Tihar is over, Thank God, literally. But the home minister of Nepal does not cease to amaze and amuse. A few weeks ago, he decided that cyber cafes were the devil, since one could access bad websites, and I am not even speaking about porn. But websites about Bollywood, websites about political points of view from other nations, and websites about music, so cyber cafes were forced to shut down, or only operate limited hours with heavy filters. Well, then the people revolted and there was a few strikes. So, the home minister recalled that law.

Then, the next issue to combat was bars and dance halls, since those are also apparently derived from the devil. All bars and restaurants were forced to shut down at 11 o’clock. This again, was short lived as the people revolted and there were even more strikes. This time, the people who worked at the dance bars and restaurants burned a few cars for good measure. That drove the message home. So the new law was revoked by the home minister when he finally realized that he was affecting an entire population of the economy, not to mention the only with-out strings cash cow there is in Nepal- tourism.

One would think that there would be some sort of checks and balances with this fellow. I don’t know, maybe a vote from the parliament whose sole purpose for being is to represent their constituents, but nope. No vote. No discussion. No debate. Just one strange man, with even stranger ideas, and apparently a whole heck of a lot of power.

One would think he would tire of people taking to the streets and burning cars, but, the wise old sage of a home minister struck again. This time, he thought he had a really excellent plan! Why not turn the idyllic resort town of Pokhara, (which situated on the base of the amazing Annapurna range of the Himalaya’s, and the starting point for many treks) into a red light free sex zone! Yes! That will solve the nations problems and make everyone happy!

Nope. Not quite. The people got mad again, and rightfully so. This is a very chase society, where even kissing scenes are edited from movies played at the Cinemas. Women wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts are terribly taboo, so how could this fellow possibly, in his wildest dreams think that this was an ok proposal?

This week, he came up with two new plans that will be sure to incite riots of monumental proportions. First one, AWAY WITH THE STREET VENORS! Those villainous scabs, attempting to make a living selling their wares, clothing and food stuffs on street corners need to be done away with! Who will feed their families now that their meager earnings will be diminished? PASSSHHH?!?!? Who cares?!?!!? The streets need to be cleansed of their presence, never mind the trash, the street kids sniffing glue, the homeless begging on the sidewalks with their malnourished babies clinging to them in clouds of exhaust from the cars passing by. The street vendors are, apparently, the real problem.

Next, he is doing away with alcohol sales, except at designated sites. Want to make someone in South Asia angry? Take away their alcohol. This is not because this area is filled with alcoholics, although there certainly are, but this is because there is an entire culture based around alcohol. It is used in everything from business lunches to religious holidays. People make and consume something called “chang” and “raksi”, which is a home brew, and offer it with pride to any guest who enters their home. And home minister brilliant is also proposing to criminalize “raksi” and “chang”.  This is going to make little grandmas hardened criminals in one blow! I get the feeling more than cars are going to burn when this law takes effect on the 16^th of November. I will get off my soap box now, open a beer while I still can, and wish all of you a Happy Halloween!

So last Friday was an interesting day. All hell broke loose. I received a phone call from the police at around 3pm demanding I come in and answer charges that I had committed robbery. Robbery. Really? In Nepal? Hmmm…so to say the least, I was intrigued. How? What? When? Who? Where? Me? Really?

I then did what any logical human being would do and called my well connected lawyer, Ram, who was as dumbfounded by the charges and accusations as I was.

It seems the restaurant owner that I had previously bribed was saying I owed her more money. Apparently, her new business was lacking funds, so why not extort the foreigner? She was saying I owed her an additional $2000 US dollars. How she came to this arbitrary number, I have no idea. Thank god, I had all written agreements, contracts and fingerprints in my possession. True factual evidence that I was in the right…right? Well, not so much, as this is Nepal, and truly the end of the rainbow for strangeness, as I have stated in previous blogs.

Needless to say, I was seriously nervous. Why would Santi, demon restaurant owner, say that I owed HER more money when I had to bribe HER in the first place, and then have the guts, the gall- if you will- to take it to the police!??!!

