The Bajis strike again

You know how I'm an only child and I don't like to share (I'm talking to you Kris- don't you dare eat my last bite of desert), well I am having to share. A lot. Our kitchen is used by all of our staff, since we live in our office. I had to bite my tongue yesterday as I watched somebody stir soup in a teflon pot with a silverware spoon, not a stirring spoon. On top of the staff using stuff and moving things around, the Bajis move things. Every day they move things. I'll open the cabinet to reach for a pot and there is the tupperware. I then have to go banging through all of the cupboards until I find the pots and pans. The other day I couldn't find the salt. I'm not sure why the salt had been moved, but it had. My favorite was the day that we think they cleaned the cabinets. It took us a week to recover from that episode.

Yesterday, one of the bajis brought up a pile of mouse traps. These aren't typical mouse traps, in fact they look more like something you would keep a mouse as a pet in. I stupidly asked why are we setting mouse traps and I am told there are no mice, but we have to. 'We have to' is a common answer, along with, 'that is how it is done here'. Let me tell you what we have caught in the mouse trap-ants. A whole swarm of ants. In fact, our ants are so spoiled that today the bread is stale and they don't want any. Seriously.

In other news the washing machine ate a load of my clothes. Tuesday night I put a load in and when I went downstairs there was an error. I turned it off, turned it back on, pressed the child proof buttons, pressed the add a garment button, kicked it and finally unplugged it. Wednesday, I try to explain the washing machine is broken. Bob and I go down and I show him that it has an error and that it won't open. Then I am told that the washing machine would have to be taken to the shop, because of course there is no Maytag man. I think the washing machine, along with my clothes, went to the repair shop. I hope they come back. I really do not have a large wardrobe here and losing a whole load of clothes would be a bit rough. I'm also a little disconcerted about the fact that my unmentionables are traveling around Sulaimaniya without me.

I managed to have a conversation with Bob today that was at least at the kindergarten level. I asked if there would be a car available and if we could go to the store after work. Then I went to the grocery store and the fruit market all on my own. It was my first time heading out by myself. Ok, fine, Bob helped translate the Kurdish numbers for me at the fruit stand. But still.

Gifts

I remember in my high school choir we sang a Shaker song in a round, "Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we shant be ashamed, to turn, turn, will be our delight, till by turning, turning we come round right."

It comes to mind because there are some people here that are so giving and they are typically the ones who have little to give. One of our security guards is so nice. He loves the television show 24 and I think he likes to imagine that he is our Jack Bauer. He showed us a Kurdish/Arabic/English book and Kari asked through gestures and broken Kurdish and English if we could photo copy it. He tried to give it to us then, but we said we would take it later. Then today he gives me a copy and I say thank you in Kurdish and try to explain I will bring it back. He says no, I say yes and then finally I say thank you. A little while later the doorbell rings and he brought another copy for Kari.

I cannot quite explain how much that gesture touched my heart. Kari kept telling me not to cry, because I had tears in my eyes. Sometimes it is the very simple things that matter the most.

Can I go outside and play?

At the end of every day I gather up my laptop, including the cord, pile my homework or any reading I need to do on top of it, and I head to the top floor to our 'living room'. At that point in time Kari and I should work out, but lately we have been hunkering down for a couple of more hours of work, breaking for dinner and going back to work. Today I sat down at the kitchen table to do some homework, because, um hello, statistics is hard. Then I hear Kari and Mo say we get to play futbol. I was so happy that tears of joy came to my eyes. I couldn't sit still, so I ran downstairs and changed. Then I came upstairs and I was ready. No, really, I was ready. I had to sit and wait for awhile, but then finally after half an hour we went outside. Did I mention I was so ecstatically happy. We have not been able to go outside and play ever. We were supposed to play with one of the other staff, but he could not make it. That meant we had no soccer ball.

We tried to explain to the guard and our driver that we were just walking over to the field. Our driver was really trying to drive us somewhere. We just gave up and walked away. There was no way I was going back inside. So, Mo and I start jogging towards the soccer/basketball field. Kari refused to do something so indecorous. Keep in mind we still did not have a ball. So, we started jogging around the field, which was the size of a basket ball court, not a soccer field. After a couple of laps we switched directions. For every step that Mo took, I took two and for every step I took, Kari took two. He could have lapped us about ten times. At this point our security guards wander over and they truly do not know what to do with us. At one point I was so giddy and laughing so hard that I couldn't run anymore. Crazy Americans! One of our guards went and talked to the guard at the gate to our compound and thankfully he had a soccer ball.

