I Have Iraq in My Shoe

by Gretchen Berg

  I said “No”—it’s 7:30 p.m. He wanted me to let you know (I think he’s worried about getting in trouble). He was a little fussy about it, and was like “well, what’s the problem…are you scared?” My reasons shouldn’t be in question. It’s supposed to be my home.

  “It’s YOUR villa, Gretch. YOUR villa.”

  I think tours are fine between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., and I am happy to leave the doors unlocked to allow access downstairs. But, again, I am also living here, and need to have some boundaries. Sheesh.

  Questions? Comments?

  Gretchen

  Andy took it upon himself to send Warren an email of his own, and copied me:

  Warren,

  As per our conversation, I had told you that once in a while potential students/clients have expressed interest in enrolling in the CED program in Erbil.

  In villa 69 Steve and I always let the students inside so they can sign their name, give us their email, and phone number. We then tell them a little bit about CED and how we are very professional and growing.

  He crapped on about how detailed and diligent he was in his recruiting and talked about how he showed prospective students the “students supplies, computer lab, fresh painted walls, a beautiful deck, umbrellas, tea and coffee room, projectors” and then continued on about the problems he was having with my reluctance to cooperate with him, despite the fact that he and Steve were there “for protection.” The email was very long, very annoying, and very full of brown-nosing, and if Andy really thought I would consider a self-medicated loon “protective,” he needed another Xanax. He signed the email:

  Regards,

  Andrew David Hall, CED Coordinator-Erbil

  Working overtime 9–4 Sunday to Thursday—Text me if you need me.

  Oh, for crying out loud. That last part was actually part of his standard email signature; the “working overtime 9–4 Sunday” part. I was so over Andy and his psychotic brown-nosing. In my PMS-addled state, I just wanted to fire flaming tampon missiles at his window.

  I responded, only to Warren:

  Jesus. Does he make this big of a deal about everything?

  Warren responded:

  Saying Jesus makes baby Jesus cry… :(

  Warren was fresh off vacation, much more relaxed. We hadn’t seen much of each other since my performance review, and things felt distantly calm between us. We worked out a compromise with the villa tours, and Andy apologized for going ballistic on me. I mentioned my concerns about Andy, and his self-medicating, to Warren, and he said he’d “keep an eye on it.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  He’s Just Not That into You

  I probably should have been self-medicating. The Awat situation was skewing my sense of reality. I had emailed him on the Sunday he would be starting his new English class. He was a little apprehensive about having a new teacher, and I wanted to see how his first day of class had gone. I did not receive a response. Hmmm, that was odd. Monday passed, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday, and no email from him.

  I emailed Ellen:

  I haven’t heard from him since I sent him an email on Sunday. I just asked how his new class was going, who his teacher was, etc….haven’t heard back. Although someone called me yesterday (while I was teaching), and the number was suspiciously close to the one he gave me, and I know he has 3 SIM cards. I have the feeling he didn’t want me to know it was him calling, which also makes me think maybe he never received my Sunday email. Hmmmm. Such games.

  It might have been him calling, but it also might not.

  Ellen responded that she hadn’t seen him on campus that week, and maybe he was out of town. I responded:

  Part of me just wants to let the whole Awat thing go, but I totally miss him! He just made me laugh, and I really loved spending time with him:( And he cooked for me!!! I swear to God, I ate shifta all last week. And it was awesome. I even gave like half of it to Steve, and still had enough to get me through the week.

  Ellen was supposed to be the voice of reason, given her disdain for Muslim boyfriends, but she was in the throes of her own romance with Johnny, the Lebanese Canadian director of general services, and was definitely in a state of “Love can conquer all” because she said, “A man that cooks is a keeper! I say keep it going.”

  I had read He’s Just Not That into You, cover to cover. Several times. It was one of my favorite books. If you emailed the object of your affection on a Sunday, and he didn’t respond for a week, and you knew he didn’t have a job and was probably just playing PlayStation in his living room… He’s Just Not That Into You.

