I Have Iraq in My Shoe

by Gretchen Berg

  All three drivers were cheerful and funny, but Karzan was the one with Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits on CD. It was the little things that made life entertaining there, and one of those things was a morning commute through the crazy, dusty roads of Sulaimani, Iraq, singing along to “Hot Legs.” It was almost too much when Karzan later got his hands on a Rihanna CD. We’d be speeding past old men on donkeys, belting out “Umb-e-r-ella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey” in unison.

  When his brother, Karwan, was driving, you had to keep your wits about you and prepare for crash position. Karwan had a lead foot and very little regard for weather conditions. On one rainy, slippery night he was barreling along at top speed, and several of us in the car were calling out for him to slow down. He grew indignant and said, “I drive for many, many years in Baghdad!” We responded, “That’s nice, drive slower.”

  Karzan was probably the most entertaining conversationalist of all the drivers. He was the oldest, although probably still only in his thirties. One time, on the way from the university to the bank, Karzan asked, “You like chicken?” Steve was the only other person in the car, and neither of us was sure if Karzan meant the animal or the food. I asked, “Do you mean, to eat?” Karzan said, “NO no no, not eating, just animal,” and then proceeded to tell us about the love of his life, Biss-Biss the chicken.

  “Ahh, Biss-Biss. Biss-Biss BEAUTIFUL!” and he did this thing where he touched all his fingertips together and held them up to his mouth. “BEAUTIFUL!” Steve and I were thoroughly amused by this. It was not common for Kurds, or other Middle Easterners for that matter, to keep pets (Section Five of the Cultural Awareness pamphlet). All the teachers had grown accustomed to the negative reactions of our students when we discussed keeping cats or dogs at home. (“But teacher, they are so dirty.”) Karzan was one of the few exceptions. Karzan told us all about his “chicken-man” Biss-Biss. He did say “Rooster? Chicken-man?” asking us which was correct, but Steve and I preferred “chicken-man” so we let him continue to say that.

  He waxed poetic about how he had had Biss-Biss for over two years, and how his family threw birthday celebrations in Biss-Biss’s honor, and baked him cakes, and made him clothes to wear. Karzan told us how Biss-Biss had many girlfriends, and he was just so proud that I couldn’t help laughing about it.

  Once, when Karzan was driving Warren and me from Erbil to Suli, Warren started joking about taking me to Baghdad and selling me. “How much you think we could get for her?” he asked Karzan. I did not want to hear how much money Karzan and Warren thought I was worth. But before I could block the answer with a loud “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS,” Karzan had said, “Twenty thousand.” I was mildly offended and blurted out, “Twenty thousand?!” at the same time Warren responded with a shocked, “REALLY?” He then said, very seriously, “Gretch, twenty thousand is a lot of money here.” I was still offended. Karzan probably paid more for Biss-Biss.

  Karzan used the word “beautiful” to describe nearly everything, not just his chicken-man. He would say “beautiful” with his hand held in front of his mouth, with all his fingertips pressed together. Rihanna’s music? Beautiful. Random neighborhood children? Beautiful. The mountains of Kurdistan? Beautiful. The Black Moneeka? Beautiful. I’m sorry, the what?

  The Black Moneeka was a car, specifically a large SUV. I did not understand the name. It was explained to me that “Moneeka” referred to Monica Lewinsky, because she was a “big girl” and the SUV was a “big car.” So whenever we would pass a large, shiny black SUV, the drivers would say, “Ahhhh, Black Moneeka.” I was mortified that Monica Lewinsky was infamous enough to have made such a lasting impression on the Iraqi people for this length of time. An ancillary thought snuck in: “Maybe her handbag line would sell well here.”

  Since moving to the Middle East I had become hyperaware of how Western females were represented to the Middle Eastern community. We were, largely, assumed to be hos, and it was exasperating to be unfairly labeled. If the most action I’m getting is a couple of strategically placed squeezes from security at the Erbil airport, I do not deserve the “ho” label.

