Glory-Ho

It all started with the Danes–Anders and Frederick. And Eric, too. It was definitely his fault. Somehow, in this land of criss-crossed (get it??) confusion, they’d both bumped into Tony, a gay, eccentric, Christian Palestinian hairdresser who loved to host foreigners.

So the day after late-night Guinness glasses to celebrate St. Pats (see here)

. . .we went with them to Bethlehem, which by the way, means House of Bread. Just a little bit of trivia.

We saw the Epcot Center-like market with its mandatory castles-and-cream stone, the posh University made possible by the United States, the grotto which supported some ridiculous story about Mary, a drop of milk and a miracle, and of course, the Church of the Nativity, with its almost rustic-looking barn-like rafters, endless hanging lanterns (not so unlike Lamps Plus) the five chapels (accommodating every Christian faith) and the now remarkably straw-free spot where baby Jesus was born. As we took our turn at viewing, a group of Koreans sang Silent Night in a circle. This was nice. And right then, if you squeezed your eyes and concentrated, listening to a psychopathic choir sing We Three Kinds, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and Away in a Manger simultaneously in your head. . then maybe you could feel the novelty of it all—as if you were pressing your finger directly upon the navel of Christianity.

But the day got infinitely more interesting when we spent time with Tony. There were teddy bears, color cut outs of Mozart and Elvis, hair dryers and silk flowers. See it live here:

To remain in awe in Jerusalem, you must not only BELIEVE COMPLETELY but truly abandon all reason and logic so as to accept that some council at the ministry of tourism and religion in Israel knows the exact spot of baby Jesus’ birth.

While Rome shines with a self-aggrandizing decadence that refuses to be bothered by what you do or don’t believe, Jerusalem doesn’t feel the need to dress up, because its authenticity is more than enough. The church architecture is not especially awe-inspiring. The Sea of Gallilee is no longer (perhaps never was) a mysterious sea of baptismal waters. The Church of the Nativity is a simple hall of contemporary lanterns and almost atmospheric barn rafters. The Old City is a fantasyland for so many who can certainly get a Jesus keychain or Indian textile bag in their hometown, but feel so much cooler buying it in Jerusalem.

On Good Friday, following the schedule of our handy Holy Week Guide, we marched over to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the three-hour celebration–three hours where once inside, NO ONE would be allowed to exit the church.

According to Constantine who made it so 300 years after his death, this church is the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, mourning and burial, and must accommodate the Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Romans, Armenians and Ethiopians in all their individual Catholicism. As a sad result, it’s discombobulated design lacks any flicker of communal spirit. Its as though in exchange for giving everyone in the family their own private room, the living room was sacrificed.

Back and forth around the corners of this confusing chapel cluster, bishops, friars, priests, monks stomped their sticks against the stone in processional after processional. It was all very confusing and very, very serious. We sat on a bench most of that time. I tried to pray, but it didn’t really work. I also tried to freeze frame the beauty of the glittering mosaic of the mourning apostles, but there were just too many people. We watched. Waited to see what would happen next. Gave our seats to teary-eyed old woman who amazed us with their ability to be moved among the chaos.

Because faith is so abstract, so like the wind, it’s much better if we can touch it. Here in Jerusalem, you can. I understand. That’s a big reason why people are here.

But these tourists were disturbing. Hundreds of (mostly Spanish) women with their bibles, Puma tennis shoes, water bottles and determination, were prepared to engage in arguments with monks, to push worshipers out of their way and to beg for admission to the first ritual of remembrance. We wanted nothing to do with it.

No, this was not a place where I felt closer to God.

Even the alluring decor couldn’t help the atmosphere in there ascend toward heaven. In fact, by the time we left in search of $8 bagels, the whole experience had felt a little like a wait in a visa office.

Toward the end, we chatted with an Irish priest and I looked for something, anything, which merited remembering. Some shadow or shaft of light. Someone. What I found was a young nun in a full cornflower blue habit leaning over the second balcony railing. But she was taking a picture.

See for yourself here. . .