  When Awat finally did send a casual email, saying he had been “busy,” I didn’t bother responding. I was too old for this crap. I was not one of his typical clueless giggling “girlfriends” who would wear his favorite color every day and beg him to go do bad things on the mountain. I was a grown-up! I had standards! I had a surprising lack of red clothing! What I had mistakenly thought was a special connection quickly dissolved into a typical disappointment in a matter of minutes. You should always, always listen to your gut. Your gut, and lame, careless emails. “Busy.” Busy with what, Alpha Protocol? Chaotic Shadow Warriors?

  All that next week I berated myself for being stupid. How totally embarrassing that I actually thought this might be a real relationship. He was twenty-four! He was Kurdish! Ridiculous. I felt completely humiliated but also relieved that I hadn’t told anyone but Ellen, Jen, and Katherine about it. My shame increases in direct proportion to the number of people who are privy to my pathetic grasps at romance.

  By the end of the week, Erbil had wrapped itself around me in a forgiving hug, and I was feeling back to my normal self again. I had my microwave and my blender and the J&K gym and spa, and my old Erbil life. Thank God for “out of sight, out of mind.”

  Then on Friday I was checking my email and saw Awat’s name pop up in my inbox, with the subject line “complain.” God, that was so typical. He didn’t email me for a week, and then just wanted to complain about how he didn’t like his new English teacher or whatever.

  hi ms.gretchen how are you? why you silent? why donot send me email :(? anyway i am fine, i wish you be fine too,

  It was unbelievable how unconcerned I was with poor punctuation and creative spelling when it came to him. My stomach flipped. Stupid involuntary nervous system response.

  I thought about the situation for the rest of the afternoon and finally arrived at a conclusion. My common sense had fixed itself and was no longer broken. Absolutely not. I was too old to be playing ridiculous pretend relationship games with someone who was completely inappropriate in the first place. I needed to cut this off, with a proverbial sharp Ginsu knife. This relationship was the aluminum can that needed to be sawed in half.

  What could I say to him to clearly break off all communication? In Dating Land, what was the quickest, surest way to get rid of a guy? Tell him you love him. Rita Rudner famously said, “Sometimes they leave skidmarks.” My common sense might have still been a little bit broken, because I decided I would tell Awat I was in love with him, and he would be so freaked out that he would not respond, and I could go back to being a happy spinster. Ninety-nine percent of me wanted that to happen, and the foolish 1 percent secretly hoped he would respond with a declaration of undying love. (The percentage was probably closer to 80/20, but the foolish part of the percentage was really the minority.)

  Awat,

  I’m sorry. This is more complicated than I was prepared for. I think I might be a little bit in love with you, which is not good, and I thought it would probably be best if we didn’t keep in touch anymore.

  I will trust you not to repeat this to anyone, and I truly wish you the best of luck with everything! You are a very special man, and I will miss you.

  Gretchen

  I did not receive a response for five days. With each day that passed I thought with relief, “Okay, good, that was the right thing to do.” On the fifth day I received this:

&
nbsp; it is ok, do not be sorry, i respect your opinion, i wish in my heart i did not make any mistakes, thank you for every thing, good bye

  Ouch. I flashed back to that romantic West Life song he had recited to me and how he had made such a big deal out of not wanting to say good-bye. This “good-bye” stung.

  I went to great lengths to overanalyze and read too much into the email, aside from the lack of adequate spacing and proper use of capital letters:

  He respected my opinion—that was a good thing.

  He wished in his heart that he did not make any mistakes—was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Did he mean that he made a mistake and gave me the wrong impression? Or did he mean that he hoped he hadn’t done anything to make me cut off the communication?

  See why this was hard? But if he had really liked me, he would have fought a little harder to keep up the communication. If someone cares for you enough, they will ignore all reasonable suggestions and recommendations and just make it happen. But nothing was happening, and I found myself swimming in more humiliating rejection.