Keep in mind, I am a swimmer. I played kickball with the boys in grade school and I had one semester of gym class in high school. Kari was on the soccer team, probably the basketball team and I'm sure if they would have let her she would have been on the football team. Of course Mo was a soccer star. Basically, I just ran around and laughed a lot. Then, as dusk fell, Mo was kicking the ball across the court and we couldn't see the ball until it hit us, so we switched to basketball. I did pretty good and in fact Kari and I won. Our guards were laughing and cheering us on. We played until the bats were swooping over the court (let me rephrase that, they were actually swooping in the court), the sun had gone down and it was so dark we couldn't see the ball. It was kind of like when you were a kid and your mom was calling, but you really didn't want to go home. Just one more game.

Baji tales

We have two very delightful women who are responsible for cleaning the offices. We have four floors and each floor has two bathrooms, so it is a bit of a task. They only speak Kurdish and I only speak English. Generally we are able to communicate through hand gestures. Anyways, I have been remiss in telling you the baji (it is actually an honorific in Kurdish that means oldest sister/aunt) tales. My first day here I had no hot water. I found out later that it was because a) the baji unplugged the hot water heater and b) the baji broke the heating component. Thankfully our head of security Bob took pity on me and fixed the heating component. So, this morning I step into the bathroom after only 5 hours of sleep and all I get is cold water. That would wake you up, except for the part where the water was too cold, so I didn't actually get under the shower head. I had a sponge bath instead.

I walk out and tell Bob in broken Arabic that I had no hot water before I forgot to check that the hot water heater was plugged in. Of course Bob walks over to the hot water heater and plugs it in. We have a laugh-ha ha ha. I then went in search of tea. The baji strikes again. I think that maybe they feel they are saving electricity. Occasionally the air conditioning units are also turned off at the power source, and power strips are unplugged. I wish that they would choose to save water instead, because their notion of washing the floors is to take a bucket of water and throw it on the floor. Then they use a squeegee and chase it down the drainpipe. If they are cleaning the bathroom floor they take, for lack of a better word, the bum sprayer, and spray down the bathroom and walk away.

I think that may be enough baji tales for the day. Do not fear, there will be more.

What language do you speak

Some of you may remember a story I told a couple of years ago about traveling from Madrid to London and in the Madrid airport I was trying to change money. In one single sentence I spoke French, English and Spanish. The gentleman in perfect crisp English asked me, "what language *do* you speak?". At that point I had no idea. That is kind of where I am right now.

There are so many layers of conflict within this country that trying to sort it out makes my head spin. One current divide, that I'm kind of living in, is between Kurdistan and Iraq. There is a lot of history behind this divide, which I am still trying to sort out and I am just too tired to explain, but let me show you how it impacts my day.

My morning starts with 'choni bashi' (which is Kurdish and translates to, 'hello, how are you, I am well' and yes all of that in two words) and ends with tisba alal khair (Arabic for goodnight). Our office is primarily Kurdish and almost everyone speaks English. The cleaning ladies do not speak any English and we speak through my limited Kurdish and hand gestures. There are a couple of administrative staff who have limited English (in fact their English is probably better than my Arabic) and speak primarily Arabic. Quite a few of the staff speak English, Arabic and Kurdish. And then there is me. I knew moving here that the cultural divide and language barrier would be challenging, but trying to sort through two languages at once is a bit much.

One day this week I was told to come to a meeting and the person who called the meeting was only speaking in Kurdish (even though they speak fluent English). After a couple of sentences one of my staff members said, "I am going to switch to English" and then we had our meeting. Language is a useful tool. It is also used to demonstrate power. Most everyone is appreciative of my attempts to learn and speak, whether it is Arabic or Kurdish. Well, almost everyone.

I am trying to focus on learning Arabic, but then the question becomes which version? Formal written Arabic (which is very different from spoken), Egyptian Arabic, or Iraqi Arabic? Then even as I try to focus on Arabic a little Kurdish creeps in to my lesson. My Arabic teacher is a gentleman who drove a cab in Baghdad for 15 years and then in 2003 (the invasion) he got a job working with some Americans as a translator. Except, then his life was threatened because of his involvement with the Americans and he went back to driving a cab. Finally he ended up with his wife and son in Sulaimaniya and he expressed such sadness on not being able to protect them in Baghdad that it made me hurt and angry. Every day I hear stories like this. Every, pardon my french, damn day. I am very grateful that he agreed to help me because from him I learn more then just Arabic- I learn about life.