At the fourth station of the cross, the point along Via Delarosa (Sorrowful Way) Street, as Jesus carried the cross to his crucifixion, he saw his mother Mary crying for him. I’ve seen the Stations of the Cross my whole life—etched in wood, glowing in stained glass or shaped in wrought iron along the east and west wings of cathedrals in France, England, Spain, Bulgaria, Syria and the U.S. A.

But I never understood them until today.

Two thousand years ago, this narrow medina was full of Jews, Gentiles and Romans; camels and donkeys. Now the stations are commemorated with steel signage in the Muslim Quarter, a chaotic and exotic bit of the Old City with dirt-stained filigree gates, slits of sunlight, disobedient children and jaded storekeepers. But today, the path included armed security guards and police barricades to manage group after group of devout believers on a pilgrimage along this path. And as the Muslims became angrier and angrier for facing roadblocks in their own cul-de-sacs, each pilgrim wanted to walk in Jesus’s footsteps more literally than they had before, chant into the eyes of their bible and create a memory they could clutch between their praying hands forever. In one mixed ménage, we heard the deep, dark praying voices of French-speaking Africans from the Ivory Coast and the echo of the Filipino church hymns as they paused at each station’s miniature chapel. A brown-robed friar guided them through the madness. At the fourth station, beneath the well of a dripping grotto, they sang:

We’re you there when he saw his mother weep?
Were you there when he saw his mother weep?
Ohhh. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when you saw his mother weep?

I cried almost instantly. I’m not sure if I was moved more by the idea of a mother witnessing the suffering of her son, the devoutness of these kneeling souls, or the truth that I was no longer a believer.

You see, I still reach for the comforting blanket of complete Christianity by an occasional church attendance. I say the Our Father and the Apostle’s Creed like an obedient child. I try and listen to the Liturgy, but often drift off, brushing away the guilt with justifications for personal meditation.

We all want something sacred. And Christianity, as our new friend Erik recently commented, does “sacred” really well. But it’s the personal connection where they need a little work.

Feeling as spiritually flat as I did in Jerusalem was a sign without a signal. I could no longer contrive any drama or stretch toward any symbolism. For years, familiarity had kept me in the pew. But the memorized prayers and instinctive pantomimes were simply keepsakes of my past. Like old love letters, their relevance had slipped away.

I wish I could believe. I really do. It would be so much easier. But recent experiences have led me into the darker caves of my soul where an honest life is the only way out.

As we travel, we don’t often know upon arrival just how long we’ll stay. But somehow, we always know when it’s time to go. Because when energy sources become sparse and you begin recycling the spirits of yesterday to rise toward today, there is nowhere to move but on.

So it goes for my pilgrimage out of Catholicism.

Current Location: Jerusalem

In February, one of my best friends Erin passed on a message from her pastor at Montview Presbyterian. The message was: It’s not our job to love who we love. It’s our job to love who Jesus loves.

A few years ago, I might have rolled my eyes at this comment. But now, I’m in. I believe it.

Because this is a message about kindness. It doesn’t mean I have to necessarily spend time with everyone I meet or know or live with or work for, but I should love them just the same. It’s a message I also received from historical Jesus and it seems to fall into my hands again and again.

On Thursday evening of Holy Week, I went to mass with our friar-to-be friend, Erik at the Church of the Notre Dame, a new France-funded cathedral outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City. This would be my one Catholic mass of the week. Some predictability. A little comfort. A bridge to huddle upon between this crazy land of religion and the familiar rituals of my childhood church.

Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, has a heavy load. Not only does it commemorate the Last Supper, but also the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and the betryal of Christ by Judas Iscariot and the washing of the Disciples’ Feet.

According to Wikipedia:

The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (”A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34).

It seems that on this eve, after washing the Apostle’s feet, Jesus asked them to wash one another’s feet.

Now, let’s consider the time period for a moment, which included a largely shoeless society, no recorded sewage system and the somewhat free mingling of camels, donkeys, dogs and other beasts with humans, (Yes, I know Charlton Heston appeared fairly clean in the Ten Commandments) and you get an idea of just how horrible this task was perceived to be. But all the more demonstrative of his point: Love others as I love you.

As part of the mass, twelve people had been chosen (all men, hmph) to have their feet washed by the priest and other clergymen.

