Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I'm no sha'er, but I love a good kaseedeh

Today we had the second group of teacher trainers graduate. They were fantastic. I really enjoyed learning about them. Today they were very alive and there were quite a few tears. A U.S. Embassy official spoke to me after that there is something very unusual and powerful going on with our groups. And I agree. I think there is something electric. Many shared poems, expressed thanks, and stated that they would, indeed, teach other teachers about how to motivate and inspire students through language. We spoke of the power of words over guns, and how it is dangerous but necessary to hope. I love my job.

And besides, I learned to do a dance. I'm afraid, however, that all video evidence of Shane dancing to Arabic music was strangely destroyed in a sandstorm. So sorry.

I did, however, get a video of some of the teachers trying to teach me Arabic so that I could write poetry to my wife. Throughout the training, a few have expressed sadness that I have been apart from her and they know that I have stated that while I don't have culture shock when I am teaching, I feel it when I leave the hotel to go back to the tiny compound. There are sandbags instead of toys. Sounds of helicopters and rifle practice instead of, well, normal sounds.

And I have noticed that most of my culture shock comes in not having the small things, like watching my wife tell a story while we put away dishes together, or see her smile when she has made one of her patented "breakthroughs" ("Honey," she'll say, "I just had a breakthrough") I like the particular cadence of her daily thoughts.

Now I'm fairly certain that she doesn't speak Arabic (I haven't precisely asked her, so I guess there's an outside chance), but hey! Comprehension is overrated when we are attempting to speak the language of love. You'll have to forgive the total lack of verbs, pronouns, particles, etc. Call it Arabic free verse, if you will. Here goes my poem:

Mushtaklek. Mushtaklek, habibi.
Beash?
Hwajeh.
Leash?
Tedree?
Ahebek.
Ahebek hwajeh.
Mushtaklek. Mushtaklek, habibi.


Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Blame Games





I have pages and pages of notes I don’t know what to do with. I have had one post idea for some time now: a collection of funny moments from the trip. Nothing like a little humor to break up the culture shock blues, you know. I also had a post brewing in my head about the people I’ve met here; people that have truly been part of my whole experience: Scott, Marie, Josh, Husna, Mark, Abdu, Hawhzen, Waafa, Salim, the list is getting overwhelming. While I’m sure most casual readers don’t want me to go into that much detail, I hate leaving out people that, at least in terms of my own emotions and gratitude, deserve mention. It occurs to me that I now get why those who win Oscars or Emmys rattle off such ridiculous lists of names. Names mean real moments; the kind of moments that matter.

I’ve especially grown to appreciate Scott’s ability to turn a fine phrase into fine comedy (my favorite: “There isn’t many places in the world where you are happy to be greeted by a large Ugandan with a gun.”) And Marie’s spirit and ability as a teacher deserves mention, too. She is truly a testament to youthful living regardless of age. She also has that unique ability to tell a story and get so wrapped up in it that listening is almost a bodily experience for the audience (most definitely a bodily experience for her). She, like my sister-in-law Lana, has that gift of sharing a story with such excellent delivery that you are actually excited when she starts to tell it again. I find myself waiting for my favorite parts.

And I have funny little experiences that would make a fine post, too. Like the fact that the checkpoint guards, mostly Peruvian, have gotten so friendly with us (I speak Spanish to them) that they actually approach me for lessons each day. Eduardo moves his automatic rifle out of the way as he reaches for a little notebook of English phrases he is composing. Imagine, if you will, a group of guards listening to me enunciate the difference between “buddy” and “body.” After answering questions, they thank me as I leave, and I can hear them trying out the two words from behind me as I move back into the armored van.

“Bahddy,” they sing in chorus.

“Bahddy,” they sing again, the second word sounding identical to the first. Scott and Marie are smiling. I love that I have this with them. Complicit smiles are so welcome in a place where humor is key to survival.

Survival. That’s the reason that I can’t seem to write the light-hearted post or the overdue homage I’d like to write. This place, this city, this country, constantly reminds me that there is something so much more real going on than our cramped teaching quarters and our short two-week training. So now let me write the post I have to write.

