Which way is South?… Al Maahmoon Communications Center and Welcome to Baghdad!

Just got back online. Checked my e-mail and found that everyone was getting a little worried. Well, this is my response to everyone, as I do not know how much longer this connection will remain: Phones haven't worked in some areas since the U.S. bombed the communications center during the war.

After our atrocious night at the Mosafer with two-buck-Vern we decided that we needed a new scene. Luckily for us, one of Jay’s friends hooked us up with a pretty sweet place to stay as well as his services for the time we are in Baghdad. He insists that his business will run just fine without him. Abdullah comes to the Mosafer Tuesday morning to take us to al Rabiya tourist apartments on Karrada Kharij, closer to the center of Baghdad. On our way down a busy dual carriageway, a humvee bounces over the median and pulls out directly in front of us.

The soldier in the passenger seat of the humvee holds out his right hand to say stop and holds the M16 in his left to say "stop or else."

I stop.

I feel a chill watching the guns pointed at us. Scotty and I want to take a photo -- the humvee is within 10 feet of our car -- but we are too frozen in place, not wanting to provoke the soldiers. For a second it seems so surreal, like these men -- boys really -- in their sunglasses and stone cold glares are impersonating Keanu Reeves in the Matrix or Will Smith in Men in Black .

Abdullah rolls his eyes in a look of utter exhaustion, as if to say, this is how they always treat us. Two more hummers and a truck move into our lane directly in front of us and rumble off. We are allowed to move again but I think Scotty, Mickel, Brandon and I leave something there on that road for good.

The remainder of our innocence.

After we drop our stuff at the apartment -- it is indeed nicer than the Mosafer – we go out for a quick tour of the city. The skyline is punctured by four huge chimneys belching fire and smoke from the Baghdad Refinery. We pass a large number of men and boys in dishdashas selling containers of gasoline on the road.

"There are so many days that there is no gas at all," says Abdullah.

Gasoline is 20 dinars a liter at the gas stations but the wait is eight or so hours. On the black market it is 150 dinars per liter, but the quality is poor. Frustration runs high. More than 70 percent of the gas is imported from Saudi Arabia, a painful irony not lost on Iraqis.

We drive over al Jadreeah, one of five bridges spanning the Tigris River, into the posh Qadseeyah District of southern Baghdad. The road is lined with palms. We pass Al Abed Palace, destroyed by the coalition.

We pass al Maahmoon communications center, destroyed by the coalition.

We pass into the Mansour, a district named after Baghdad's founder, the Abbasid Caliph Mansour, who built the city from the ground up in the 8th century A.D.

We drive by the city block that was wiped out when the Coalition tried to target Saddam with a missile strike. More than 14 civilians died in the blast, which left nothing but a rubble-filled crater. Now it is nothing but a dirt lot.
We drive under an arch which used to have the painted image of a smiling kaffiyah'ed Saddam on it. Someone covered Saddam's face with green spraypaint and wrote "al Jaban," over it. The Coward.

There is another huge landmark smack-dab in the middle of the Mansour: the shell of a half-built mosque called Grand Saddam Mosque, started in 1995 in the midst of a humanitarian crisis in Iraq which is still not over. The mosque, which was projected to cost more than $1 billion, was to be Saddam's greatest achievement, built on the site of the Muthena Airfield, destroyed by the Allies in first Gulf War.

Its minarets would rise 280 meters in the sky, so that the mosque would be the "closest to god." The mosque once built, would cast the illusion of floating on water, on a large manmade lake whose outline would take the shape, if viewed from far above, of the Arab World.


A new day, a new mission. Today we will attempt to get our press credentials.

In front of the Iraq Forum Conference Center, U.S. soldiers stand beneath a thirsty-looking tree checking people's papers and identification. We stand in line and watch some soldiers give an Iraqi man a hard time. They yell at him, push him a little. The other Iraqis behind him shift on their feet. They are waiting to get in, most likely looking for work with the Coalition Provisional Authority inside.

After waiting a couple of minutes, growing more and more anxious, I by-pass the line to ask another soldier where to go to get my press credentials.

"If you don't have them already, you aren't getting in here," he says without looking at me, his hands on the gun hung from his shoulder. He doesn't say anything else. He's not in charge.

I scoff and walk away. Hey, I’m American, the least he could do is try and treat me with a little respect.

There's a shorter and older man talking with a kind of easy authority to a woman trying to get in without the proper papers. He's full of energy, but looks weighted down by his large helmet, his thick vest and gear. She wants an answer from him. He's a captain, and he's giving her a story, an anecdote that leads to the reason why he can’t give her what she wants.

