I was interviewed yesterday by Sanden Totten of Minnesota Public Radio about the recent arrest of 3 American hikers who wandered into Iran. His post is available here, with audio from the interview.
Curse that family lisp. I never hear it when I'm speaking, but every time I'm recorded or amplified I can hear it and am stunned for a few moments. It almost derailed my last talk in Baghdad.
You may recall when ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ioerror became our first tourist. We took him to Ahmed Awa. He took photos. We did too.
Edit 2009-08-05 22:33 UTC: Multiple people tell me that I don't have a lisp, and that I'm just crazy. I guess I'm happier being crazy than lisping.
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I'm back from Baghdad. I'll post photos and write up more later. But for now, you may wish to know that Marwan, an Iraqi colleague of mine since 2004, is answering questions.
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The conference is over, and we just finished a two-day training session for our resellers. We've had a lot of focus recently on improving the quality of VSAT installations. It's been 6 years since the fall of Baghdad; we can now move beyond the "just get it done" mentality and really focus on the long game.
The training has been really good for me as well. To provide the training, we partnered with GVF, an organisation focused on improving the quality of the VSAT industry world wide. This has really filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge. Despite all my experience learning on the job, I have a lot to learn. And the program has done a lot for our NOC engineers and resellers. For a smart person, most corporate training is a waste of time. But I must give GVF credit: they really provide a good program at a low price.
One of our trainers is an experienced VSAT engineer named Onno. He's got a wicked sense of humour, and a lot of experience in VSAT installation and radio theory. We're trading knowledge, as he's weak on IP networking and that's my area of expertise.
The weather is a bit unusual for May in Baghdad. We had clouds and occasional cold winds on Sunday, and at 30°C it has been cooler than usual the rest of the time. It is perfect weather for late nights at the shisha cafe. We've been alternating between the hotel bar and the adjacent shisha place. It is important to keep your buzz carefully balanced between the warm glow of alcohol and the dizzy relaxation of apple-flavoured tobacco.
I told the boys about my last post and invited them to reply to your questions. They haven't had any free time, and won't until at least tomorrow afternoon. But hopefully they'll have something to add to the discussion in a few days.
We've heard some gunfire and mortars, seen the usual Blackhawks moving in pairs, and even saw a predator drone fly directly over us last night. But it's otherwise been quiet. Even inside the secure perimeter, life seems much more sedate. People aren't very jumpy here. More friendly. The boys say it is much better in the city, too.
I'm still disappointed that we haven't been able to leave the airport, but I understand why the decision was made. Also, I think if I were to go out into Baghdad proper without Jayme, I'd find my stuff on the front step when I got home. It's not that Jayme is afraid for me. It's that she wants to be with me when we return, together, to our old home.
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I last saw Baghdad in October 2004, speeding through the streets of northern Baghdad in the back of Emad's Chevy Caprice. I miss those days. For Jayme and I, Baghdad became our home. We had friends, a home, a life there. A twisted life that our friends in America couldn't conceive of, but we were happy. We didn't want to leave.
By this evening I'll be back in Baghdad. It's been four and a half years, and I wonder what I'll recognise. I'm going back for the Connect Iraq 2009 conference, a communications conference that Talia is organising. We've got a large number of ministers, industry professionals, and our own business partners attending. I'm especially impressed by our western partners; many of them were wary when we told them where we wanted them to fly.
Unfortunately we'll be limited to the borders of Baghdad International Airport's secure perimeter. So I won't get to see my old home or favourite restaurants. But I'll get to see a lot of my friends, and I'm really looking forward to that.
What questions do you want me to ask them?
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Jayme and I returned to Ain Kawa today to shop for little Christmas gifts and last-minute decorations. We found two new sets of lights for the tree with a much better pattern of programmed blinking, and a length of fabric to wrap around the base. This helpfully disguises the ugly desert motif on the soil pot.
