Kuwait - water

When I thought of Kuwait, I used to think of oil and sand, but now I may think of water.  One reason is that several of the landmark pieces of architecture are water towers.

Water towers, built in 1976, winner of Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1980.

The Kuwait Towers are not just tourist attractions--they're water towers too.

Another is because water is still a big deal according to those who track potential reasons for regions to become unstable.  Kuwait relies heavily on desalination of water from the Gulf for fresh water.  It also has pretty high consumption of water.  These are all things of interest to me as a resident of Southern California, another water-challenged area. http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTM2MjY5OTY1OA== and  http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-kuwait-water-idUSTRE72L4VZ20110322 and http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries/kuwait/index.stm

Finally, because water is important in Islam, and the Koran calls believers to freely share water, many buildings and homes have special containers out front, where passersby can get a cup of water.