I Have Iraq in My Shoe Read online

  Dude: Uh-huh. Gimme a kiss.

  I began wondering if this soap was on cable or just regular TV. Dude dialed again.

  Dude: Whatever, Lisa—you don’t tell someone you’re going to meet them and then not meet them. God, you’re such a fucking whore, and…who’s that? Is that Kristy? She’s a fucking whore too. What?

  Dude dialed again.

  Dude: So you’re going to marry me, right? Gimme a kiss.

  (I am not making any of this up. I was so floored by Dude’s initial phone manner that I whipped out my tiny notebook and began documenting this verbatim with my new Xpress Spa pen. Some of the writing got pretty squiggly because I was writing so fast; for example, it took me several minutes to work out “Lebanon” as I was reading my notes. I was squinting and thinking: That doesn’t say “Leinenkugel” does it? I don’t think you can get married in Leinenkugel.)

  We were finally given the announcement that requested we turn off all electronic equipment and cell phones. It was right about this time, while Dude was arguing with the flight attendant about his right to a spit cup during takeoff, when I remembered Warren saying something about a fellow teacher who would be on the Royal Jordanian flight with me. I blanched. Please, please, PLEASE don’t let Dude be That Guy. PLEASE! That would just be unusually cruel. Oh, please. All the hard work that masseuse had done on my clenched-up muscles was now wasted. I was all clenchy again.

  I glanced over in Dude’s general direction. Another guy, sitting two empty seats away from Dude, had struck up a conversation with him about where they were going. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but I did happen to notice that Other Guy was black. I was dying to know if Other Guy had overheard Dude’s use of the N-bomb during his absurd cell phone tirade.

  This soap is fantastic!

  I opened a magazine in an effort to appear to be minding my own business while trying to hear if Iraq was mentioned. It was! And then Dude started to talk about being “picked up at the airport in the helicopter,” and I thought, Hmmm, Warren didn’t mention a helicopter. Then Dude said, “My name is Brandon,” and my brain started racing. Brandon. Brandon? Was that the guy’s name? Brandon? DAMMIT! I can’t remember what Warren said! Oh God, oh God, oh God. This cannot be one of my coworkers. Please let the coworker guy’s name be Matt, or Dave, or Something Else That Is Not Brandon. I cannot fathom having to be within spitting distance (sorry, no pun) of this person on a regular basis. Please please please, NO!

  If I had to land in Iraq, and then be introduced to Dude/Brandon as a coworker, I would have most likely lost my shit. My shit was partially lost already, as I had undoubtedly unpacked and repacked it into several different bags.

  Twelve hours later, I had more or less forgotten about Dude when we landed at the Amman, Jordan, airport. I was to have a brief overnight at the airport hotel. When I spoke with a man at the arrivals counter to arrange transporting my luggage on the flight from Amman to Sulaimania, I was informed that I would have to pay another overweight baggage fee. The rotten liars at JFK had told me that the $850 (plus $40 for the duffel) would cover the fees all the way to Iraq. The man at the Amman airport apologized and said, no, I would have to pay another $500. Unbelievable. I had now spent a total of $2,920 on overweight luggage. Go ahead and add it to the $39,000, but Suze is going to be pissed.

  The Amman airport was thankfully small, so it was easy to locate the hotel shuttle. I boarded the little bus, just shaking my head. While my brain was spinning with the gargantuan sums that were crushing my poor, abused credit card, I pulled my phone out of my purse, just to see if I had service in Amman, Jordan. Can you hear me now? Shockingly, yes! My little phone powered to life and then beeped to alert me that I had a new voice mail! Oh, that would be nice, hearing a familiar, happy, friendly voice from home.

  As the shuttle bumped along, I heard, “Hey, Gretch, it’s Jessie,” and then her voice cracked and the rest of the message was convulsive sobbing from my sister, who was crying because she hadn’t had a chance to talk to me before I left New York and thought I was going to die in The Iraq and was absolutely not helping me adjust to being in a strange new place after going through travel trauma and spending thousands of dollars I did not have. This was the thanks I got for giving her a free ski bag.

