I Have Iraq in My Shoe

by Gretchen Berg

  I was finally in the last waiting room; the final resting point, where I could sit and ponder if I had done anything to somehow invite the advances of the groping security officials. Was it my fault? Had I inadvertently winked? Raised my eyebrows suggestively? I longed to have a sympathetic psychologist sitting next to me, telling me, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.” I felt so dirty.

  The final phase of the extraordinarily involved process of departing the Impenetrable Fortress of Erbil was boarding a large shuttle bus, which transported everyone fifty feet out to the Austrian Airlines 737. Upon summiting the metal staircase and entering the aircraft, I half expected the flight attendant to strip-search me and was greatly comforted when she simply smiled and said, “Hello.”

  I said “Bonjour!” to Paris. Bonjour croque monsieurs (ham!), chocolate, cheese, wine, shopping, and my old roommate. It was so nice to see a familiar face and to be surrounded by so much opulence. We went a little crazy with the shopping. Rhett went to Paris and bought Scarlett dresses and hats. I went to Paris and bought myself Azzedine Alaïa animal-print booties and Christian Louboutin peep-toe sling-backs. When in Rome, you know. Oh, now I want to go to Rome. And really, once you’ve spent $1,600 on airfare, Alaïas and Louboutins seemed almost reasonable.

  After a week of indulgence française, it was back to The Iraq. I sadly realized I would not, and should not, wear my fancy new shoe purchases in The Iraq if I wanted them to remain fancy. The sloppy combination of unpaved walkways and excessive dust and mud would just ruin them. I had not forgotten immigration, and neither had my Wonder Woman boots. I tucked both boxes into the back of my closet until I could take them back to the United States where they would be safe.

  It was strange to think that Paris was a mere hop, skip, jump, and two short plane rides from Iraq. It was like hopping, skipping, and jumping from a trampoline of decadence and landing in a desolate sand trap. That was unfair. I mean, even my warm, adorable, welcoming hometown of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, would not be favorably compared to Paris. Paris was arguably the most beautiful city in the world and was constantly drawing comparisons to other places. Prague was the Paris of Eastern Europe. Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East.

  I decided, based on my entirely limited time there, that Erbil could be the Paris of Iraq. You should always focus on what you do have rather than what you don’t. Erbil probably had plenty to offer, and it was up to me to find out exactly what that was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We’ve Got Students, Convenience, and Hookers

  Since the Erbil campus was a relatively new project for the university, things had been a bit slow to start, and Adam and I didn’t begin teaching until several weeks after we arrived. The Kurds were proving to be a fairly noncommittal people, and although Warren claimed to have ten students signed up for a class, I only ended up with two. Adam ended up with zero, so his duties were reduced to “coordinating” until more students signed up for classes. My new class would meet Sunday through Wednesday, the standard university schedule, for three hours each day. Not exactly taxing.

  Dalzar and Renas were my two students, and they were quite the pair. Frick and Frack. Chip and Dale. Sonny and Cher. Renas actually did look like Sonny, with a mustache and lively eyes. Dalzar was bald, with a medium build, and had some fierce eyebrows that marched across his forehead in a pointy M. They were both bright, friendly, funny men in their late twenties/early thirties. From what I had seen, the Kurdish people tended to appear ten years older than their actual ages, so my initial guesses were slightly off. I think the premature aging had a lot to do with them having to live through disaster and atrocities that we only read about or see in movies or on TV. And the incessant smoking probably didn’t help.

  Dalzar and Renas were my very own Odd Couple. Anytime we had a discussion, those two disagreed. Dalzar was a bit more of a bulldozer and would loudly talk over Renas (and occasionally me) and had the irritating habit of going “uhhhhhhhh” in between words. It was as if he thought that still counted as English, just as long as he was making noise that wasn’t distinctly Kurdish or Arabic. Renas was infinitely more articulate and would politely wait for Dalzar to finish his ranting and “uhhhhhhhhs” before stating his point.

