Erbillionaire Lifestyle
Shopping carts shouldn’t have 4
wheels with full freedom of rotation. It
sounds like a good idea – more maneuverability, right? – but in execution it
results in your cart fishtailing. This means that , when distracted by a burka’ed woman setting off
a metal detector, the fishtailing cart can slam headlong into small child. His parents laughed it off, but
cantankerously crying brown children in a public mall is just such a hassle.
I’m in Erbil. The best way to describe it is to start with
a simple concept we can all envision and build outward from it. Instead of starting big picture and moving
in, start little picture and move out.
Why not. That’s because it’s
weird, but not as weird as I subconsciously will it to be. It’s weird how not-weird it is. 99% of this place doesn’t
scream “You’re in Mesopotamia!” Then
there’s that head-cocking moment when you remember where you are. This is a daily phenomenon, and comes in many
forms. But we’ll get to that.
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| Teach Me How to Science, Teach Me Teach Me How To Science |
Erbil has the arguable pleasure of
my company because I do science for a living.
This is my distal reason for being 9 hours ahead of most of my friends and
loved ones. The more proximal cause
requires unfettered brandishing of that quintessentially Rusty concept, the
nerdboner. So to provide just the tip of
that cerebral wedding tackle, there’s a science problem that my group solved,
and I’m the most expendable person with the minimum skillset to be useful in
teaching the world how to do what we do.
Same reason I was in Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico several
times. Neat gig.
There’s a lot going on here.
Accordingly this shan’t be the last or only Iraq post. This is an unapologetically long one though -
may need to be split up between your
post-coffee and post-lunch walks across the hallway to the other office. My goals are equal parts education,
entertainment, and making sure I don’t forget any of it myself. Enjoy. Ask questions. Holler back.
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| Courtesy www.waitbutwhy.com, which is wonderful |
The Kurdish Way
So. Erbil. Erbil is the capital of the
Kurdish region of Iraq. Erbil is echelons
more secure than Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Mosul, and the rural countryside. That’s because Kurds are their own thing, in
the way that many Texans wish Texans were their own thing but aren’t because
reality. Kurds are culturally,
religiously, economically and all other –ly unlike Iraqis, and unlike Arabs in
general, except for a few things. The women are almost never “covered.” The internet is not censored. The homes are not huts. The terrain is not desert. The carpets are not magical. But the public toilets are squat-and-plops,
and the AK-47 makes frequent public appearances.
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| The Working Man's Accessory |
But Erbil is trying, damn it, and
Erbil wants you to know it’s trying. For
more on that, see below transcript of a conversation which is at least
partially true;
“Traffic is a problem,” Say I.
But that’s a good thing! Better roads are on their way, and what
other city in the Middle East has so many trucks ferrying construction materials
hither and yon? And so many middle-class
people with cars?
“This place is dirty and
dusty. It makes Lubbock look like
Singapore.” But it got that way with construction detritus and commerce, not war-rubble
and havoc. We’re building, building,
building. What’s a Lubbock?’
“Never mind. There are soldiers with guns everywhere, and
I’m getting frisked so much I’m starting to critique when they miss a
spot.” Yeah, but you can also go for a
jog at night, walk in a mall, and see women with nice butts accentuated by spray-on
jeans and heels straight from Nicki Minaj’s “other” closet. If you weren’t such a strange person you
could probably go out with one of them too.
“I’m not strange, I just prefer
blondes.” No, you don’t have the balls
to be with a Kurdish woman.
“I think they’d break me, yes.” You
Americans are soft. But please don’t
leave, we need you!
While Kurdistan is technically only
sort of a thing, it reeks of thingdom. Kurdistan
has its own government, its own flag, its own army (the Peshmerga) and its own
oil revenue system. Kurds are a large minority in 4 different countries. Those countries typically find them
annoyingly cliquish, independent, and worst of all, prosperous and happy. They don’t do the whole turbomuslim scene,
and very proudly discuss religious tolerance, atheism, and all that Bill of
Rights hoopla openly and frequently. Fun historic note - Saddam Hussein handled
this cultural aberration by gassing them, killing over 200,000 Iraqi Kurds in
less than a year. The wounds from this
are still fresh, and understandably border on racism. “When 20 of your family
die in an hour, you do not immediately trust those responsible. I hate Iraq and hate Iraqis.” -A milder paraphrasing from a friend here.
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| Thingdom Requirement No. 1 |
So about those shopping carts. Erbil isn’t weird enough. I got off the plane and into a car. The car was on a road. It took me to an office, which featured no
camels or bombs that I know of. From the
office I went to a two story townhome in a gated subdivision, where I was
greeted by my favorite type of oilfield character, the salty old white
dude. Several of them, in fact. We then went to the mall. This mall featured a food court full of
squiggly letters and vaguely pita things, sure.
But it also featured Polo, Clarks, a big grocery store, and a sad lack
of “unique, weird Iraq shit,” which I’d promised my entire family for Christmas
gifting. Then we went home, made dinner,
and the power went out. Just to remind
us that, yes, you’re still in a third world country. But it’s trying!
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| Not Cool |
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| The Asshole's Connected To The...Mosul |
The general consensus of everyone
I’ve talked to is that this is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but with more
at stake and no probably-gay midgets offering a jewelry loophole to
conveniently solve everything. Mosul is Mordor. The Kurds seem perfectly fine with the proffered
solution of killing all the orcs. Is it
still genocide if the “people” you want to wipe off the planet abrogated their
humanity? That’s not my call, but I
think I know what that kid with the soccer ball would say.
Up next, I’ll explain the
choreography of this hard-hat ballet.
How does one actually do work in a place like this? And with whom does one work? These answers are complicated, and within the
subtleties lie some truly fascinating, edifying stuff. I love my job.
Till next time,
Shorty