Honey, none of these guys can give us what we want.

When I approach the captain, I receive a stern, "Where's your I.D.?"
Scotty and Brandon are behind me, distracted by the rough treatment of the Iraqis. Mickel and I stand alone before the burley man. Our driver and guide, Abdullah and Jay, are watching from a distance. When I get their attention, the three of us stand before the captain for judgment.

In the 120 degree heat, sweat pours from underneath the captain’s big silver sunglasses. We hand him our passports.

"You from Virginia?" he asks of me.

He obviously did not read over my entire passport. I simply “arrived” in the US via Virginia.

He snickers and gives Mickel a growl when he reads aloud the word, California. Obviously we hit a sour spot.

"Well, you must be a good ol' gal then! I just might let you right in."

He wants to know where I lived and where I ended up going to school.

When I tell him he shakes his head and says, "California! Man. I might have to change my mind about lettin' you in."

He wonders why I didn't go to VCU. When he was in school there he used to drink at Rutie’s, used to sit at the bar with a fat bartender. I lie and tell him I used to live in Falmouth, but never drank at Rutie’s. I didn't have the heart to tell him it didn't exist any more. We both agreed the town was great for saucing your brains out. I ask him where he's from.

"Well, I got some land just outside Brookhaven, in Mississippi," he says. "You know where that is?"

I tell him I do, but in reality, I don’t. His home is in Louisiana. I tell him I enjoy going down to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

While I'm having the "hometown" talk with the Louisiana captain, the Iraqis aren't getting anywhere with the other troops. They're getting plenty of reprimands and admonishments.

Brandon asks the captain if Abdullah and Jay can come in with us. Sweat drips from the corners of the captain's otherwise dry, cracked lips. He wants to know if he has his papers. He's using some Arabic, the word for "my papers," when he means to say, "your papers." He asks a number of times, slowing his English and enunciating, then using the wrong word in Arabic.

"Do you have my papers? Do you have my papers?"

I can’t help but chuckle. But I hold it in tight.

Abdullah doesn't have either. He tells the captain in near-perfect English, No, he didn't bring them.

"You have to stay here," he says, still articulating, and then ushers Mickel and I through.

"Enjoy your stay," the captain says.

Abdullah watches us go into the maze of sandbags, concrete bricks and razor-wire, then stands back near a large metal sign and watches the other men continue to try to gain entry. He tells us later he had to leave the area, to get away from the troops, because he was getting sick watching how the Iraqis were being treated. He left to sit and talk with his people further away from the Conference Center, under withered trees pitiful for shade, where vendors were selling lukewarm sodas from duck-taped coolers.

"I saw them. They pull people from here [from their shoulders] and they tell them, 'Go out! Go out!' They didn't do anything these people," Abdullah says. "There was a problem with their papers, that's all. They are not treated with dignity. Even Saddam's regime, those powerful men, they didn't do like that to the people in public. Even the biggest dictator in the world didn't do that to the people."

He raises his finger in the air, and his round, brown eyes seem too sad and tired to be too angry.

"So I respect myself, so I go to my people, because I didn't want to see or hear that, what they were doing to the Iraqi people."

While Abdullah sweats in the half-shade and chats with the vendors, Mickel, Scotty, Brandon and I register in the U.S. Consul, something all Americans are supposed to do when they come to Iraq. There are portraits of Bush, Cheney and Powell on the wall behind the front deskman. We fill out our forms with some real and feigned confusion. There's an interesting conversation happening in the corner of the room.

The head of the U.S. consul is talking with two military officers. Crime is going to prevent economic growth in Iraq, she says. All it will take is for one foreign businessman to be kidnapped for ransom to scare people from investing here, to seriously stunt economic development and reconstruction. Kidnapping has been a problem in Iraq since the end of the war.

The woman and the two officers are agreeing that their offices aren't coordinated well enough, and that the soldiers in the field seeing and hearing about the crimes need to be reporting better.

"They focus on the stupid stuff," she says. The head of the consul says she's worked in Kuwait, Israel and Rwanda. The officers tell her they're headed out tomorrow for Tanzania, their next assignment.

"Really," she said, leaning over her desk. "I was actually checking out Tanzania as a potential onward assignment."

She tells them she's in Iraq working for a year. She tells them it's been great talking, communicating with them, a relief really.

"We need this kind of continuity," she says. "A lot more of it."

One of the men asks her who exactly she answers to at the end of the day.

"I work for Bremer, who works for Rumsfeld, who works for Bush." Scotty and the guys and I half-finish our forms. The man behind the desk asks to make a copy of the business card of our apartment building.