( A Christmas Not So Janky )
The Christian district of Ain Kawa is lively and with the Christmas spirit this year. They are running up strings of colored lights along the main entrance to town, and have littered the streets with the pink boxes that once held light bulbs. Children and shopkeepers are putting up decorations all over. Liquor seems to be selling well, and we found a nice white wine for Christmas Eve. We have everything but the snow.
We aren't giving each other big gifts this year - Istanbul was enough - but it's always nice to fill the space under the tree with little things. It is times like this that teach you that the thought really does count.
My Aunt Jenny was the first to teach me this lesson. Jenny has a large family and often struggles to make ends meet. So when Christmas comes around, she makes sure that everyone goes to the dollar store to buy little presents for everyone else. One year I came to see the family for Christmas and she and all my cousins had a big pile of little gifts like that under the tree, including at least ten for me. They put a lot of thought into it. A lot of the gifts were necessities - toothpaste, soap, assorted sundries, and candles - although one cousin gave me "American Psycho" on VHS. Direct from the bargain bin, and it meant a lot to me.
I didn't have to buy toothpaste the following month, which was a nicer gift than I realized. The bottle of apple-scented liquid soap is still sitting in aikien's house today, 5 years and an infinite number of refills later.
We have a small pile of packages under our tree here in Arbil. They are wrapped in old copies of the Jordan Times and the local propaganda rags published by the KDP and PUK, with nice red ribbon around them. I suspect at least one of mine to be Toblerone - an in joke between Jayme and I that is nevertheless chocolaty and delicious. I haven't looked forward to Christmas this much in years.
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It's time once again to see what's in giantlaser's mailbag!
Today's question is from matrushkaka:
Isn't Iraq mostly desert?
Iraq is mostly desert in the same way that California is mostly desert. Take a look at this map. Notice those two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the green area between them. This is the water that fed the earliest cities in the world. This is the cradle of civilization, and it is not random chance that this is so.
The west of Iraq, between Falluja and the Jordan and Saudi borders is open desert. This is largely unlivable from a Western perspective, but that doesn't stop many camel and goat herders from scratching out a living here.
The rivers run the length of the country from north to south, forming a fertile area that is capable of feeding the entire Middle East, with spare to export. Everyone who sent food to help "starving Iraqis" are mistaken. There are more starving Americans than starving Iraqis. Almost all Iraqi cities are built on one of these rivers. Baghdad is built on a large S-curve of the Euphrates, with the now infamous Green Zone in the western inner area of this "S".
To the north and east, along the borders with Turkey and Iran are mountain ranges. These are the traditional home of the Kurdish people. This area reminds me of Northern California, except with land mines. Most have been cleaned up, but the signs stay. Stopping to pee by the side of the road can be tricky. This area is forested with many coniferous trees, and gets plenty of rain and snow from late fall to early spring.
The north and center regions have a cool, arid climate, while the south (Basrah, Um Qasr) is humid and hot. Winters in Arbil drop below zero but run as much as 50 degrees in the summer. In Baghdad, December thunderstorms give way to April dust storms. If you're curious what Iraqi weather is like, just ask yourself "What is California weather like?" It varies just as much.
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Jayme and I are celebrating our first Christmas together this year. This is also our first married Christmas, and we wanted to get the tradition off to a good start.
We started preparing for Christmas in Turkey. We bought tree decorations in a bazaar near the ferry terminal in European İstanbul. The cramped warren of shops reminded us of home, but with marginally better products. We found a set of ball ornaments, string lights, and a red star.
Once back in Arbil, we started looking for a tree. Young pine trees can be found all over the hills of Kurdistan, the result of an intensive reforestation campaign by the Kurdish authorities. Saddam deforested much of the area to deprive the peshmerga rebels of cover during the 80's, and it is only now growing back.