All week, Erik had invited us to attend church with him. And all week, there had been some unavoidable conflict. What’s odd is that prior to this evening, I knew nothing about the significance of Holy Thursday except for the Last Supper. Yet in the sea of the bible’s gospels, parables and commandments, this mass’s message, which lets face it, may or may not have blossomed from an actual foot-washing party, is one I believe in.

This is just the beginning of Jerusalem’s impact on my spiritual road-trip. . .

Old City Hostel (Photo by Michael)

St. Patrick’s Day in the New City (must party before Holy Week begins!)

Us with friar-to-be-friend, Erik. He was our personal religious tutor that week.

Moon rising on Jerusalem.

From the balcony, where we could watch the zealots with glee.

Traveling in a region where most nations aren’t fond of their neighbors isn’t easy.

As we’ve tripped and traveled through these Arab countries, all our answers regarding our future travel would mindfully exclude the word “Israel”. We could never let them know we’d dare to fraternize with their Enemy Number One.  But finally, it was time. Finally, we would hear the other side. Finally, after confusing discussions about exit stamps and entry stamps and border patrol interrogation strategies, we would see if stamping a sheet of paper instead of our passport  (so Sudan would let us in) was actually possible.

To begin with, the Israeli border crossing was an airport security terminal serviced by the military, which is mandatory for both men and women in Israel. I went through four metal detectors, had my passport checked seven times and was thoroughly questioned by three girls with guns who were young enough to be part of my babysitting schedule in the 80s. About the time they asked me if I’d been to any Arab countries and I decided to be honest and tell them exactly where we had been even though the stamps weren’t in our passport because we had switched passports on the bus between Jordan and here, I wasn’t at all sure they would let us through.

But they did.

As we boarded the American-priced mini-bus to Jerusalem, the driver told us to buckle our seat belts. I’m not kidding. He really said that. The only thing more surprising was to actually find a chest strap, lap belt and available and functional buckle for each and every person on the bus of Orthodox Jews and Muslims.

Coming to Israel was a little like taking a break from a big trip. Everything was in English. Toilets were sit-down. Pedestrians waited for the green man. Hostel clerks asked for payment up front.

While Istanbul seems to get the traditional title for East meets West and is a place where modernity blends beautifully with gold teapots and hand-woven tapestries, Jerusalem was always a gamble. After floating through the souk, you could crash-land into just plain modern or just plain biblical. But the two didn’t mix terribly well.

Jerusalem’s Old City is made up of four quarters. Armenian, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Jews stare into the paper-stuffed crevices of the Wailing Wall, eat kosher and read newspapers written specifically for their sect of ultra-orthodox or Haredi Judaism. Some Muslims attend mosque at the Dome of the Rock, the alleged site where Abraham took his son Isaac for sacrifice and also the place he made a pit stop before ascending to heaven. Mmmhmm. Christians can choose from a list of touristed chapels and churches, each the site of a famous bible story. Mount of Olives, where Jesus went to rest after telling the apostles to stay awake the night before he was crucified stretches above it all with rocks, gravestones, Cyprus and yes, olives.

In contrast, the New City flew a different cluster of freak flags. Reminiscent of Boulder’s Pearl Street, hippies distributed hugs, vegetarian restaurants were packed with patrons and with the afternoon sun as a guide, bartenders stood in the shadows washing glasses for the evening ahead. Merchants sold yarmulkes embroidered with Kenny’s orange coat or Bart’s yellow crown.

On this strange strip of land in the Middle East lies a very large Jewish population. But author and journalist Thomas Friedman tells us in his book Beirut to Jerusalem, that most feel its enough just to live in Israel and are, therefore, not very religious.

But as in any country, its the messianic few who speak loudest. In the Old City, it’s easy to see how people get caught up in the drama. From our balcony at the Petra Hostel, the daily parade included nuns, priests, rabbis, friars, imams or bishops in any combination of processionals or prayers, often followed by an excited gaggle of tourists. The most fascinating for me were the Haredi Jews, whose complex fashion statements, including banana curls, top hats, beards, yarmulkes, torso tassels and fur lampshade-like headpieces (all indications of devotion to) make it feel like everyone’s off to a school play about the Amish. And I am not invited.

