I Have Iraq in My Shoe (7 page)

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 involved 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.
  

Am wearing red 1990s Nancy Reagan Adolfo power suit, sporting tight smile, and ranting about family values.

• In public do not show overly physical affection to your spouse or girl/boyfriend.
  

In red Nancy Reagan suit, am climbing on top of imaginary Iraqi boyfriend on public park bench.

• If you ask a local person for a date, or establish a relationship with a local person, be mindful of the cultural differences and be guided by your partner. Being conservative is a good general attitude to practice.
  

Need more Adolfo suits.

8.   Relationships

• Often you may see same-sex people holding hands, kissing, or hugging each other in public. This is a normal way for Iraqis to express friendship and affection and should not be interpreted as homosexuality or stigmatized in any other way.
  

Picturing Iraqi men climbing on top of each other on public park bench.

9.   Homosexuality

• It is against the Islam religion. As it is a forbidden practice, please avoid talking about that subject with locals.
  

Must ignore men on park bench.

10. Tips

• Tipping is not common or required here. It’s at your discretion in hotels, restaurants, airports, etc.
  

Common sense. Taking an order at Starbucks, then calling order over to coworker who pours tea and milk into cup is not going above and beyond call of duty. Put that tip jar away.

11. Events

• If you want a local to attend a dinner, party, or other gathering at your house or in a restaurant, try not to add alcohol to the event.
  

Am not being encouraged to mingle with locals.

• Due to cultural differences, local women won’t feel comfortable being invited to men’s houses or apartments, but that does not mean they won’t accept invitations for restaurants or public places.
  

Just plain smart. See original programming on Lifetime network, starring Tori Spelling or Meredith Baxter-Birney, for emphasis.

• Do not show physical affection (kissing, hugging, etc.) when you visit a local and vice versa.
  

High fives?

12. General

• Do not take alcohol as a gift.
  

Sad face.

• Pork is taboo in Islam; do not expect to find pork on menus or in private homes.
  

No bacon?

• Expect to receive presents or gifts from locals during Eid, Nawroz, Christmas, birthdays, and New Year. Giving gifts in appreciation and friendship is also always appropriate.
  

Must communicate that I really don’t mind receiving alcohol as gift.

I had some difficulty with the “rules” in this pamphlet but blamed my jet lag for my completely inappropriate imagined responses. I was a sort-of guest in this country and would have to keep my mouth shut.

Bacon, I miss you already.

Later, sitting in Warren’s office, I turned to him and said, “Listen, you have got to stop calling me ‘Gerts.’”

He looked shocked. “Why?”

I reminded him that I was the one who had told him about the nickname in the first place and that I hated it. Not only did it put me into a retro, junior high tailspin, but Gerts rhymed with “squirts.” No one gets a positive visual from “squirts.” He promised to stop saying it but then seemed desperate to find a replacement nickname. “What can I call you?!” he practically wailed.

I didn’t know why a nickname was necessary. My name was only two syllables; it wasn’t as if it took
that
much energy to say it. What was his hang-up with nicknames? Nicknames should never be forced. Look at Sean Puffy P. Diddy Diddy Combs. It has to come naturally. However, Warren seemed bound and determined to call me something other than Gretchen.

I began suggesting alternatives: Gretch (the obvious choice, just stop short of saying my entire name and save yourself a whole syllable), Gretta (created by college roommates, although still with two syllables), Gretel (really only used by my friend Joli, and that hungry witch who lives in the woods), G-Funk (just like I was saying on the airplane!), G (for rappers), Princess Jasmine, or Princess Buttercup, or Princess… Anything that started with “Princess” was usually okay and might have reminded him that I was still due one pony. None of these seemed to satisfy him.

