Mood:
spaceyNow Playing: The Stills
Topic: Gin&Tonics on the Tigris
I lived in a multicultural world. There were more than 50 Americans on my compound, and we had a handful of highly paid development experts from other Western countries, such as Canada and Australia. My agency had also pulled in roughly 10 individuals that were locally employed at other overseas USAID Missions, such as a computer network administrator from Serbia and an accountant from the Philippines. To fill out the staff, USAID had hired approximately 100 Iraqis who performed a wide range of duties ranging from mechanics to administrative assistants to junior program officers. To add a dash of ethnic excitement, my compound’s security force came from a variety of third world countries, such as Zimbabwe and Nepal.
There were clear rankings of hierocracy in this multicultural world created inside the Green Zone. Westerns were on top, followed by non-Westerns, followed by Iraqis. The Americans had created a rigid and rarely broken cast system. It defined every aspect of our daily lives.
Westerns were treated the best. The American government gave them the best salaries, and Mission also had dished out other perks that weren’t totally apparent. For example, Westerners had access to more check cashing facilities in the zone than non-Westerns, and they had access to additional security-related information, even though most people never accessed it. Perhaps more importantly, if the insurgents stormed the Green Zone and the Americans decided to evacuate the country, Americans were on the top of the list, followed by any Western country on the coalition of the willing.
The non-Westerns, who sat on a lower step of the cast system, came from a variety of developing country, ranging from Nigeria to the Philippines. The non-Westerns, often referred to at Third Country Nationals (TCNs), had a hard time interacting with each the Westerners even though all of them were foreigners in Iraq. At the dining room, the TCNs would typically eat only with other TCNs. The same would hold true for parties and other social function. Someone one told me that the TCNs didn’t feel comfortable with Americans because in overseas missions, they were often treated as second class citizens. Although that role now fell on the Iraqis, the TNC felt trapped in that same second-class mentality even though they were no longer on the bottom.
Despite this artificial boundary, inevitably some TNCs and Westerns would build strong friendships. For example, I meet two Serbians who became good friends with me. One of them was a tall cowboy-like square-jawed man nicknamed Serbia that played basketball with me and two of my friends perhaps once a week. The second was a skilled woman with connections throughout Europe, who eventually became close enough with me to confide in me regarding a difficult relationship she had with a mercenary who had once lived on my compound. My relationships with these two TCN, however, were the exceptions.
Most of the time, the TNC would stick together no matter how difficult it was for them to overcome the cultural differences and create lasting friendships. I found that particularly odd because every one of them had more experiences with Americans than with people from the various other TCN nationalities on my compound. The Nigerians had spent more time with Americans in their lives than with Peruvians, yet the Nigerians would always seem to choose the Peruvians over the Americans. The TCNs always become inseparable.
I often remember crashing a weekly TCN party where the Filipina hostess played loud karaoke music. She would encourage every TCN in the compound to partake, yet in the corners of the room I saw Africans and Eastern Europeans who didn’t feel very comfortable. They had no desire to get up and dance, but just like the Westerns, they were simply looking for someone to pass the time with after work. Thus, they chose to stay at the karaoke party rather than go home or chose to attend an American party.
Despite the wide diversity of interesting well-education Iraqis on the compound, Americans placed them one step lower than the TCNs. Sadly, the cast system seemed to discourage Westerns and TCNs from interacting with the local workforce. The danger associated with working for the Americans also limited Iraqis’ interaction with individuals living on the compound. In the early days of the occupation, the more adventuresome Iraqis often stayed after work hours to enjoy the occasional parties hosted by Americans. As the war grew more violent, Iraqis were hesitant to stay after hours because they it was simply too dangerous for them to drive home at night. Similarly, because of the violence, American diplomats could not simply drive out into the Red Zone to visit an Iraqi’s house or met someone at a restaurant. Eventually, my agency passed a rule stating that Iraqis were not permitted to stay on the compound overnight unless they were performing official business and had official approval. The rule effectively restricted “after-hour” interactions with the Iraqis to the motor pool drivers and two handymen who would fix plumbing and electrical emergencies. Moreover, my agency and the State Department didn’t want Iraqis to get into the habit of abusing the safety offered by staying inside the Green Zone. If they let even one Iraqi stay in a western compound, eventually every Iraqi working for the Americans would have to be given the same treatment.
Symptomatic of the disrespect given Iraqis at the lower social standing, the American didn’t issue body armor to Iraqis. In contrast, the Americans issued body armor to every Westerns and TCN the minute they stepped onto the compound. When mortars landed in the Green Zone, the Westerns and TCNs grabbed their body armor and ran for cover. When they reached the shelters, they met Iraqis who weren’t wearing any armor at all. When the threat of violence was high and random gunfire became common, the security officers dictated that every Westerners and TCNs had to wear their body armor whenever they walked outside of a hardened structure. The same restrictions didn’t apply to Iraqi. If Iraqis were hit, clearly the Americans viewed it as a lesser loss that would not have major repercussions.
Eventually, the guilt coming from this obvious third class treatment settled in on the Mission. The Mission gave the Iraqis the option of taking body armor with them when they were moving around the Green Zone on official business. Most Iraqis viewed the offer as an insult. Every day they lived in the Red Zone without protective body armor. When they moved through the check points, looking over their shoulders to see if someone might be approaching with a car bomb, they didn’t have any body armor. They didn’t have body armor when they walked to the marketplace as insurgents and militiamen walked down the streets with AK-47s. Wearing body armor in the Zone seemed pointless compared to the risks they took every day. That is why every Iraqi I knew rejected the offer to wear body armor.