Now, like most foreigners, I am quite happy to NEVER encounter the police, with the exception of those I can regard as friends. I mean, I am in another country, on a totally new playing ground with no idea what to expect. Sure, I had legal documents, signed and registered with the courts, approved by a notary, but here, who knows what could happen…For all I know, I could be thrown in jail for previously bribing the woman who was attempting at present to extort me!

Ram assured me that all would be ok. I took my roommate, Nancy, for moral support. So the motley crew of us arrived at the police station to find Santi giving a detailed sob story of how she needed more money, but I only gave her a little money and now she was in trouble. Well, initially I thought “no brainer, the cops will see right through this act and tell her to get out…”

Then I remembered where I was.

In what I can only describe as a mini-court procedure, the police actually took this quite seriously, as apparently they take all accusations quite seriously. My mind was flashing back to a year previous, when I walked into a police station to point out in a line up who stole my cell phone…Their form of interrogation was quite unlike anything I had ever seen. Let’s just say it involved bamboo poles, a lot of screaming and a bit of blood. I just hoped those bamboo sticks were in the closet and would not make an appearance…

Of course, they didn’t. The police were actually quite nice to me, and quite helpful.  For one, Sub-Inspector KC, was listening intently, and when the argument got quite heated, he apologized profusely for me having to go through this.

I think the big cyst on my forehead was a dead giveaway as to my level of stress, plus the fact I had a lawyer and a friend there with me, one, I wasn’t playing around and two, I wasn’t taking chances…

The police agreed that they would look over the evidence and give us their decision on Sunday, as Sunday is a working day here. I left with Nancy, wondering how in the world could this go any way but in my favor? The house owner, or landlord as we would call him in the US of the premises, would not get involved. In fact, I spent a lot of time thinking about him, his hands off approach and his ”I don’t care who is in my building, just pay me…”attitude.

Nancy and I went over every possible scenario, I went over all the papers that had been drafted and over all beat myself up wondering if there was anything I had missed. I guess I must have forgotten the no more extortion clause in the contract, but who would have thought to add that? I figured the statement that the “transaction is final” covered it. That is what I get for thinking like a logical person here.

Sunday morning, I awoke to quiet streets. Oddly quiet streets. I was to go to the police station at 2pm, so I didn’t think much of the quiet at 7, when I woke up. Around 9:30, I got a call from Sub-Inspector KC, saying that a general strike had been called due to the Finance Ministers new budget for the next fiscal year, not only was the meeting postponed until Monday, but it was not safe to go outside in a car, period. Two of them had already been burned.

A little side note, there are strikes called for various reasons in Nepal, and they shut everything down. It is pretty much like a festival day, but instead of mobs singing songs and walking in a nice procession, there are mobs walking around destroying all public and government property in sight. The police walk around in full riot gear, not doing much, but attempting to control the masses, so things don’t get too ugly. It is one thing to vandalize a park, another to harm a person. I personally like the police here, they have always seemed to do a pretty good job despite their small resources. One must be dedicated to order if they only make about $80 a month.

So, now it is Tuesday and my head is spinning with what to do. I went to the meeting yesterday, and it was in my favor, I think. They took the original $3000 dollars I had given Santi from her bank account (they can do that here! With out warrant or a document from the court) gave it back to me, and pretty much told Santi to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. They then told me I was to give the property back to Santi, and she could make a restaurant there again, since she couldn’t seem to afford the other property. They shamed her for trying to take advantage of me, and attempting to scare me by taking me to the police, and applauded me for not being afraid, but handling myself “like a man.” Strange praise, but, I guess here, it is good praise. They also warned me that they were worried if I stayed at that restaurant, and had any connection to Santi, she would attempt to do this in the future if she ever needed money again. Good logic as a reaction to bizarre logic on the part of Santi.

I now have a freezer and chairs and tables in my entrance way to my home, I have a deep fryer in my living room and a bbq grill in my terrace. All I have really lost is $280 including the new tile in the kitchen of the restaurant that Santi can claim as her own. And time, three and a half weeks of cleaning and painting, but ever the optimist, I guess I have learned a lot. I just wonder, how many lessons do I need to learn? EVIL SANTI.