These trees are also protected by law - you can't cut them down for any reason without the permission of the government. So we went to Ain Kawa, the Christian district about 10 km west of Arbil city center. We found cheap plastic trees and helpful shopkeepers ("Why you don't buy this one?" he says, pointing to a 30-cm tall shabby plastic model), but no real trees. We did find more ornaments, little wooden Santas, angels, snowmen, etc, like my grandparents had when I was growing up.
So we planned a guerilla campaign with the help of Goran the sales guy. Goran works in his spare time with the agricultural college, planting trees in the hills. We figured he'd know a good place where we could scavenge one, but he surprised us with the possibility of a live tree instead. Live trees are much better - less fire hazard, less mess from dropping needles, and you can keep them as long as you like and then plant them afterward.
Goran brought us 4 live saplings. We took the tallest one - it is about a meter high - but it's practically a beanpole. We found a pot to plant it in, but it has a common Iraqi desert motif - not exactly the holiday spirit we're going for. We potted it anyway and decorated it. It's janky and funny looking, and almost inverted in thickness from top to bottom. But it is ours. It is ours, and it is our first Christmas together, and it makes the cold evenings in my office nice.
( Behold, A Very Janky Christmas. )
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We had a fantastic time in Istanbul, as recent posts probably demonstrate. slownewsday has uploaded all of our pictures to our gallery.
Also, you should read this terrifying Message From the Islamic Jihad Army. Students of psychology and history may recognize this as frighteningly effective bit of propaganda. If you are not frightened, take careful note of the way it highlights the strength of the insurgency with single-line statements such as "We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty." It also drives a wedge between the US and the rest of the world with phrases like "a growing China and a strong unified Europe", and encourages people to "Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies".
Arbil continues to be a sedate and peaceful island of sanity in war-torn Iraq. Tomorrow we acquire a live Christmas tree, still in a pot with roots and all. We had our choice of 2-meter-tall cut tree and half-size live one, and I think it would be nice to plant it in the yard afterward. I never liked killing trees every year anyway. Jayme and I are really looking forward to decorating it.
And now your moment of zen, found in an Istanbul department store.
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We're back in Arbil, Iraq, after a great holiday in Istanbul. All through vacation, I worked for 1-2 hours a day, just staying on top of customer issues and the necessary email work. Even so, I had to hit the ground running when I got back.
Yesterday was the day of sucky customer management. The day before was the day of railing against all the routine work, because it makes it hard to free up enough time to enact necessary change to our business and technical processes. Today still wins for crappiest day, though.
I fired my faithful manservant Noor al Dien today. I've done some hard things here, but firings are still the toughest. Worse, Noori is my friend and he's done a lot for me.
It wasn't my choice to fire him, but it was the right choice. TheBoss made the call, but he's in Baghdad. I'm in Arbil, where Noori is. Which means it is my responsibility. And he's my friend, so he should hear it from me.
Two weeks ago, Noori, Boss2 (formerly nicknamed "SpeaksSoftly"), and FriendlyEnforcer were traveling to Sulimaniya. The car, broke down. Boss2 and FriendlyEnforcer were in a hurry, so they told Noori to stay with the car and they would send a mechanic. They specifically instructed him not to try to drive it because he cannot drive, and it is winter, in the mountains, and the roads are really dangerous.
The mechanic came and fixed it, and offered to drive it back. Noori, in the typical response of a proud Iraqi male, refused. He would drive it himself. And he did, driving right off the edge of the road and rolling down an embankment. He broke a rib, but is otherwise fine. The car was destroyed.
It's not our policy to fire people for accidents. But this wasn't an accident. This was willful insubordination and negligence leading to the destruction of several thousand dollars of company property. And it wasn't the first time, just the first time it really made a difference to the company.
On a personal level, I will miss Noor al Dien. He had a good heart, and was a great cook, and was a loyal friend. On a professional level, I think it is better this way. The transformation from college-age punk idealist to rational businessman continues.
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slownewsday and I are now enjoying our first relaxing day at the beautiful Hotel Dersaadet in Istanbul, Turkey.
