It's Official

I have become a full-fledged origami nerd. It all started out with a giant pile of scrap paper with no home. As a teacher, making lesson plans and worksheets and dozens of copies of everything, you end up with a lot of used paper- and if you're in Iraq, most likely you have nowhere to put it because recycling is not a hot-button issue around here at this point. 

Then I got this great idea: why not paint them with watercolors and make paper cranes out of them? 

That was back in December. It took awhile for the idea to take flight, but last week, we finally had our first meeting of the first ever origami club in Iraq (I'm sure it's the first, though I haven't checked), during which Lone and I taught the students how to make butterflies. This week's lesson: The Two-Part Elephant (you have to make the head and body separately). I even have a designated origami box filled with beautifully painted scraps of paper, a pair of scissors, glitter, and all the butterflies, cranes, and elephants I've folded so far!

Update: Metaphor, Prachett, and Looking West

These days, I've been really fascinated by this concept in linguistics called conceptual metaphor. I remember a couple years ago when I was trying to describe cheese while making a round at Di Bruno's, and came to the conclusion that all we ever know, we have learned through metaphor- mappings from known things to unknown things. To me, the conclusion came naturally because in math, mappings are used all the time to study unknown sets. Now I'm reading about how this idea of knowing through mapping is the basis of an entire subfield of linguistics called Cognitive Linguistics, pioneered by George Lakoff. 

I also read my first Terry Pratchett book, "Making Money", which turned out to be a fictional account of how money works in reality. I totally appreciated his wit and spoofing of various aspects of our modern society, including the lampooning of spacey-sounding string theorists going on about 11 dimensions and such. Also, I love the idea of golems- beings made of stones. Most of all, I really liked how there were elements of science fiction- many to be sure-, but it was first and foremost good ol' fiction. Speaking of metaphor, there was a mention of it (was it a spoofing?) in the water tank model of the town's economy.

A couple days ago, I played a vicious game of basketball with the NYer and the Brit. At one point, one tackled the other, and I stood there watching for about 3 seconds before diving into the brawl myself. It looked like too much fun not to join in. By the end of the game, we looked like creatures of the dust mines- you just can't get away from dust here. And unfortunately, it's not Dust. 

The closer the end approaches, the more I think of home. I can't wait to see everyone again, I can't wait to watch shows like Boston Legal and the Daily Show, I can't wait to chill out at a bookstore, and be up-to-date on the politics and pop culture and other goings-on of our nation, and did I mention, friends? And my poor mom. Damn, I wish I had a dog, because then I could look forward to seeing my dog, too. I can't wait! But then, as I scroll through the gazillions of pictures I took here in Kurdistan and in Oman and all the other countries I've visited, I'm sad to think that those days of amazing discovery will soon be over. I haven't told you about Oman yet, but it was truly amazing and unreal that often, I imagine that it didn't really happen. I think it's a sign of a good time when you feel like you're living a storybook life. Hopefully, the story will go on!

The French Expats

Is it possible to become so desperate for (clean) underwear that one is forced to wear a bikini bottom instead? Yes, yes it is.

Yesterday, we had a celebration for the six April birthdays among the small group of teachers living on campus. The food was amazing- Middle Eastern rice pilaf type thing, saucy chicken legs, eggplant in yogurt sauce, tabouleh, a big pot of chile, and 4 different kinds of desserts- including an amazing banana cake with chocolate frosting. Oh man...and then we danced till late in big circles, Kurdish and Lebanese style, which are very similar. The Pakistanis wore lavish, bright-colored saris. Again, I felt underdressed in my long brown skirt and giraffe shirt. But at least I could dance in my non-lavish clothes! I thought I was going to go to bed after that, but no! 

Even later, I found myself at a casual house party in Braiyaty, a neighborhood somewhere in the city near Bakery and More. Ushered in by the neighborhood security guard, we walked into the house, and suddenly, I was hearing that language again, which has gone latent in my mind, during my current endeavors to learn the much less useful Kurdish. The party was being hosted by a French ICRC (Red Cross Committee) worker, and most of the guests were French. Besides the ICRC employees, I met a Doctors Without Borders administrative worker with gorgeous doll-like curly hair, and a 7-foot-tall lawyer who worked with the Tacoma lawyer I ran into at the Moose Lodge. I could have sworn he was standing on stilts when he looked down at me from the ceiling and said hello. And also two journalists- one who had discovered the Afghan caves inhabited by that one dude whom we all forgot about in all the hullabaloo over Saddam. What was his name? Oh right- Osama Bin Laden...son of Laden. I asked how he found the caves.

“It was actually really easy,” said the gaunt-faced (yet somehow still handsome) journalist, “I just asked the guy standing there, 'Where are the caves?', and he pointed 'They're over there.'”

And that was it. Thus was born the most defining piece of his career in freelance journalism, written anonymously. 

The host tried all night to get us to play a drinking game involving shaking two dice, but no one could understand it. It is not in the nature of drinking games to be complicated. They should be binary in nature- drink if you get a certain outcome, don't drink if you don't get that outcome. I sat next to a girl who was stoned out of her mind. She lit cigarette after cigarette until the entire box was empty, and then she reached for the chocolates. I watched amused as she tried to focus her eyes on the people addressing her. As the night wore on, I became so intoxicated with sleep that I laid my head down on my stoned, chain-smoking companion's leg, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up next to her in a big warm bed. I'm pretty sure nothing happened. 

