It’s a Small World

Wow! It had been a long time since we had gone to a completely new country, and I am on serious sensory overload. It doesn’t help that the last few nights have been extremely short. Anyway, I’ll try to give you a small picture of Iraq as we’ve seen it.

It took forever and a day to get our visa’s. Everyone had long left the airport and the few of us visitor’s waited and waited. But that’s all it took, no bribes or nastiness. The driver we arranged with on Showaround was waiting about 10km from the airport, and we had to take a taxi to meet him. The taxi service was quite amazing, all dressed to the nines with suits and gold braid and hats. Our driver was super friendly and wanted to know exactly when we would be returning so he could meet us at the airport with some local cake to take home.

It was 3am by the time we reached our hotel and there were no towels, no toilet paper, and the beds were possibly not clean. We were too tired to care. Our driver/guide Qutaiba is very expressive and does copious hand flapping as he talks. He’s also a typical Arab, very agreeable but also won’t budge. We tried like everything to get him to let us sleep in a little but he was sorry to say that would maybe be impossible. We finally buckled and that’s when he said it would be his brother picking us up in the morning cause he was too tired and would need some more sleep. Okay!

Our room phone started jangling at 7:30 and it was a random person saying “Richard, Richard”. Not knowing if it was Qutaiba needing something, Heath went down to find out. Of course it was no one, but he decided to go to an ATM and look around a bit. Our hotel is located in a fairly high security area because it’s close to one of the main mosques in Baghdad. I can’t go very far down the street before I have to wear a headscarf.

We walked across the street to the supermarket to grab some breakfast, and then took off with brother. I can’t remember his name right now. Destination: Iraq Museum. Traffic didn’t seem too crazy, but that’s relative as we just came from Kampala. The museum is ok, but not just super. The stuff wasn’t taken care of very well in my opinion, but we got to see a nice sampling of gods and seals and pottery. Quite a lot from Ur, during the time of Abraham, as well as stuff from Nineveh and Babylon.

Our guide woke up in time to take over at 12 and we headed to Old City Baghdad. I knew it would be war torn, but I didn’t imagine just how riddled with bullet holes it all would be. The buildings look terrible and have crumbled sections all over from bombs. We spent some time flying around the market at a brisk pace. It’s loud, hectic and friendly. Nobody annoyed or bothered us except the vehicles when we wanted to walk down the middle of the street. Apparently here the pedestrians have the right of way. Apparently I can get used to that quite fast as I was startled by a taxi horn, only to realize I had just stepped smack into the street without ever looking. It was no problem and we continued to do that for the rest of the day. Our driver had a small bump with a motorbike and that was pretty funny. The bike driver was at fault and his eyes were absolutely enormous with fear!

We bought some stuff at the copper market, where they have coppersmiths banging away on cool stuff and they claim that everything is handmade, but it’s clearly not. We were all getting fairly starved by this time but Qutaiba could not be convinced to stop for lunch. He didn’t eat on that side of the Tigris and that seemed final. He did bring us to a quite historical Hookah bar where we smoked, not, but we did drink some traditional black lemon drink that was yum.

It was after we had browsed the book market, gazed at the Tigris, and driven an hour that we finally stopped for lunch. It was a smashing feast of I don’t know what. All I do know is it involved soup and lamb and bread and pickles and Pepsi. And very friendly people! We cleaned out the plates and I almost thought about licking out the soup bowls.

From there we visited the big Suni mosque, an absolutely stunning edifice! I had to go in through the women’s security section and put on my abiya that Qutaiba had thoughtfully provided. It’s an enormous floral robe that had a head covering attached. The women are very sweet and helpful and seem to enjoy helping me turn Iraqi. The mosque itself was very quiet and restful, and the stonework was breathtaking.

There was another mosque to visit, but Qutaiba wanted us to go after dark as it would be more spectacular. We killed time by going into some sort of riverside restaurant/event center and lo and behold a large wedding seemed to be starting in the event center. Qutaiba was pumped because then we could go see the wedding. He said Iraqi’s loved foreign wedding crasher’s and we would be most welcome to join. Ooookay. So off we trotted, past a long row of dressed up men and boys. The ushers welcomed us with open arms and we were invited to have a look see. It was elaborately decorated with masses of roses, in banks against the wall, in arches and in huge bouquets on the tables. Men were mingling and sitting and staring and welcoming and not a solitary women was in the room besides me. When we asked about it they said oh no, women didn’t come to weddings. They had a totally different celebration far away. The bride never even came to this event at all. The groom might stop at hers, but maybe not. He was there in all his hairsprayed glory and greeted us graciously. That just felt plum strange. But it was interesting so what more can you ask for?

The restaurant on site cooked fish over a fire and they would store the fresh fish in a big tank. We watched the chef pull the fish out of the tank, give them a swift bop on the head with a stick and they’d flop over dead. It was mesmerizing and macabre at the same time.

The second mosque is the for the Shiite’s and is the one right close to our hotel. There’s a broad market street leading to it with literally 1000’s of people milling down it. Street vendors shout, beggars cry and people bump into you on all sides. There’s tables where you can get free hot tea and men walking around with bags of biscuits to eat. All the women are covered. My blue eyes stick out like a sore thumb, so even covered from head to toe I can’t hide. We had to put our cellphones in storage before entering the mosque courtyard, and then I struck out on my own to the ladies side while the guys did their thing on theirs. Ushers with feather dusters to flap kept the masses moving and I joined the crowds of women and kids walking in to the shrine. I have never in my life experiences anything like that. One lone woman amid thousands of others, swaying along with my abaya flowing around me. I couldn’t understand a word that was being said, nor did I really have any idea where I was going. We flowed towards the shrine of someone or other, and as we got near the women started to get a little bit wilder. The shoved and reached towards the shrine, pushing anything in their way. It just started to feel a little weird so I bypassed the shrine and instead continued the slow circuit of the courtyard. There were so many newborn babies there with their moms. Occasionally someone would murmur to me, asking where I was from. And then I would be warmly welcomed and patted and mothered a little. It was a spirit of community that I had rarely witnessed up close. Eventually I got reunited with the guys and we finished exploring the market before heading back to the hotel for night. We made a quick stop at the supermarket for breakfast and toilet paper. The boys had enough energy to go try some more local food, but I elected to remain at the hotel and write. I don’t even know what our hotel is called cause it’s written in Arabic, but I do know that the owners are very friendly, there’s free tea and you can smoke all you want in the lobby.