We have been teaching our second group now for 4 days. We were relegated to an upstairs room that I imagine would fit 25 comfortably. We have 37 participants. Just adjacent, a small, seedy-looking side room is the place we put our books and materials. There is a low-hanging low-watt shakalaka lamp (my term) in it that has raised our suspicions as to what kind of activities went on in there. I’ve gone ahead and dubbed it the “opium den.” Enough said.

Overall, in our new teaching quarters it has been hard to create the emotional closeness that we had with the first group. Instead of teaching 3 groups of 15, like we had the previous session, we are forced, because of the single room environment, to teach all 37 at once. For communicative language teachers, that’s like asking an acrobat to perform in a straitjacket.

But we have gotten by. And in fact, I am beginning to feel closer to a lot of the Iraqi teachers. In the classroom, I have learned to appreciate the infectiously pleasant Jamil, who creates and then recites his poetry. “I wish I were a cloud,“ he rhymes, “and water all the world’s land/ Anyone ask me/ and I’ll give him a hand.” Ali Hussan and I discovered that we had a common acquaintance, and we spoke in some detail about the joyous impossibility of it all. Nawaf is the PhD from Nineweh (yes, the actual Nineveh, you Bible scholars) who discusses a point of grammar with Scott and Marie at the end of a particular session. He has obvious gifts and abilities, and I am later told that he attended the finest of all the universities in Iraq.

But the time to really get to know students, is when we leave this cramped room and head to the hotel restaurant for lunch, which we have had daily from 1 to 2 p.m. Great mounds of rice, meat, fish, and chicken await us daily. To arrive at the restaurant, we head down the stairs to the lobby, move past the lobby to the main entrance, and turn left down a hall just before the large glass doors of the formerly 5-star hotel. We see the occasional soldier, be it American, Iraqi, or Triple Canopy.

Paintings are for sale and line the walls down this final hall to the restaurant. Here, just off to the right, is the dining area that has been set up to cater to our group. At lunch, I always try to sit down with someone new. This time, I sit next to the pleasant Tawadud, who is the supervisor of one of my favorite Iraqi teachers from the first workshop, Waafa. Tawadud, like Waafa, is from Basra, and she explains to me in some detail how she tries to train and teach her students. I like her. I like her even more as I see her counsel a younger teacher about how to interact with administration. She seems wise to me.

Another teacher, a Kurdish physics teacher named Kosrat, approaches our table and asks if she can sit down in an empty chair. We say yes, of course, and she begins to unravel a particular question to me. Meanwhile, I notice that Nawaf had slipped out of the dining area and is just now walking back into the room. Not paying too much attention, I begin answering Kosrat’s question, and in the middle of this discussion, I am tapped on from behind. I don’t know how to explain it, but the tap feels urgent. I stop my discussion and turn. It is Nawaf. He leans low behind my chair and I turn to see Marie and Scott nearby; they have also been tapped and are waiting to listen to him. It appears that he has summoned us three together to tell us something.

“I don’t want to say anything bad about you,” he says, with a feeling that has a force I still don’t understand, “but if you go back to the United States…” he trails off. He composes himself and then continues, in what I can best describe as quick huffs.

He states, “I want you to tell that Bush he is a war criminal.” This last sentence he says with his head down, nearly in tears.

I am surprised by all of this, of course, and am searching for the context that would make this kind of an outburst reasonable. I see now that he is visibly shaking, and that two of the Iraqi teachers are holding him on either side. He gets out a few more words, words that express how he loves us and doesn’t blame us. And then he tells us the reason for his unexpected request and condemnation.

“I just got off the phone,” he says almost flatly. “My brother is dead.”

I’m unprepared to hear this news. He is unprepared to share it. He can no longer speak and walks swiftly away with a trail of people following. Later I hear that he cannot be consoled and has left the hotel. I am left in the wake of his absence trying to figure out what to say and what to do. Other students help me out by forming small groups. A group clusters around me and they begin the process of grieving for him, even though he is not around to receive the sympathy. They speak of the sadness of it, they talk of the inevitability of such things, and they speak reassuringly of their feelings for me, Scott, and Marie.