We meandered out of the room and into the kitchen, and were greeted by a lovely, tall, thin, blonde, bright-eyed woman who immediately offered us coffee and toast with butter (good ole French hospitality, even with the lack of decent sliced bread around here) and told us about how she takes her daughter with her on all her ICRC missions (except for this one of course), and how she lived in Cairo for three years when she was in her twenties. Day 1, she loved it- the chaos, the crowds, the noise, the animals. By day 3, she hated it, and could not imagine living in such a horrible place for more than a few days. By the end of three years, though, the fondest memories of her life had taken place in that insane city. She says Cairo is an amazing place if you can find the “underground” culture made up of middle-to-upper class folk. She'd stumbled upon amazing places in Cairo that one could never find anywhere else in the world.

We thanked her for the coffee and left. Soon the two of us were walking out of the concrete-walled neighborhood as the rooster crowed from somewhere in the distance. Oh wait, never mind, there it was just a few feet away, chillin' in the middle of the road.

Better or Worse?

You might not recognize me when I come home. A couple weeks ago, ND and Val were studying my face and hypothesizing that I would look good with bangs. I let them test the hypothesis, and it was proven to be true, judging from the positive reactions of my colleagues to my new sideways bangs (they curve to my right). Then this morning, I finally opened the Lancome make-up kit my aunt had given me 3 Christmases ago and tried it out- eye shadow in several earthy shades, black for under the eye, some warm-toned blush, and lip gloss, and...well I let the kids be the judge because they're usually honest.

"Miss, did you do something to make your face better?" 8-year-old Ram asked, making a face-powdering motion.

"Better? Do you think it's better than before, or worse?"

They all started shouting:
-"Better, better!"
-"No, worse, worse!"
-"No, better!!"

Time for a quick 2 minute poll: I counted 19 betters and 8 worses, the votes totaling 27. Someone voted twice it seems. As for my own opinion, I think I finally look like I'm in my twenties. Make-up transforms!

Today, I gave a difficult word problem, and timid AB, who has the look of a startled rabbit permanently etched onto his face, was the only one who was able to get the answer. He was also the only one who was able to find the pattern to the Fibonacci sequence, which I had given out to keep the smarter students from talking after they finished their work. Impressive, little rabbit.

Good

Good...when you are five years old, "good" is easy to define: be quiet, sit down, and eyes on the teacher, and you will get a sticker or a Magic Hat Prize. I always feel like such a liar when I define "good" in this way to my KG'ers every morning. When you are 25, trying to define "good" becomes like trying to divide by zero (you can't, it's undefined).

Two Kinds of Bugs, Two Kinds of Sighs

At 6:15 this morning, I opened my eyes and saw a giant spider hanging around on my orange curtains. Sick. I smashed that sucker with a folder so hard it split, and half of its arthropodal corpse ended up on the floor. Disgusted, yet disgustingly satisfied, I crawled back into bed and sighed. Blink blink.

“DAH!” I yelped. Two other multi-legged creepy crawlies were hanging around on my ceiling! I was gonna let them go because my ceiling is way too high to reach, but then, as I lay there staring at the ceiling, I became filled with ire. I leapt out of bed.

“You think you can hang around on my ceiling and not DIE??? I don't THINK SO!”

I snatched up the folder, aimed and fired- but missed. My folder dropped lamely to the floor, the papers inside scattering everywhere. LAME. I tried two more times, but only managed to send the bugs scattering to a patch of ceiling right over my bed. Stupid folder! I threw it back onto my desk, crawled back into bed, and sighed- a very different kind of sigh, truly.

Walking Through Fiction

April 12, 2009

There is a place in Northern Iraq that is as far as you could get from the war, strife, terror, and grief that plagues the rest of the country. It is located way up north just one hour away from the snowcapped Iraq-Iran border. They call it the “Grand Canyon of the Mideast”, or just plain old Rawanduz. And it really exists, though when you are there, it feels like you're walking through fiction. To get there, the four of us finagled a taxi for 40,000 dinars (~$35) at the Tayrawa garage. We drove northward through Shaqlawa, which now looks like Switzerland with its rolling green hills, past picnicking families, past the Wishing Cave, past the Iraqi war tanks that are on display at the spot where they were beaten in battle by the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army. Past boys and men sitting on the side of the road selling bunches of a vegetable that, according to the NYer, looks like celery with herpes (and tastes just as bad).

After about an hour or so, the driver dropped us off at the edge of a small town so he could go to the mosque and pray. He had dropped us off at the base of a stone-scattered, grassy mountainside that, despite it's steep angle, looked climbable, and so we climbed it. I climbed all the way up to this giant boulder that was flattened in the back and shaped like an arch and connected to a stone ledge staircasing down. Garden snails had wedged their way into its cracks, and bright yellow and red flowers sprouted heartily from them. I climbed onto the ledge, sat and looked out, sweaty from the climb and the heat. There was no doubt about it, the cold season was over and it was only going to get hotter from here. From this dizzying height, dollhouses lay at the base of the towering mountains on the other side of town, and a small forest of trees, toothpick-thin, gathered at the base of mine, the dozens of them all bowing in the same direction to the left, toward a long countryside road that curved all the way to the horizon. To the right, at this extreme height, I was almost level with the peaks of the jagged mountains that enclosed the road we were following like dinosaur jaws. Eventually, the driver returned after his chat with the Almighty, and we made our way down slowly- leaning so far back that I thought my back was going to touch the ground-, hopped back in the car and continued following that road until the fields and chiseled mountainsides and caves gave way to the waterfalls of Bekhal, and then to the deep, hollow chasms of Rawanduz.