I don’t know what to do. My boyfriend and best friend have said pick up the pieces, I have all the ground work done, (including my new license to operate a restaurant legally, and it is written in Nepali with a bunch of stamps and cool writing), find another space and move forward!!!

I feel like I just want to stay in bed and give up. Or better yet, give up and fly home. I haven’t even called my family for the past few days, because I know if I would hear any of their voices, I would just want to say “to hell with it” and come home.

But I don’t give up. Or I don’t like to give up. So, I guess I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. I came here to start a restaurant, I have done everything the right way, and I have tourists who are waiting for me to open!!!  I have the recipes, I have the grill, I have the fryer, I have friends looking for an EMPTY SPACE, not one with another restaurant owner looking to make a quick buck off of a dumb foreigner, I have the determination and finally, the focus. To be honest, I was missing the correct amount of focus for awhile. All I need is the space.

I guess though, after reading through all of this, it makes sense. There is never a start up business that does not encounter some problems in its induction. It was all running too smoothly for me. I had to encounter some problems. In the US, though, it is usually about a building that does not meet code, or some other legal hang up as such. Here, I guess it is corruption that one meets. And maybe this space was just not meant to be. It was ugly, after all, but I kept telling myself it was just a starting point. And everyone must start somewhere. I was proud of my 7 tables.

Overall though, my biggest fear in life is failure and disappointing my parents. Odd for a 30 year old to say, I realize this. But it is true. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, especially my dad, who have always done well in the face of adversity. When the cards are down, I just need to employ his lessons, his logic, and most of all his perseverance. I am my parents daughter, afterall.

When my parents arrived at our Peace Corps apartment in Bulgaria last spring, I warned them about the door. Covered in a somewhat convincing wood-grain peel with a massive gold knob, it had no less than six bolts–four in the middle, one in the ceiling and one which shot into the floor. Seeing this door causes two potential reactions: 1) Wow, Sofia must be a dangerous city or 2) Wow, someone’s paranoid.

But it’s tough to say if the reason we never had a theft was because Sofia doesn’t have a lot of crime or because we had a very secure door.

Kurdistan was crawling with security. Perhaps that’s why it was so safe.

***********************************

It was dark, but the stars and the moon across the twelve to fifteen white, armored Suburbans we passed allowed me to read the logo and tagline across their doors. On the left, a skull and crossbones in black. On the right, this cryptic tagline: “Saves Lives. Builds Futures.”

We walked, six of us abreast, our passports tucked away in the pocket of some guard’s fatigues after a signing in at the high security entrance. Me, Michael, an American-Turkish political science professor, a Anglo-Australian wandering traveler and some British guy named Neil. It was 10:00 but it felt much later. We’d been at the University of Kurdistan’s International Women’s Day Celebration this afternoon, a disorganized, but A-for-effort debacle of dance, drama, purple ribbons, visiting dignitaries, detailed Power Point slides and disrespectful audience participation. We’d then taxied to a happy hour at Café de Paris, where we’d been drinking until now. After a particularly long line at the checkpoint, our taxi had just had a minor scuffle with a drunk driver.

Now we were headed to Andy’s house inside what our friends call “New City” or “The Compound” a place which houses contractors who had jobs with Blackwater, DinaCorps USAID, UN and other acronyms. People there to support Western influence, whatever that might be.

Andy was Scottish. He was the kind of guy who understood the importance of candles at a party, wore a blazer with ease and kept his bathroom clean. Even after Michael’s bottle of MGD somehow cracked his sink basin, he still let us try on his bulletproof vest and hold his Glock while we took photos of each other looking mean.

He even kissed our feet when we told him we were tourists.

Andy was a PSD. Private Security Detail. One of many beefy, goatee-sporting, beer-bottle-holding men who were paid obscene amounts of money plus benefits, accommodation and flights back home so they would work in Iraq and protect others. Some were drivers, guards, secret service. Others helped de-mine fields.