On the way home I am still in a somber mood. We share the news with our U.S.-loving escort. He seems saddened by it as he reflects for a moment, but then quickly composes his thoughts and tries to explain his view on this terrible matter. I think, as our escort, he wants to give us the larger picture as he sees it, perhaps as a way of putting emotional boundaries around it. He explains that the area Nawaf lives in, Mosul, is filled with radicals, Al Qaeda and the like, that will kill almost arbitrarily. There are those in power, he explains, who will regularly round up people, especially those who are educated. Just yesterday, Mosul was involved in just such a round up. Nawaf’s brother, he believes, was likely among those taken.

Our escort continues his view by stating that he disagrees that Bush is a war criminal, and speaks of how the factions and internal struggle are, rather, to be blamed.

“Bush gave us the freedom. Would Iraq be able to have freedom without him? No,” he states with a swing of authoritative intonation.

To date, I’m relatively uninterested in a political discussion as to who is right or wrong in this whole mess. I guess, for clarity’s sake, I should mention that I don’t blame Nawaf for his feelings, even if we are to discover he is facing the wrong target for his anger. For whether or not the U.S.’s entry into Iraq was justifiable, a hornet's nest has been kicked, and people are suffering because of it.

This time, people I know.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Graduation Day

Two weeks is up. Just like that, our first of four workshops is over. And with this group, our graduation is a joyful one. The students danced. Oh, did they dance. Before our ceremony had even begun, we all gathered together just outside our conference room. Here, our students began to whoop and holler, bouncing up and down to some sort of song or chant. As I later surmised, it is Iraqi tradition to celebrate teachers by singing and dancing together in a circle. They pointed their video cameras and camera phones at each other as they did this. I believe the song's translation might be something like, "Marie, she is our teacher. She has taught us. Scott. Scott is our teacher. He has taught us. Shane. Shane is our teacher. He has taught us. Mark..." We were to be placed in the center as the singing occurred. It was both exciting and unnerving.

Then we handed out certificates and gave and received gifts. Several students had prepared small speeches, and we were given an impromptu song and a poem. One student, one of my favorites, even imitated us. And boy, was he spot on. He mocks my propensity to get choked up when I read or tell certain stories. You can see all four of us teachers get mocked here (as well as Mark getting caught up in a mini-circle dance of his own).

The energy was palpable. It was a perfect ending.

At the end of it all I sang a song that is nothing special musically. In the video, you can barely hear the guitar, but I think it came off better in the room. It is hopelessly insular, with tons of inside jokes. For example, I make a joke about eating elephants, which referred to a class lesson wherein I pose the riddle, "How do you eat an elephant?"

The point of that particular lesson was to encourage teachers to attempt the impossible. (Answer to the riddle, "How do you eat an elephant"? Well, silly, one bite at a time.) Since some of these teachers face daunting--I repeat, daunting--challenges, we spoke in some detail about how to solve some of the most unsolvable riddles. For example, imagine 60 students and 40 chairs. Or imagine a thatched roof and no flooring. As a result of my belief that they are meant to solve the impossible situations placed in front of them, some of the students began to refer to themselves as "elephant eaters."

Back to the song. I added teaching moments from the other teachers, such as Marie's use of a favorite phrase, Scott's punctuation lesson, and Mark's enthusiasm during reading theater. And I also added phrases that had linguistic meaning, such as the phrase "never be alone" (a networking principle we taught) and the phrase "learn a little, use a lot," which referred to the principle of practice. I even threw in Martin Luther King Jr's line about brothers and sisters (see the previous post).

So the song will most likely be lost on most people, but I'm putting it in here anyway. It is set to the tune "Rainbow Connection," and I'm pasting the text and video below. Oh, and I better mention that the phrase, "Teachers 4 Ever" is a title that the teachers gave themselves as part of a declaration they all signed, so I play with that phrase in the song as well. Part of the graduation involved them signing this declaration. It was a beautiful moment.

Anyway, check out the video just below the text.

Teachers 4 Ever"

Why are there so many trainers in front of me?
Never seen such a thing in my life.
They’ve come from all over, hoping for training
I’ve left all three kids and my wife.
But I’ve come with two experts
named Scott and Marie;
we’ve done all we can to prepare.
We know that we’re ready,
it’s time now to teach them,
the teachers, the trainers, and me.