  It didn’t help that while the television censors here removed any and all kissing scenes, they would leave in the “morning after” scenes with the naked couple in bed (covers pulled all the way up, mind you), which popped up all too frequently in most romantic comedies. It made me very aware that the common depiction of American women, via both movies and popular television programs (Grey’s Anatomy, ER, Brothers & Sisters, and others) is that we all slept with men on the first date, if not within the first ten minutes of meeting. While that was not a big deal to a Western man, it just reinforced “whore!” to the men in the Middle East. File under: Other Stuff That Makes Me Kick and Scream.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The New Students

  I finally had more than two students, and some of them were even female. Yay! I really, really wanted to get to know some of the Kurdish women, for a more well-rounded perspective on the culture. I was given two conversation classes of Level 2s, the same as Renas and Dalzar. I had seven students in my 3:00 p.m. class and twelve in my 6:00 p.m. class. On the first day, I spent a few minutes familiarizing myself with their names. This took a bit of work. “Dalzar” and “Renas” had been phonetic, and easy, and there were only two of them. Now I was faced with an avalanche of “Pshtewan” and “Kazhwast” and other names that begged the use of a sneeze guard.

  I went around the room with my attendance sheet, and mentally pigeonholed my first class: AbdulKareem (the old one), Sarkawt (the smiley one), Peshang (the shy one), Awat (the cute one), Hawkar (the confused one), Solin (the young one), and Avin (the pretty one). Surface labels are awful, but they help me remember people before I get to know them. I have no idea how sanctimonious, politically correct people do it.

  The classes were two and a half hours long, and the students got a fifteen-minute break in the middle to go outside and walk around, get snacks, and speak Kurdish. I refused to allow them to speak anything other than English once they set foot inside the classroom. On the second or third day of class, the cute one stayed behind and hung around my desk. By this time I was starting to see him more as the flirty-jokey-one-who-had-been-giving-me-the-eye, and I was wary of him. I narrowed my eyes.

  He said, “Teacher, can I ask you personal question?”

  I had been assured by my coworkers that the students would never ask anything about your marital status or dating situation, because it was not acceptable conversation in their culture.

  Me: (hesitantly) Sure.

  Awat: Are you married?

  Yep, that was pretty personal.

  Me: No.

  Awat: How old are you?

  We have confirmed that Awat understood the meaning of the word “personal.” I tried not to roll my eyes.

  Me: Thirty-nine.

  He nodded his head, grinning, and looked thoughtful for a moment. He then said: “Teacher, you are very good teacher. We think you very good. Everyone respect you.” It was like the entire class had unknowingly designated Awat as class spokesman. That was really nice to hear, a mere three days into the class, but I thought it might have been more flirty sucking-up than a legitimate compliment. That would get him nowhere, but I still accepted it. And I was now frequenting the tearoom for my daily dose of “Hello, Flower” from Daroon.

  There was at least one student in the second class who would not have agreed with Awat’s assessment and just stopped showing up after four classes. I can’t say I was sorry to see Behaz go. He was “the scary one” who referred to Saddam Hussein as “King Hussein.”

  There were several occasions in class when I just wanted to give my students a big hug but could not (Cultural Awareness pamphlet #3: Personal behavior—no hugging). Once was when Saman divulged that he had spent nine years in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. Saman was short, with graying hair, probably in his fifties, and was the most mild-mannered, respectful, sweet man in the class. It was absolut
ely heartbreaking for me to hear him say that. It also gave me an Oprah aha! moment when I figured out that must be the reason he and Behaz disliked each other.