  One assignment in the textbook asked the students to “rewrite the sentence using ‘may’ or ‘might’ and ‘be able to.’”

  The sentence was: Maybe you can buy an antihistamine in the gift shop.

  The correct answer would be: You may be able to buy an antihistamine in the gift shop. Or: You might be able to buy an antihistamine in the gift shop.

  This may (or might) seem like a random, odd sentence, but we had just finished a unit on health issues, so the students were freshly familiar with ailments and medications. Dalzar’s answer, which he read aloud, was: “You might not be able to buy an antihistamine in the gift shop.”

  I corrected him and said, “You might be able to buy an antihistamine in the gift shop.”

  Dalzar said, “No. You might not be able to buy an antihistamine in the gift shop.”

  We went back and forth in this manner for about a minute. Then I finally gave up and asked, “Why not?” Because Dalzar didn’t think gift shops would sell antihistamines. Never mind that the assignment was merely to revise the sentence; Dalzar wanted to revise the potential offerings of the gift shop because the scenario just didn’t make sense to him. I tried to explain that many gift shops, particularly those in hospitals, would likely offer both gifts and medications. Dalzar didn’t seem convinced.

  Later on, in class, the subject of weddings randomly came up.

  Renas: There is Steve Martin movie, I think, Father of Bride, Steve Martin movie about daughter getting married. I think is nice when he play basketball with daughter.

  Me: Oh, yes! Father of the Bride! That was very sweet. Did you cry?

  Renas: (chuckling) Yes.

  Me: Dalzar, did you see that movie?

  Dalzar: Yes, very good when many people…Gladiator, uhhhhhh, and the people, uhhhhhhh…

  Me: Dalzar, did you see Father of the Bride?

  Dalzar: Uh, no.

  Dalzar may not be able to understand the topic matter at hand, but you really had to appreciate his willingness to participate in the discussions.

  After finishing class, I went over to Adam’s villa to see if he was ready for another Sex and the City marathon. He had never seen the show, and I had brought all six seasons with me. You know, in the hockey bags. Basically, if anyone dropped by my villa and asked, “Do you have any…” I would say, “Yes” before they could finish the question. All six seasons of Sex and the City? Yes. Giant vats of Bumble & Bumble shampoo and conditioner? Yes. Jars of Trader Joe’s peanut butter? Yes. Enough sheets, comforters, and towels to stock my own white sale? Yes. Stupid hockey bags.*

  Adam: Do you want to walk to the store real quick first? I need some candy.

  Me: What store?

  Adam: The one, just a couple of blocks down.

  Me: What? We have a store? A couple of blocks down? What?

  Adam may not be able to share pertinent information with me, but we may be able to buy antihistamines at the new convenience store!

  Chalak was only available to drive us on errands Sunday through Thursday, 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. After that, we were sort of stuck. What happened if I had a sudden relentless urge for chocolate, around 8:00 p.m.? Or on a Friday or Saturday? What would become of me? Now I knew.

  Our villas were at the south end of the street. When Chalak took us out and about, we would drive to the middle roundabout and turn right to exit the compound. Had he continued north, two blocks past the roundabout, we would have run into the store. The “store” was a tiny, dusty shack at the end of our compound, with a flashy neon “open” sign, and blocks of soda cans (still no Diet Coke) stacked up right outside the door. Inside the store? So much more. It was a very tiny space, maybe around fifteen square feet, but this was the place to go if you needed peanut M&Ms
(yes, please), Baghdad-brand potato chips, cigarettes, toothbrushes, diapers, phone cards, ice cream, cowboy hats, and spangled belt buckles. This place was our very own 7-Eleven, and I was practically shrieking with joy. There is no substitute for close proximity of snacks. PMS is a merciless mistress, and she does not cotton to the MacGyver’d snacks of your almost-empty cupboards. Butter doused in sugar packets and cocoa powder does not a cookie make.