His nickname obsession was puzzling. When he was whisking Steve and me around the school that day, rushing through introductions, he would say, “This is Gretchen, who’s going up to Erbil, and this is Steve, Joe’s brother.” Joe had been working at the university for a year, and everyone knew him well. One Kurdish staff member said, “Ahhh, Joe’s brother! Same, same!” So Steve’s nickname became Same-Same. There was an instructor at the school named Ryan Bubalo, who was apparently Warren’s nemesis for reasons that were never entirely clear to me. Warren called him “The Boob” behind his back. Rizgar, who had picked us up at the airport, was Warren’s designated Kurdish driver, and Warren had nicknamed him Turd Ferguson, from
Saturday Night Live
’s
Jeopardy!
sketch:

My least favorite nickname was given to poor Jen, a great Canadian girl who was the kind of person who put you immediately at ease. She was genuinely warm and friendly, with a quick smile. Warren inexplicably called her Skank. “Hey, Skank! You’d better snatch up some guy soon; you’re gettin’ to be Cougar-age! Heh heh heh.” Jen was twenty-nine and about as far from Skank as you could get.

Given The Boob, Turd, and Skank as alternatives, I guess I should have been grateful for Gerts.

After the HR orientation, and what seemed like hours of waiting in Warren’s office for him to finish up whatever he was doing, he said he wouldn’t have time to escort me back to Zara, and I should just have one of the drivers take me and then drop me off at the hotel, which would be my temporary home in Suli for the next three days. Wow, he was really just throwing me into the swing of things. By that time my eyes were at half-mast from exhaustion, and my stomach was gurgling in protest of the emptiness.

I swung my bag over my shoulder and clomped down the two flights of stairs to the main level, passing several female students on the stairs. (Skinny jeans and heels were “in” here? Tablecloths, you’re out.) I reached the main level, where the drivers’ room was, and knocked on the door. A short, Kurdish man with beady eyes blinking behind wire-rimmed glasses answered, and I looked past him to where three other Kurdish men sat, drinking tea and talking. The stench of unwashed armpit was unbearable. I tried not to breathe through my nose and said, “Um, I need someone to take me to Zara and then to the Bayan Hotel.”

The man who had answered the door looked me up and down and then said, “Yes, I am Sabah. I manage drivers. Hello. Ahhh, there are no drivers now. You must wait until four o’clock.”

I looked at the three men drinking tea, then at my watch which said it was 2:30, and I gasped. I had to wait there for another hour and a half? Weren’t those guys drivers? Tired and hungry! I halfheartedly thanked Sabah and clomped back up the stairs to Warren’s office.

I relayed the Sabah conversation to him, and he smacked his hand down on the desk and threw his head back with an exaggerated eye roll. “Fucking Sabah. Gerts—sorry, Gretch—go back down there and tell him I said someone needs to take you
now
. They’re lazy, and if you don’t yell at them, they won’t do anything.”

Oh, for crying out loud. I really didn’t have the energy for this. But I went back, clomping down the two flights of stairs I had just clomped up again and back to the drivers’ room. I knocked on the door again, and when Beady-Eyes opened the door, I just took a deep breath and said, “Warren says someone needs to take me right now” and waited for a reaction.

Sabah made a “pfft” sound with his teeth, then yammered something unintelligible at one of the tea drinkers, who slowly stood up, finished draining his cup, and slowly made his way over to the door where he motioned for me to follow him.

Welcome to Iraq, woman.

The driver waited in the car while I went into Zara, where I wandered up and down each aisle of the store, looking for edible items that did not require cooking. I didn’t cook. I just needed a few things to tide me over for the next two days until I was taken up to Erbil. I settled on some kiwi, a container of yogurt, a small jar of honey, and a can of dolmas. I knew dolmas! I used to get them at Trader Joe’s! These were all familiar things: nothing that would involve me standing over a boiling pot of water, staring at a box with instructions written entirely in Arabic, and ultimately starving.
^*

Zara had four checkout counters, which were just like any other grocery store checkout counters. The cashier passed my items over the scanner, just like any other grocery store scanner. The bagger prepared to bag my groceries, just like any other bagger, except that I had brought one of my super eco-friendly cloth shopping bags with me from home (I brought everything), which I handed to him. I paid the cashier with my new beige and blue bills of Iraqi dinar and then turned back to the bagger, only to find that he had put my groceries into a plastic bag and my cloth shopping bag into another plastic bag. I had to say, “No, no,” and took the cloth bag out of the plastic bag, then placed my groceries inside the cloth bag while the cashier and bagger looked at me curiously. This was Zara’s inconvenient truth. I guess you’re less concerned about the environment when your country is in a constant state of turmoil.