We made a fast escape from Iraq last night, leaving Arbil at 4pm Baghdad time (GMT+3), reaching the border 3.5 hours later. The crossing took 1.5 hours total, which is faster than diplomats are typically capable of making. Boss2 and I took turns politely asking various Turkish officials to let us jump the queue. I was stunned by our success in this endeavor - not a dollar changed hands, but every official we met was sympathetic to our cause to get us to Diyarbakir in time to make our flight. We were not in danger of missing it, but to hell with waiting in a 5-hour-long queue.
Our taxi driver was a sketchy crack fiend who was willing to bend or break any rule that might impede our progress. He schmoozed the officials, drove around traffic jams by skipping through disused inspection areas, and had the sheer balls to pull past a long line of taxis and then back up to the front of the line as if he belonged there. Naturally, we will be using him again.
There is a taxi driver stop somewhere between Silopi, which is near the Turkish/Iraqi Kurdish border, and Diyarbakir, the nearest airport. It's not fancy, just an old, drafty restaurant heated by a wood-burning stove. It has the best adas (lentil, typically meaning lentil soup) I have ever had. Add to that fresh Turkish naan, and we were in heaven. Jayme will no doubt rave on this subject when she has time.
We crashed at our usual spot, the Hotel Güler in Diyarbakir, and caught a flight in the morning.
This vacation is our early Christmas present to each other. I will be working through the holidays like last year. TheBoss has a wife and children in London that he should go home to, so we'll cover for him.
Winter has set in Iraq, turning breath visible and ears and noses pink. Istanbul is much more temperate than this, and it's a blessed reprieve from the bone-chilling cold that late December will bring.
Jayme has compiled a multi-tab spreadsheet of restaurants and activities for us, and I'm really looking forward to going through it all. Tonight, we seek the elusive Indian Food, for much devouring.
Love to all,
The Adventure Monkeys
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Three days ago I noticed a group of disturbing brown stains on my teeth. I wasn't sure what it was at first - I don't smoke, and I had a cleaning 6 months ago in Baghdad.
It struck me a few hours later, as I was drinking my mid-afternoon, pre-post-meal cup of tea. This was only my fifth cup of the day, but it made me realize that perhaps I've been drinking too much tea. I can't help it. Iraqi tea is good and sweet. It should be; Goran the tea boy buys sugar by the 20-kilo bucketful every few weeks.
I asked our friend at the hotel, Saed, for a recommendation. He sent me to a dentist named Ahmed, called "Ahmed Palestini" buy the locals.
Ahmed is in fact Palestinian. He finished his baccalaureate in Lebanon and his doctorate from the University of Havana, Cuba, spending a total of ten years there. After that he came to Iraq and has worked in Arbil for 17 years. Along the way he's learned Spanish, English, and Kurdish in addition to his native Arabic. The cleaning took only 20 minutes, but he spent the entire time speaking to me in Spanish. He said he doesn't have many opportunities to practice it.
Sometimes it is really fun being polylingual. At other times, it's confusing and difficult. I understood every word Dr. Ahmed said, but my replies in Spanish were peppered with Arabic and Kurdish words. I can only speak languages that I use regularly, and dredging up dormant ones takes a few days. Spanish is made more confusing by the many different accents (not quite dialects) of it around the world. Don't ask me why, but I have an easier time understanding Spaniards and Cubans than I do the Mexicans whose dialect I grew up speaking.
Dr. Ahmed charged me 20,000 Iraqi dinars for the cleaning and polish, for which I paid him $15 with tip. The locals say he overcharged me on a 6000 I.D. cleaning, but he also used the expensive polish. That's the way it works here - you pay the foreigner tax, but you also get better service. And you don't get dodgy Chinese or Iraqi tooth polish.
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Jayme took the injured cat to the veterinarian today. The verdict is: her pelvis is broken at the left hip. The facilities to treat such an injury do not exist here. We will make her comfortable and give her a warm place to sleep, food, and water. If she's lucky, the bone will knit in a way that leaves her a good range of motion. She hasn't eaten yet, but if she does she'll probably survive.