Now I have completely random Kurdish words in my head. Today, for example, we went to the mewa (fruit stand) to get some shooto (watermelon). My driver for today's expedition speaks a bit of English. I think in many cases people understand more English then they are able to speak. The same is starting to happen to me with Arabic. Our head of security also got into the car (keep in mind I was just going to the grocery store and did not need a full security detail). So I asked him, "yallah Zara kak Bob (names have been changed! and Zara is the name of the store). What I said was "go (Arabic) Zara Mr. (Kurdish) Bob". I sound like a two year old. He always appreciates my attempts to speak though and laughed and explained in bits of Arabic and English that he was going home.

I think too that I am being a little bit hard on myself and I have only been here for a month and I have learned more Arabic then some previous staff members who lived here for a year. I am looking forward to the day that when I try to speak Arabic I do not first search through my brain for the word in French and then try to find the right word in Arabic and come up blank.

On being a woman

Most days I do not even notice that I am a girl. It is just a part of my general make-up, like being five foot seven with hazel eyes. Here, it is something I notice every single day. Take today for example, we were having a conference at a local hotel and I walked in the door and every single man in the lobby (sitting there smoking cigarettes and drinking tea) turned and looked me up and down. I am not talking about a subtle glance- I mean they raked their eyes over every part of my body. I've become quite accomplished at ignoring them. What makes it worse is that I was accompanied by not one, but two Iraqi men. That alone should have made me invisible to any stranger. Another example, as Kari and I walked up to the counter to check out of the hotel in Erbil I saw two men sitting in the lobby (smoking cigarettes and drinking tea). One guy saw us and then poked his friend so they could stare at us. It was like we were exotic animals in the zoo. I could understand if we were in the middle of nowhere and they had never seen a foreigner, but this was a very Western hotel. Last week we walked to a restaurant near work and it was brilliant to be able to leave the office and go to lunch. Partly because of the heat and partly because of Ramadan we had not been leaving the office during the day. We walk into the restaurant and there are a ton of tables open in one section and yet my co-worker is trying to find a table in a crowded section. When I point out the uncrowded area he told me that was the men's section. A whole freaking section of the restaurant was dedicated to men (smoking cigarettes and drinking tea). It also dictates how you can do work here. There is a part of my project that deals with conflict resolution in communities that are actively in conflict. No, I am not going to those communities, but somehow I have to get the work done. Someone contacted us about doing a play about reconciliation and I was seriously considering the idea. Then I found out that men and women cannot go to see the play together. Do I have a separate performance for each gender?

I identify myself as a feminist. Even though feminism is now a dirty word. I firmly believe in equality between men and women. I knew that women's rights were not the same in the middle east, but there is a vast difference between knowing and experiencing. I am lucky too because my situation is very different then a lot of women here. I work for an international organization and I'm the boss. My entire staff, except one woman, are men. Quite a few of them tested the boundaries, because I think they expected me to be a pushover. They got a little surprise instead.

On the flip side, I get annoyed when people expect middle eastern women to be feminists. It took women in the United States quite some time before they got the vote and we still only make, what, seventy cents to the dollar. Here we are at the beginning stages of feminism. I know that through example, training and time, things will gradually change. Regardless, I wish men would at least act respectfully, especially since I am not walking around on my own wearing high heels and a short skirt. In the meantime I will continue to be a muted version of myself but sometimes that gets tiresome.

Roadtrip

You may get the impression that I am kind of frustrated by being trapped in the office. A chance to leave the office is like a holiday to your favorite place, even if it is just going to the fruit stand. Yesterday we got to go to Erbil for some meetings. For now I will just give you the highlights:

Many animals crossing the road.
Beautiful mountains.
Going to the bathroom in something that very closely resembles a hole in the ground.
A dinner under the stars (it was comfortable enough to eat outside).
Meeting people I have been friends with on facebook for years for the first time.
Going to a mall with real shops.
Stopping at an Iraqi truck stop in Dokan.
Buying king size sheets that I hope will fit my bed.
Oh yeah, and some work stuff.

Things that start to drive you mad

First, I have to say that I am very grateful that the crazy guy in Florida didn't burn any Qu'ran's. It is sometimes difficult to be an American living in the Middle East, especially when other Americans choose to deliberately insult Islam.

There are certain conveniences and things that you do not even realize are a part of your daily life until they are gone. This is a sample of some of the things that are starting to drive me slightly insane. So, please excuse my mini-rant.

There are no manila folders or hanging files. Imagine life with piles of paper that are in plastic sleeves with no labels. Piles of them. Supposedly, there are files out there, we just don't have them.

The water drips in my toilet, constantly.