  Proximity of convenience store = convenient. Even more convenient? When the store comes to you. “The produce truck is here! The produce truck is here!” I would shout, to no one in particular, when the low-riding fruit-and-vegetable-laden pickup rolled down our street in the Village. The produce truck would stop right across the street in front of the neighbor’s villa (she was a regular), and while it didn’t have the lilting “Do your ears hang low…” song churning out of a crackly megaphone, the honk of the truck’s horn elicited the same ice cream truck reaction I used to have when I was eight.

  I would run out, wave to the produce man, then point to the fruits and vegetables that I wanted, and the nice man would put them on the scale with a half-kilo weight, then put them into a small blue plastic bag that smelled faintly of body odor. I would have to scrub the produce after taking it out of the blue plastic bag, but other than that the produce truck was awesome.

  The first time I went out to the truck, the nice produce man looked surprised. I don’t think he expected Westerners here. He realized I probably didn’t speak Kurdish, and we had to muddle through the transaction with charades. The next time, when handing my 1,000-dinar notes to him, he said, in halting English, “Three. One, two, three,” indicating that my total was 3,000 dinar (which is around $3.50). I exclaimed “Ah!” to indicate my grateful surprise that he spoke a little English.

  The convenience was overwhelming. The truck drives right onto my block and the driver speaks a little English? This was fantastic, as I was not making any kind of effort to learn the local language. So much for assimilating. I learned “Thank you” (“Spass”), and that had served me well so far. In fact, I could say “thank you” in thirteen different languages, as I found it to be the absolute most useful phrase. Everyone loves “thank you.” Plus, remember, I also spoke fluent Friendly Smile.

  Reasons I was not learning Kurdish:

  I am lazy.

  I am terrible with languages (other than English).

  I wouldn’t have been able to use Kurdish anywhere else.

  The Kurdish language differs from city to city.

  Most languages have dialect differences for different regions, but several Westerners here had confirmed that there were actually different Kurdish words for the same things, depending on the city. A Swedish woman, who lived in English Village and worked for a nongovernmental organization, told me how she had been studying Kurdish and was very proud of herself for finally learning how to order a cup of tea. She took a weekend trip down to Suli, where she attempted to order tea in her newly learned Kurdish tongue and was met with confused looks. She was eventually told that the word for spoon was something totally different than what she had learned. I just didn’t want to risk that kind of frustration. And also, as noted, I am lazy.

  I truly did appreciate the struggles that my students went through. Learning a language is hard. In addition to my multilingual capacity for “thank you,” I spoke Vacation Spanish and Menu French, and even still struggled with those on occasion.

  Lazy loves convenience. I would wake up every day around 10:30 a.m., watch a little TV, occasionally run out to the produce truck, eat lunch, and spend some time on the Internet until I had to prepare for the three hours of evening class. That was my extremely demanding schedule. When I told my family and friends at home about it, they would gasp indignantly, then cry, “That is not fair!” before remembering where I was, and then say, “Oh, yeah.”

  Being able to communicate with people at home was such a luxury. Facebook and Skype were making up for that horribly lonely year in South Korea, where I was in a state of perpetual desperation for any phone calls or letters from home. Having access to the Internet was excellent, and at the same time, kind of scary. I discovered that, even all the way in The Iraq, I could shop online. I had unfettered access to Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Net-a-Porter and the Outnet, and my favorite Italian high-end discount site, YOOX (which my mom consistently, and incorrectly, pronounced “Yocks”).

  After successfully transferring two monthly paychecks into my bank account, back in the United States, I was ready to reward myself with a new pair of shoes. I mean, another new pair of shoes, in addition to the shoes I had purchased in Paris. Those were specific vacation shoes and didn’t really count. I was on the slow climb out of my personal recession, and it was shoe time. Over the past couple of years I had begun to turn up my nose at affordable shoes in my tax bracket in favor of any ridiculously overpriced, high-end brand I could find: Gucci, Burberry, Ferragamo, Prada (but only if I could find them on the clearance rack—I did have some boundaries). I would still blame my mom and the fashion magazines for this.