Have you been half asleep?
Marie will help wake you,
keep on learning
she says with her eyes.
Scott will make punctuate
Sound like “pronunciation,”
and says planning lessons is wise.
Shane is a bit confused, he thinks that the teachers
are actors who eat elephants.
Osama helped behind the scenes,
and Josh came, but then he went;
Husna had the grace of a queen.
And then there is Mark
who reads with his whole body;
he tells us we shall overcome.
And now I see brothers,
and now I see sisters;
The teachers, the trainers, and me

A drop becomes two, then three,
suddenly it’s an ocean;
I know that you won’t be alone.
You’ll have us for always, we’re the teachers 4 ever,
we’ll be with you even when you go home.
Can you stand right now and declare it together
That we can bring peace to this world?
learned a little, we’ll use a lot
We’re in this 4 ever,
The teachers, the trainers, and me.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Overcoming the Impossible

note: Bill's name has been changed to protect the innocent, meaning me.

This morning we left the Edinburgh International at 8 am, our usual time, to head for the Al Rasheed Hotel. Bill, an Englishman with outrageous thigh arms (my thighs = his arms), took us. Bill’s experience in security has led him from one dangerous country to another. He seems to relish in it. Two stories illustrate my point: First, one evening he reminisced over our campfire about the good times in a small ancient city in Afghanistan. What made it so good? Well, in his words, this rural village is “fantastic” because people lived in hovels carved out from a mountain. He spoke about how the people were hard and gritty, waking up at 5 am to shovel snow from their entrances. As he reminisced about the stark barrenness of the place, I couldn’t help but wonder how many would truly share his sentiment. I kept imagining an SNL sketch with old men reminiscing about horrible pasts: “Ahh, the good ol days...we ate dirt for breakfast and we liked it.”


And yesterday, I took a picture of Josh getting his bulletproof vest put on. Josh was a fantastic escort who had helped arrange our stay here. While I took my picture, Bill put his hand out in front of the camera and said, “No pictures. I’m still a wanted man in Nigeria.” I laughed nervously. Obviously kidding, right?

Well, let’s move on.

So off to the Al Rasheed we go. In the armored van we go through a total of five checkpoints in about three quarters of a mile. Tedious. Dreadfully tedious. But with Bill, we don’t have to exit the van and get frisked like we ordinarily do. He flashes the checkpoint guards a badge and they nod knowingly. Apparently, this badge is some sort of golden ticket that allows a lot more movement within the international zone. We like going with Bill. It’s like having your own personal Arnold Schwarzenegger.

T-walls (big giant slabs of concrete) about 10 feet high accompany us on both sides of the street through most of this trip. Here’s a rundown: From the main thoroughfare, we turn left at the Four Soldier’s Monument. The 14th of July Bridge is immediately behind us. We then proceed through the aforementioned checkpoint and toward the Al Rasheed, passing the Crossing Swords Monument and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the left. Ministry buildings are to the right. Just at the end of the green zone sits the Al Rasheed, which has its own security checkpoints. Each passenger raises his or her passport to the guards assigned to peer through the window. The guards themselves are part of a larger security team, Triple Canopy, and they consist of Chilean, Peruvian, and Ugandan mercenaries. They seemed austere at first, but they are beginning to recognize us. This time, one manages a smile of recognition.

So now we’re in the hotel and after a time of preparation and our daily warm up, I’m ready to teach. Today I am teaching about large classrooms. I know it is a point of complaint for our teachers, who often teach upwards of 60 students. So I decide to use the phrase, “how do you eat an elephant?” Then I have students guess to what I am referring. It works well--Iraqis are adept at metaphor--and they tell me all kinds of pertinent answers.

“You eat an elephant just like anything else: with your mouth,” says one.

“You divide it into pieces,” says another.

“It is like a language classroom, it is a big problem, but you simply must find a way.” My point exactly.

We discuss how we may be given impossible tasks, but they are ours to solve. We then proceed to look at 8 lesser “impossible” situations that stem from having a large class, and I have them look for solutions. They give fantastic answers, and I like using their knowledge so that we have a well-rounded perspective. I provide my own answers and end with a challenge to continue finding ways to make the impossible situations more bearable. They respond with ridiculous amounts of enthusiasm. They are quite easy to teach. They seem starved for it. After class, students approach me to give final thoughts or ask questions. Today three students wish to speak to me. Two students give me their final thoughts, and the last, a teacher from Kurdistan, asks if I would edit a newspaper piece he is doing about his whole experience in Baghdad. I tell him I’d be honored.