There is no recycling. Not even people who come through and pick through the garbage like in Chicago. Everything here gets thrown away. It just seems like a lot of waste to me.

There is a constant film of grit that covers everything, including the inside of my mouth.

It is hot. It is starting to cool down at night, but it is still a hundred some odd degrees out during the day and that is just too darn hot.

There are grasshoppers the size of my hand and when they hit you in the head it feels like a bird has landed on you.

There are ants everywhere. Every morning when I go to the kitchen I kill them. I realize that I am a vegetarian, but I cannot think of any humane way to get rid of them.

I can't go for a walk. If I want to just wander around town and go for a walk, I can't. Granted, I have it better then the embassy folks who have to wear a flack jacket whenever they are in the car, but still. I have very little freedom and someone has to know where I am at all times.

I live in my office- 'nough said.

This is the most tragic one of all...a lot of our T.V. channels come from Saudi Arabia and are subject to censorship. I was watching the end of Pride and Prejudice (the Kiera Knightley version) and they cut the final kiss along with the proposal scene. I mean seriously, how racy can Pride and Prejudice be!!!

I have a king size bed, which is actually way too big for me (yeah, I know, tragic). I sleep with my bad leg hanging off the bottom of the bed, because my ankle doesn't lay flat and that is difficult to do in a huge bed. Anyway, I have a queen size top sheet as my bottom sheet and a queen size duvet as my top sheet and a queen size blanket made out of some slippery fabric. Every night I have to re-tuck the bottom sheet and I wake up cold every hour because the blanket has slid to the floor. It does not make for very a very restful night.

I know that compared to some international postings, I actually have it quite posh. We have internet, air conditioning (at least when the electricity works) and a nice T.V., but when you have given up your job, family and friends and traveled half way across the world there are certain things that can start to really get to you.

I really miss cottage cheese, whole wheat and brown sugar. Not to mention Thai food. Oh well, at the same time I have been on a culinary adventure and had the opportunity to try some amazing things.

Going to the doctor in Iraq (sing along to going to the chapel!)

When I left the states I was sick. When I got to Turkey I was sick. When I got to Iraq I was sick. That was three weeks ago and today I am still sick. Finally, the staff in Iraq took me in hand and told me I must go to the doctor. Thankfully, one of our staff made the appointment for me and took me. We pulled off the paved road and onto one of the dirt roads and tucked in a corner was the eye, ear, nose and throat doctor. Half the reason there are so many SUV's in this country is because the roads are so bad. Anyway, we walk into a a small waiting room with plastic chairs and a woman who is wearing a veil, a lot of eye make-up, skin tight pants and a tunic with stilettos, tells us to take a seat in Kurdish. This is why my friend came with me, because my Kurdish is not very good! While we were waiting the electricity went out and stayed out for about 5 minutes. Five minutes in 100 degree weather with no fan or air conditioning becomes quite uncomfortable. The woman then directed us to the doctor's office, even though he was finishing up with a patient. Thankfully he spoke English and I was able to describe my current syndromes. He was very professional, my only concern was I do not know if the tools he used on me were clean or not. He told me I had influenza that was complicated by sinusitis. He gave me a script for an antibiotic, nose drops, claritin and a suppository. Um, huh? Then we walk around the corner in the same building to the pharmacy and I am given an antibiotic, nose drops, claritin and cough syrup. A little bit of a difference, but cough syrup makes a lot more sense. The doctor's visit cost 10,000 Iraqi dinar, which is about $8 and the drugs cost 17,500 Iraqi dinar, which is about $15. I'm trying to figure out if I can submit the Iraqi receipt for reimbursement to my insurance!

I took the first round of antibiotic, cough syrup (which tastes horrendous) and nose drops and for the first time in days I have not coughed for a whole hour. It is a miracle. I'm just hoping the whole kit and caboodle knocks everything out of me. I have things to do and people to see!

There is always something

You know how I have a tendency to go "oh, shiny" and get distracted and wander off to something else that is, you know, shinier. It is happening to me even worse right now because I am fighting the cold I caught in Chicago before I left. So, I am backing up a couple of days to finish the whole story.

On our way to Zewa we went through a security checkpoint and we were waved right through. Our friend who was driving commented that if we had been blond and blue-eyed, then we probably would have been stopped. I do not look Kurdish or Arabic, but at least I do not completely stand out!

On the way home we passed through the same checkpoint and there was a very long row of tanker trucks pulled off on the side of the road. There are always trucks here, especially since every single thing is imported. Except, these trucks were not importing necessary goods. I'm including the article from the
New York Times, because it describes the situation in much better detail then I could possibly recount. Every day I find something out. Most of them are things I would much rather remain ignorant about.

