I Have Iraq in My Shoe (23 page)

There were several occasions in class when I just wanted to give my students a big hug but could not (Cultural Awareness pamphlet #3: Personal behavior—no hugging). Once was when Saman divulged that he had spent nine years in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. Saman was short, with graying hair, probably in his fifties, and was the most mild-mannered, respectful, sweet man in the class. It was absolutely heartbreaking for me to hear him say that. It also gave me an Oprah aha! moment when I figured out that must be the reason he and Behaz disliked each other.

I also wanted to hug Kazhwast and Rozhan, two sisters, who told the class how they had walked across the mountains, with their family, from Iraq into Iran in the middle of the night when they were little, in order to escape the rebel rebellions. As usual, I had to have Wikipedia explain this to me:

The students would tell these stories in such a matter-of-fact way, and no one else seemed surprised to hear them. They were just commonplace for the Kurds. Most of my students had grown up without fathers, and nearly every student had had at least one family member killed in an automobile accident. This was something I was not surprised to hear, judging from how people drove in Kurdistan, but that didn’t make it any less tragic.

For all the hardship and difficulty these people have had to endure, they, collectively, had a fantastic sense of humor. This made teaching easy for me, since I had a challenging time being serious at all. I could not keep a straight face when we were working on the “Eating Well” unit and the students were learning phrases to describe their food likes and dislikes.

One of the phrases was “I’m not a ________ lover” (I’m not a coffee lover, I’m not a vegetable lover, etc.), and I overheard one of my male students loudly declaring, “I’m not a selfish lover” to his conversation partner. He meant “shellfish.” I cackled out loud, had tears streaming down my face, and had to apologetically say, “No, no, it’s nothing, keep practicing.”

Another time, we were studying the present perfect tense, and I asked the students to come up with their own present perfect sentences. Peshang said, “My mother
was calling
me to help her in the kitchen.” I asked, “Did you then go into the kitchen to help her?” and he said, “No.” When I asked, “Why not?” Peshang answered exasperatedly, “Because I have a sister!”

I was the only one laughing at that. The students just looked at me quizzically.

After the first week Awat stayed behind after class and asked if it would be okay if he sat and talked with me between classes. He said, “You can ask me anything! I will tell you everything! But only if is not too much bother for you.” Awat was really funny. I would often catch him snickering to himself when I was struggling to explain something to Hawkar, whose perpetual confused expression caused me to pull my hair out. Awat was also sharp and very eager to learn English. I thought this could be a golden opportunity to get the inside scoop on Kurdish men. I was comfortable enough with him, in spite of his flirty eye contact, and knew that he probably really would tell me things that I would otherwise never hear.

Adam had told me that many of his male students talked about frequenting Turkish prostitutes, and Warren claimed that most of the Kurdish men he knew were not exactly bastions of Muslim integrity. I was expecting to hear similar salacious and intriguing things from Awat. I was kind of disappointed.

Over the next few weeks Awat would stay behind, after the rest of the class had gone, and we would spend the next half hour talking. Instead of telling me about the local whorehouses, he told me a story about how he used to have this good friend, but one day the friend was on his cell phone, arranging to meet a prostitute. The friend was married, and when Awat overheard the phone conversation, he ended the friendship. He made a motion like he was dusting off his hands, which was a Kurdish way of indicating they were finished with either someone or something. He said that friend was not a good man, and he didn’t want to be friends with someone like that.

We talked more about how friends could disappoint us, and people who were untrustworthy and he said, “Teacher, we have a saying in Kurdish: Never trust a woman!”

He used “believe me!” where I would have said “seriously.” But I thought his emphatic “believe mes” were far more amusing, so I never corrected him.

He said, dismissively, “Yes, but you are different,” and then proceeded to tell me a story about another friend who had a girlfriend who then left him for a man with more money. Well, that wasn’t unique to Iraq.