  The hotel was called the Golden Tulip. That sounds pretty, doesn’t it? Yeah, it wasn’t. There was a metal detector just behind the front doors to the lobby, which did not instill me with a sense of warmth or, ironically, security. Welcome to the Middle East. I did not see one other woman between the time I checked in and the next morning when I checked out. The hotel employees were all men, and the other hotel guests were all men. My room had a very grotty feel to it, and I was pretty sure the stains on the curtains and carpet were blood. What am I doing here?

  Bloodstains and slight unease aside, my night was uneventful. After using the hotel’s business center to send an email to Warren that screamed, “I AM HEMORRHAGING MONEY,” I was actually able to sleep for a few hours before reboarding the shuttle to the airport.

  My mood improved perceptibly upon discovering that the Amman airport had both a Starbucks and a Cinnabon. I loved Amman! Welcome to the Middle East! It was 6:00 a.m., and I was insanely hopped up on sugar and having a jolly, hyper time waiting for the flight to Suli. It was amazing what familiarity and carbs could do to put me at ease.

  Upon boarding the plane, I took my seat next to a young, apprehensive-looking, sandy-blond-haired American guy wearing a newsboy cap. He introduced himself and said that he was going to Sulaimani, to teach English at the university. His name was Steve.

  Steve! That was the guy! Oh, thank God, it wasn’t Brandon! I was so relieved that Steve was not Brandon and still very hyper from the Cinnabon and Starbucks. I told Steve the whole Dude story, which he found amusing. Steve was the exact opposite of Brandon-the-Dude. He was like a little lost puppy you wanted to just pat on the head. He wasn’t spitting chewing tobacco or ranting at alleged whores or hissing the N-word under his breath, and that made the short flight to Suli quite pleasant. We landed, and I looked over Steve’s shoulder out onto the barren tarmac. We were in The Iraq.

  ASTOUNDING

  ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF PART 1

  Running total spent on overweight luggage: $2,920 (okay, maybe “accomplishments” is the wrong word)

  Debt eliminated: $0 (and now it’s closer to $42,000, thanks to the overweight luggage)

  Countries traveled to: ½ (I really don’t count airport/airport hotel as a country visit, but the Jordan stamp will still be in my passport)

  Pairs of shoes purchased: 0 (I’m not counting the red suede boots, and you can’t make me)

  Soul mates met: 0 (Steve was not Brandon, and he was also not The One)

  Cultural tolerance level (on a scale of 1 to 10): 6 (I feel it is fair to start at a midpoint of 5, and Jordan gets an extra point for Starbucks and Cinnabon. That is not particularly cultural, I know, but it did make me more tolerant.)

  Part 2

  Everything! Exciting & New!

  Chapter Seven

  The Iraq—Welcome to Smell

  The Sulaimani airport was small and stark but still managed to be a complete mess of people, fierce body odor, and many heavy bags. Granted, most of those heavy bags were mine. Steve Who Was Not Brandon graciously helped me push them over to the customs area. The Iraqi customs agent looked wide-eyed from my voluminous luggage to me, pointed at the luggage, and said in halting English, “What is here?” Mentally recalling all the packing, dragging, repacking, and near sobbing, I just gave him a wan smile and said, “Everything.” He didn’t ask to look inside.

  Warren met us just outside of customs, with his easy manner, big grin, and ridiculous Terminator sunglasses, and I waffled back and forth between wanting to hug a familiar friend and wanting to slap the jackass who recommended hockey bags. I went with the hug. He was the only person I knew in Iraq. Plus, I’m not really a slapper.

  Warren loaded Steve, me, and
the luggage into two non-tank, non-Hummer, very ordinary Nissan Pathfinder SUVs. This was anticlimactic. It was like the supermarket tabloids: Iraqis—they’re just like us! They drive Nissans! Not tanks. At this point though, the more familiar, the better. The smell was familiar—rank body odor—courtesy of Warren’s driver Rizgar.