And today, especially, I’m given rather royal treatment. Several students have given me gifts: CD’s, keychains, and so forth. But today a student has given me a clock that has my face on it. I find it comical and touching. The minute hand spins around my smile and I’m reminded of the Cheshire cat.

At lunchtime, an older student named Salim (who bears a resemblance to Gandhi), has asked for me to review some tips for his daughter. She is taking the TOEFL test, and I have promised to tell him what she might expect on it.

After a brief discussion about the test, we begin to discuss Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s visit to the Al Rasheed today. Security is way up, and throughout the hotel are dozens of Iraqi soldiers in green camoflauge with red berets. They stand in colorful contrast to the drab beige of the Triple Canopy guards.

Today, I am told, is Martyr’s Day, which probably explains Allawi’s visit to the famous hotel. This is the day that Iraqis mourn because of the murder of a beloved thinker and pacifist. They begin to describe the similarities between this pacifist and Martin Luther King, Jr. They talk of the horror of his death, and that of others, all at the hands of Saddam. In one particularly graphic detail, they describe how his sister is burned in acid; her hair the only thing found of her.

They speak with anger about Saddam, and they call him crazed, deluded by his own power.
“This is a man that made one palace to eat breakfast, another for lunch, and another for dinner.” Their lifted eyebrows make clear that I don’t misinterpret their sincerity. They speak of his belief that he was the only thing good for Iraq (“for Saddam, even the air we breathe was Saddam”), but gave money to other countries so that his world popularity would increase. They speak of his similarity to Hitler, and one well-read teacher compares him to the pig in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

I am stunned by their openness, and touched by their willingness to commemorate a man who represented peace.

So I am doubly moved when, just hours later, my director conducts a reading of Martin Luther King, Jr. He invites the Iraqi teachers to sing to the tune that they hear in a short video clip.

“We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Deep in my heart, I do believe
That we shall overcome some day."

Yes, it is a little comical to imagine a group of Iraqi’s halfway around the world singing black spirituals. I get that. Boy, do I get that. But their voices sound so plaintive. I think of how much they have suffered, and how impossible a task it must appear to rebuild an entire country.
As they sing the final line (it seems to hang in the air), I think of how appropriate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words might be when applied to this group.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith…the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

It is now late at night, I’m staring at my computer screen, and I can still hear their voices singing.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A Study in Contrasts

My students are wonderful. They are a colorful cast of personalities, ranging from young Iraqi teachers (they dress like casino owners with smooth slacks and colorful shirts buttoned down to the chest) to the older women (who dress in shawls of bright colors and have twinkling eyes). One such woman asked for me to be in a picture with her. I knew that some arabic women do not wish to be photographed, but I figured since she had asked me, it would be alright. As the picture was being taken she said aloud, “If my husband sees this picture of me with you, he’ll come kill you.” My expression turned sour, the camera flashed, and she faced me and laughed. Of course, she explained, her husband would do nothing of the sort. Thus concludes my first practical joke in Iraq. I admit my heart dropped.

And there are other colorful characters. Students from the northern country who are not Arabic, but Kurdish. One received a Fulbright scholarship and we spoke in some detail about Faulkner and modern poetry. Another follows me somewhat like a puppy, and he seems so eager to learn. I liked him immediately.

And there are older teachers of Arabic descent that introduce me to their names and full titles, making it clear that they have impressive posts. One woman named Fatin is a supervisor for a hundred schools. She sat down with me at lunch and told me all the impossibilities facing English teachers. She kept asking me, “What do I do? What do I do?” She wasn’t satisfied until I told her that her situation was indeed the most impossible of situations. It seemed to me that she needed validation more than advice. When I finally commiserated with her she smiled, satisfied.

Many of the teachers want to share the meanings of their names with me.

“It means 'new moon.'”

“It means ‘secrets.'”

“It means ‘harvest.’”

I smile and express surprise each time.

