Tobiasly’s Blog

Well, of course everyone’s pretty happy with the news over here. Hopefully it will help ease things up a little bit, although I guess there are the naysayers who say it won’t. We’ll see.

These Iraqis are so crazy. You probably all have heard about their tendency to fire weapons to celebrate. Well, we were out patrolling on foot last night (Sunday), looking for roadside bombs, when a gunshot rang out above our heads. It came from the direction of a nearby house, so we started walking towards there to check it out. Their dog started barking, and soon I heard a voice calling out from inside the house.

I shouted, “we’re Americans!”, wondering if he thought we were burglars. He yelled back something in Arabic, and the door outside creaked open. I was hoping he wouldn’t come around the corner carrying a rifle (almost every Iraqi household has an AK-47), and luckily he wasn’t. I tried asking him if he heard a gunshot, but I don’t think he understood me. He was pretty excited about Saddam’s capture though — he would yell “Americans, Saddam!” and grab his forearm, mimicking handcuffs being but on, smiling the whole time and shaking our hands.

I tried again to ask him about the gunshot (we didn’t have an interpreter with us at the time) but all I could get out of him was “Americans, friends! My friend!” He didn’t seem too concerned about the fact that we were walking over his property in the middle of the night. He even invited us inside for tea and something to eat; we graciously declined and went on our way.

Most of the people up here are poor farmers, and are pretty good people. I’d say most of them are glad that we’re here; on the days we do have interpreters with us, they’ll often tell us that they’re grateful to us for providing security. More often than not, they invite us to have tea or food, even if we just got through searching their house unannounced. It’s pretty amazing how gracious they are, especially for being so poor.

It’s rather evident that women play a secondary role in this culture. If we show up at a house while the men are home, the women will stay off to the side, rarely even making eye contact. It’s totally different, though, when the men aren’t home; then, they tend to swarm us and all talk at once. It’s like they’re eager to talk to outsiders, and they know Americans won’t treat them differently. If there’s a woman out working in the field when we drive by, she’ll often give us a tiny, concealed wave “hello” so that no one else can see.

Well, thanks to everyone who has been sending packages lately. Everyone up here has been getting lots of Christmas goodies, so hopefully just because we’re on the other side of the world doesn’t mean we won’t put on those customary holidays pounds!