But sometimes it’s nice to be on the outside looking in. Violence reserves its own section of this parade. On the way to Bethlehem on Tuesday, just outside the Damascus Gate, we stumbled across the police-taped spot where a Palestinian had just minutes before stabbed a rabbi. On another afternoon, along with loudspeakers and crowd management, we were told to stay off our hostel balcony as a police squad detonated a suspicious looking piece of garbage.

Israel, roughly the size of Massachusetts, was a land of confusion. And we’d only just arrived.

Note: This is a flashback to Beirut. Because I thought it best to wait until we had exited both Lebanon and the Big I before publishing it, it is appearing now. . .

Inma Foundation (for whom we built a website) was founded by a Muslim who follows the teachings of Jesus. Not exactly your typical blend. The foundation does not claim any particular denomination, style or practiced religion, but they follow life in faith, through God’s love. And their foundation strives to give without bias in a country divided by culture, religion and sect.

In January, Inma’s founder hosted an unofficial religious delegation of seminary students, pastors and spiritual leaders, on a three country, five day tour to build bridges between Islam and Christianity. As it turned out, most of these delegates were from Colorado. Cherry Hills Church, Smokey Hill, Denver Seminary, and others. At a reception in their outlandishly Lebanese two-story penthouse, the founder Samir, a charismatic, diplomatic and informal fellow, gave a short lecture on the similarities between the Koran and the Bible and how we are much stronger through unity than division. How we are all living through the love of our Creator. As a souvenir, each delegate was given a large varnished and wood-bound tome, containing each Koran passage which mentioned Jesus.

During their time, Samir organized a meeting with Nabil Kawook, the, Hezbollah’s Southern Lebanon commander. Michael and I were invited along.

TIMEOUT

So for my own sanity, let’s go over Hezbollah for a moment. You might have heard of them. The U.S. and UK, among other countries, classify them as a terrorist organization. Here’s a little more—the most truthful, but neutral description I could find– from another acronym called the BBC::

Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon. In May 2000 this aim was achieved, thanks largely to the success of the party’s military arm, the Islamic Resistance. In return, the movement, which represents Lebanon’s Shia Muslims - the country’s single largest community - won the respect of most Lebanese. It now has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament and has built broad support by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar. But, it still has a militia that refuses to demilitarize, despite UN resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which called for the disarming of militias as well as the withdrawal of foreign (i.e about 14,000 Syrian) forces from Lebanon. As long ago as 2000, after Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah was under pressure to integrate its forces into the Lebanese army and focus on its political and social operations. But, while it capitalized on political gains, it continued to describe itself as a force of resistance not only for Lebanon, but for the region.

BUT BACK TO REALITY

There we were. Eleven men, a Lebanese woman and us. Heavy security. A meeting room which had been host to past negotiations and stalemates, I was certain. No cameras or cell phones. A lot of guards.

Nabil Kawook, arguably Israel’s most wanted man, was tall. He had a beard, a turban and a presence.

He strode up and back the narrow, yellow, sofa-lined, fluorescent-energy-star lit room. Past the Kleenex boxes and candy dishes of gold on glass. He shook each man’s hand, meeting eyes with concentration and confidence. Upon reaching me, we both clutched our hearts with one hand, the traditional Muslim greeting between unfamiliar men and women. He then moved to his throne at the head of the room. Samir, the man who made this meeting possible, and today’s translator, sat beside him. A gold Hezbollah flag stand stabbed the ceiling with power behind him.

I have to admit, I was somewhat afraid to move. As if we were all in a flat-bottom boat and the crossing of my legs might throw the whole gathering off balance and splash water into the freshly-ironed folds of the Sheik’s triple layered robes, tip the caricatured cotton off his head, cause him to drop his prayer beads or extinguish the flammable power of Islam floating around him.

He spoke of Hezbollah and their effort to help those who could not help themselves. He told the story of Ashouraa, the Muslim holiday honoring Mohammad’s martyred grandson, Hussein, and he talked about the miracles he believed had occurred. He answered questions from the delegation—about why Hezbollah wasn’t providing more humanitarian aid to refugees and about how he connected with God. I listened, but my absorption was constantly broken by two things: Unfounded fears of imminent explosion and my mesmerized gazing at his face.