The Iraqis weren’t on the lowest rung of the cast system. Below the Iraqis were the cooks and dish dogs in the cafeteria. They came from India, Pakistan, and Nepal. For most of my tour, no one interacted with them – not the Westerns, not the TCNs, not the Iraqis. They had come to Iraq to make money, and although the few thousand dollars they made in Iraq was nothing compared to the money that other non-Iraqis made, for them it was a fortune. They saved almost every dime, and even if they wanted to spend the money, they couldn’t. The American Embassy refused to give them the identification badges needed to more freely in the Green Zone or to access the few basic comforts such as the PX or the gyms. The cooks could only go to and from their little compound in the Green Zone to my compound. Each morning they got up before dawn, climbed into a dirty van, and drove to my compound to cook our breakfast. At night after the last dishes were cleaned, they climbed into the back into their van to return to their home with the knowledge that they would repeat the same dull existence the very next day.
That monotony came to an end when Serbia bought a cheap volleyball net and tried to get others to play with. The net had the quality once would expect to find from a set purchased at K-mart for less than twenty dollars for family picnics or Cub Scout events. The thin stabilizing wires were barely as thick as dental floss. The telescoping poles would only raise the edges of the net slightly above seven feet, leaving the middle of the net to drooping down to roughly six feet in height. The vinyl volleyball was barely better than a red utility ball used in grade schools throughout America.
When Serbia and I tried to organize the first game, our demanding work schedules got in the way and we couldn’t play. The two or three people who turned up to play went home without giving it a second thought. When Serbia and I tried to reschedule the game, it found it even more difficult to convince people to come out and play. Most of them wanted to go over to Uday’s pool or stay in their houses and watch television, yet somehow Serbia and I convinced roughly six people to come out and play with us.
There weren’t very many spots in the compound where we could play. Most of the compound was either concrete or hard gravel. We eventually settled on a small spot of grass behind the dining hall near the Mission Director’s house. The space was barely large enough to set up the court, yet we had no choice. We made due with what we could find and then pulled out a garden hose to mark the edge of the court. Just beyond the lines were various dangerous pitfalls, such as a raised sidewalk, a small pipe, and a concrete wall. The hose placed around the court served more as a warning track than a boundary to mark fair and foul. Taking a wrong step outside the court could have resulted in a twisted or broken ankle.
The first game started off slow. With only three people on each side, we spent a lot of time chasing after the ball as each one of us had to relearn the basics of volleyball. We had an odd collection of Westerns and TCNs, who normally didn’t spend time with each other, and we had slight language barriers that we had to overcome. Still, by the time we finished the second game, everyone was having fun. We were laughing at our mistakes and trash-talking in an attempt to make the games seem more important than they truly were. As we got louder and louder, we began to draw a small crowd. At first, a few people that were walking past the court on the way to their house slowed down to look at the game. Then, a few of the people living in the nearby houses came out to take a look. We invited all of them to play, and a few did. All in all, I considered it a successful evening.
The second time we played, we had eight people. The third time we played, we invited a few people from the State Department and some soldiers to join us. We had also begun to draw a small crowd of fans who didn’t want to play but enjoyed laughing at us while we dove into the ground in pointless attempts to make plays that Olympic stars couldn’t make or failed to make basic moves that even a child should have made. On that third night, one of the men from the kitchen staff, who had watched the previous two games, motioned that he wanted to play. His English was very rudimentary, but we knew he wanted to play and were glad to let him join in on the fun. Within an hour, perhaps half of the kitchen staff had begun to play with us. The faceless servers began to show their personalities. We laughed at their mistakes and they snickered at ours.
The next time we played, I invited the Iraqis who worked at the motor pool to join us. I had often seen them playing soccer at night, and I assumed that they might also like volleyball. I was right. They loved volleyball. They loved it more than the Westerners and TCNs who had set up the net. They were also much better than everyone else.
Eventually we had so many Iraqis, Pakistani, Nepalese, Indian, Europeans, Americans, and Africans playing that whole teams worth of people would have to wait while the players on the court player their match. We began to make creative teams from those waiting to play, such as “Team America” or “Team Dish Dogs.” Teams of Iraqis played against teams of TCNs. Civilians took on military men. Mixed teams played against mixed team. Everyone wanted to play and seemed to like the idea of creating a special little team that would somehow be able to beat the winning team who ruled the court.
I joined the foreign service to introduce myself to different cultures. I wanted to see the world and grow, yet during the first seven months in Iraq, I rarely interacted with Iraqis or even the other non-Iraqis in my compound. My interactions with Iraqis were limited to the occasional conversations in the lunchroom or with drivers taking me to the PX. I knew some tidbits about a lot of Iraqis on my compound, yet without personal experiences to help unite us, I felt like I didn’t have any real Iraqi friends. Friendship needs something beyond casual interactions to help form a special bond. For some reason, I felt like those volleyball games did that for me. Despite all the cultural and language barriers, when I played volleyball, I had fun, and more importantly everyone else also had fun. For the briefest of moments, I feel like some of those cultural barriers fell. All of us were simply trying to get through a horrible experience and perhaps have a little fun along the way. .