The first thing I heard was Xena Warrior Princess cries- aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!- coming from every corner of the resort. Heh. They are sooo tribal. They sounded like they were about to start a war like a bunch of Injuns. The first thing I saw was a ferris wheel. It was the highest manmade point of the region, which I think is so much cooler than having the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building or the Space Needle as the highest manmade point of a region. It was perched in the middle of a field blooming with chartreuse wildflowers, along with a low-rising circus-like tent that housed the bumper cars ride, and a tilt-a-whirl. We wandered around all foreignly down a clean street lined with small beige-stone villas where the vacationers stayed, and it was then that I first felt the nagging feeling that this was not real. I mean, would you believe it if someone told you of a place in Iraq of streets with no rubble nor rubbish, beautiful villas, a ferris wheel, and a rollercoaster in the middle of a canyon, all enclosed by majestic mountains set against a clear, blue sky? Stage props, that's what the whole thing felt like! Walking through stage props designed for temporary delusionment for the sake of entertainment, and for the broader purpose of escaping into another world.

Just a couple decades ago, even the Kurds themselves would have laughed in your face and said you'd “gone to the mountains” if you'd told them that such a place would exist in the near future. Or perhaps they wouldn't have laughed because they were too busy running away from murderous Baathists or grieving over the bodies of loved ones who had just been gassed to death in yet another “project” aimed at eliminating the entire Kurdish population, village by village. It's gutting to see the pictures of this lowest, horriblest point of Saddam's Anfal campaign to wipe out the Kurds because I see my students in the faces of the dead children. If they had been born a generation earlier, that could very well have been them, or their brothers or sisters or cousins. No, even the Kurds themselves would not have believed in a place like Rawanduz.

The Other Edge

We threw our stuff down in the grass, and after taking some pictures with a bunch of Kurdish families, we went our separate ways to explore. I picked my way through rough, stony terrain, through tall grasses and weeds that had been allowed to grow naturally, haphazardly, and eventually I reached the lip of the gorge.

Woah, vertigo.

I sat down quickly on the flat stone surface before my body could lose its balance completely and tumble undesirably down the cliff's edge. Wow, I thought, at a loss for words as the sun set behind the gorge, casting a golden glow on the canyon wall directly across from it. I sat there with my legs dangling over this other Edge, watching the glow shifting slowly over the tiered innards of the gorge as the sun sank lower and lower, watching the skinny ribbon-like river running through it way below, opaque and slow-moving, the same milky gray color of the canyon crags. In the distance to the east, screams of delight pierced the tranquil air as the rollercoaster cars spiraled down the canyon, jarring dissonantly with the fluting of the birds that flew above and around me, and through the open space between the canyon walls. I felt like Heidi in the Swiss Alps. Every day she would go with Peter the Goatherd to the mountainside and not come back until the evening. I always wondered how anyone could just hang around on a mountain with no books, no tv, and only a goatherd and goats for company, and not get bored. But actually, it's really easy if your surroundings are beautiful and awe-inspiring, and the air is fresh. You feel like you could stay there on the same rock for hours and hours and be totally content without having to do things. I stayed there until the clouds turned a coral pink, goosebumps covered my bare arms, and a cloud of mosquitos convened nearby, hovering hungrily. They never said anything about mosquitos in Heidi. That's the beauty of fiction- you can read about romantic escapades in the mountainside and sleeping in caves, and ignore the fact that there are mosquitos and poison ivy and rabid bats and ants to deal with. Curse nature.

Later, at night, the four of us emerged from our villa and gaped at the full moon that had risen over the shadows of the jagged mountain peaks. The yellowish orb floated just to the right of the ferris wheel like an eerie crystal ball. The Brit had a bottle of Kefraya under his jacket, and I had the corkscrew in my pocket. We were ready for the wheel. What we weren't ready for were the words “doo ba doo”.

“Two by two?” But how were we supposed to drink communally if we were sitting in two separate cars? This was not making sense to me, especially since the Brit had already hopped into the first car along with a second passenger. That meant the wine and the corkscrew were going to be in two separate cars. After a bit of futile pleading, the NYer and I climbed into the second car, having failed to charm the men into giving in, though they were very apologetic about it. They started up the machine, and the wheel began to spin up into the starry sky. This place at night reminded me of the Moulin Rouge, except with a ferris wheel instead of a windmill. The view of the full moon and the nearby town of Diyana, twinkling like reflections of the stars above, was beautiful. In the car ahead of us, New Day screamed as the Brit rocked their car. The NYer and I took turns swigging the bottle of Jameson he had sneaked in under his sleeve as the wheel spun leisurely around, gently swinging the moon up and down and up and down. Later, we bought tickets for a second ride on the ferris wheel, and this time, through the powers of both reason and, more importantly, my sad puppy dog face, we were able to charm them into letting us all go in one car. Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!