  I also wanted to hug Kazhwast and Rozhan, two sisters, who told the class how they had walked across the mountains, with their family, from Iraq into Iran in the middle of the night when they were little, in order to escape the rebel rebellions. As usual, I had to have Wikipedia explain this to me:

  Thousands of civilians were killed during the anti-insurgent campaigns stretching from the spring of 1987 through the fall of 1988. The attacks were part of a long-standing campaign that destroyed almost every Kurdish village in areas of northern Iraq where pro-Iranian insurgents were based and displaced at least a million of the country’s estimated 3.5 million Kurdish population. Independent sources estimate 100,000 to more than 150,000 deaths and as many as 100,000 widows and an even greater number of orphans. Amnesty International collected the names of more than 17,000 people who had “disappeared” during 1988. The campaign has been characterized as genocidal in nature. It is also characterized as gendercidal, because “battle-age” men were the primary targets, according to Human Rights Watch/Middle East. According to the Iraqi prosecutors, as many as 180,000 people were killed.

  The students would tell these stories in such a matter-of-fact way, and no one else seemed surprised to hear them. They were just commonplace for the Kurds. Most of my students had grown up without fathers, and nearly every student had had at least one family member killed in an automobile accident. This was something I was not surprised to hear, judging from how people drove in Kurdistan, but that didn’t make it any less tragic.

  For all the hardship and difficulty these people have had to endure, they, collectively, had a fantastic sense of humor. This made teaching easy for me, since I had a challenging time being serious at all. I could not keep a straight face when we were working on the “Eating Well” unit and the students were learning phrases to describe their food likes and dislikes.

  One of the phrases was “I’m not a ________ lover” (I’m not a coffee lover, I’m not a vegetable lover, etc.), and I overheard one of my male students loudly declaring, “I’m not a selfish lover” to his conversation partner. He meant “shellfish.” I cackled out loud, had tears streaming down my face, and had to apologetically say, “No, no, it’s nothing, keep practicing.”

  Another time, we were studying the present perfect tense, and I asked the students to come up with their own present perfect sentences. Peshang said, “My mother was calling me to help her in the kitchen.” I asked, “Did you then go into the kitchen to help her?” and he said, “No.” When I asked, “Why not?” Peshang answered exasperatedly, “Because I have a sister!”

  I was the only one laughing at that. The students just looked at me quizzically.

  After the first week Awat stayed behind after class and asked if it would be okay if he sat and talked with me between classes. He said, “You can ask me anything! I will tell you everything! But only if is not too much bother for you.” Awat was really funny. I would often catch him snickering to himself when I was struggling to explain something to Hawkar, whose perpetual confused expression caused me to pull my hair out. Awat was also sharp and very eager to learn English. I thought this could be a golden opportunity to get the inside scoop on Kurdish men. I was comfortable enough with him, in spite of his flirty eye contact, and knew that he probably really would tell me things that I would otherwise never hear.

  Adam had told me that many of his male students talked about frequenting Turkish prostitutes, and Warren claimed that most of the Kurdish men he knew were not exactly bastions of Muslim integrity. I was expecting to hear similar salacious and intriguing things from Awat. I was kind of disappointed.

  Over the next few weeks Awat would stay behind, after the rest of the class had gone, and we would spend the next half hour talking. Instead of telling me about the local whorehouses, he told me a story about how he used to have this good friend, but one day the friend was on his cell phone, arranging to meet a prostitute. The friend was married, and when Awat overheard the phone conversation, he ended the friendship. He made a motion like he was dusting off his hands, which was a Kurdish way of indicating they were finished with either someone or something. He said that friend was not a good man, and he didn’t want to be friends with someone like that.

  We talked more about how friends could disappoint us, and people who were untrustworthy and he said, “Teacher, we have a saying in Kurdish: Never trust a woman!”

  Me: Um, that is a terrible saying. Why is that a saying?

  Awat: BELIEVE me, this is true!

  He used “believe me!” where I would have said “seriously.” But I thought his emphatic “believe mes” were far more amusing, so I never corrected him.

  Me: Please explain this to me. That is really an awful thing to say. I am a woman!