One such teacher came up to me and shook my hand, and refused to let it go until he had finished speaking with me. I had just shown pictures of my family in a recent activity lauding the principles of “contextualizing language” and he appeared touched. He wanted me to know how thankful he was that I was here. I have learned quickly that an Iraqi man in earnest speaks to me from about 6 inches away. Even with my Venezuelan background, I find it a touch too close.

And the list goes on. There are 45 teachers in total, and each with wonderful personalities and remarkable storylines. Mark mentioned to me that he feels like we are on an episode of Lost, because we have a huge cast of characters with such interesting back stories. I would love to learn each one.

The students have responded very warmly to my instruction. I have been very happy to see how involved and ready they are to participate.

But this very happy, ideal moment (yes, let’s all sing Kumbaya together!) with teachers learning and enjoying learning is tinged with the fact that on this very same day, Easter Sunday, there were a reported 11 different bombings. One came close enough to the hotel for us to hear. I paused in the middle of my second class as I heard the noise. Later I learned that a woman had strapped herself to a bomb. Embassies had been targeted, but gratefully, even though this particular bomb was close, the green zone remained unharmed. Still, our debriefing back in the hotel reminded me of how dangerous and sad these Iraqi teachers’ lives are. The point was triply made when I learned that two teachers the next day would fail to return. Cousins had been killed in the heated violence of the day before.

In total, at least 35 have been killed, and over 200 injured. It was a bittersweet day.

The next day of teaching was more of the same. I was able to teach about music, drama, and games in the ESL classroom. I sang songs, juggled oranges, and laughed with students. We discussed how ESL teachers might seem crazed because of our interactive natures. We discussed how part of our job description includes that of “actor.”

Logistically, I teach three 90-minute classes, with two classes before lunch and one immediately after. The buffet at the Al Rasheed Hotel is impressive.

And in stark contrast to our conference room, is a room that used to house all kinds of disreputable presidential parties. Saddam Hussein’s cabaret, “One Thousand and One Nights,” is just down the hall from us, and reminds me of how truly despicable that man was. I don’t like to imagine what went on in that room.

And just so that it is terribly clear how contrasts play a major part in my stay in Iraq, last evening we were invited to the embassy and walked into a facility that, on the outside, has all of the markings of the international zone: t-walls, security teams, armored vehicles, camouflage. But once inside the building I felt like I could have been in the United States. The bathroom walls are tiled to the ceiling, the air filtration whirs comfortably, removing any sense of the dust I feel outside. The mess hall was filled with American chatter. Pictures of our current presidency marked the walls.

Bev Hall, our escort, showed us her office, a cubicle that reminded me of my Arizona Office Technology days. The embassy itself spans many buildings and is larger than the Vatican. You can see the amount of spending that went into the Iraq War just by looking around the complex. It impresses. The helicopters buzzing overhead do the same for me.

As we walked back to the armored van that would take us home, the sound of another bomb went off. Because we were outside, this one felt remarkably clear. We all stopped talking, and I fell into a more somber mood. I noticed that Bev seemed relatively unphased, and she joked that the sound came from her stomach. I, on the other hand, so new to this kind of experience, was very much phased indeed.

How in the world can anyone live in such a remarkable land of contrasts? I have smiled enough so that my face hurts. But in the next moment I have needed to sit down; the shattered sound of a bomb still ringing in my ears.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Three Things I Notice




I'm sure there are several of you that want an update on Iraq. Well, here I am. In Iraq. Really. It is a little surreal. It feels almost as weird as saying I'm in Wonderland or Atlantis.

Physically, Iraq is dust, cement, and date palms. Pretty much. But the people we have met are self-assured, and this has calmed me a great deal. We laughed over dinner tonight at the place we are staying at, the Edinburgh International, which for some reason I had thought was a hotel. UPDATE: DO NOT BE CONFUSED BY ITS FANCY TITLE. THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL IS NOT, IN FACT, A HOTEL. It's more a halfway house with ambitions: shared bathrooms, mismatched furniture, clunky radiators, and wall plugs that spark when we put in our electronics. But it all works together to feel sorta homey, in a "war-torn" sort of way. And there is a backyard lawn (FANCY TITLE: GARDEN AREA) where people, I've been told, hang out at a campfire and tell stories.