Even later at night, we took a walk along the gorge's rim, all the way to where the canyon splits, and there, I climbed over the fence and sat on the edge of the precipice, hugging my knees and listening to the rush of the river, to the Kurdish music blaring from one of the villas, and the tribal cries. My body was caught in limbo between two kinds of space, both black and enormous, the one above filled with stars millions and trillions of miles away, the one below an abyss carved out by water over hundreds of thousands of years. It was kind of scary sitting at the edge of a cliff. Even if you have no desire to jump, just thinking for a millisecond about falling over the edge makes your body almost want to do it for real, like when you're playing a video game and find yourself jerking around as if you really were fighting or driving. I don't know why that is. The thought that death is just a small step away is shocking. In a split second, you could go from happy and in love with everything and everyone to falling to your death, and that would be end of it all, the end of everything and everyone you love and hate and feel indifferent to, the end of your future plans, your future journeys to Nepal and Argentina, your future kids and grandkids, your future discoveries and gains and losses, and the end of your cherished pipe dreams. Halas. In one split second, all can become missed opportunities and murky, unfulfilled dreams never to be carried out by the dreamer. Crazy. I tried to push it out of my mind so my body wouldn't follow.

We met a Danish-Kurdish family on the way to the gorge, and they were still out there barbecuing and drinking when we headed back sometime past midnight. There seems to be a lot of people from outside of Iraq that come to Rawanduz, like Danish and Iranian Kurds. Even the Kurds from Sleimani three hours south are very different. The three girls from Sleimani wore gorgeous racier Kurdish outfits with totally see-through sheer fabric “covering” their bare arms and shoulders, and they touched and flirted with the Brit worse than a bunch of American college girls. Strange how much of a difference 3 hours makes. In the US, if you drive 3 hours south from wherever you are, I feel like the people would act pretty much the same. Here, if you drive 3 hours south, it's a whole other world. You can go from being a whore to being a prude in just 3 hours. You can go from peace to war in maybe 6 hours, or even just 1 hour if you drive west to Mosul. You can go from having a life worth equal to a man's to one worth only half of a man's in just 3 hours. Who came up with these silly rules? Was it God? Who came up with God? Was it man? What an imagination we have...

I awoke early the next morning in our villa, walked out, and saw jurassic mountains painted in the sky like stage props. An hour later, I was spiraling straight into the belly of the gorge on a toboggan, wondering what would happen if I didn't brake like the signs were telling me to. I'm not stupid, though- I pulled the brakes every single time I saw a warning sign. Some rules are worth following, especially those concerning rollercoasters in Iraq.

The Perfectly Aged Man in Char Chra

April 5, 2009

We spent this most beautiful spring day in the city. After stopping by the textile museum in the ancient citadel for postcards, we lingered at a tea shop in the bazaar below. Eventually though, we realized that the tiny, grungy, tea shop was becoming packed with men with the pretense of drinking tea but with the real intention of making googly eyes at us (3 unaccompanied girls in a tea shop is unheard of; 3 unaccompanied foreign girls in a tea shop? They are clearly not just looking for tea...), so we left and caught a cab to the other bazaar in town. Unfortunately, the taxi driver made googly eyes at us the whole time through the rearview mirror. After we left Lenga Bazaar, we caught another cab to Char Chra Hotel. Unfortunately, this taxi driver also made googly eyes at us through the rearview mirror the entire way. It was a day for being oggled at by googly-eyed men. Who comes up with these words? 

Inside Char Chra was the most perfectly aged man in all of Erbil- possibly in all of Kurdistan. His name was Khaled Mohammed, and on the outside, he looked a lot like the prophet Zoroaster (well I thought he did), with a bare dome of a head, deep-set eyes, and a mustache and salt-and-pepper beard. But it was not his outer appearance that drew us to him- instead, we were drawn initially by his amazing artwork that was displayed outside his little gallery in the left-hand corner of the hotel lobby, and eventually by the man's inner dimensions. 

The first piece I saw was a large, life-sized one of a beautiful fair-skinned maiden walking barefoot in a meadow. Her head was tilted back, while her long, long hair was blowing forward, and her eyes looked startled or serious, I can't remember which. Next to this painting was a painting of a horse, so lifelike you could see its veins popping out of its face- which I had never noticed on a real horse before, actually. Not that I've been near too many horses in my lifetime. Next to the horse was a painting of a woman with her hand on the button of a half-buttoned dress.

“Do you think she's getting dressed or undressed?”

“Definitely undressed. After a long day, she's come home, her hair's disheveled, her eyes are tired.”

“Yeah, definitely undressed.”

Next to the undressing woman hung a painting of a very promiscuous scene: a man crouched inside a small, dark room. Next to him on the floor lay two women only partially covered by brown blankets, clearly nude, and clearly having fun, judging from their laughing faces. I felt like I had just interrupted a threesome, but for some strange reason, the man's face expressed despair, his mouth agape and his eyes gazing upward as if to cry out, “I don't know what to do!”, his arms crossed over his heart. New Day pointed out the faintly-painted heads of two other women floating in the shadows in the upper left-hand corner. And what was that butterfly doing settled on the blankets at the feet of the naked women?

So many questions, it was time to ask the artist sitting inside for some answers. The Zoroaster-like figure came out and explained that the promiscuous painting of the threesome illustrated a Kurdish folk tale about an ultra-religious man who, determined to escape the sinful temptation of women, went to live a monastic life in a cave. But upon entering the cave, he found that it, too, was filled with women, nude and ready to seduce and be seduced. Moral of the story? You can't get away from them. Women are everywhere and there is no way to escape this fact of life- hence the look of utter despair and perhaps acceptance of the inevitable on his face. 