But there’s that Lebanese drama again. We would not have gone unless we felt safe. Because we trusted our guides, Rob and Samir. This meeting was about bridges, not bombs.

After an hour, we all participated in a final prayer. One of the visiting pastors even asked if he could put his hand upon the heart of Nawook while we prayed. You can bet security detail was all over that one. But it happened.

As the Sheik exited, he complimented me on my last-minute dash at immersion—a black winter scarf wrapped ’round my head. He said that I looked like Mary—that this practice would strengthen my faith.

I’m not sure about that. But the experience did widen my perspective. This story is not about dispelling myths. I can’t go into Hezbollah’s tactics, strategies or battles with Israel and just how politics play into their motives. And I know nations have their reasons–good ones–for labeling Hezbollah as terrorists. But this IS about remembering there are multiple sides to a fight and about the unfortunate ignorance of those (including me) who sometimes place guilt by association. Just because the Sheik’s costume and look reminded me of the big O does not mean that he is an evil man. Just because Al Qaeda is violent doesn’t mean Islam is. Just because people don’t approve of our government doesn’t mean they dislike us as individuals.

I do know that for sure.

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Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) means between two rivers. In this case, the Euphrates and the Tigris. This ancient land was where agriculture (hey, maybe we should grow something and then eat it! Or sell it!) and writing (hey, if I write it down now, I can look it up later!) were actually INVENTED. First it was the Sumerians as early as 23rd Century BC, then a ruler by the name of Nebuchadnezzar (have you seen the Matrix?) presided over the Babylonians.

I don’t know how to say this, but I mean, that’s kind of a big deal.

Today, a taxi drove us to Dohuk today in Northwest Iraq. We rode through long stretches of sandy wasteland, squat cinderblock villages and checkpoints with Barzani photos. We passed the road to Mosul and Baghdad. (We were 30 miles from Mosul, if you must know.)

We whizzed by a celebrating wedding party in the cracked landscape. A community of mud huts with a proud UN Flag was a refugee camp for PKK families. Dohuk was happier, more hospitable and more articulate than Erbil. Whatever message we implicitly received along its streets had been carved into the air with care and pride. The town was at the foot of one-dimensional, movie-set mountains, much like the Flatirons from Highway 91. Below, the pink, blue and yellow houses of a Christmas-tree sheltered 1970’s train set city lacked only the open-book roofs to make it a Rocky Mountain mining town.

The next day we rode further north. As the grassless, rocky foothills of the depressing landscape became mountains, they formed the long backsides of a stegosaurus or brontosaurus. Amedya was a village on a plateau pedestal, with the carved white gates of Mosul, now cracked and neglected, serving as a shepherds cliff-side refuge.

A family (I think three of these women are wives) in Amedya. Nothing too new. We were served food and drink in two different homes–sometimes a stone shack, other times a furnished house. Everyone was bewildered, but kind.

On this one hundred and thirty fourth day on our life in the Middle East, cultural differences had become mere nuances. The dash of sugar thrown into the stew, the right clogs with an outfit.

Until we visited Lalesh, the principal holy site of the Yezidi people. While the Yezidis are ethnically and culturally Kurdish and they speak Kurmanji, (Northern Kurdish), their religious beliefs distinguish them from Iraqi’s Muslim majority.

Yezidism, with flavors of Christianity, Islam and paganism , believe that they are all descendants of Adam, rather than Eve. They worship Melek Taus, a peacock, which they consider to be the leader of the archangels. Just as this archangel was given the choice for good or evil by God himself, (he chose good) the potential for both exists in human beings.

Are you still with me?

It gets better, or rather, worse. Superstitious laws of purity govern the Yezidi community with a freshly scrubbed and fierce hand. The color blue cannot be worn. Stepping on the threshold of any temple is forbidden. Spitting on any of the four elements, earth, air, water or fire, is considered impure. Perhaps most narrow-minded, is that Yezidi communities believe that contact with non-Yezidi people is polluting to the spirit and soul. Sharing such items as dishes or blankets with outsiders is forbidden. They do not allow converts and marrying outside the religion is viewed as cause for exorcism from society or honor killing. Sometimes, as a YouTube video exposed, in the form of a public stoning. In 2007, Du’a Khalil Aswad was stoned to death for her involvement with a Muslim boy. I still shudder at the thought.