"Great, now we know where to find you when we need to," he says. Somehow his words don't sound so reassuring.

Now that we are the 100th through the 104th U.S. citizens to register with the government in Iraq, we make our way to the media registration desk, to the man in charge of media inquiries, U.S. Army Officer Ingham. He's an Oklahoma man with a kind of clean southern articulation. Leaning back in his chair he smiles and tells us he's here to help. He hands us a form.

"Just fill out this form right here," the Oklahoma officer says. "It's that easy."

A man in a blue jumpsuit approaches him and says something in Arabic.

"You come to vacuum?" the Oklahoma officer says. The man points to a door behind the officer and says something else in Arabic. (A posted sign on the door reads, Authorized Personnel Only. People like General Sanchez and spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority meet in the room with other officials and officers before press conferences.)

The Oklahoma officer doesn't try to understand. He slows down his English, sticks out his hands and makes some mechanical gestures. They talk over one another. The officer then proceeds to have a conversation with himself:

"You want to get back there to vacuum?"
"Well, right now is not a very good time."
"Uh, there's still a couple of people back there right now. Not many, but a few."
"Yeah, it's lunch time. Why don't you come back after one o'clock. What time is it now?" He checks his own watch.
"Well, yeah, that's too soon. Why don't you come back around two? Fine. Great."

The man walks away clearly confused. The Oklahoma officer seems as sure of himself as ever. Another problem solved, he gives us his attention again.

"So now, where were we...yes, that's right, during the interviews with press officers, No means No," he says. "Now I'm well aware that journalists have a hard time taking No for an answer, but that's how it is."

He leans back again, relaxes. He has said all this a hundred times, even wrote it down, the words in the copied memo for journalists on his desk.

"Some things are private. That's just the way they are. I don't go asking about your gay brother or you're mother with ovarian cancer, and you don't go asking about mine. Some things we got to keep to ourselves. Understand?" He rocks in his chair the way he probably has for weeks, months--a quiet assignment, but boring as all hell.

We fill out another registration form, something that shows we're in the country working as journalists. The Oklahoma officer tells us there's no official press badge.

"If you got into the building today, then you're fine," he says. "You can come to as many briefings as you'd like."

He tells us to come back tomorrow. A CPA spokesperson and General Sanchez will brief the media. If we want we can stick around for the president of the World Bank. Maybe we could get a loan, he jokes. Other than that, there's not much more he has to say. By that time we were wondering why we'd just spent a couple of hours going through a lot of empty formalities. Remember, you attract more bees with honey (and money) than vinegar, the memo from the press desk says. Not too sure what it means, but it sounds like the Oklahoma officer's words.

As we step away from his desk, he gives us a good smile and a half-wave and adds, "Welcome to Baghdad."

Border Patrol, Roadside Bombing and Memoirs of a Hero

“The rules have changed!” A corpulent Jordanian guardian bellowed at us. At the moment it seemed as though we would not be allowed to pass through the first checkpoint. Mundep rechecks our papers and tries to tell the guard otherwise, but the guard insists that our vehicle’s papers are good for transit to Saudi Arabia, but not Baghdad.

The rules changed today.

Obviously we dropped the ball. The guard goes on to tell us that numerous people have already arrived at the border without a clue and without the correct papers. Now I’m not trying to be a smartass, but I never read anything about a paperwork change for the Baghdad border.

I watch as he gesticulates angrily; each movement is swift and jolting, causing his entire body to move. His bright green eyes flash, switching between anger and frustration. Mundep gets out of the vehicle and tries to get the safeguard to follow him around it, showing that we are of no danger. But all the guard sees is a bunch of foreigners in Mundep’s car. Scotty and I are in the back, sitting wide-eyed and slightly frightened. Scotty has good reason, but I have an even better one. Especially when the man asks for our passports.

Gee-fucking-great.

“A Russian?” This does not make him any happier. In fact I think I see him smirk before he storms backs to his kiosk. I can just imagine what is going to come next. In a moment a swarm of soldiers will flood our car and I will be taken prisoner, subject to whatever they feel is befit for a dirty Russian.

Scotty, on the other hand, believes that we will have to go back to Amman. He doesn’t even think about the fact that Russia and Iraq have their own little inner war going on. He is just afraid that he will not get his story; that he will once again be left in the lurch, without anything to bring back to America. Surprisingly I understand his predicament. After all, he has invested quite a bit of his own money into this project.

Luckily Mundep has an idea. He gets on his cell phone to make a call, which I am amazed even works, cause let me tell ya Verizon Guy, I can’t hear ya now!