Inside the small gallery, he went on explaining several other paintings that we asked about. The most jarring one hung right beside the door frame. An old woman's face screamed out from a black background. Skulls floated behind her head. She wore black- the color of mourning-, white, and red- the color of blood. Black, white, and red- the colors of the Iraqi flag. Part of the white had a very faint smudge of green on it, which had deliberately been whited out but not all the way. Green was a color of the Kurdistan flag. There was never any green. Most of the painting was done in the colors of the Iraqi flag- except for the blue abaya (headscarf) over her head. Blue was the color of the sky, of freedom, but even that color of freedom had been forced into a form of imprisonment- of women.

“Check out this one, Ang.”

“Wow, it's so...swirly!” We studied the painting, a 1.5-by-6-foot one that extended horizontally. It depicted a nude woman entering a swirly whirlpool-like ring from the right side. The picture ended on the left with the same nude woman lying dead, half-way into another whirlpool ring. At her lifeless yet graceful fingertips lay a spread of fruit and wine, while the ring she was caught in was the color of smoking, burning hellfire. I was mesmerized by the ring's blend of swirling colors. In between the two swirling, tempestuous tidal waves was painted two white doves, the symbol of peace and love. 

“What is the story (chirok) in this painting?” I asked.

“Life is like a swing,” New Day translated, “It goes back and forth from good to bad. But the best part about life is love.” The image depicted love as sort of the calm in the midst of a storm. This painter must have an amazing relationship with his wife, I thought. There are too many others who would have painted it the other way around, showing love as the capricious tempest. 

He had been to Korea. He had loved Korea because everything there was so fast-paced. No one was ever talking on the phone. Instead, everyone constantly- on the streets, in the subways- texted at lightning speed. He brought us over to his computer to show us pictures of the Iran-Korean International Art Fair he had attended. He clicked to a picture of his son who worked as a graphic artist in Iran, and told us about how the creator of Tom and Jerry had once told his son: “I would cut off my hand so that you never stop making your art.” I immediately wished that I was that good at something. That must be what it feels like to be born with a purpose. Eventually, he reached the pictures of the Art Fair in Korea, and though he clicked through most of them pretty quickly, he paused suddenly at one that showed a pale, blonde Iranian woman.

“This is my wife,” he explained, though there was no need to explain. His eyes became lost as he gazed at the picture and shook his head wistfully, tenderly. Clearly she was no longer living. And clearly, he had loved her very much. During the lull, I noticed that music was playing softly from his speakers, featuring a woman's strong voice and some unknown folk instrument. 

“That's his wife singing,” New Day translated. “He says she never recorded her songs for anyone but him.” She continued, “He says that he doesn't believe she is really dead, and that she's waiting for him. They're going to be be together again someday.” If these words had come out of anyone else's mouth, I would have dismissed it as religious nonsense about the afterlife, but I recognized that the source of his belief was his profound, genuine longing for another human being- something I can actually believe in. His words were noble rather than psychotic or delusional, and I was more ready to believe them than those of any pastor I had heard before. 

We chatted with the artist for a long time in his tiny gallery inside Char Chra Hotel. He talked about Iran and Hafez poetry and about his love for wine, how once in Russia, he had tasted a wine so old that it could barely come out of the bottle when he opened it, like stubborn ketchup in a Heinz bottle. Does that really happen to wine when you age it for too long? I couldn't tell if he was pulling our leg. The man himself seemed like a fine wine, his soul aged to perfection. 

Angry Asian Angie

I hate the bank. I'm so angry, I could kill an animal right now. I have no patience for idiocy these days, and we all know that call service representatives for the bank are the most supreme idiots of all. Now imagine having to deal with these supreme idiots when you are thousands of miles away, and the connection is so bad that you can only hear half of what they are saying. What's more, they keep saying the same damn thing over and over again: "not a bank error, not a bank error". Is it ever a fucking bank error? IS IT? Do bank errors even exist? Damn you all, damn you and your Minnesotan accents! All I want to do right now is kill an animal and smear its blood all over an effigy of a bank call service representative and burn the bloody effigy to ashes. If any of you ever started working at a bank, I'd have to burn you. Unless you didn't really work at a bank and it was just a cover for your real job as a CIA agent. Then I'd have to join you. 

Update: I can skype call the bank for free! Oh my....

Kindergarten Viruses

The prefects- students in the upper grade levels who watch my kindergardeners while I am on my break- are starting to complain that my babies are kissing each other on the cheek and saying "I love you". Hehe. I don't know whether to suppress or encourage this. On the one hand, this society needs to seriously ease up on their restrictive rules. It would be a small way of changing the status quo to encourage these innocent acts. On the other hand, aren't they a little too young to be exploring this feeling- even if they have no idea what it all means? 

For now, I won't say anything and just go with the flow, whether it ends up dying out or sustaining itself. The worst thing to do would be to make it a big deal- like I did with the "you just wait" threatening hand signal and the sticking-out-your-tongue thing. These things are like viruses the way they spread. But unlike viruses, the more you try to treat them, the more they propagate.

