Paranoia & A Few Lose Screws

Yesterday after school, I went for a third walk toward the setting sun. Like the last two times, I walked around to the front of the school (opposite the apartment complex which is south), through the workers' compound and made a right turn off the school grounds and onto the open road, surrounded by sloping rocky mountain on either side. The first sign of life I saw was way up high on a peak to my left, where a man sat, partially masked by trees, chilling in front of a roaring fire. Last time I had passed by this peak, Kurdish music and whooping and hollering had tumbled joyously down the mountainside because it had been just after Ramadan, I think, and everywhere Kurds were celebrating with side-of-the-road picnics, traditional music, bedazzling costumes, and circle-dancing. Now, the man sat alone next to his shack and his old car, probably smoking a cigarette and watching me watch him. 

I continued on and passed by a couple wild puppies and groups of people hanging out on the green slopes to my left. I continued on, and this time, I did not pause at the fork in the road, but continued walking all the way to the nondescript factory towers at the end of the right fork. It was fenced in, and I asked the men standing around if it was closed off beyond. They said yes, it was closed, and that I could take the other fork in the road if I wanted to continue on. So I turned back around to take the other fork, but when I was halfway there, they called me back and told me it was dangerous to go that way. “Terrorists,” said one, making the knife-slashing-throat motion. “Kurdish terrorists?” I asked. He nodded. “What about the other way, away from the sun- is that way dangerous, too?” One said no, then changed his mind and said yes, “Terrorists. Russian terrorists.” So the school was surrounded by Kurdish terrorists to the west, and by Russian terrorists to the east? Hm...I turned to go back to the safety of the school, but then the men stopped me and invited me into their trailer for tea. Hm, yes, I could see where this was going. I said thanks, but no thanks, and began making my way back to the school before the sun set completely. 

On the way back, I passed by the slope loiterers again, and the gang came down from the hillside out of curiosity. They were a gang of boys my age and appeared harmless and so hilariously pretend-nonchalant, that I greeted them to break the ice. “Excuse me,” I said to one with really large front teeth, “is it dangerous here?” They threw back their head and laughed. I knew those factory men had other things on their mind! Damn them. At least my instincts about human motives were improving. “So no terrorists?” They laughed even harder. “No danger here! Only at night- wild animals they come.” I shivered, recalling the vicious, unreadable barking that had frozen me in my tracks during my last walk this way. The young men told me I should head home before night fell, and also that I shouldn't walk along the road alone, even though there were no terrorists. I thanked them and continued on back to the school at a quicker pace. 

On the way, made paranoid by all the warnings, I avoided passing too closely to a man who had stopped his car by the side of the road and was pacing around with a phone or something in his hand. As I rounded the mountainside out of sight, the pacing man suddenly burst into song as loud and reverberating as a call to prayer from the mosques. What in the world had induced him to sing all of a sudden? My mind immediately jumped to one of my KG'ers who likes to make random noises to disrupt the class, as if he has no filter between his brain and mouth. I used to get mad, but now I honestly think the kid is actually missing a few screws in his head, and it makes me laugh because here I am, a sane teacher, trying to teach a class of 25 other relatively sane students, and this mad five-year-old is yelling incoherent syllables with a lolling tongue and crossed eyes, insolently yelling “no!” and daring me to get angry, and mocking my sternness. It's really quite hilarious, and now more often than not, I just roll my eyes, keep my laughter in check, and stick him in the dunce chair in the corner next to the bathroom, where he finally shuts the hell up. 

On Sunday, he- along with about five of my other boys- came to school with a new haircut. For some reason, kids around here get haircuts at the same time, as if there are designated days of the year to get haircuts in Erbil. The other boys had gotten decent haircuts, but this crazy kid's barber had taken a razor and shorn his translucent white head bald. So now, I have an insolent 5-year-old skinhead babbling and crossing his eyes and lolling his tongue at me during my lessons. Teaching just doesn't get any better than this.