Barefoot in Baghdad (6 page)

The precedent for where to situate an office was mixed. Many international NGOs were setting up shop in hotels. Another group rented a row of houses in an affluent neighborhood, with the houses divided between residences and offices. Since the mandate of our organization was to assist the most vulnerable women, I wanted an office in a poverty-stricken area.

The answer to the office location presented itself during one of my quick meetings with Uncle Fahad. His father’s old home was in the al-Shawaka district in western Baghdad, and he recommended we take a look at it. The moment I saw the house, I knew Women for Women had found its new national headquarters. The house itself had been abandoned for years, and the wooden door looked like it might fall apart if pushed too hard. Inside, old tiles were stacked in the courtyard. In the middle was an antiquated fountain that no longer worked.

None of that mattered. I could easily see the house renovated in my mind’s eye. It was an Ottoman home from the eighteenth century, built in the famous Damascus style, with an open courtyard in the middle of the house. The second floor overlooked the fountain and led to a spectacular balcony with a stunning view of the Tigris River. As I stood on the balcony I could see the fish market to my left and the abandoned British Embassy to my right. Uncle Fahad explained that al-Shawaka had been an affluent neighborhood at the time of the Iraqi monarchy. As a predominately Shia neighborhood that had been loyal to Mohammed Bakr al-Sadr, it had fallen into neglect during Saddam’s rule.

Mohammed Bakr al-Sadr was the founder of Saddam’s main opposition party, the Dawah Party. He had been executed in 1980. It was common for the Saddam regime to punish disloyalty through institutionalized poverty. By neglecting the maintenance of basic services, Saddam had created many ghettos throughout Baghdad. Shawaka was one such ghetto. Mud homes were built in the backyards of the larger homes, and an open sewer system left streams of waste coursing through the houses.

I took a walk around the neighborhood and was greeted by women covered in black abayas (long black gowns). They stood at their doorways and looked at me curiously. Some extended warm invitations for me to come inside and share a cup of tea. I paused to introduce myself as their new neighbor and promised to visit at another time. Despite Saddam’s efforts to destroy the neighborhood, it still displayed strong character, telling the story of its days of glory. Nothing symbolized this better than the old wooden
mushrabiya
(lattice screens hanging from each of the windows). Each of the homes had an elaborately carved wooden
mushrabiya
with glass panes on the other side, giving light and ventilation to the house. They were a symbol of Islamic urban design. They lined the street facing the Tigris River, boldly representing the prosperous status Shawaka residents once enjoyed. I had no doubt that this was the perfect location for our office.

I had to compromise, though…The Shawaka house would not be ready for a few months. In the beginning, I had been adamant about having the office completely separate from my residence. It was difficult enough working in a postconflict environment, and I needed a private space where I could retreat and replenish my energy when needed. Yet I had fallen in love with Shawaka and agreed to have my home temporarily serve as our office until the renovations at Shawaka were complete.

I left Mark to negotiate the details with Uncle Fahad. The action item at the top of my list could be checked off. Awesome office space—found and secured. Now I just needed a house.

Things were beginning to fall into place. We signed the rental contract with Uncle Fahad, and renovations at the Shawaka office began. I had also identified three provinces—Baghdad, Hillah, and Karbala—where we would begin to recruit women to join the program. I was using the Fridge and the hotel cafeteria as my de facto office. Only one objective remained: finding a woman to work with Women for Women International.

This task was proving more difficult than I expected. There was a wide pool of qualified female engineers, doctors, lawyers, professors, and teachers. They all expressed a keen interest in working to protect women’s rights, but they all expressed reservations about working in the ghettoized areas. I needed someone who was not only willing to work in these areas, but who would be openly accepted in these communities.

My search came to an end in the most unlikely of places. I was in Sadr City, interviewing women to enroll in our program. Built in 1959 by Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim to deal with housing shortages, Sadr City is one of Baghdad’s nine districts. It is considered to be the most impoverished and overpopulated district, with more than one million Shiite residents. During Saddam’s regime, the district was further neglected and continued to spiral into poverty. For me, it was an ideal location to recruit women who would benefit from Women for Women’s support.

Based on interviews with the CPA-appointed district councils, the local religious and tribal leaders, and the elders in communities, I compiled a list of the most marginalized women in the area. I floated from home to home as part of the enrollment process. In one of these homes I met Muna Hussein. She shared her story with heartbreaking honesty.

Muna had married at the age of sixteen and suffered at the hands of an abusive husband for several years. One day her husband decided he had had enough of her, and he threw her out of his house. She was sent back to her brother’s home and forced to leave her daughter and son behind.

“I do not know why he divorced me. I did all he asked. We accepted grief, but grief would not accept us,” she said, repeating the famous Iraqi saying. Ten years later, she still had no word of her children.

