It is 3 days to Erbil and way past my bedtime, but I am too excited to sleep. So I'm packing -early for once! Packing alone can be tedious work, especially if you're packing for a year-long stay in Iraq. But accompanied by Coldplay's latest album, Viva la Vida, suddenly packing feels...epic.
What sort of items go into a suitcase destined for Iraq? Well nothing outrageous really. I'm basically transporting my modern, American livelihood from the burbs of Tacoma, WA to an oasis of modernity in Erbil, Iraq that looks something like this:
See what I mean about the oasis? Look at those brown hills! My apartment will be in the curved complex at the bottom of the picture. I imagine that each day until winter will be a constant tug-of-war between wanting to fling off my clothes because of the desert heat and wanting to keep them on to avoid skin damage from the burning sun, and also to avoid indecent exposure in the Middle East. Thus, I'm tossing a bunch of light cardigans/long-sleeves into my suitcase along with my usual tank tops. Capris and jeans as well as "teacher-wear" that I found at H&M that look professional yet trendy. A couple long skirts and knee-length dresses. Unlike Socal, it does get cold in Erbil during the winter because it's located at the foothills of the Zagros Mountains (we might even see some snow!), and so I do need to pack winter clothes.
Besides clothes, I plan on devoting a lot of time to reading, so I'll take a good number of books with me, and order more while I'm there. Does amazon deliver to Iraq? I have yet to check that out, but I think it's safe to assume that if there's an international airport in Erbil, amazon packages can find their way to my mailbox there. And besides that, toiletries, malaria/diarrhea pills, some pics and a stuffed animal, documents, my brand new product-red ipod-nano (!!!) plus other electronics, and last but far from least, my guitar Felix. That's it! Unless of course, Umma forces me to take a jar of kimchi or red pepper paste. I will make a "good faith" effort to keep those out of my luggage, but mothers are stubborn and Korean ones can't imagine letting their children go an entire year without kimchi. It's like the 8th deadly sin for god's sake.
A word about those diarrhea pills: the traveler's health nurse wrote me a prescription for 30...That's 15 cases of diarrhea! Is that even necessary? 15 cases in 10 months would mean I'd be suffering through an average of 1.5 diarrheal episodes a month- I don't think my guts could handle that! Cross your fingers that I won't have to touch a single Ciprofloxacin pill while I'm there!
Back to packing with Coldplay (yep, I put it on repeat).
2 comments:
nice use of "good faith effort."
I hope you have a great time. I really look forward to hearing about what you see and what you think of living in the middle east!
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