  When I discovered that I could shop online in The Iraq, I was both “Wheeee!” and “Oh.” I had to resign myself to the reality that I would have to have the shoes delivered to my parents’ house in Oregon. The mail system in Iraq was far too sketchy to expect anything, especially anything of value, to show up as requested. “Isn’t that kind of anticlimactic?” my friend Sally asked, “I mean, you will buy something, and then you won’t get to wear it right away.” I thought about this, and yes, she did have a point. However, I planned to fly home for summer vacation in July, and would then get to open any and all boxes that had been delivered. So it would really be like a second Christmas.

  The aforementioned YOOX, my favorite site, was an Italian company that sold overstock and past-season pieces from the widest variety of designers. Everything in the company’s standard inventory was marked down 50%, and the site would increase the fun periodically by reducing the prices even more—all the way down to 90% off. I loved % off, especially with “90” in front of it. My shoe-addict friends back home would email me photos of their latest shoe coups, and I would try not to cry about having missed out on the massive clearance sale at The Nordstrom Rack.

  I had introduced Sally to YOOX, as she was a high-end label whore herself, but she said YOOX gave her a headache. “There’s just too much.” She was right. In the designer index there were approximately two hundred labels, for each letter of the alphabet. But I loved a challenge, and YOOX made the whole experience fantasylike by offering a Dream Box, where you could put up to fifty items over which you were drooling, but you wouldn’t actually have to buy them. I liked to think of it as my virtual closet. I could wear the things in my virtual closet to imaginary events held in my head, and being isolated in a gated community in Northern Iraq meant there were many, many imaginary events. But the online shopping was mostly like therapy for me. It really just relaxed me to log on, forget the world outside, and click through the pages and pages of beautiful things.

  One pair of beautiful things made its way from my Dream Box into my shopping cart, and I am now the proud owner of handmade, gray leather Golden Goose riding boots. I could see someone snarkily asking, “Oh, riding boots? So you ride?” Yes, I ride. I ride bikes, and I ride in cars, and I ride on subways and trains, and those boots normally retailed for around $1,000, and YOOX let me have them for $390. Ride that.

  Oh my God, I finally had money! I could actually buy things! Granted, $390 was not parking-meter change and was the second-highest amount I had ever paid for a pair of footwear (see: Paris trip and Louboutin purchase). But they were handmade. And so, so, SO pretty. And I didn’t have to justify my shopping to anyone. I was the boss of me! As I pointed out to my reproachful mother, in addition to a large salary increase, I was no longer paying $1,000 each month for rent. My rationalization was, I should at least have been allowed to spend that amount on shopping. Suze Orman may have disagreed with this lo
gic.

  After our initial restaurant excursion, Adam and I rarely left the gated compound, what with our newfound über convenience and all. We did still have the need for weekly Chalak-escorted trips to the grocery store for nonconvenient-store fare or to pick up other necessities (wine and beer), but otherwise we kept to ourselves in the compound. This was disappointing to my dad, who really wanted me to “get out and mingle with the locals.”

  On the few occasions that I had been in a car at night, I noticed that the streets were lit up and lively, with people sitting out at sidewalk tables and walking around. It looked fun and social! Upon closer inspection I realized these people were all men, and it was no longer fun and social. It was eerie and creepy. It was post-pubescent Lord of the Flies, you know, before they all lost their minds and started eating one another.

  Apparently, if women here were out and about at night, unaccompanied by a man, they were assumed to be, to quote Dalzar and Renas, “bad women.” Of course they were. Women were all whores and would, I think I’m remembering Warren’s words correctly, “screw anything that walked.” I explained to my dad that I was perfectly happy just mingling with my students. They were local enough.

  I had wondered about actual prostitutes and whether they had them in Northern Iraq. I was sure they did; it was the oldest profession in the world, and we were in one of the oldest cities in the world.*