White Baboon

Not Baghdad, Iraq. Northern Iraq. Kurdish Iraq. Kurdistan, if you will. And we found plenty of research, testimonials and even an English-teaching couchsurfer by the name of Josh Overcast before we made our decision to be tourist pioneers. Oh the places we’re willing to go.

On our second night in Iraq, we danced to Madonna’s Vogue at a party thrown by an English teacher. There was a lot of wine, Betty Crocker brownies and bugles to eat as everyone told their stories. Brits, Australians, Canadians and Americans, a Turk, and even a few Kurdish showed up. Some had studied Middle Eastern culture and history for years. Others were just adding Iraq to the list of past teaching assignments in Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Croatia. Most were on a two-year contract and found strange comfort in the gossipy, but gurgling insta-family which expat communities so often provide. It didn’t matter that they never would have been friends at home. Whatever differences, no matter how obvious, were overshadowed by one thing in common: they had all freely chosen to come to Iraq and they were all tired of being here.

Our first day out in Kurdistan felt a little like Africa. Out of the secure, suburban but heavily-guarded ghost-town of a complex and into the real town center. Unlike Damascas or Amman, the streets were wider, catering to fast cars. But Erbil was much more rundown with a thick layer of grime and a general disinterest in itself. A 10,000-year old citadel still inhabited by one family sat like a dusty, lazy lion who had long since fallen into a deep sleep in the center of his kingdom. In the souk, blenders with pomegranate purple and guava garnet inside sat on white counters ready to pour. Most fast food “restaurants” didn’t have napkins or bathrooms, just a hanging cow carcass, a slippery floor of fallen food and a sink for washing your hands. Roads with deep grooves, like a permanently fired, vertical pieces of pottery led the way. As in every country we’d visited, the black market was ever-present with rechargeable, (but useless as we discovered) Sony batteries, mobile phones and flash drives. But here, despite a public space full of striped umbrellas, metal benches and fountains, infrastructure was a bit weaker. Electricity was sparse, international ATMs were non-existent and gas stations were no more than a man with a pyramid of petroleum-filled plastic gallon containers at his side.

The faces of confusion and awe were what reminded us of Madagascar. It was apparent that even the IT professionals, teachers and contractors living here didn’t often venture into the souk because the Kurds just didn’t know what to do with us. They stared, suspicious and shy, but not threatening. One man in traditional garb took our photo twice as we drank tea at his outdoor stools and learned a little Kurdish.

But even once we knew the basics, getting a price was never easy. Whether you wanted a falafel-stuffed pita, a haircut or a taxi ride, your first inquiry was waved away as if to say: “well discuss it later”. Then, when it was time to ante up, they hushed up, waiting for you to over or under-pay them.

We ventured into an tangerine-trimmed barber shop where the men all wore avocado-colored chemises. Michael was saddled up within seconds. The cut took less than 10 minutes and before long I was having my eyebrows and mustache (I didn’t even know I had one) tweezed through the string-squeezing method. As I gasped for air and tears slipped out of my eyes, the entire shop laughed and snickered at my pain and Michael told me to be tough. My eyebrows look fabulous but it was sufficiently traumatic.

Again and again, we hear about the safety of Erbil. Stuff doesn’t happen here. The only violence occurs in the form of illegal honor killings, Kurdistan was yet another ethnic group without a homeland—over 30 million people worldwide (20% of the population in Turkey, 15-20% in Iraq) Between the near-decade-long Iraq-Iran war in the 80s and the devastating 1988 incident in Haljaba when Saddam killed off five thousand Kurds with a single drop of mustard gas, the Kurds are not only without a homeland but were often without protection from Iraq’s ruler. But when the US established the no-fly zone in 1991 following the Gulf War and the Oil-For-Food Program distribution was revamped by the UN in 1996, Kurdish life has been steadily progressing forward. Now their flag, a 21-ray sun, symbolizing their Nawrooz holiday on the 21st of March and the white (peace) red (blood) and green (nature) stripes is flown freely. There are still honor killings, where women aged 10 and up are executed by a male relative for having inappropriate relations with the opposite sex. Their crimes range from having a strange boy’s mobile number to being caught in a clandestine meeting with him. Honor Killings are illegal, but police don’t always intervene or prosecute.

Our timing wasn’t perfect, however. AlthoughTurkish-PKK conflict had been relatively quiet for months, the day we arrived, Turkish troops began a fresh incursion into Northern Iraq in an effort to undermine the PKK, “a militant Kurdish organization with the objective to create an independent Kurdish state” to some, and a “terrorist organization” to others. What was worse, the incursion was prompted by a “green light” from the United States.

When we were in Turkey back in November, the U.S., a long-time ally, wasn’t doing enough to help Turkey fight the PKK, whose goal, if achieved, would create a separate Kurdish state. But now that we were in Kurdistan, a homeland-less group which the U.S. has supported and protected for nearly two decades, the U.S. government had decided to put their foot down in defense of Turkey. In other words, we were in the wrong country. Again.

Yet. It didn’t seem to matter. Separation of individual and government, as usual, was clear. Kurdish students welcomed us at the University. We attended a political science class and gave talks to classes about Peace Corps and Bulgaria. We checked books out of the library, used the computer lab and attended a protest against Turkish forces organized by the Student Union.

Just like Syria and Lebanon, Iraq had skidded from dangerous and exotic to reasonably safe a so-not-a-big-deal in a matter of days. The difference was that this was I-R-A-Q. The difference was that Lonely Planet had not only called it “the most dangerous place on earth” in it’s 2006 edition., but had printed this message under the Solo Travelers subheading:

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.