Jayme has a thing for absurd names for animals. Although I've learned to appreciate her sense of humor, sometimes I don't share it. She has chosen "Pimpin' Pelvis" because of the limping swagger we expect her to develop. However, I think I will call her "Ginger" for the color of her fur.
I'm keeping emotional distance this time. I can't handle burying a fourth cat in less than a year.
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I wrote this in response to Insomnia's essay, "Pro-Democracy" Iraqis Push For Delayed Elections in Iraq.
A lot of people I've spoken to here agree that elections should be delayed. I spoke to Marwan this morning:
Tyler: "Do you think they should delay the elections?"
Marwan: "Of course."
Tyler: "Why?"
Marwan: "Because the situation is not secure. We cannot change the government when things are this unsafe. The elections won't be safe like this."
I don't claim that Marwan speaks for Iraq, but his opinion is echoed by the educated Iraqis I've spoken to. FDR would be proud - "Don't change horses in mid-stream."
I have no doubt that the great unwashed masses of Iraq are for immediate elections. Most of them are uneducated and poor, most are Shia, and almost all are religious. Their opinions echo the opinions of the Imams that lead them. If you think democracy will come from the democratic election of religious leaders, you're mistaken.
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There is always a cat. The cat always dies. I've been through this too many times to do it again.
Tonight a ragged, soaking-wet and freezing cat arrived on the company doorstep. It has a broken left rear leg or hip. It was trying to break in to the basement for shelter against the frigid Arbil winter rain.
The cat really has three futures: I take it to a doctor and have it cast, I shoot it now and end its misery, or I send it back out to die from exposure and injury. Arbil is pretty serious about shooting guns for non-defense purposes, and I have a big soft heart, so the choice is made.
The cat is now in a box in my warm engineering room, yelling its lungs out and studiously ignoring the delicious soup Jayme made. I'll take it to a doctor tomorrow, and see what can be done.
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Today slownewsday and I celebrated our second Thanksgiving in Iraq. I took the morning off and did my husbandly turkey-cooking duties while Jayme did the not-insignificant task of preparing everything else. We fed 15 people on a 5-kilogram bird, a huge pile of mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn & green beans, giblet gravy and toasted samoon (Iraqi bread). Jayme's coup de grace was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting - made from a package of American cake mix salvaged from a corner market after weeks of searching.
No cake in the world could possibly be as bad as Iraqi cake. It's like a dry sponge with frosting. Every Iraqi we've fed an American cake to raves about it, and it's just Betty Crocker from a mix. If only someone would tell their bakers.
Preparing our turkey, Mr. Nancy, was a minor ordeal. It had all the usual "oh yes, we are in Iraq" moments. The propane tank on the stove ran out during the roasting, despite my demands to buy a spare tank two days before. The stove has no temperature indicator - merely a feed control for the propane, which of course isn't constant as the tank empties. We don't have an external thermometer. The turkey arrived plucked but otherwise anatomically complete, including the head in the bag.
Jayme was not amused by my shaking Mr. Nancy's lifeless head at her.
The day was saved by my fast-acting, faithful manservant Noor Al Dien. He not only cleaned the turkey with frightening precision, but taught me how for next time. The damn bird still had a gizzard full of bird feed. Also, gizzards make great giblet gravy. Mmmmmm, birdseed-grinding muscles. Mr. Nancy was still warm when we got him, which is one advantage of freshly-butchered birds. No defrosting.
In the end, the turkey was delicious. Ever self-critical, I have plenty of ideas to improve it for next year. Jayme's food was fantastic, and I have no complaints.
We shared the myth of Thanksgiving with the staff - the tale of the friendly Native Americans who saved the pilgrims from starvation and the feast they shared at first harvest. Then we shared the true story of how we systematically killed them all, but we still celebrate in their name. Happy Thanksgiving, every one! No dogs or Indians, please.