This is not an uncommon practice and not confined to the Yezidi region of Iraq.
However, as Michael learned about the roots of Mormonism in Under the Banner of Heaven, as we stood within the circle of Christianity’s parables and miracles in Jerusalem and as we’ve struggled to focus on the ever-blurry line between the culture and religion of Muslim countries, one thing has become apparent. All religion, at face value, without promotion, politics or emotion, to someone equipped with an average amount of reasoning, sounds a little wack. Yet we must respect the beliefs of those we encounter.

Yezidism is no different, right? This is what I try and tell myself.

But I just can’t do it anymore. Throughout our travels, we are constantly forced to honor the religion around us. To adapt to misogynistic customs and oppressive rules. To listen with the polite expression of a guest and preserve what’s left of the tattered American image. And we’re usually doing this as they explain to us just what’s wrong with the United States.

Honor killings are wrong. And I’m ashamed that we wandered around with these Yezidis without pressing the issue.

I’m not sure whether this is a sign of self-sufficiency or frighteningly decreasing standards.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, as I slip into the leather back seat and Bose-speaker-studded doors of this guy’s Alpha Romeo.

We’d taken an expensive service taxi to the Iraq Embassy. That driver, Tyson, was a blue-collar guy with a Detroit Pistons Starter Jacket and an unmistakable American accent. Tyson had been born in Lebanon, but driven a Wonder Bread truck in Michigan. For an unexplained reason that put him on probation, he was now back in Lebanon.

We’d gone to the embassy to apply for visas so we could visit Northern Iraq. The consular employee was an Iraqi himself and had actually laughed, loudly, when we told them we were not reporters or journalists or volunteers but that we wanted to go as tourists. But during our wait, we got to talking. He was Microsoft-certified-with-the-card-to-prove-it and wanted to go to America—what was the best way? Who should he call? Them Americans, they like the Indians, but us Middle Easterns, they don’t trust us, you know?

Now we were headed back to West Beirut and this other IT guy was going our way.

Abd had gone to college in Dearborn Heights, Michigan (where Wal-Mart has just become Arab-friendly, by the way). But his wife, much to his apparent disgust, and despite his $75/hour job offer, had insisted they move back to Lebanon in 2000.

“America is a really great place. I tell you a story,”

“When I was in America, my friend told me if I was ever lost, I should just honk at a policeman and he would help me. So I got lost one day and that’s what I did. And you know what? He drove me 22 miles, you know that’s almost 40 kilometers, to make sure I took the right exit and then he called someone to help me from there!”

“This kind of thing doesn’t happen in the Middle East. Not in Lebanon.”

“Where should I drop you?” he asked.

We gestured.

“Here’s my card. You need anything in Lebanon, anything at all, you ever need help, just call me.”

Michael began. . .”But you realize that you’re helping us right now. You’re doing what that policeman did.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t do this for an Arab.”

Could it be that all these kind strangers were only hospitable to foreigners? That they wouldn’t help a fellow national in need? It was disappointing to consider, but when I thought about Americans, I considered the potential truth. With a choice between a backpack-attached, foreign-looking hitchhiker and a down-and-out looking American dude, who would YOU pick up? Or, let me rephrase, who would you feel sorry for as you sped by?

Location: Northern Iraq

Twenty minutes outside the buzz of Rania, away in an unnamed village, soccer games mixed with goat herds, ratty cows were free agents, houses were made of cinderblock or stone, water for drinking and washing came only from an outside tank and this is the community school:

Away from the generators of the dirty city, pearls slept undisturbed in the afternoon sky, blanketing the village in jewels it never asked for. The ridges in the distance rose in fits like a healthy EKG. Shepherds nodded and raised their cane in greeting as we scrambled across rocks toward a spring. This was a different dimension. Part Braveheart. Part Greek myth. When a couple of gypsy-scarfed women eating sunflower seeds on a blanket asked us to stay for tea, we accepted. I want to say to them:

Your kettle has the skin of a tough but scarred old woman as it rests, straight-faced in the flames. Do be careful when you pour the water. Your teeth are so loose that the tea flows between them. Please, just two scoops of sugar or you will lose them. Your hands are so chapped from washing and drinking outside—please, let me loan you my cream.