American cooking

I forgot to mention that while up on the mountain I also drank water that came from a spring. I'm still standing. It would have been rude to refuse, since our host was so enthusiastic about the fresh water. It did taste quite lovely. Saturday (which is kind of like your Sunday) we went to an Iraqi friends house to just hang out and watch Egyptian telanovella. It was nice to be able to lounge about chatting and watching very dramatic soap operas.

At 4 o'clock the electricity went out. That was the end of the state sponsored electricity for the day and that meant no more air conditioning. I don't know if I've described this, but people run lines to someone who owns a generator and buy a certain number of amps from them. It costs money and so it is too expensive to run the air conditioner. Our friend had, what I have heard called, a swamp cooler, that helped keep things cool. It is this giant drum that spins and I think there is water involved, but I cannot even begin to describe how the thing works.

I made pancakes and scrambled eggs for dinner. A first for our Iraqi friend, and as we were eating dinner her two year old daughter brought the Saddam playing cards to the table. I do not know if you remember these, but years ago the American military put the pictures and rank of all of Saddam's henchman (and one woman) on playing cards and distributed them to Iraqi's. It was a bit surreal to see something that you had only heard about being played with by a child.

Going to the mountains

Friday we went to the mountains. A friend's brother invited us to dinner at his place in Zewa, Iraq. What amazed me was it was only 20 minutes outside of the city. At first it was only a gradual incline as we headed out of the city. Then as we headed into the mountain we started climbing up and there were many switch backs. We drove past the village with the chickens in the street and continued our climb. Until finally, we reached the end of the road. The house was up a bit higher and we climbed many steep stairs to reach it. The view was amazing. Both Kari and I just stopped for a moment and looked out at the mountains and simply took a deep breath. Living and working in the same place can start to make you feel a little stir crazy. We are always very grateful for the opportunity to leave the flat, let alone the city. Dinner was family style and there was biryani (which is rice, with vegi's, potatoes and chicken, which I picked out), a rice with cinnamon and raisins, another rice dish with some spice I could not identify and raisins, a tomato and cucumber salad, and another vegetable salad with tamarind sauce as the dressing. Needless to say, there was plenty of food. After dinner we went for a walk up the hill and up into the mountain to the visit the grave of a holy man.

I'm going to mangle the story, but some guy came to Iraq, who was not of one of the monotheistic religions, to convert the people. He died before he ever converted anyone, but they respected him and buried him in the mountains. People come and tie a bit of cloth in the tree and pray to him for luck.

The rest of the evening was spent drinking tea and talking. As we left the lights were turned out in the house and the stars overhead were brilliant. The big dipper was hanging low in the sky and it looked like it was trying to scoop up the earth. It is always comforting to see something familiar in a foreign place.

Food

I have been meaning to write about food for awhile. Food here is expensive. Most everything has to be shipped in, because there is no industry here, because there is no constant electricity. Cooking requires being innovative. Thankfully, I brought some spice mixes with me and Kari also had some. My first meal here was at a Turkish restaurant that has some of the best service in the city. We had quite a few meze (small dishes) that were middle eastern in flavor, but one was a tomato based dish with a bit of sweet and spice that was delicious. The only problem was we asked for it to be wrapped up so we could have some of the delicious leftovers, but that was lost in translation. It is Ramadan here, so we work from 9-2 and then pick up again from about 5-10. The next day I decided to make pasta sauce with tomato paste (they have tons of canned tomato paste here, but no canned tomatoes), tomatoes from the market, onion, garlic, basil and some Italian herbs. The sauce turned out really well and I put it on a local bread that is not quite a pita bread, but close, then sprinkled some grated kashkaval cheese that is from Turkey and then put it in the microwave on grill. We could not get our oven to work until this week, but the microwave had a broiler function that was very useful. Ta Da I made pizza. Kari had some mozzarella but that was what the label said, not what it was in actuality.

For breakfast I have Greek yogurt from Greece. I found it at the Kurdistan market and then the next time we went shopping at Zara (not the European clothing store) and they did not have any Greek yogurt. Today at Zara there was Greek yogurt. You never seem to be able to get the same thing with any consistency.

Tonight for dinner we had thai with shrimp. Our next big challenge is Mexican. We think we found tortillas, but it will take testing them first to make sure. I also kind of made an angel food cake, but I didn't have anything to turn it over on to let it fluff up and cool off, so it is a bit smushed. Oh well, it tasted good. I'm sure tomorrow will be another adventure.