Afterward, Jayme and I went for a walk at the park behind our hotel. She chopped up a giant bag of carrots to share with Camel Friend, a 160 cm-tall dromedary camel that lives at the zoo inside the park. She often meets us in the open park grounds, where she is let out to graze daily. She knows us, and about the carrots we have, which means she literally chases us around the park looking for her daily snack.
Today we met her in the zoo, and fed most of the other animals as well. The zoo is free to enter, and they have never objected to us feeding the animals. Sometimes we bring banana slices for the primates too.
I learned that jackals eat carrots. I hand-fed them through the cage, which in the case of the jackals means carefully tossing them in before their razor-sharp teeth take a chunk out of my finger. The carnivores - a wolf, two dingoes, two lynxes, among others - don't like carrots, so I was surprised the jackals did. They are scavengers, so I guess that makes them omnivores.
We usually feed the goats, who are very polite about not biting our fingers, and have very soft lips (like Camel Friend). I also feed the two badgers, who are ravenous and vicious little creatures that are usually covered in the blood of the last chicken they tore apart. My favorite is the porcupine, who seems to be stunningly near-sighted. I have to put the carrot against his lips before he'll realize it is there. He will very politely take it in his buck teeth and then deliberately pick it apart.
There is also an abused primate with intelligent brown eyes. She might be a large monkey or perhaps a small ape such as a bonobo - I'm not really sure. I heard a staff member calling her Shina, a common name for a Kurdish female. Shina wears a collar with a two-meter chain on it. She isn't always caged; staff members sometimes put her out on a stump and lock the collar to a cinder block. This isn't a particularly good idea, because the children and some cruel adults taunt her. This means Shina can be a vicious little punk, even if you're being kind to her.
Shina and I have a feeding game. I walk to the extent of her possible reach, and hold up food. She reaches as far as she can, and I put the food in her hand. She'll snatch it away quickly, and then eat it while watching me. The next time I hand her food, she will reach a little less far, and will take it from me much more gently. But this is a trick - as soon as I get too close, she'll grab my hand with both of hers, forcefully pull me toward her, and bite me. Last time she did this it was only a warning - just enough pressure to let me know she could do it if she surprised me. I haven't given her the chance again. The feeding game is often a tense standoff.
Finally, there are two brown bears. They play the feeding game too, except they thankfully don't try to kill me. I hold up a carrot or other snack and look at one of them. The bears looks at me, aligns his mouth with an opening in the bars of the cage, and opens it wide. This is a pretty amusing experience, as he wiggles his tongue and exhales his terrible bear breath. I toss the carrot onto his tongue, the mouth slams shut like a trap, then two chews and a swallow later the carrot is gone. When they're not being fed, they "dance" in the cage by swaying side to side in what is perhaps a bear's version of pacing or knocking a tin cup against jail cell bars.
The animals live in terrible conditions - too-small cages, bare concrete floors with poor drainage, animal waste everywhere, and a diet that seems to consist of bread, random vegetables, and chickens for the carnivores. Sometimes I feel very sorry for them. But I like this zoo. Being able to closely interact with the animals has taught me more than any zoo with better conditions, "don't feed the animals", and pretty educational signs ever has. And we've practically adopted the camel. Sometimes I fear Jayme will kidnap her and hide her on the hotel grounds. For now, we'll stick to the carrots.
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A lot is being made of the news of the new billboard in Orlando, Florida:
( Our Leader, President Bush )
By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor
A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words “Our Leader” is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.
See the entire Blue Lemur story here.
Iraqi Kurdistan is ruled by two political parties:
- The People's Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani, ruling Sulimaniya and the areas bordering Iran.
- The Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Massoud Barzani, ruling Arbil and the areas bordering Turkey.