Supposedly the papers arrived earlier this morning, after we left, so it was too late. However Mundep has another idea. Mundep once again leaves the confines of the car and approaches the soldiers, whom are huddled together. After a moment of discussion, the guard and Mundep and about five other border men march back to the car. Not a moment later the guard hands us back out passports, but not without a good tongue-lashing. He spews out one Arabic word after another; I only end up catching about half of what he has to say. Luckily we are recording the entire ordeal and I will be able to translate it all later. All the while Scotty and I nod and say our Shokrans, though I can tell that the man is mainly talking to me. I even pick up a few words where he directly is talking about “the Russian” and giving specific instructions that I am to follow.

In the end we are granted permission to travel into Baghdad.

But first they want a picture with me.

Say what?!

I turn and stare at Mundep, but he is merely smiling and holding three different cameras. I quickly get out of the car and saddle up beside the men, wrapping my arms around their waists. I don’t know what Mundep told them, but whatever it was, it worked… though I’m not sure I like the implications of what he might have done.

After our photo session we return to the car and start the remainder of our journey.

Apparently Mundep told the guards about my uncle, whom is a semi-famous activists/actor, who recently did a number of advertisements in the country for the hungry children. To those soldiers, meeting me was like meeting a link to Sally Struthers. Or so Mundep tells me.

He also tells us that apparently the guard told him that it was the drivers’ fault and not the Jordanian government’s that there was any type of delay. He also insisted that I personally (as well as my uncle) needed to write to the Jordanian Government and let them know that it was wonderful that they were able to solve the problem for us, as normally they would simply make us turn around.

When I later asked Mundep what he told the soldiers, he turned and smiled at me. He said that he did tell them about my uncle, but also, that while I was Russian, I was also American, and thus I was an ally to the Kingdom of Jordan. He also told them that, like my uncle, I was an important sahifien, journalist, who would hate to report that the Jordanian government obstructed me from doing my very own critical work in Iraq.

I laugh at all of this. I never once believed that my uncle’s Christian Children’s Fund commercials would get me anywhere in the world, obviously I am underestimating the powers of being like Sally Struthers.

And to think, a Jew is famous for being a fake Christian… wonders never cease.

As we continue our journey I can’t help but think how the laws of man are flawed, especially when thinking from a Muslim point of view. If you think about it, there is really only one man who makes the laws and thus injects his personality and character into said laws. Then, twenty years down the line another man comes and does the same thing again, and again, and again. This happened all the way from the days of the Hammurabi. For this reason, in this sense of thinking, it is best to follow the laws of god. They never change because unlike man, the personality of god is perfection.

We have barely even passed into Iraq when we see a burned bus on the side of the road. I would call it a highway, but that would be an understatement. Even calling it a road is a long stretch.

The bus had been carrying Syrian workers whom were returning from Iraq at the end of May. Coalition forces randomly decided to bomb it. In the process they killed five people and injured ten. We saw the destroyed bridge before we slowed down to avoid the crater that was left in the road from the bombing of the bus. And people say that manmade creations are a monstrosity.

Bull hockey.

In it’s own sick way, this is gorgeous.

This is the epitome of why we are here.

The next morning I wake up early. The sun hasn’t even come up, the sky isn’t even starting to lighten.

I sit out on the patio looking out over the city. Porch lights flutter on and off, sputtering for life, providing just a bit of light for the city. Next door, the colossal generator from the Australian embassy is constantly roaring, keeping the building from slowly fading, giving it some semblance of life.

We are staying at the Mosafer, which is just south of the Tigris River and around the corner from Al Hamra. It is a ten-story muddy colored building; an orange-colored hive of journalistic types buzzing about. There are no vacancies even though it comes with the steep price of $130 a night. But that is only the walk in price. Because I spoke Arabic the manager gave us a discount. We only pay $55 a night.

Shri brought us to Mosafer once we entered Baghdad as Mundep had to get on his way and finish business. Brandon, Mickel and Jay joined us soon after. They did not have the same trouble crossing the border; Jay convinced the guards that the boys were there to solve their problems, not add to them. Shri is a wild eyed, hairy browed Sunni man who insists that he can be our translator. He told me this while I spoke to him in nothing but Arabic. Most of his time is spent on the front steps of the Hamra, a close by hotel, telling passersby’s about the merits of the Mosafer.

“Much cheaper place. $45. Safe. Large area. Kitchen. AC! Very nice.”

He targets the forgeiners. Lures them in with the $45 hotel price, forgetting to tell them about the incredible fees that are attached.