Anyway, we sat down at dinner tonight and had a great time. I really enjoyed chatting with the teachers from Phoenix,: Marie, Scott, and Mark as well as our U.S. escorts, Husna and Josh. Husna and I agreed that cilantro was king of all herbs, and she, in fact, joined a Facebook group devoted to lauding its praises. Josh mentioned he was interested, despite his age, to watch one of the movies we intend on showing to the teacher trainers, until he learned that High School Musical, was in fact, not Hamlet 2. Mark and I found that we both had intense interest in the final season of Lost, and we spent some time convincing the others of its cerebral nature and why it wasn't just a show about impossible cliff hangers (and besides, Richard being a 19th-century Spanish slave is so frickin cool). Dinner was so fun. It ended just a few minutes ago, and we separated with a plan to meet tomorrow morning. So I'm feeling very relaxed and even happy. There have been no incidents in this area for years and years, and you can tell by the way the security team is alert but relaxed, that we are going to be okay.


But let me backtrack a little. Iraq is mostly dust, cement, and date palms. Yes. That's what I was talking about. And that was the order of how I noticed things when we began driving from the airport and into the armored vehicle (yes, I just casually threw in the phrase armored vehicle because it sounds so, well, cool).

And it was in the armored vehicle (still cool) that I learned how some guys will forever be more manly than I am. Such a man was a Scot named Josh, the security leader who met us at the airport and proceeded to explain to us how not to get blown up. He seemed extremely credible to me, as he had lived in Baghdad off and on now for six years, and was indeed, not blown up. In fact, he had tats, and of course, a cool Scottish accent, and I think he wore khaki (or at least would look good in it). So, yeah. Josh was awesome. His counterpart, Bill, accompanied the other van, and was the size of a house.

I was ushered to put on a bulletproof vest and given a short "briefing." His accent was deliciously rich, and I enjoyed how strongly he trilled his "r" in words like "alarm" and "armored."He also used a number of acronyms I wasn't used to. IED. ECM. IZ. FOB. BIAP. This world, so new to me, was a world Josh seemed completely at ease in. His abbreviations and acronyms for everything made it hard for me to follow him, and I tried to mentally note all this new information.


EI: our hotel

IED: improvised explosive device

ECM: electronic countermeasures

IZ: international zone (used to be called the green zone)

FOB: forward operating base

BIAP: Baghdad International Airport


Josh also informed us that the Americans had renamed many of the streets, and I later learned on a map in the EI control room some unusual street names such as Screaming Lady and Warhawk. The street that took us from BIAP to IZ itself was named the Irish. Within the IZ the U.S. military had put camps (FOBS) throughout the region such as Camp Freedom and Prosperity. There were thousands of troops here. And the control room could contact the troops with the touch of a button.

I found that I still had my mind filled with the brightness of Istanbul's Istiklal street, which we visited the night before. It was a deliciously alive city, with the bright lights and colors of a major metropolis. And the movement! It seemed like the street itself, a patchwork of cobblestone, moved under us. Sitting in the armored van, I closed my eyes and could still taste the honey from the storefront bakhlava and smell the roast chestnuts.


But here the streets seemed desolate, and there was a haze of dust that seemed to hang over the streets no matter where we went. Cement dividers, which I think Josh called t-blocks, were stacked alongside each side of the street, giving our passage to the international zone a military, imperial feel. Sometimes the cement walls were 15 to 20 feet high. It must have been a massive undertaking to construct walls in this fashion. They were placed around streets, around buildings (the U.S. Embassy's walls were particularly tall), and even around what I thought looked like homes, but I later understood many of these are compounds. Sandbags lined a number of walls.


And our hotel, in reality, is one of these compounds. It does indeed feel and look more like a very large home, not totally dissimilar to my parents first mission home in Mexico City. There are two floors, at least 11 bedrooms, and a few scattered bathrooms. That isn't to say there aren't good amenities. They have had a surprisingly good buffet, secured and reliable wi-fi, and satellite TV (want to watch Friends with arabic subtitles?)


It seems to me that Baghdad, while surrounded by the rubble, cement, and dust of years of hellish fighting, shows signs of progress. Women and men walked freely in the streets. Cellphones were prevalent. I hear Arabic music being played, and it is a sort of soothing sound. Dust. Yes. Cement. Yes.


But you should see the date palms. They are beautiful.