But they are content. They don’t need my panic or warnings or even my Burts Bees Lip Balm.

When a proud village family asks us for tea ten minutes later, we accept again. I want to say to them:

Your fair skin is surprising and I know you won’t like this, but your hospitality reminds me of Turkey. I know we can’t talk, but I find you as fascinating as you do me, and I understand the messages in the lines of your face. I know I can’t take your picture, but thank you for letting me gaze at your face.

When my parents arrived at our Peace Corps apartment in Bulgaria last spring, I warned them about the door. Covered in a somewhat convincing wood-grain peel with a massive gold knob, it had no less than six bolts–four in the middle, one in the ceiling and one which shot into the floor. Seeing this door causes two potential reactions: 1) Wow, Sofia must be a dangerous city or 2) Wow, someone’s paranoid.

But it’s tough to say if the reason we never had a theft was because Sofia doesn’t have a lot of crime or because we had a very secure door.

Kurdistan was crawling with security. Perhaps that’s why it was so safe.

***********************************

It was dark, but the stars and the moon across the twelve to fifteen white, armored Suburbans we passed allowed me to read the logo and tagline across their doors. On the left, a skull and crossbones in black. On the right, this cryptic tagline: “Saves Lives. Builds Futures.”

We walked, six of us abreast, our passports tucked away in the pocket of some guard’s fatigues after a signing in at the high security entrance. Me, Michael, an American-Turkish political science professor, a Anglo-Australian wandering traveler and some British guy named Neil. It was 10:00 but it felt much later. We’d been at the University of Kurdistan’s International Women’s Day Celebration this afternoon, a disorganized, but A-for-effort debacle of dance, drama, purple ribbons, visiting dignitaries, detailed Power Point slides and disrespectful audience participation. We’d then taxied to a happy hour at Café de Paris, where we’d been drinking until now. After a particularly long line at the checkpoint, our taxi had just had a minor scuffle with a drunk driver. Another eventful evening in Northern Iraq.

Now we were headed to Andy’s house inside what our friends call “New City” or “The Compound” a place which houses contractors who had jobs with Blackwater, DinaCorps USAID, UN and other acronyms. People there to support Western influence, whatever that might be.

Andy was Scottish. He was the kind of guy who understood the importance of candles at a party, wore a blazer with ease and kept his bathroom clean. Even after Michael’s bottle of MGD somehow cracked his sink basin, he still let us try on his bulletproof vest and hold his Glock while we took photos of each other looking mean.

He even kissed our feet when we told him we were tourists.

Andy was a PSD. Private Security Detail. One of many beefy, goatee-sporting, beer-bottle-holding men who were paid obscene amounts of money plus benefits, accommodation and flights back home so they would work in Iraq and protect others. Some were drivers, guards, secret service. Others helped de-mine fields.

In Andy’s backyard was the Edge, the only bar in the compound, a twenty by twenty hole with forty men and four women which blasted Shakira and Fity Cent. He ’d even built a ladder which escorted friends across his back wall and into the bar and pool next door. We talked to a lot of people who went to Baghdad once a month in armored vehicles but were not allowed to get groceries outside the compound gates in Erbil, Kurdistan. When we expressed surprise, they said without disdain: Well, you just never know.

But we did know. We’d researched Kurdish Iraq. We’d read websites and blogs. We watched then news as often as the devout Muslims prayed. We’d been hanging out with University teachers, contractors who had lived here for up to two years with no armed guards and no issues besides unreliable electricity.

But maybe when all you see in your community are guns, tanks, armored cars and security forces, maybe you start to fear the outside world. Without this fear, job justification might be weaker. You might feel guilty about the danger pay deposited into your bank account every month. You might find it difficult to stay trapped here another day if it didn’t all make some kind of sense.

What do you think?