In Andy’s backyard was the Edge, the only bar in the compound, a twenty by twenty hole with forty men and four women which blasted Shakira and Fity Cent. He ’d even built a ladder which escorted friends across his back wall and into the bar and pool next door. We talked to a lot of people who went to Baghdad once a month in armored vehicles but were not allowed to get groceries outside the compound gates in Erbil, Kurdistan. When we expressed surprise, they said without disdain: Well, you just never know.

But we did know. We’d researched Kurdish Iraq. We’d read websites and blogs. We watched then news as often as the devout Muslims prayed. We’d been hanging out with University teachers, contractors who had lived here for up to two years with no armed guards and no issues besides unreliable electricity.

But maybe when all you see in your community are guns, tanks, armored cars and security forces, maybe you start to fear the outside world. Without this fear, job justification might be weaker. You might feel guilty about the danger pay deposited into your bank account every month. You might find it difficult to stay trapped here another day if it didn’t all make some kind of sense.

What do you think?

Until yesterday, airports, despite their stress, had always given me a rush. I’ve always loved walking confidently through any terminal with some trendy new handbag across my chest. O’Hare with its Accenture ads, neon-mod walkway, Mrs. Fields cookies and convenient gates. DIA with its Native American art, view of the plains, ridiculous tram and turquoise for sale. JFK with its dodgy Union Station bar, sunglassed heads and no-nonsense staff. Paris with its silly airbus system, original metrosexuals and hottie flight attendants. For years, airports were the beginning of something good. Sure, they were also fraught with stress and schedules, but I kinda live for that shit. And running through an airport makes for a very good story.

I swallowed my first spoonful of reverse culture shock yesterday at Queen Alia Airport in Amman. Our destination: Erbil, Iraq or Kurdistan. This had been a big decision for us—we’d labored over it for weeks. But not because it was Iraq. We’d researched Erbil extensively, found a couchsurfer, received two friend-of-a-friend testimonials and read blogs and even tourism articles. We knew we wanted to go. We knew it was safe to go. The problem was the money. This one transaction would be more than we’d spent in our first six weeks of traveling. But with complicated visa issues coming in and out of Syria and the PKK at the Turkish border, this was the only way.

We were going.

Wearing our most presentable attire and switching my backpack to rolling mode, we arrived precisely at 10:00 for our noon flight. With little signage, all we could do was follow the crowd and look for our airline’s logo. At some unidentified time, some unidentified person gave an unidentified signal, which prompted the waiting area of Arab businessmen and Muslim vacationers headed for Dubai to jam their way toward a small security passageway. This happened just as Michael returned with a sandwich and a latte.

Note: typical airport stress.

But because we’d been taking cheap buses and trains for the past three months, because we’d rarely maintained a schedule that wasn’t 100% flexible and because we’d learned that hurrying takes all the fun out of traveling, we weren’t used to fighting for a place in line.

The difference today was four-figure prices. Suddenly, a schedule mishap was NOT an option.

Note: switch to present tense to increase panic level.

Michael expertly slides the sandwich plate into the top of his backpack and hands me the coffee while putting everything on his back. We attack the line from both sides in pitiful coordination and end up together just in time. After a quick passport inspection, a man who would within minutes make everything more complicated than it needs to be because he was in search of a tip, grabs my bag and leads me toward a conveyer belt, nodding and yelling CHECK! just a little too loudly again and again.

Suddenly unable to think for ourselves, we think: check? But no! We don’t want to check our carryon bags. He motions me one way and Michael another. But no! We’re together! But then we realize that DUH we are not checking our luggage yet. And that DUH, we are in the Middle East and there are gender-separated lines. Though I’ve blogged about it before, I am struck once again at how being treated like a child turns you INTO a child. This time the result being a man in a blue suit who now wants a tip.

Then there is that horrible confusion about which one of us has the tickets and which one of us has the passports and I am left wondering how I have been reduced to someone who MUST have her coffee and therefore carries it through airport security.