A Day in the Life of a Kurd

There's a book called “Happiest Baby On the Block”, and it should feature Yunis Gulani on the cover. I have never met a happier baby than 2-year-old Yunis. His laughter is contagious- every time he laughs, I laugh, and vice versa, and so we never stop laughing. He has adorable teardrop-shaped eyes and beautiful, wispy, white-blond hair and a tiny set of buck teeth just like the stuffed bunny he carries around wherever he goes. New Day, Meadow and I spent the day with Lone and Yunis at their house in Masif. We picnicked in their garden where she had recently planted apple and other fruit trees, our blanket spread with a tray of baklava, seeds and nuts, watermelon (shuti), and white wine bottled in Giverny, France. They tried to teach me how to eat pumpkin seeds, but I gave up and just ate the entire salty seed- shell and all- just the way I like. New Day and Meadow, both in their twenties like me, talked about their refuge camp days when they were kids. Guam was beautiful, says New Day. Meadow on the other hand got stuck in one of the poor, overcrowded, hungry camps somewhere in Eastern Turkey because it was “just after the war”.

Later, New Day and I took Yunis for a walk around his neighborhood, taking turns to carry the toddler because he didn't have his shoes on. The panoramic views of the green mountains were beautiful, flowering everywhere with those ubiquitous chartreuse blossoms. I lingered a little behind the other two as they ambled down a curving country dirt path lined on either side with wildflowers. Sometimes they stopped so Yunis could pick flowers for his mother. New Day looked so comfortable with the baby at her hip that I couldn't help thinking that she'd make a good mother someday. And she was turning out to be a good friend. We had one thing in common at least- both of us were tired of the usual weekend activity of drinking. We were so much happier here, visiting Lone, seeing the mountains, and exploring the surrounding villages. I'm glad she is here, and Lone as well.

I ran to catch up with my companions and to take my turn with the baby. The path led into a village with shanty homes and all kinds of farm animals. We chatted with the villagers who were surprisingly bold and not so surprisingly, very hospitable. We declined their invitation to come in and have tea because we wanted to head back soon, but stayed to check out their animals. One of the women snuck up behind a lamb (puz, or mr) and grabbed it, and it baaa-ed pitifully as she brought it over to Yunis so he could pet it. They also had white ducks and chickens running around, and two donkeys (kerr). Whoever said a donkey says “hee-haw” needs to spend a day on a farm with a real donkey. They are not pleasant-sounding creatures. They sound worse than a dying motor. Like a dying motor with a dying pig inside it- but louder.

We headed back after meeting the animals. Yunis had had a full day, and so had I! I collapsed on the couch and suddenly felt like taking a nap. But then, when I came back from the bathroom, all four of them- New Day, Meadow, Lone, and baby Yunis- were dancing the Kurdish dance to Kurdish music, so my nap was put on hold. We danced in the living room until we could dance no more, and then Lone- wonderful hostess that she is- fed us some sort of Kurdish soup made from boiling meat for 4 hours and adding tomato sauce and vegetables to it. Afterward, I felt so content and sleepy. I had just lived a day in the life of a Kurd- picnicking, eating seeds and nuts, and dancing the circle dance- what more could you want? We said our goodbyes, Yunis and I exchanged Eskimo kisses, and soon I was in the car, staring out the window into the dark, and seeing picnic after picnic after picnic along the highway.

Rock the Bus

Last night, the usual crowd of teachers piled into the shuttle van, ready to party or sleep or both after a long week of teaching. Farhad cranked up the house music, and we rocked out and took the piss out of each other the way we usually do in the van, and watched the dozens of half-constructed buildings fly by, gawking at one with the skeleton of a giant dome on top. 

“I don't know why, but every time we're in this van, I feel so...happy!” cried New Day. 

“It's the best part of the night,” I joked, “Watch, it's going to all downhill from here!”

And actually, it was. Damn my words! But the rest of the night wasn't bad, either. 

Impressions of Rebirth

Post-internet blackout updates:

March 22, 2009

Happy Naw Roz, my deer!

I feel born again- but don't worry, not in the religious “washed of my sins” kind of way. Tanned and toned, and my brain full of amazing images from the Gulf region, I feel born again- like the green, green grass that has sprung miraculously from the dry, rocky, brown soil of the Kurdistan mountains. The transformation from winter to spring is sudden and miraculous here in Northern Iraq. Since my arrival 7 months ago, I didn't think it possible that anything nice could grow from these stony, bare-brown slopes patched with half-dead grass. Then, along comes March 21st, the day of the spring equinox, and bibidee-bobbidee-boo! Suddenly, Erbil has transformed into the Emerald City. Bright green grass sprouts overnight from the barren hills, even brighter patches of chartreuse-colored flowers bloom from the darker green blades, and the crickets have returned. And so have the flies and the spiders. Gross. I can't wait till the bats return- I miss my little black Bartoks whizzing around over our balconies.

The feelings of rejuvenation and rebirth are redoubled by the noise and color that burst from the seams of this region in celebration of this spring awakening. For the Kurds and other descendent cultures of the old Persian Empire, March 21st marks the true first day of the new year, called Naw Roz. Yesterday, I went out for a walk outside of campus to see for myself how Kurds celebrated their biggest holiday of the year. Surprises awaited me as soon as I turned out of the workers' compound. The spry, green hills, which are normally empty of people except for the occasional shepherd or lone picnic-er, were littered that day with cars, pick-ups, taxis and semis. Huge extended families of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents sat on blankets eating dolma, rice, flatbread, and boxed cake. Tea boiled over the open fire. Kites flew like colorful angelfish high in the sky among the few puffy clouds that had managed to find their way into the otherwise azure plane. 