Muna lived as a modern-day slave for the wives of her four brothers. She was afraid to voice any complaints for fear of being thrown out. She shared a six-by-ten-foot mud house with her brothers and their families. Each brother had staked out a corner and partitioned off their enclave with bed sheets taped across as walls. They shared an outhouse with twelve other families that lived in similar mud houses.

Still, Muna radiated inner strength and confidence. She told me her story as if she were sharing a series of well-known facts, with no self-pity or despair. She described the various jobs she had worked over the last decade in order to make ends meet. As we spoke, I knew that Muna would be the perfect employee. Not only would she be willing to venture into the most shunned neighborhoods, but she was of those neighborhoods. Who better to help me to recruit women?

I asked Muna if she would be willing to work with me. She jumped up from the cushion on the floor where she was seated and hugged me. With tears in her eyes, she nodded enthusiastically. For the next five years, Muna would become the backbone of the organization in Iraq.

***

My morning in Sadr City was overshadowed with apprehension about an afternoon meeting I had to attend. As part of my latest attempt to compromise with Mais, I had agreed to go to a meeting in the Green Zone. In the name of convenience, I had been willing to compromise by using the CPA phones and the Fridge. Nevertheless, my attending meetings with the U.S. military seemed to me to be a whole new level of selling out.

Mais could not have disagreed more. He pointed out that although many neighboring countries viewed the U.S. military as occupiers, there was still a dominant group of Iraqis who saw them as liberators. When he realized that argument was getting little traction with me, he struck at my Achilles heel.

The Americans, Mais pointed out, were deciding the future of Iraq. Someone needed to be there to defend the Iraqis’ viewpoint. We had spent the last two weeks speaking with marginalized women who would never have access to the Green Zone. During my discussions, they asked questions about their future. Would their sons have jobs? When would electricity be restored? Would the UN food baskets still be distributed? Would their lives be improved?

“Who would give a voice to their perspective?” Mais asked.

Convinced, I agreed to go to the next meeting. Mais was so excited he offered to accompany me even though the meeting would be after working hours.

***

Mais and I reached the checkpoint outside the convention center, where all the CPA meetings took place. A soldier asked for our IDs, and we promptly handed them over. Another soldier was sitting on a pile of sandbags. He was wearing dark aviator sunglasses and sipping at his camel pack (a backpack filled with water). He nodded at me.

“Aren’t you dying of heat all covered up?” he asked.

“Not really. As far as I am concerned it’s hotter in hell,” I said with a smile.

“Oh, my God,” the soldier with my ID exclaimed. “You speak perfect English.”

“Yeah, I’m American,” I said nonchalantly.

“Really?” said the soldier with the aviator glasses, standing up. “You know it’s safe here. You don’t have to dress in a disguise.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “But I’m good.”

“I am sure you are,” he said teasingly.

The soldier with the aviator glasses walked over to stand next to the other soldier and took our IDS. “Women for Women. Now that’s a great organization. Are you with them as well?” he asked Mais.

Mais nodded, not daring to say anything.

“Well, then, I guess it’s only appropriate that you get searched with the women.” He pointed toward an Iraqi female translator seated a few meters away. “Go with the incognito American here and get searched.”

The Iraqi woman searched me, but she was too embarrassed to search Mais properly. She just patted him on the back and sent us on our way.

Mais turned completely red and murmured about how he had been humiliated. I didn’t say anything. After all, it was his idea to be here.

I waited outside the conference room where the meeting was to take place. Everyone was greeting one another and exchanging updates about their work. It was a mixture of uniformed soldiers and Iraqi women. I scanned faces desperate to find someone I knew. Not one person from the NGO coordinating committee was present. I finally saw someone who was recognizable: an Iraqi American who Mark had introduced me to the other night at dinner. His name was Rayyan. He must have sensed my desperation, because he walked over with a sympathetic smile.

“First time, eh?” he asked.

I nodded.

“So, Manal, what part of Iraq are you from?” Rayyan asked.

“I’m not Iraqi,” I replied.

“Yes, yes. You are an American. I get it. I am also an American,” he said sarcastically with a wink. I could tell he was assuming I was originally an Iraqi.

I couldn’t remember which organization he represented. I should have paid better attention when Mark had done the introductions. All I remembered was that Mark had said he was a politically incorrect time bomb with a great heart buried underneath. He had a thick accent that told me he hadn’t been in America for very long. His thick black hair and moustache, along with his dark skin, made me suspect he was an Arab. But frankly one could never be too sure. He could have just as easily been Latino, Italian, or Indian.

“No, really, I am not Iraqi. I am originally Palestinian,” I replied, deciding to ignore his sarcasm.

