I Have Iraq in My Shoe Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Gretchen Berg

  Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art and design by Vivian Ducas

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  This book is a memoir. It reflects the author’s present recollections of her experiences over a period of years. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been re-created.

  Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Berg, Gretchen.

  I have Iraq in my shoe : misadventures of a soldier of fashion : a memoir / Gretchen Berg.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Berg, Gretchen—Travel—Iraq—Irbil. 2. English teachers—Iraq—Irbil—Biography. 3. English language—Study and teaching—Iraq—Irbil. 4. Irbil (Iraq)—Social conditions—21st century. 5. Irbil (Iraq)—Biography. I. Title.

  PE64.B47A3 2012

  956.7044’3092—dc23

  [B]

  2011046365

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  BG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To all my students in Iraq

  Q: Recent polls have shown that a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

  A: I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, The Iraq, everywhere like, such as and…I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er, should help South Africa and should help The Iraq…

  —Miss Teen South Carolina, 2007

  Contents

  Part 1: Opportunity Knocks

  Chapter One: Fiddle-Dee-Dee

  Chapter Two: Knock-Knock, It’s Iraq!

  Chapter Three: Details, Details

  Chapter Four: Joan of Arc & She-Ra Will Work for Shoes

  Chapter Five: Hockey Bags, Eh?

  Chapter Six: As the Dude Turns

  Part 2: Everything! Exciting & New!

  Chapter Seven: The Iraq—Welcome to Smell

  Chapter Eight: I’m an Immigrant

  Chapter Nine: “E” is for “Erbil” and “Embellishment”

  Chapter Ten: Attempted Assimilation

  Chapter Eleven: Assimilation Speed Bumps

  Chapter Twelve: Escaping Erbil

  Chapter Thirteen: We’ve Got Students, Convenience, and Hookers

  Chapter Fourteen: Shopping, BBQing, and Santa Claus

  Chapter Fifteen: Serenity Later

  Chapter Sixteen: Actual Assimilation

  Chapter Seventeen: Inshallah

  Part 3: The Honeymoon is Over

  Chapter Eighteen: Idle Threats

  Chapter Nineteen: Erbil is Da Bomb

  Chapter Twenty: The Real Housewives of Erbil

  Part 4: Change is Good

  Chapter Twenty-one: Happy Birthday! Kind of.

  Chapter Twenty-two: Kicking and Screaming

  Chapter Twenty-three: The New Students

  Chapter Twenty-four: Awat’s Happening

  Chapter Twenty-five: Virginity Soap

  Chapter Twenty-six: Common Sense, Totally Broken

  Chapter Twenty-seven: The Straw That Broke the Donkey’s Back

  Part 5: Love! Exciting and New!

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Afternoon Delight

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Shifta

  Chapter Thirty: Crazy Pills

  Chapter Thirty-one: He’s Just Not That into You

  Chapter Thirty-two: Blockheads and Kissing Cousins

  Chapter Thirty-three: Georgie Catstanza

  Chapter Thirty-four: Psychic Sahar

  Chapter Thirty-five: The Joys of Travel

  Part 6: Clarity

  Chapter Thirty-six: OMG!

  Chapter Thirty-seven: New Year, New News

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Ethics, Schmethics

  Chapter Thirty-nine: My Villa/Hotel/Office

  Chapter Forty: Reality Bites

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part 1

  Opportunity Knocks

  Chapter One

  Fiddle-Dee-Dee

  I hate the word recession. Recession was what happened to unlucky men’s hairlines. Recession was very bad news for your gums. Recession meant “no new shoes” in 2008.

  My job as a website copywriter was set to end in December, a very short two months away, and I had been sending out résumés since July, with a myriad of nothing to show for it—like when my dad would say to me, “You want to know what you’re getting for your birthday? Close your eyes. What do you see?” and then he would chuckle to himself. Nothing.

  Oh, the woes of impending unemployment. Why couldn’t potential employers recognize my amazing potential? Why? Why? In a perfect world they would coordinate with my grade school teachers and sort things out:

  Mrs. Vivian, First-Grade Teacher: Gretchen is not working up to her potential…

  Christian Louboutin, CEO of Christian Louboutin Shoes: Oh, so this Gretchen has potential? Let’s bring her in for an interview!

  Something like that. Not having my amazing potential recognized was horribly discouraging. Other things to file under Horribly Discouraging were nagging credit card bills, rent, automobile insurance, health insurance, food, the inflated cost of gas…these were the reasons I found myself metaphorically clad in a dingy old dress, sitting crumpled on the dry, barren ground, a la Scarlett O’Hara, sobbing into my apron.

  I fancied myself a modern-day Scarlett. Margaret Mitchell began her wildly romantic, sweeping epic with “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful,” and I love a heroine I can relate to.

  Scarlett was also “strong and unscrupulous, passionate and earthy.”

  Strong: I once assembled a mini-trampoline by myself, when the directions called for three people to do the job. Three.