  “Yeah, breathe it in, Gerts!” Warren crowed. “They all smell like this.”

  I balked and hissed, “He can hear you!”

  Warren responded with a dismissive wave of his hand, “He can’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  Warren said he wanted to take us to the local grocery store, for a little orientation, before going to the university. My first Iraqi supermarket! It was called Zara. Exciting and exotic: Zara! This was not the international women’s retail store Zara, where nothing ever fits me and they have fat mirrors, and I always leave feeling bloated and unfashionable. Stupid Zara. This was a better Zara, I was sure, and I was crossing my fingers that there would be Diet Coke and no fat mirrors.

  We walked into the exotic Iraqi Zara through the double glass doors and I thought, “Well, hmmm.” The supermarket was totally normal and looked exactly like any small, local grocery store you might find in the United States. It was clean, brightly lit, and organized into a maze of aisles. It was the Iraqi Piggly Wiggly. (They don’t allow pigs in Iraq, though, so maybe the Goatly Woatly? Sheeply Weeply? They eat a lot of lamb here, so the Lambly Wambly? Never mind. Jet lag makes me loopy.) It had food, toiletries, and a functioning escalator that led upstairs, where you could buy clothing, toys, and linens, like towels and sheets. Why had I needed to “bring everything”? They had plenty of everything here. And what’s more, the towels I brought from home said “Made in Turkey” on the tag. Guess which country borders Iraq to the north? Turkey. Sure enough, I checked one of the tags on a towel at not-so-exotic Zara and it had been made in Turkey.

  Me: Warren, I totally could have just bought stuff here! Why did you tell me to “bring everything”? Look, they even have Crest toothpaste!

  Warren: Yeah, but it’s not real. It’s the fake stuff. That stuff probably has cyanide in it.

  Me: What?

  Warren: It’s not the real stuff. Trust me, Gerts.

  I had to take Warren’s word for everything, as he had been living in Iraq for close to two years, and I had been there less than two hours. But the Crest looked exactly like it did at home, except for the Arabic writing on the package. Warren didn’t seem at all concerned about the authenticity of the Pringles and bought two cans for himself. Steve and I didn’t buy anything, as Zara did not have Diet Coke, and Warren seemed to be in a hurry and sort of rushed us around the store. He said he would send the driver back with us later to get the groceries we needed. I suspected the Zara “orientation” was less of an orientation and more of an errand to get Pringles for Warren.

  From Zara we drove to the university. The passing scenery was all very beige and very muddy. Sulaimani sits in the mountains of Kurdistan and enjoys a healthy amount of rainfall, particularly in March. We drove down narrow, unpaved roads that were flanked by numerous dilapidated storefronts that seem to be ubiquitous in underdeveloped countries. Coca-Cola? Sprite? Orange Fanta? Hubcaps? Yes. But no Diet Coke. Swarthy, mustached men stood on the sidewalks underneath tangles of overhead telephone wire, smoking cigarettes and gesturing to other swarthy, mustached men. We passed two- and three-story homes that were mostly obscured by high concrete walls, but every so often you could catch a glimpse of heavy burgundy velour curtains or gold-leaf adornments covering balcony doors. I would describe the interior décor as faux-luxe, or understated Trump.

  The university building was a modern, angular, three-story structure with large greenish windows and was set back behind the ever-present cement wall. When we approached the car entrance, we saw an armed guard, bedecked in camouflage and a jaunty beret, who stopped the car to be checked.

  Me: What’s he checking for? Drugs?

  Warren: Bombs.

  Warren’s “safest part of Iraq” speech was still ringing in my ears while the guard ran a long stick with a large mirror attached to the end underneath the vehicle before stepping back and removing the row of guard spikes so the SUV’s tires wouldn’t be punctured.

  In front of the building lay a large gravel parking lot that was mostly occupied by eight trailer-sized “cabins,” where the classes were held. The new university building was under construction, at a separate site five miles away, and this was the temporary facility, Warren explained.

  “This is Iraq,” I kept saying to myself. “I’m in Iraq.”

