ ٤٣ "شحن الغذاء إلى دول الخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎١‎٣‎٧] (٨١٣/٢٧٣)

i\ Note on the diet problem among the Badawin of Kuwait and
North Eastern iirabia due to lack of rice.
!• The Badawin tribes of Eastern and North Eastern Arabia were
before the present war, rice eaters as opposed to the bread eaters
of North Central Nejd, V/estern Arabia and other parts of the
continent. Even the poorest of them could afford to buy a small
quantity of the cheap Karachi rice for their modest one meal a
day. '*Vheat flour was practically unknown outside the towns.
The great advantage of rice was that it was easy to cook and
was a meal in itself if other things failed, also it was digestible
and in a Badawin household where a stranger might arrive at any
houB of the night this counted for much for the lady of the tent
could get up and cook him a meal of rice and serve it with a few
dates. She never offered bread to the guest.
Today the traveller and stranger is not given even ” jerish ,, ,
the miserable apology of wheat cum bran porridge ( described below)
should he arrive by night, as the latter takes too long to cook, so
a handful of dates only is given, and a few sips of Arab coffee
in the morning before he departs.
The above applies to the Badawin of Kuwait and the coastal
province of Hasa especially.
4n the deep desert, conditions have always been harder and many
Badawin live solely on camels• milk and a few dates, but when
there are a succession of lean years, as we have had in East,
Central and South Arabia during the second and third years of the
present war, many thousands of camels died, and the nomad population
had a very hard time in consequence. Indeed death from starvation
on a large scale would have been the Bed^s lot had not King Ibn
Saud opened soup kitchens in almost every township throughout Nejd.
It was during this particular period that Iraq forbade the export
of dates, and added immeasurably to the food difficulties of the
Badawin both of Kuwait and of North Central Arabia. The few dates
which did reach them by underground and other methods cost as much
as Rs. 60/- a raaund, a figure entirely beyond the means of the nomad
The above generalisation is by the way, and is given for back
ground purposes only.
2. When India failed to supply Arabia with rice two years ago,
large quantities of wheat began to arrive in Kuwait, under M.E.E.C
arrangements for distribution to the inhabitants and for sale to
the Badawin of the interior.
The M.E.6.C. failed however to take one important factor into
consideration, namely that the people of Kuwait and the hinterland
were not bread eaters and so had no facilities for turning the wheat
into flour, i.e. flour mills ( only one small mill was available :
and this was at once taken over by the Shuyukh).
\
Moreover there were practically no hand grinding stones in the
town, and 75> of the ^adawin could not even produce a diminutive
stone grinder.” All the latter could do was to break up the wheat
they were able to buy into a coarse flour using their coffee pestles
and mortars for the purpose, a long and tedious proceeding. This
state of affairs lasted many months until " Rahas” ( hand grinding
stones) began to arrive from Persia for sale to the public. But
as these cost Rs. 36/- to Rs. 40/- each, those who wanted them most
could not afford to buy.
Today there are still far too few " Rahas * among the
Badawin, and as many as 30 tents may have to share one.
It is true that on one or two notable occasions the M.E.3.C