But then I am pushed toward the “Ladies Inspection Area” and there is no line and the buzzer keeps sounding and the woman behind the curtain keeps saying BACK! BACK! but never indicates when to come forward and I finally get there and I think she’s trying to tell me to take the lid off my coffee but I’m not really sure I don’t want to because OBVIOUSLY that’s where my bomb is hidden but when start to she indicates for me to put the COFFEE through the conveyor belt and I’m like: WHAT? But that’s what I do. And then I cut back in line, playing hardball with the rest of them and I am finally frisked by this same women who gets ruder by the second and I come out to find my purse and a man yells “Who is this coffee?” And I’m all defensive and say: “But she told me to put it there!” pointing in no uncertain terms at the women hiding in her curtained box and then some man hands it to me across the machine and I look over and watch Michael being interrogated by a man at a small brown desk with not enough to do, who I will soon find out is confiscating his rechargeable camera batteries because basically, he has to confiscate SOMETHING.

So, for the record, I am now incredibly annoyed with three people who are all basically just doing their job the best they can. I can feel the tightening of my skin as entitlement (I paid big money for this flight! Don’t treat me like shit!) and arrogance (Can you BELIEVE how disorganized this country is? And why can’t they speak a LITTLE more English?) pop my skin into the loofah-crying scales of a reptilian monster.

From here, things only get worse. We are due to depart in 40 minutes. Another wait, an immigration window, and another round of frisking later, we are somehow in the holding area for a flight to Milan. Which does explain the barrage of middle-aged German women with big pocketbooks and Frommer’s Guides, but does not help our current cause. It turns out our flight is not boarding yet. What can we do but believe someone and have a seat? I dive into Sudoku, Michael goes into his meditation mode and we attempt to change our energy before the next panic attack hits roughly twenty minutes later.

Note: Back to past tense.

In the end, we departed two hours late because of a delay in Baghdad. The flight was uneventful and I even got a shot of Michael in front of the Iraqi Airways-plastered plane before the flight attendant told me to “kindly put away my camera.”

But we felt we’d been slapped in the face by familiar patterns of the past. What hassle! What stress! If only we could have taken a bus!

Was money behind this negative energy? Could it be that lavish expenditures turn me into an instant asshole? It made some sense. The original paradigm is about possessions. When you have an expensive camera, you have to worry about losing that expensive camera, about someone stealing that expensive camera, about damaging that expensive camera. And it’s worth asking: Is the expensive camera’s benefits worth the stressful experience of keeping track of it? About the witch I become while I worry?

Our airline tickets represented the same quandary. Had they been worth it?

Yes. While jewelry, excessive gadgetry or $100 sunglasses are not, the flight was. The trick is to simply internalize frustration and panic, maintaining pleasant expressions, measured movements and soft-spoken, head-tilting reactions while the world goes to pieces in front of you.

Yes. Well. Of course. Next time I’ll know. But damn that G.I. Joe. It sure doesn’t feel like half the battle.

We rode down to Tyre a few weeks ago along the Mediterranean to South Lebanon, the hotbed of Israeli conflict. Rob, Inma’s Director, was driving. The landrover was full of an unofficial religious delegation. One of these, an American–let’s call him Ray–rode in the passenger seat. He was speaking to Samir Inma’s founder, who sat in the back.

The topic was the upcoming Prayer Breakfast, a Congressional event held every February, where thousands of VIPs, including Bono and the current president, gather to speak with God in a non-denominational setting and without the presence of the press. While in D.C., Samir would be giving a lecture, his reputation as a diplomatic bridge-builder and international businessman preceding him. He and other special guests affiliated with Inma Foundation would be stay together at a special residence. This would all happen in a couple weeks.

As the six of us listened, Ray gave Samir a complete play-by-play of the Prayer Breakfast’s schedule of events, including where he thought they might lunch, at what time they would coffee break and who he was hoping to speak with.

At this point, Michael and I met eyes. There was nothing wrong with this scene. Nothing offensive. Nothing rude. But all we could think about was this: Those Americans, they sure do like to plan. Then they like to talk about the plan.