“Oh. So what are you doing here?” he asked. He then turned toward Mais to direct the next question. “Your Iraqi boss couldn’t find an Iraqi American to fill the post?”

Mais did not answer right away. “Women for Women actually hires on qualifications only. Not nationality. I am sure Zainab never even bothered to ask where she was from.”

For no logical reason at all, I felt my heart would burst with pride at Mais’s response. It would have been easy for him to just laugh with his fellow Iraqi at my expense. But that wasn’t why I was so proud. Yes, he had provided a quick jab on my behalf. But more important, he had refused to be intimidated. And Rayyan was trying to be intimidating.

The meeting focused on creating an incubator for women-led businesses. To me, this was pointless. I couldn’t help but wonder where the CPA employees were living. The main request I was hearing from women was for a few more hours of electricity each day. It had been months since the arrival of the coalition forces, and there were still few tangible results.

I endured the first thirty minutes but soon felt the need to say something. After all, that’s why I had agreed to come. I shared with them some of the stories of the women I had met and emphasized their need for the basic services of food, water, and electricity. If these basics were not met, then all talk of development and reconstruction was inconsequential.

I had expected the people in attendance to be dismissive. Instead, I could tell they were attentively listening to what I had to say. Afterward, many of them came to me to express agreement with the points I had raised. It seemed that perhaps the meeting had not been a waste of time after all.

***

Two hours later Mais and I caught up with Yusuf and Fadi inside the Fridge. I was eager to check my email. Mais was still fuming about the incident at the checkpoint. I could hear him as he told Fadi and Yusuf how the soldier had humiliated him.

“
Saddiq?
(For real?),” Yusuf asked. “Are you saying that you were patted down and body searched by a woman?”

Mais nodded, his face again turning red.

“I can’t believe you are complaining,” Fadi whined. “I am never that lucky!”

The entire ride back they both continued to tease him and asked him to recount the experience. Just as I noticed we were not heading in the direction of the hotel where I was still staying, Fadi asked if I would like to join them for dinner at his parents’ home. His mother had cooked dolma (vegetables stuffed with a rice mixture). It sounded much better than the endless dry kebabs I was getting at the hotel restaurant. I instantly agreed.

I was pleased to meet Fadi’s parents. His father was a senior finance manager at Al Rafidan Bank. As a member of the Iraqi Catholic community, he had managed to lay low and off the radar of the Saddam regime. For the last decade Saddam had mainly targeted the Shias and the Kurds. Nonetheless, since he was a native of Basra, he had been denied the right to buy a home in Baghdad. For the last twenty years they had lived in the home of a relative who lived in the United States. I was impressed with Fadi’s father and began to ask his advice about the best way to move our program forward. He proved to have great insight and even promised to help with setting up a bank account for the organization.

After the scrumptious home-cooked Iraqi meal, I was served Iraqi tea. It was a great opportunity to get to know better the men I was working with. I felt that my relationship with Fadi and Mais had improved dramatically over the last few days. There had been many chances to interact over the last few weeks, and they had become less formal with me.

Yusuf, however, remained distant. Unlike Fadi and Mais who both possessed the Iraqi trademarks of dark hair and dark skin, Yusuf had a lighter coloring. With his dirty blond hair cut in a military style, he could have easily passed for a marine. He was much more reserved than the other two, and I continued to find it difficult to initiate a conversation with him. As long as Fadi was around, though, I didn’t need to. He seemed to be filled with endless energy and opened one topic after another.

Toward the end of the evening, Fadi asked me what my first impression of them had been. I smiled and told them that I had felt nervous and had a strange feeling that they didn’t like me. They looked at each other and laughed, then they just shrugged at me.

“Well,” Mais said awkwardly, dragging out the word, “that’s kinda true.”

I hadn’t been expecting them to jump at a denial, but I also hadn’t expected them to admit it so openly.

“Look,” said Fadi, jumping in, “when we joined the organization, Mark told us an American woman was coming. We were thrilled. We had seen all these blond and blue-eyed women and thought we would have the chance to get to know one. Instead, we got an Arab.” He grinned.

“No, that’s not it,” Mais interrupted. “It’s not just that you’re not blond, although that was a bit of a shock. It’s that you’re also covered. I mean, who covers in America?”

“
Kahaltha wa Amaytha,
”
[1]
Yusuf snapped at Mais. “Sorry, it sounds bad when explained this way. Let’s just leave it that we were expecting someone else.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I could see their point. Remembering a conversation I had with Zainab when I first arrived, I asked them teasingly, “So you thought I was a fundamentalist?”

“No!” Fadi and Yusuf instantly denied.

But it was too late. Mais was nodding enthusiastically.