  He said, dismissively, “Yes, but you are different,” and then proceeded to tell me a story about another friend who had a girlfriend who then left him for a man with more money. Well, that wasn’t unique to Iraq.

  Awat: Women only want money!

  Me: Hmmm. Okay, well, would you ever marry an ugly woman?

  He stopped and seemed surprised at the question, and I could tell he wanted to answer no. He looked thoughtful for a moment, dark eyebrows furrowed, and then said, “I see. I think…” and then he explained another saying to me, which involved using markers and the whiteboard, where he drew a picture of a candle, and then what looked like a lantern. The basic gist of that saying, or what I could gather from it, was something like “It is better to have a simple candle with a flame than a fancy, showy lantern.” “Lantern” was definitely the wrong word, but something like that. Plus the saying was Kurdish, so the exact words didn’t matter. It was kind of a sweet sentiment, but I was still troubled by the whole “never trust a woman” thing, so I continued on with that conversation.

  Me: Okay, so your problem is you think women only care about how much money a man has, right?

  Awat: It is true!

  Me: Well, do you know any women who have their own jobs?

  Awat: Ahhhh…no.

  Me: Okay. How do you think women here get money? They either get it from their fathers or from the men they marry.

  He looked like he was considering this as a legitimate excuse, and I was just pleased to have made him try to view it from a different perspective.

  There were, in fact, many women who worked in Kurdistan. When I went to Warka Bank, I would see at least six or seven women working there. For the sake of my argument, though, I was relieved that Awat didn’t know any of those women.

  The Muslim culture is so slanted in favor of men that I couldn’t help but be on the side of the women. Jill, our deputy director, was living in Dubai when she met her now-husband, Morris. Jill was a forty-year-old Canadian, and Morris was a slightly older Brit. The mandates for the United Arab Emirates stated that if Jill and Morris wanted to get married in Dubai, Jill would have had to get permission from her father. I vacillated back and forth between hysterical laughter and despairing sobs with that one.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Awat’s Happening

  The following week I was having the students silently read through and then complete an in-class assignment. As my eyes traveled around the room, gauging who was finished with the assignment and who needed more time, I caught Awat staring at me. His steady gaze was unsettling and a sly smile played around his lips. I quickly looked to the next student, then back at the papers on my desk. This was happening more and more frequently. I would be explaining something to the class, and as I searched their eyes for comprehension and understanding, when my eyes met Awat’s, I saw something slightly more amorous than comprehension and understanding. I was alternately flattered and annoyed by it. Who did this kid think he was? I’m tryin’ to teach here, quit giving me the sexy eyes!

  During our post-class chat, I asked Awat how man
y girlfriends he had, because I was still confident in my original assessment of him: playah. With a laugh he admitted, “Three!” and told me how he had three different SIM cards for his cell phone, to keep the girlfriends separate. I found this to be mildly entertaining, although, being female, I was still offended on behalf of girlfriends everywhere.

  He said, “Yes, three girlfriends…” and here he looked me over, slowly, from head to toe, then continued, “but none of them are sexy.” I missed about half a second before quickly recovering and (pretending I hadn’t noticed the once-over) asked, “Why are you with them, if you don’t think they’re sexy?”

  He thought for a second and said, “For…” then seemed to be searching for the right word. I cautiously finished his sentence for him: “Practice?” He said, “Yes!” then paused, looked worried and quickly added, “But not in the bed!” That had been precisely what I was thinking, but I wasn’t prepared for him to just come out and say it. Yikes! He really would tell me anything.

  This admission led to Awat telling me that he would only kiss a girl after he had married her. This surprised me. It was how Muslims were supposed to behave, but from all the other stories I had heard, it was not typical of men in Kurdistan.

  He continued, “One girlfriend, I very love her. She do anything for me. I tell her my favorite color is red, she wear red clothing. One night, very late, she call me. She say, ‘Can you get car for tomorrow?’ She want to drive up to Korak Mountain. I know she want to go there to do bad things, so I tell her no.”