  Unscrupulous: I ordered a ski bag from a big online retailer, and instead of one ski bag they sent me two ski bags. I didn’t return the second ski bag; I gave it to my sister Jessie. Returning Second Ski Bag would have required boxing and taping the bag up, getting in the car, driving to UPS, driving home from UPS. Oh God, I’m exhausted just telling you about it.

  Passionate: Ask any of my friends how I feel about Humboldt Fog or truffle cheese.

  Earthy: Sometimes I go to the store without makeup.

  Scarlett and I also shared similar views on the topic of war: “Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream.” This was precisely my inner monologue when party talk turned to war in the Middle East, politics in general, or whatever was on the news last night. No, I did not see that special report. Project Runway was on. I’m bored! Tell me my dress is pretty!

  And Scarlett was highly inventive when it came to fashion. I haven’t yet turned my living-room curtains into a dress, but I did cut the ankle straps off a pair of platform peep-
toes because they felt too restrictive.

  You know what else was restrictive? The recession.

  One day, in the middle of October, I was checking my voice mail, in the hopes that one of the résumés I had sent out had garnered some proper attention:

  Voice mail: Beep, “GERRRRRRTS, it’s Warren, and no, I’m not drunk.”

  I hated it when my friend Warren called me “Gerts.” I had made the mistake of telling him that “Gerty” was a nickname unfortunately bestowed upon me in junior high by a group of mean boys whose main extracurricular activity was tormenting. “Gerty Gertruuuuude!”

  Eeeesh. The sound of that name sent me reeling back to seventh grade, when I went home from school crying almost every day. Warren was the kind of person who assigned unflattering nicknames to nearly everyone he met as a way of subtly bullying them (like “Ham Hocks” for a girl who had saddlebags). I had saved him the trouble of conjuring a label for me—he just borrowed “Gerty.” Of course no one would know “Gerty” was offensive except me, but it takes a while to rid yourself of junior high torment. I’ll probably be over it by the time I’m eighty. I only tolerated Warren’s use of the nickname because he was really funny, and he made me laugh out loud.

  We met back in 1995 while teaching English at a language academy in Seoul, South Korea, and clicked immediately. He was the brother I never wanted. Teaching fussy adolescents was often a challenge, and having Warren there for comic relief made it infinitely more bearable.

  Fast forward to early 2007, twelve years after Korea, when I was working for a travel company in Seattle and Warren was back to teaching English again, this time in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai had the reputation of being the Vegas of the Middle East, and Warren made his life there sound like a dream: “tons of cash, private villa, Jet Skiing to private islands,” etc. He would always casually throw out a “You should come out here and teach! It’s great!” He was prone to wild exaggeration, but from his Facebook photos, it looked like he really was enjoying himself in the style in which he was perpetually yammering. Warren on a Jet Ski, Warren feeding camels, Warren posing in front of the famed Burj Al Arab—that last one was in sepia, which really added a touch of class to the album. He seemed to be in his element in the Middle East.

  That was nice for him, but it was somewhere I had no desire to go.

  My extremely limited knowledge of the Middle East, juxtaposed with reasons I should absolutely not go there:

  FACT: Women, typically, do not live alone.

  FACT: I had lived in my own apartment for eight years.

  FACT: Conservative Muslim women wear black fabric covering their heads and entire bodies.

  FACT: Black makes me grumpy.

  FACT: It is illegal (at least in Saudi Arabia) for women to drive.

  FACT: I started driving when I was twelve years old.

  Living, dressing, and driving were all very important things to me, a girl born in the era of Gloria Steinem. I was raised on Free to Be You and Me and Our Bodies, Ourselves and, as far as I know, neither of those has been translated into Arabic. But you know what has been translated into Arabic?

  Gone with the Wind.

  Chapter Two

  Knock-Knock, It’s Iraq!

  In August of 2007, Warren randomly showed up at my office in Seattle, totally unannounced—like any good stalker would—and greeted me with a “GERRRRRRRRRTY!” and a sternum-crushing hug. I was wearing a heavy, metal-plated necklace that is now kind of imprinted on my chest, but I was more annoyed with the revival of the nickname.

  I hadn’t seen him in over ten years, but he looked almost exactly the same, with his stocky, barrel-chested frame, short militaryesque crop of blond hair, and big friendly grin. When I say “friendly,” I mean “shit-eating.” Warren was always up to something.

  He had moved on from Dubai and was on a break from his latest “living the dream” opportunity, according to him: teaching English and coaching soccer in Iraq.

  Me: Hanh? Whaaaaa? You’re in Iraq now?

  Still me: Iraq?

  Still me, again: Why?

  He said it was a great opportunity; he was acting as educational director or some such thing, blah blah, inconsequential details, whatever. My brain couldn’t get beyond the “I’m living and working in Iraq” thing to actually absorb any of his explanation.