At the ends of the kite-strings stood little Kurdish boys in their own potato sack outfits like miniature versions of their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles. The women and girls of the families sat or stood like bright jewels in their sequined Kurdish dresses and the accompanying gold jewelry. One of the families waved me over to join them, and as I sat down and made the round of greetings, I noticed that all the girls wore eye shadow that matched their dress- pink, purple, blue, green- even the young ones wore make-up. I immediately regretted coming out in my lame jogging clothes, but honestly, I had a feeling I would always feel underdressed at a traditional Kurdish gathering, no matter what I wore. One simply cannot compete with the layers of glitter and bright colors and loads of jewelry that constitute the traditional Kurdish dress. 

Anyway, I sat in my lame jogging clothes and tried to strike up conversation with my limited Kurdish, as they handed me sugary tea in the traditional Kurdish tea cup- tiny, handleless, pear-shaped, and embossed with gold arabesques around the rim. I had just read parts of Leaves of Grass, and so being introduced one by one to each aunt, uncle, mother, father, cousin, grandfather and grandmother, and so on, all sitting on the newly sprouted grass, it immediately called to mind the idea of grass symbolizing rebirth, and I tried to make a comment that the grandparents were like the grass. Luckily, there was grass all around us that I could motion to because I didn't know the Kurdish word for “grass”. Still, I don't know if my meaning caught on. They started up their Kurdish circle dancing, called dopka, and I was entranced by how quickly their tongues moved as they yelled like Xena Warrior Princess- a high-pitched, rapid alalalalalalalala! 

Before I knew it, the sun was beginning its descent behind the hills, and it was time for me to go. I thanked them and kissed all the women goodbye on the cheek, and then one of them urged me to kiss her son (who was my age) in the same way, to which I impulsively let down my guard and obliged. The entire family whooped and clapped their hands in glee as I gave him a kiss on the cheek too. The guy was profoundly shaken. I waved goodbye, and they continued dancing to the car radio as I made my way back to the school. Before I turned into the hills where picturesque silhouettes awaited my fanciful vision, I took one last glance back and saw for the first time the colors of the sunset outshone by the moving glittering jewels that studded the grassy green slopes and by the angelfish swimming in the sun-splashed skies. Never forgo a chance to glance back one last time. God, what a vision...

That evening, the teachers and I took the shuttle van to the speedway, but we got stuck in a Cairo-like traffic jam because of all the families driving home after their picnics. Every car was packed with families like a VW stuffed with clowns. Kids sat dangerously at the tops of huge semis, boisterously waving and giggling and yelling in revelry. Entire buses were packed with people clapping and yelling like Xena, with a passenger standing in the front, conducting the revelers with an imaginary baton. New Day and I screamed simultaneously as we both saw the strangest vision of a woman in black Muslim robe and scarf wearing a twisted goblin mask over her face. The flag of Kurdistan- red, white, and green, with a yellow sun in the middle- poked out proudly from every car stuck on the road. Families still camped in the dark with actual tents pitched on the hills overlooking the highway. Someone on the bus claimed he even saw some kids swinging at the end of a construction crane. In the dark fields, I saw a family dancing around a fire, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand...

March 26, 2009

The Accountant and His Three Daughters

I made a visit to the home of the school accountant, whose daughter is in my 2nd grade math class, the splitting image of her father- brains and all- except with long hair. It was a smaller house than others I've been too, but the coziest. I felt so at home as I played with his three daughters. The smallest one is only a year and a half and she loves to catch and throw things- balls, socks, food. The best thing about the parents is, they don't freak out when the baby does this, and simply vacuum the mess up at the end of the day before spreading out the blanket on the floor for dinner. Despite the lax attitude of the parents, the kids are not spoiled at all. The house is comfortably messy, and there are blankets spread out on the floor at the foot of the parents' bed for the kids to play on. The two older daughters adore their youngest sibling and I laughed out loud as the three of them started dancing Kurdish style to the Kurdish music that had been dubbed over the Three Chipmunks movie. 

Later, I wandered outside to where the mother was making deep-fried lamb with her aunt, and the three of us chatted about many things in the dark with the sound and smell of sizzling meat until my haunches were numb from sitting on them for so long. Religion is such an important element in the lives of Kurds. It's not just about truth- it's their culture, and as well they really do believe it is the “right“ path. Yet, they didn't condemn me when I told them I wasn't religious, let alone a believer in their Allah. They told me about the mother's uncle who was at the moment lounging on the couch inside, but in another lifetime had been a prisoner of Saddam's party for two years, a victim of hangings and beatings so bad he lost an eye. The uncle kept pulling out ID cards and showing them to me. One of them showed him as a member of the Kurdish Political Prisoners Group. He seemed like one of those grandfatherly figures who had lost an eye in war and seen many tragic things and lived to tell the tales with jolly detachment. 

After dinner, we had tea, and then I taught the oldest daughter several card games. Not surprisingly, she caught on to them really quickly, and I found myself actually enjoying the company of an 8-year-old until it was time for me to go home. As we said goodbye, she reminded me to bring my contact solution over next time so I could sleep over. I just might do that. 

