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.