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.