  Iraq? Like Iraq, Iraq? Like, the Iraq that was the setting of the war? The Iraq that was hosting some-odd thousand of our troops in some sort of reconstruction effort but was still plagued by violence and bombing and other manner of grave danger to which I’m generally averse? That Iraq? Or was Iraq the name of a posh suburb in, maybe, Vancouver?

  If I separated my friends into categories (and I do) like “good for coffee dates,” “fun to shop with,” “only in small doses,” or “always with a grain of salt,” I would put Warren firmly in the latter. Most of what he says is caked in embellishment.

  Warren (again): It’s a great opportunity…

  Me: IN IRAQ?

  In Warren’s brain our brief, shared overseas teaching extravaganza must have somehow translated into a globe-trotting life plan. Last year he wanted me to go join him in Dubai, and now he wanted me to teach in Iraq. That was all kinds of crazy. IRAQ. No one voluntarily goes there. They are deployed, or sent on assignment, or exiled to. I am a self-diagnosed mild claustrophobic, and in the CNN footage, the local women of these Middle Eastern countries were all covered, head to toe, with billowing black tablecloths. I’m no psychiatrist, but I could not see “burka” being a sartorial recommendation for the mildly claustrophobic. Even for those of the self-diagnosed variety.

  I loved to travel. I had made it to all seven continents. Some considered this quite an accomplishment, although I knew it was just a matter of booking plane tickets and boarding when your group number was called. Despite my love of traveling, I remembered being utterly relieved upon discovering that the Middle East was considered part of Asia. I had already been to Asia! I wouldn’t have to go to the Middle East to complete my continental tour!

  No, there would be no Middle East for me.

  That was my state of mind pre-recession. In the Good Old Days. When I had job security and knew where my next pair of shoes was coming from.

  So, with the recession hovering over me like Death in a burka, I listened to Warren’s allegedly nondrunk message, which arrived in my voice mail in August of 2008, almost one year to the date after he had ambushed me in Seattle, a year during which I told everyone about my friend Warren the lunatic who was living in Iraq. In said allegedly nondrunk voice mail, he slurred things about how I never had my phone turned on, blah blah, but didn’t really say anything of great importance. I assumed he wanted to discuss Iraq. I responded by email*:

  I got your messages, but I’m not coming to Iraq to teach.

  He responded shortly after:

  Hey Gerrrrrty [dear God, why did he insist on calling me that?],

  That’s fine about you but if you know anyone please let me know. We are in Kurdistan—Northern Iraq. Its very safe here so if someone is interested in the adventure let me know and I can take a look at them. Lots of time off and great pay in the safest part of Iraq…

  Here he inserted a link to a story CNN had done on the university, complete with contrived “casual” footage of Warren jocularly interacting with a few Iraqi students.

  Great link with some really good-looking people that work here…. ;)

  W

  I replied:

  No thanks, but send me the details and I’ll see if anyone I know might be interested.

  Hey, Gerts [ucchhh],

  I have teaching and admin jobs. I am the Director of this unit and hire them myself. A teacher will make $70,000 and pay no taxes. We pay for a new villa (no roommates in a 4 bedroom house), transportation, security, etc…the only thing not paid for is food which is around $300 a month. I’ve been here a while and saved about 96% of what I made. Plus crazy travel opportunities… when we leave here for
all these breaks we go to Amsterdam, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Vienna, Germany, London, and home.

  So to wrap up, it is 100% safe here in the North, crazy cash, no expenses, and lots of travel opportunities. I respect you don’t want to come, but when you are talking to people, tell them I feel it was the best decision I ever made—how else can you save a ton of money in one year and also travel the world?

  Take care, Gerts, and thanks for the help (or effort anyway).

  W

  He had a point there. He actually had several points: seventy grand, no taxes (there is some fantastic law or decree that U.S. citizens may work overseas and make up to $86,000 a year, tax-free), close proximity to Turkey, Greece, and the rest of Europe. I wanted to go to The Rest of Europe. Plus, Miss Teen South Carolina had vehemently stressed that our education over here should help The Iraq. Or something like that.

  Supercrap.

  I was starting to consider it.

  I had been unemployed before, and it was not a good color on me. (In my mind unemployed was a pukey shade of rust, which totally washes me out.) The Harry Potter books had saved me from becoming completely suicidal, but those were still some dark times. December, and the end of my copywriting contract, was fast approaching, and there was nothing else on the horizon, except the credit card bills, which were hovering around $39,000.

  Yep, that’s a lot.

  Please don’t tell Suze Orman.

  My credit card debt was not a result of reckless shoe shopping, which is probably what you’re thinking. You’re so mean. I had started a travel-planning business in 2002, which was expensive. Expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful. Reckless shoe shopping would have at least produced something tangible and wearable. I was unemployed, paying $1,000 per month in rent, and spending exorbitant sums on things like brochures and flyers and hospitality booths at trade fairs, not to mention automobile insurance, health insurance, food, and gas, and look what you’ve done, now I’m crumpled on the floor again, sobbing into my Scarlett O’Hara apron.