  To make things worse, I had given my phone number to Ashton, one of the Australian security guys, at the Progressive Dinner, and he had been calling repeatedly, despite that I never answered his calls. He was a perfectly nice, attractive, funny guy, who was unhappily married. He insisted on walking me back to my villa after the late-late after-party of one Progressive Dinner.

  In typical drunken fashion, I thought I could solve his marital problems by counseling him while we walked. I had seen photos of his wife, and she was a stunning Russian woman whom Ashton had gotten pregnant, then married and settled down with in Australia. Yes, yes, oh, poor you. Stuck with a beautiful wife and healthy baby waiting for you at home. But he continued to lament his self-imposed station in life, and I continued to drunkenly discharge advice, explaining that if he was so unhappy, he could get a divorce but still support the child, blah blah blah. Just call me Oprah.

  I was able to keep him at arm’s length at the door, thanked him for the gallant walk home, and when he insisted I give him my phone number, I said, “No.” He persisted. Finally I was like, “Oh, okay, fine.” It was easier to just give him the number than continue arguing with him.

  So, instead of receiving calls from Awat, I was receiving calls from Married Ashton, and when I refused to answer any of them, he would send texts:

  Gretchen. You keep ignoring my calls…so I’m texting! Any plans for later tonight? Cheers, Ashton

  He must not have had PlayStation. Maybe if he hadn’t been married—distraction is always the best way to cope with the crushing disappointment of rejection. TV would help. TV always helped.

  TV did not help this time, because the universe decided that, on one of only five English language channels for me to choose from, it would be comical to repeatedly show the movie Prime, where a forty-something Uma Thurman hooks up with a hot, twentysomething guy. When I tried the other four channels, my options were Monster Garage, a couple of nondescript ’90s movies where it’s dark and gray and there are a lot of explosions, or Flirting with Forty. Fortysomething Heather Locklear goes to Hawaii and hooks up with hot, twentysomething guy. Who was in charge of Middle East programming?

  My iPod was the only safe place for entertainment. I could pick and choose my episodes of 30 Rock, and decided to skip the one titled “Cougars.” 30 Rock and Family Guy were my empathetic, consoling, hilariously distracting best friends, and I watched them over and over and over, laughing until I cried, then crying until I laughed again.

  It was lonely times in The Iraq.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Blockheads and Kissing Cousins

  Marilyn Monroe sang, “When love goes wrong, nothing goes right…” Love went wrong, and so did my new class. It was wrong to compare one class to another much in the same way that it was wrong to compare one of your offspring to another. Or in my case, to compare one pair of shoes to another. But we did it anyway. My new class was, plainly put, not very bright. If my new class were a child, I would say they would most definitely be repeating kindergarten. If they were a pair of shoes, they would be Crocs. I am sorry Crocs lovers, but you’re wearing gardening clogs outside of the designated garden area, and it’s an affront to all the other shoes.

  In an effort to generate positive buzz about the Erbil CED program, Warren and Jill arranged a pro bono contract with the Ministry of Planning. I had a class of nine students in Level 2 (English novice speakers), and Steve had eleven in Level 3 (intermediate English). One of the most noticeable differences between my first semester and this one in the Erbil villa was the number of students and, subsequently, the concentration of body odor.

  The villa seemed large when there was just one person in it; however, introduce twenty native Kurds, only five of whom were women, and the villa became an oppressive Crock-Pot of unpleasant smells. Basically, my entire villa smelled like body odor Sundays through Wednesdays. When any of the Suli staff would say, “Oh, you’re so lucky! That setup in Erbil is sweet!”, I would ask them how their trailer/classrooms smelled at the end of each class, then say, “Okay, multiply that times ten, and imagine it being released in your home.” Lucky and sweet, no.