  We walked up the front steps and into the lobby of the main building, where Iraqi students, both male and female, were milling around and chatting with one another. No one was wearing a black tablecloth. All were dressed in Western clothing, with some of the girls wearing colorful headscarves. I was too jet-lagged and bewildered to notice much more than what people were wearing. I’m in Iraq. This is weird.

  Steve and I had to meet with the university’s human resources director, Rana, a very pretty Kurdish woman around my age who had spent roughly ten years living in the United States and was fluent in both Kurdish and English (I quickly learned that the Kurds were the main ethnic group, and Kurdish, not Arabic, was the local language). She welcomed us to sit in the chairs in front of her desk and said to me, “Oh, you’re the one who will be in Erbil, right?” I nodded, still not really knowing what that would entail. Rana’s office was like the rest of the building: it was fairly stark with high ceilings and heavy dark furniture. After sitting down, Rana handed us copies of our contracts, and we reviewed the details. My pony was not discussed, nor could I find mention of it anywhere in the paperwork.

  Rana had a small pamphlet titled “Cultural Awareness” for us to review and keep for reference. Number one on the pamphlet was “Dress Code.”

  Dammit, Warren.

  1. Female: Please do not wear:

  Shorts

  Low-cut tops

  Short tops

  Short skirts and dresses

  Tank tops

  I exclaimed, “Yikes, I’m wearing a tank top right now!” (Although it was under a cardigan sweater.)

  “Just don’t take your sweater off,” Rana replied.

  Okay, crisis averted. I noticed that Rana’s ensemble followed the code, technically. Nothing was short or low-cut, but everything seemed awfully snug. I then asked, “Does Warren know about this pamphlet?” and she smiled tightly and said, “Yes, we give these to everyone who is employed here.”

  For men, it just said, “Male: No Shorts.” God, that was so typical. I recalled Warren telling me he wore shorts here, you know, because it gets up to 50 degrees Celsius—122 normal, American degrees.

  The “Cultural Awareness” pamphlet was more than just dress code recommendations, though. Much, much more.

  2. Jokes and Comments

  Avoid making in-appropriate jokes and comments.

  Want to make joke about how no one had edited pamphlet for grammatical errors.

  3. Personal behavior

  No hugging, touching, or kissing in public.

  Should have slapped Warren at airport. Hug was mistake.

  Avoid shaking hands with Hijab (veiled) girls.

  Pretend they’re all sick and germy.

  Avoid patting anyone on the back.

  But how to show congratulations or appreciation in kickball tournament?

  4. Religion

  Religion is a very delicate subject.

  Am already culturally aware of this. Do not need this pamphlet.

  Avoid making fun of Islam under any circumstances.

  Imagine Islam as messy kid with long stream of toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

  It’s probably best not to discuss your religion and beliefs unless asked by curious locals.

  Am enjoying visual of “curious locals”—gnarled, elderly people in cloaks, peering at and poking me.

  If you find yourself involve
d in a conversation on religion, be aware that it is a delicate subject.

  Am envisioning curious locals circling and attempting to trap me in conversation on religion.

  Avoid visiting any Mosque unless it has been converted to a museum or if you have been invited by another practicing Muslim. (It is a restricted area for Muslims.)

  Curious locals have escalated religious conversation and have surrounded me and are leading me to a Mosque.

  Please cover your hair when going to a Mosque.

  Curious locals refusing to let me shop for a headscarf on way to Mosque—as if they want me to fail test!

  I’m in Iraq. This is weird.

  5. Pets

  Keeping pets is not that common here.

  Missing my little, fat Herb.

  Do not touch homeless animals on the streets in order to avoid diseases as the animals are not immunized.

  Sad at idea of homeless street animals. Now want to hug them.

  If you have a pet, please do not take it with you to houses you visit, the shopping malls, or government department.

  Have sudden urge to buy dog-in-small-purse and bring it everywhere with me.

  6. Security

  Do not ride in strangers’ cars.

  Not even if they offer candy?

  7. Dating

  Please be conservative while dating a local.