In practice, this means that the Talabani clan rules Sulimaniya and the Barzani clan rules Arbil. These are hereditary dictatorships that wield near total political and military power over their areas. Both rulers also hold considerable popular support. Talabani's rule is not obvious. There is no question that his people control the city and much of the business in it, but this is felt by the people as a guiding hand if anything at all. He is not part of their daily lives. The Iraqi flag flies alongside the Kurdish national flag as a gesture of unity. Barzani, however, is a classic dictator. His picture hangs in the lobby of every business in Arbil, Dahuk, and Zakho, including government buildings and the office of my company. If you want to do business, you do it with his blessing. The Kurdish flag flies alone in Arbil. I haven't seen the Iraqi national flag since I've been here. ( Our Leder Barzani )Perhaps if Clear Channel operated in Arbil, Mr. Massoud would have his picture up too.
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The engineers and I play a lot of Settlers of Catan. Salim, who is now based in Arbil full time, is picking up on it quickly. Which means he's also starting to encourage the other players to gang up on me, to brutal effect. He's a cunning bastard, that one.
Yesterday I played a game with Salim, Firas, and Ali Zibala. Zibala means "trash". No one knows why we call him that, but all Iraqis named Ali get a nickname, and that is his.
Firas understands a bit of English, but rarely speaks it. Ali speaks only Arabic and gives the appearance of a rough Shia from the bad side of Al Sadr city. Despite this he is a quiet, reliable, and hard worker.
Because of them, we played in Arabic. Entirely in Arabic. This was another of those milestone moments, when I realized that I'm used to life here. Not just the lifestyle differences, or hardships, or cultural oddities. But the language as well. Settlers is a game of negotiation (or "Jewing", as my Iraqi friends say, despite my admonishments that such statements are inappropriate in America). Negotiating in your non-native language is not easy.
We started playing, and perhaps 20 minutes passed before anyone spoke a word of English. It was Salim, and he was asking me for a trade. I responded in Arabic, and that's when it struck me. Arabic is a difficult, almost alien language for new students. I'm getting comfortable enough with it to answer phones and carry on polite conversation, and now I can spank my friends at board games with it.
The hardest part is that the script is no longer Crazy Moon Language to me, and in fact forms words. When you are illiterate, your eyes just gloss over the signs. It's too much to process, staring at a busy street full of advertising. Now I can pick out names of stores and basic words. Despite the lack of short vowels, it is actually quite easy to use. There is no uppercase script, and no printed form - just cursive. There is an abundance of dots, but with all the flowing curves I think it's quite pretty.
It is too bad I'm in Arbil, and I have to learn Kurdish if I want to get around. Back to square one.
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Noor Al Dien made lunch today, a delicious (and unusually spicy) boiled chicken and potatoes with rice. There are a total of seven staff in the Arbil office today, and we sat down to eat together. We had: Noor Al Dien (that is just his first name, and he is often called simply "Noori"), Goran the sales guy, Goran the tea boy, Soran the driver, and guards Sammee' and Nihad, plus myself. Everyone at this table, save myself, is Kurdish and speaks it natively. Noori, Nihad, and Sammee' all speak Arabic, and Goran Sales speaks both Arabic and English.
Conversations in my office are never simple. This is sometimes a pain in the ass, but I love it. Adversity teaches. In my case, it teaches irritatingly alien languages.
The following conversation is translated from Arabic and paraphrased. I often ask questions from the staff that I already know an answer to, because I like to get a different perspective. Noori speaks an easy-to-understand pidgin with me.
Tyler: Noori, I heard there are a lot of peshmerga in Mosul today.
Noori: Yes. Many.
Tyler: Why?
Noori: Because there are no police there now.
Tyler: Why did the police leave?
Noori: They were all working with Zarqawi. They were no good. The Army of Zarqawi came and the police left. In shaa' Allah (God willing), Zarqawi will die.
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It seems the fighting has spread to Mosul, a racially-mixed Arab/Turkoman/Kurd city 90km from Arbil. Honestly, it is about time. Mosul has been a complete joke, a constant thorn in the side of the otherwise stable and secure Kurdistan.