He stopped and seemed surprised at the question, and I could tell he wanted to answer no. He looked thoughtful for a moment, dark eyebrows furrowed, and then said, “I see. I think…” and then he explained another saying to me, which involved using markers and the whiteboard, where he drew a picture of a candle, and then what looked like a lantern. The basic gist of that saying, or what I could gather from it, was something like “It is better to have a simple candle with a flame than a fancy, showy lantern.” “Lantern” was definitely the wrong word, but something like that. Plus the saying was Kurdish, so the exact words didn’t matter. It was kind of a sweet sentiment, but I was still troubled by the whole “never trust a woman” thing, so I continued on with that conversation.

He looked like he was considering this as a legitimate excuse, and I was just pleased to have made him try to view it from a different perspective.

There were, in fact, many women who worked in Kurdistan. When I went to Warka Bank, I would see at least six or seven women working there. For the sake of my argument, though, I was relieved that Awat didn’t know any of those women.

The Muslim culture is so slanted in favor of men that I couldn’t help but be on the side of the women. Jill, our deputy director, was living in Dubai when she met her now-husband, Morris. Jill was a forty-year-old Canadian, and Morris was a slightly older Brit. The mandates for the United Arab Emirates stated that if Jill and Morris wanted to get married in Dubai, Jill would have had to get permission from her father. I vacillated back and forth between hysterical laughter and despairing sobs with that one.

The following week I was having the students silently read through and then complete an in-class assignment. As my eyes traveled around the room, gauging who was finished with the assignment and who needed more time, I caught Awat staring at me. His steady gaze was unsettling and a sly smile played around his lips. I quickly looked to the next student, then back at the papers on my desk. This was happening more and more frequently. I would be explaining something to the class, and as I searched their eyes for comprehension and understanding, when my eyes met Awat’s, I saw something slightly more amorous than comprehension and understanding. I was alternately flattered and annoyed by it. Who did this kid think he was?
I’m tryin’ to teach here, quit giving me the sexy eyes!

During our post-class chat, I asked Awat how many girlfriends he had, because I was still confident in my original assessment of him:
playah
. With a laugh he admitted, “Three!” and told me how he had three different SIM cards for his cell phone, to keep the girlfriends separate. I found this to be mildly entertaining, although, being female, I was still offended on behalf of girlfriends everywhere.

He said, “Yes, three girlfriends…” and here he looked me over, slowly, from head to toe, then continued, “but none of them are sexy.” I missed about half a second before quickly recovering and (pretending I hadn’t noticed the once-over) asked, “Why are you with them, if you don’t think they’re sexy?”

He thought for a second and said, “For…” then seemed to be searching for the right word. I cautiously finished his sentence for him: “Practice?” He said, “Yes!” then paused, looked worried and quickly added, “But not in the bed!” That had been precisely what I was thinking, but I wasn’t prepared for him to just come out and say it. Yikes! He really would tell me anything.

This admission led to Awat telling me that he would only kiss a girl after he had married her. This surprised me. It was how Muslims were supposed to behave, but from all the other stories I had heard, it was not typical of men in Kurdistan.

He continued, “One girlfriend, I very love her. She do anything for me. I tell her my favorite color is red, she wear red clothing. One night, very late, she call me. She say, ‘Can you get car for tomorrow?’ She want to drive up to Korak Mountain. I know she want to go there to do bad things, so I tell her no.”

So, they just talked on the phone, the relationships weren’t physical, and none of the three girlfriends were sexy.

The following week, Awat told me he ended things with all three girlfriends. Ruh? He explained that he did a “test” over the weekend. He bought a new SIM card for his cell phone and called each girlfriend, pretending to be a friend of his. (He said he covered the phone with a T-shirt to disguise his voice.) He claimed to be Awat’s friend who was “richer than Awat,” and then asked each girl if they would leave Awat and be his girlfriend instead. They all said, “Yes.” Oh my God. What? WHAT?! I didn’t know why I was so shocked and surprised by everything, but really? All three of them? That was profoundly discouraging, and not only because these girls were so gullible, but also because it completely confirmed Awat’s saying “never trust a woman.” Believe me!

How did not one of them recognize Awat’s voice? I really couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe that a small part of me was thinking, “Sooooo, you’re saying you’re single now?”