As I continue to stare out over the city my mind drifts back to my time in Afghanistan. Despite the conditions, it was one of the few times that I felt truly happy. I enjoyed working with the people and completing something that I knew was an asset to the people of the country. I missed it. I also thought of my old friend Marla Ruzicka. I had met her when I went with Moshgan to Afghanistan with CIVIC. Marla was the founder of CIVIC. Marla had been heading to Iraq. That was the last time anyone would see her again. She was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad on April 16, 2005 at the age of 28.

Since then many of my friends who have continued in that direction have tried to get me to switch majors and join them in the fight for humanity. And as I sat on our balcony I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that was exactly what I should do. I never understood why I had gone into Mechanical Engineering. Sure it was a great area to pursue, but there really was no reason to do so. Maybe I was only trying to regain my parents’ approval, to make them see that I had gone to college for a good, worthwhile reason. A humanities study is nothing to brag about.

But as I stared out at the city I realized that an aide worker was a very noble and courageous job, one that not very many people could achieve, especially when concerning world friendship. Maybe the Friends World Program and LIU was exactly what I should have been studying all along.

Suddenly I hear a noise below, effectively disrupting my thoughts. I watch the scene unfold before me. Australian guards in camouflage wave their M16’s and usher some VIPs—men who look more like middle aged golfers in their sunglasses and shorts—out of a BMW with a self made orange square duct taped to the hood. They make their way up to the embassy, warding off anyone who even so much as looks at them.

Moments later I watch a young Iraqi on a cart carrying what appears to be a bed of reeds. The cart rolls by as the boy whips and curses at his donkey. He is angry at the situation, angry at his donkey, angry at the world. In the Islamic world the donkey is the lowest of all accursed beasts in the hierarchy next to dogs and pigs.

Unlike my trip mates, I cannot sleep. The generator doesn’t help the situation. But they are so exhausted and sleep through it, not even phased by its rattling.

An hour later and the sun is starting to come up. More and more people started heading out and beginning their day. An hour after that and its an oven. The electricity went out hours ago and it took the AC with it. Hunger takes over as pangs cause my stomach to gurgle and rumble. I clamber out of the chair and stumble toward the living room of our shabby shaghq. I feel around for the bag of digestive biscuits that we bought at the Safeway in Amman. I grumble as it falls to the floor causing the contents to tumble to the floor in the process; that’s what you get when you stay with a bunch of guys. Of course they would leave it open and not worry about someone causing it to fall on the disgusting floor below.

I pick the biscuits up, replace them in the bag and make sure it is closed before placing a few that I had left out on a small paper plate. I return to the balcony. Without even looking, I take a satisfying bite of the biscuit. My stomach grouses at the gastro-nostalgia it congers as I swallow a small bit, and I smirk; it already knows what I am putting into it.

My chewing slows as suddenly I become hyper aware. In my mouth and on my fingers and down my arm and on the biscuit itself I notice that it has all come alive. My eyes focus in on the tiny, overexcited life forms that have brought my food to life. That is when I realize what I just ate, or rather, what has been eating our food. They are ants. Hundred of them. They are panicking, trying to flee the great gaping maw that swallowed their comrades.

I dash to the bathroom.

So much for being a vegetarian.

After several tries I cough up enough to fill an ant farm and feel I have gotten the majority out of my system. I try to flush the toilet. The chain, which is more of a knotted string, on top of the toilet tank breaks off in my hand. I take off the faux porcelain lid off the tank and lean it against the wall.

No water inside.

As I walk back into the bedroom where Scotty, Mickel and Brandon are sleeping twisted uncomfortably in bed, there is a thundering crash behind me. Scotty jumps up, certain that our shaghq has been hit by a SCUD. But it is only the toilet lid sliding to the floor and breaking in umpteen pieces.

Around 10AM that morning I call down to the reception. “Vern” is there and offers to come up and take a look at our mooshkila, my problem. He looks at the broken tank lid.

"No problem. Maybe $5 to fix," he shrugs.

Maybe $5? Um, does the $5 include some water and a new chain?

What he wants to tell me really is that he canceled all his appointments to be with us today. He offers to set up an interview with one of the resistance fighters.

Through hand gestures, he pantomimes an angry bearded fanatic holding a bazooka and chuckles. We tell him thanks but we have a friend of a friend who has offered to help us with our stories. I give him a Ben Franklin and tell him to keep $10 for his trouble along with the $55 for the room and the $5 for the toilet. After we tell him that we are not staying another night, he disappears and returns, his brow deeply furrowed.

"I talked to the management. They say they need to replace the whole tank. Maybe $20."

He counts back my change -- it's a couple dollars short. We look at Vern, perplexed.

"I keep $12 for me, yes?"

We don't argue. Just pick up our bags and head out of the Mosafer.