Despite its northern position and a Kurdish population, Mosul is not part of Kurdistan. It never has been. If you've read a history book or two you may know that Mosul is built on the ruins of the ancient city of Ninevah, capital of the Assyrian Empire. The area has been settled for nearly eight thousand years, and the current city itself has stood since at least the 8th century.
The majority of Mosul's police forces are sympathetic to the insurgency or accept bribes to ignore it. Meaning armed men pass the Iraqi Police checkpoints unmolested. There are even reports of blindfolded, kidnapped foreigners being ignored by IP's. So it was no surprise at all that the police stations and government buildings fell to insurgents last week - the IP's did not have the will to resist.
Mosul sits on major highways between Tikrit and the Turkish border, and between Syria and the cities of Kurdistan. Before today, the city was completely permeable to fighters wanting to move to other parts of Iraq, even obviously foreign ones, arms dealers, and religious fanatics.
Insurgent groups attempted to capture the local office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) too. Every one of the attackers were killed or wounded. It seems odd that they tried when everyone else seems to have learned the lesson: if you want to live, do not attack prepared Kurdish forces. Kurdish peshmerga are the Nepalese Ghurkas, the Appalachian sharpshooters, the Cossack horsemen of this part of the world. Now there are thousands of them on the streets of Mosul, doing the job the IP's should have done in the first place.
I am obviously biased. Kurdish men protect me every day. Their vigilance and courage is the reason I have survived in Iraq so long. Further, I have white skin. Regardless of any other considerations, that means I am greeted warmly on the streets of Arbil and with hostile looks on the streets of Baghdad.
It didn't used to be that way. In shaa' Allah, it will be that way again. I want to come back in 10 years and see Iraq's potential made manifest. I want to bring my family and walk the streets and go in to a barber shop and sit at a tea stand again.
Don't misunderstand me. I do not believe repeating events like the assault on Falluja will lead to that. Neither would a similar attack on Mosul, or anywhere else. But this city was wide open, not even presenting token resistance. And it doesn't have the same concentration of insurgents that Falluja did - although it may now that they've all left that city.
There is one critical difference between Falluja and Mosul. In Falluja, US forces stand alone against enemies they cannot talk to and do not understand. Nearly 100% of the native population is against them. The ING's are there too, but they follow US instructions. In Mosul, the peshmerga are under the command of the two political parties, the PUK and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). These groups have powerful intelligence wings, and are being smarter about this - using a knife where the Americans have used a sledgehammer. They will act on their own, and aren't willing to make the city uninhabitable to "secure" it. Which means Mosul will likely be secure, while Falluja will be a rallying cry.
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It is hard being safe in Arbil while my friends for the past year go through so much in Baghdad without me. I know that me being there wouldn't do a thing to keep them safe; in fact my presence puts them all at risk. But I have led them for a long time, and to not be there for them now, when things are worst, tears me up inside.
Sometimes soldiers are wounded here, or sent home on R&R, or for any reason sent away from their units while the rest remain behind. For many of them, all they can think of is getting back to the front line with their friends, doing their duty. I am no soldier. Our roles in this do not compare. But I think I understand now.
I spoke to Marwan by IM this morning. This is the news from Baghdad.
The power was out all over the city yesterday for 11 hours. The office generator can handle the load, but most people don't have them in their homes. Winter has come to Iraq, and the nights are cold. With no power, the only heat comes from burning propane in the kitchen stove.
The schools sent the students home because they are receiving threats. Two schools were given warning letters, threatening to bomb them if they do not close.
Sometimes the staff cannot come to work, because the roads are blocked. Sometimes the engineers cannot reach a customer for the same reason. We are restricting movement to limit our exposure, but you just cannot predict where the next bomb will be.
"Yesterday was some thing just like the days of war. Boooooom every where, and guns. Just like the first days of the war. Last night was big party." - Marwan
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