Iraq and Mother Nature

After being in Iraq for over two months, I figured out that there are three colors native to at least this part of the country. Initially I thought there were four—the endless blue of the sky is perhaps the first thing you notice and are impressed with when you get here; but my observations suggest that over the long haul, the sky doesn't count because it is so much of a constant, and it is too bright to look at anyway. The sun is a rather weird object in Iraq during the spring, summer, and early fall. I can't say I ever saw it then, but believe me; I never had any doubt that it was around. I guess the bottom line is that you should not expect to see many multihued summer sunsets in Baghdad.

Anyway, I've already mentioned one of the three colors—that of the dust and most of Baghdad's buildings, including all of the palaces and villas I've seen, as well as the color of the trunks of the ubiquitous date palm trees (the Al-Rasheed Hotel's date bar at the 24-hour cafe has a sign on it saying that 480 types of dates are indigenous to Iraq). This color is khaki, not coincidentally the predominant shade of the US Army fatigues and the so-called "journalist vests" that all the tough civilian guys in Iraq wear to cover their 9mm pistols.

The second color is green--the shade of the former Republican Guard's wool uniforms. Even though grass grows around the Republican Palace and the hotel (thanks to constant watering) and a number of species of trees and plants in addition to the palms, the shade of green is pretty much the same everywhere, thanks to the taming process of the dust, which coats everything, including at times the sun and the sky.

It took me six weeks to detect the third color, but it became my favorite once my eyes had opened to it. It is a deep rich brown—has a lot of red in it. I think it was the squished dates on the ground at the hotel that first brought the shade to my attention, but then I realized that there's a type of rock here, I think of it as jasper, but I doubt if that's really it, that looks a lot like ripe dates (when they aren't squished). I collected particularly nice samples of these rocks, which are for the most part smooth and shiny, and carried them in my pocket and used them like large worry beads. But more than rocks and dates share this color—part of my education about this country has been to learn that shrapnel is this pretty shade, too. Or very close to it. I also started my own shrapnel collection because the destructive power of these chunks of metal that are all that's left of a multi-million dollar weapon fascinates me. They are like works of art in some twisted way, because they look sculpted. In any case, no one would mistake them for a product of Mother Nature.

So with respect to colors in Iraq, they all remind me of military stuff and war. They all make me think of sameness and regimentation and endurance over initiative. Maybe the north and the south of Iraq are different—I'd love to check that out—but in terms of the Sunni heartland, that's all there is and maybe in part that's why it is what it is . . . And unfortunately, in Iraq, a country with guns and explosives in plentiful supply and with a people who are trying to figure out what they want in life and whose loyalties are torn in any number of ways, reminders of war are a good thing because they keep you motivated and because if you forget at the wrong time, you just might get into trouble.

One last thing about the great Iraqi outdoors--be aware that from the moment you step off the plane there, you will be assigned a housefly. Sometimes I thought they were trained by Saddam's Iraqi Intelligence Service. I'm not sure if the same fly stays with you throughout your tour there, but I know that one is assigned to you each and every day, and he/she will get to know you as thoroughly as possible, including by sitting on your nose, walking on your glasses, caressing your cheek, and inspecting your mouth. I have thought, "Why can't humans appreciate this kind of attention?" but then I realized that the fact that I thought these thoughts suggests that Iraq really got to me in good ways and bad. And it will get to you, too.