  The problem with the ministry class was not that they weren’t bright, but rather that Warren wanted to cram as many students into one class as possible, regardless of language aptitude. A couple of my Level 2 students really should have been learning the alphabet, but Level 2 they were, and Level 2 we would have to plod through.

  At the beginning of one class, I explained we would be “choosing hotels.” “What is choosing?” I asked, rhetorically. “Selecting, picking, etc. If you have four hotels, how do you choose at which one to stay?” One hour into class, I read aloud from the textbook, “How important are these factors for you in choosing a hotel?” The jovial, portly, gray-mustached Rabar says, “Teacher, ‘choosing’ is what?” Sigh.

  I was especially concerned with the potential of Ahmed. His knowledge of English was extremely basic, and he struggled with every lesson. The textbook we used had a variety of activities, one of which was “pair work.” Pair work was done in each unit, and at the beginning of the course, I paired off every student with a partner. It was unfortunate that Ahmed’s partner was Rabar, because they were “the confused one” and “the even more confused one.” Both men were truly very sweet and respectful, and seemed to want to learn, but the course material was just so far beyond their comprehension that it would have been impossible to teach them and the other seven students at the same pace.

  For the pair work in every unit, I would always say, “Okay, get together with your partner and…” whatever the instructions were in the book: get together and practice introducing each other, get together and discuss your food preferences, etc.

  One day, in our fifth or sixth week of class, we came to the Pair Work section of unit 4. I said, “Okay, get together with your partner and practice the conversation model.” Ahmed raised his hand and said, “Teacher. I do not know what is ‘partner.’” We had been working with partners for the past three weeks. This was not a new word. I thought he was kidding, so I laughed. He looked confused. Then I looked confused and asked, “Really?” Everyone else in the class looked confused, and looked at him like they thought he was kidding. He said, “Partner. I not understand.” I was flabbergasted. I could not believe that he was saying he didn’t understand what “partner” meant, since we had been doing the pair work every week, and every time my instruction would be, “Get together with your partner.” But I wanted him to understand it, so I decided to make it very clear. I started with Dastan in the back corner of the room:

  Me: Dastan, who is your partner?

  Dastan: My partner is Solin.

  Me: Solin, who is your partner?

  Solin: My partner Dastan.

  Me: Aryan, who is your partner?

  Aryan: My partner is Azheen.

  Me: Azheen, who is your partner?


  Azheen: My partner is Aryan.

  I literally went around the room to every student and asked them this question. I saved Rabar and Ahmed for the end.

  Me: Rabar, who is your partner?

  Rabar: My partner is Ahmed.

  Me: (triumphantly) Ahmed, who is your partner?

  Ahmed looked at me from under confused eyebrows, and paused, then said, “You?”

  Everyone burst out laughing, including me, although mine was that laughter that is close to crying with frustration.

  My frustration erupted more frequently with the ministry class. I couldn’t figure out why, but they just seemed less sharp than all three of my previous classes. Perhaps it wasn’t a matter of intelligence, but interest in the class? The ministry students were taking the class free of charge, at the insistence of their boss, many of them studying at a level that was too advanced for them. My other students had enrolled voluntarily, and had been so much more motivated. I missed my Suli classes. I missed Awat.

  “…The clock won’t strike, the match won’t light, when love goes wrong, nothing goes right.”

  Not only was the new class not smart, but they were also not honest. They were cheating. The day after the first exam, I graded the tests and passed them back to the students, so we could review the correct answers and they could see which answers they had gotten wrong.

  Two of the students, Seraj and Hidayat, each surreptitiously changed one of the answers, then approached me and claimed I had made a mistake when correcting their tests. Since there were only nine students in the course, I remembered every error that each student had made. I remembered that Seraj had incorrectly identified a verb, and I remembered that Hidayat had left an answer blank. It was obvious to me that Seraj had added “ed” to the verb to make it correct, and Hidayat had filled in the answer that had initially been blank.