I Have Iraq in My Shoe (25 page)

Much to my surprise I was having a great time living in Suli. I had the privacy I desperately craved in the way-off-campus villas, loved my students, had adjusted to the new schedule, and was really enjoying the social life with the other teachers. We drank together, had game night with board games together, had Saturday brunches (sometimes with smuggled bacon) together, and commiserated together. There was much to commiserate about during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

According to Wikipedia:

There was a virtual meltdown at the villas when people discovered there was no alcohol being sold anywhere. “Oh my God! We should have stocked up!” Ellen practically screamed, brandishing a nearly empty bottle of vodka. I was more concerned with where I was going to eat during the day. No restaurants were open before sundown, including my favorite falafel cart, which was two blocks from the university and had been my main source of lunch since I moved down to Suli.

Classes had to be moved up by two hours, so that students could all get home in time to break the fast and eat dinner. It also meant that they would be dehydrated and hungry during class. The instructors all had to be sensitive to this, and therefore could not eat or drink in front of the students.

I could not make it through a two-and-a-half-hour class without having water (“I’ve seen her dehydrate, sir. It’s pretty gross.”), so when the students would leave for the fifteen-minute break, I would duck my head under my desk and drink from my water bottle. There were a few days when Awat and Peshang would stay in the classroom, so I had to ask, “Do you mind if I drink some water?” They were overly gracious and would gush, “No problem! No problem!”

Awat later said to me that he had told his mother all about me and how I would ask permission to drink water. Awat’s mother had said, “She is very polite. She is better than some of the Muslims at the market.” Apparently, there were quite a few Muslims who didn’t take Ramadan very seriously and would openly eat and drink during daylight hours, which was beyond offensive to the Muslims who were observing the fast. I was just pleased his mother approved of me.

I was in with the mom.

Teaching in Suli was giving me an entirely new perspective, not to mention a window into the hypocrisy of the culture. The Cultural Awareness pamphlet had explained that there was no homosexuality in Islam and that it was a “cultural” thing to see men holding hands with other men. Except many of the men I saw holding hands with other men appeared to be gay. My gaydar is pretty strong, and there’s a marked difference between holding hands and lovingly caressing hands, or lower backs, or thighs. I was kind of glad the gay men had managed to create a loophole that rendered their behavior acceptable, but there didn’t seem to be any loopholes for the women.

One afternoon I was browsing the beauty aisle of a random, run-down store, and came across something called Virginity Soap. There was only one bar (virginity was in high demand in these Muslim countries), and I grabbed it and shrieked with glee, at the same time thinking, “Ucchhh, this is pretty bad.”

An apple-cheeked, pubescent blond smiled at me from the front of the package, which was written both in English and Arabic. Additional print indicated it was “Made in Thailand” and “Manufactured and Distributed by Young & Sweet Skin Care—Paris, France.” This was a wildly diverse, multicultural bar of soap if ever I had seen one. “Touch Me! Please” was etched in gold print above the words “Virginity Soap.” Also on the front of the box were the phrases “With Rose Extracts,” which was nice, “NEW,” which was also good, and “Skin Whitening,” which was deeply troubling. I know that many Asian countries were very big on skin-whitening beauty products, but most of those were to be used on the face. These were the directions on the side of the box: “Wash it over your sensitive area. Rinse well. Please apply gently everyday.” (This was before I had heard that anal bleaching was sweeping the nation back home. Possibly just the porn nation, but the fact that I was even aware of it made my stomach churn a little.)

The instructions on the back of the Virginity Soap box:

Spell-check didn’t even know where to start with that.

There was Virginity Soap for women, but no comparable product necessary for men. Ellen, Jen, and I would have furtive and somewhat reluctant conversations, where we admitted that we were starting to feel a little racist.
Virginity Soap is bullshit! What is
wrong
with these people?
We had also discovered that many of the restaurants in the Kurdistan region of Iraq had designated men-only sections. Women, with their loose varginal muscles and screaming children, could eat in the other section.

I was particularly disenchanted with what Shaima, one of my students, told me. Shaima was extremely bright and eager to learn English to become a journalist/translator. Despite that she was an extremely intelligent and capable human being, she couldn’t go out to buy a birthday gift for her husband. She and her husband had just moved to town and didn’t know anyone. Since she was a woman, it was not suitable for her to venture out on her own, even to run a simple errand, and she didn’t want to have to go with her husband because it would have ruined the surprise. Lame culture, ruining fun birthdays!

The regional rules, however unwritten, were proving to be the metaphorical restrictive ankle straps for the Iraqi women, invisibly tethering them to the confines of their homes.

Travel to other cultures is supposed to expand our minds and tolerance. Living in other cultures doesn’t have quite the same effect. Sometimes, becoming culturally aware means learning unpleasant things about said culture. It’s not all folk dancing and beautiful, handmade textiles.

We were halfway through the course when my students asked if I would be teaching them again next term. I explained, apologetically, that I would be going back up to Erbil to teach there. (Part of me was wistful at leaving my new Suli friends, the students, and Awat. The other part of me was all, “Hooray! Progressive Dinners! My microwave!”)

I was extremely flattered when my students all seemed upset by this news. Avin said to me, “I told my family all about you, how you are such a good teacher, and so beautiful, and I want to be just like you.” The ugly teenager inside my brain cried, “Beautiful? Really? You think I’m beautiful?” The moderately less vain grown-up inside my head smacked the ugly teenager and yelled, “There is a more important message here!”

Avin was twenty-one years old and close to graduating university with a degree in psychology. Her English was very good, and she spoke with an awesome level of confidence in class. In the first week, we had been discussing the local culture and how it was not acceptable for women to be out and about after the sun set. Men could run around freely and have dinner with their friends or just hang out on the street. Unless they were accompanied by a male family member, women could not. They were assumed to be whores.

I asked the class what they thought of that unwritten rule. Not surprisingly, the women didn’t like it, and Avin went so far as to cross her arms and shake her head violently and say, “I HATE it! I HATE THAT RULE!” She was as emphatic with her hatred for the cultural restriction as Awat was with his hatred of Iraq’s soccer team. The men in class were mostly in their early twenties and said they didn’t like the rule, but they also really didn’t seem particularly concerned with it. Like “Well, whatever, I really just wish I were playing video games right now.”

There were plenty of people in Iraq who would claim that the women were perfectly happy and content to stay at home. “They prefer it!” And I was sure there
were
some women who had no desire to go out in public, regardless of the time of day. But there were also plenty of girls and women like Avin.

For the first time it dawned on me that some of the female students might view me as a role model. Wow. I was like a grown-up, less-annoying version of Hannah Montana.

Must remember to use newfound power only for good and not for selling records and mediocre, bubblegum-poppy feature films.

Awat brought the subject up of my leaving when we were having our after-class chat. He said, “I will miss you … if only—you know ‘if only’—it mean ‘wish’? There is song by West Life…” And then he began reciting the lyrics to some song by some British band called West Life:

Oh my God. I was completely agape, and said, “Wow, that’s, um, romantic.” Even though I was secretly entertaining a crush on him, I had to remain outwardly professional. He was still my student.

I wasn’t even sure if he realized what he was saying or how it sounded to me. I quickly changed the subject and avoided eye contact. I noticed that he was wearing a new watch, a nice leather-banded, large-faced watch, and I complimented him on it. I asked if I could try it on, and once it was on my wrist he said, “You keep it!” I exclaimed, “Noooooooo, no no no.” He asked, “Why?! I want you have it. I like it for you.” I pointed out that I already had a watch, and I really liked his watch on
him
.

What was happening?