April 1, 2009

Kid-tonic & the Board Effect

Yesterday, during Lady's Night at the “Sheraton”, I felt sad and annoyed about many things. Then, on the way home, the taxi driver proffered his ring and pinkie finger onto my leg while the other three fingers held onto the stick shift. The annoyance turned into anger, the sadness swelled into tears, and I ended up bawling myself into a drunken stupor on my couch until sleep finally overcame me. 

I considered calling out this morning, but I'm so glad I didn't. Teaching is teaching me how to compartmentalize. As much as they wear me out, my kids make me so happy. I don't think I'll ever have a class as smart and animated as my 2nd graders, no matter how many decades years I end up teaching. And damned if I ever met kids as adorable and loving as my kindergardeners. 

I took pictures of them today while they played outside, but none of the pictures captured the little mannerisms of each that has made me grow so attached to them this past year. I can't bear the thought of leaving them (except for this one spoiled rotten attention-seeker whom I'd kick out of my class this very day if I could), but it's going to happen in less than three months! Wow...

...they've changed me as much as I have changed them. Empathy, as much as I value it, has always been a weak trait of mine, but these days the first thing I notice when I walk into a classroom is a sad kid among all the happy ones. When I see a kid crying, I see myself during times like last night, and then my heart goes out to them because I know exactly how they feel. 

The Board Effect

Earlier this week, I redecorated the board outside my classroom with a flying theme. “Come Fly With Me to KG1 B,”, it says in bubble letters at the top. Below are cloud-sheep, balloons and soon origami butterflies and cranes will be added. While the rest of the class sat inside watching “Dora the Illegal Immigrant”, I let Liya hang out and watch as I worked on the board and described what I was doing to her. At one point, I asked her to go get some staples for me.

“Staples?” she repeated, looking confused.

“Don't worry, I'll get them,” I told her. I got some staples from the classroom and showed her how to insert them into the stapler. 

“How do you know to do that?” Liya asked, her voice full of amazement. This is one of my favorite things about teaching little kids. Even with my older 8-year olds, there has been several moments where they are so amazed that I know something that seems like nothing out of the ordinary to me. When did I not know how to insert staples into a stapler, or how to work a water well, or that there exist numbers before zero or between 0 and 1? My kids allow me to vicariously re-live that time of not knowing, and it constantly reminds me that most things are not ordinary. 

They also remind me of homophones:

“But Miss Angie!”

“Yes, Ghaid?”

“Why is it when you teach us something, you always after say 'Does that make cents?' How many cents is it?”

It would have been a horribly cheesy joke about our most recent topic of different kinds of currencies, if only he hadn't been dead serious. But his confusion was genuine, so it was like the funniest thing ever. 

I showed the class the board when it was almost finished, and of course all they wanted to do was touch it and tear it apart. I had to give them a brief tutorial on how to avoid this wild animal instinct. My kids are so rowdy, and I've finally figured out one of the reasons why: in both of my classes, out of 26 kids, more than 2/3 of them are boys. What's with that?? And Tara acts rougher than some of the boys so the ratio is nearly 4:1 in my KG class. Gee, what a boys' club! 

Not that I mind. Not all the boys enjoy guns and punching and other modes of violence. Mohammed the Algerian- probably the smartest kid in my KG class, and so sweet with huge dark eyes that his face and skinny frame have yet to grow into- called me over at the end of the day when it was almost time to go home, and said “Miss Angie, I-I have a question!” (He has a bit of a stutter when he speaks English.)

“What is it Mohammed?” I asked, leaning towards him encouragingly. 

“I-I-I want to fly!” He smiled bashfully as my eyes widened in genuine surprise. I often dream of being able to fly- especially when I'm on a plane looking out the window, or laying on the ground staring up at the immense blue sky-, but obviously...It felt peculiar to hear my fanciful dream being voiced aloud by a 5-year-old, with the earnestness of a 5-year-old. How long had this “question” been simmering in his mind, just waiting for the perfect moment to be asked? Possibly all day since I showed them the board. 

“Me too, Mohammed!” I replied with just as much earnestness, “I want to fly too!”

Of course, when the other kids heard this, they all started shouting exuberantly, “I want to fly! I want to fly to KG1 B!” Oh dear, look what my board has started. I hope I don't get calls saying a kid of mine tried to jump off a rooftop. 

Sweeping

I just spent an hour sweeping my balcony for the first time in months. It was a fucking sandbox! I could have laid out on it in my bathing suit and pretended I was on a beach in Oman again! Okay, it wouldn't be exactly the same. For some reason, laying in sand is acceptable, while laying in dirt makes you an animal. 

Sweeping with the sun setting before you is a very meditative activity. A lot of different kinds if people passed by while I was sweeping: Aslan the Historian and the school principal, a couple security guards. “Choni bashi!” I said as Farhad #2, our shuttle driver ambled by. "Hello, Angie flowers!" Farhad had just learned the word “flower” in his English class. 

New Day walked by 1 year older, 1 year wiser, and I asked how her birthday was going; a car whizzed by playing American R&B; a moth fluttered up from my balcony as I swept away its dirt nest; and as I set down my broom for a moment to take a break and stretch my neck, I looked up and saw a crescent moon between the vents, hanging tranquilly in an indigo sky. I think the moon exists to remind us of our place in the universe- which is nowhere in particular.