Read I Have Iraq in My Shoe for Free Online Page A

One)
    Cultural tolerance level (on a scale of 1 to 10): 6 (I feel it is fair to start at a midpoint of 5, and Jordan gets an extra point for Starbucks and Cinnabon. That is not particularly cultural, I know, but it did make me more tolerant.)

Part 2
    Everything! Exciting & New!

Chapter Seven
    The Iraq—Welcome to Smell
    The Sulaimani airport was small and stark but still managed to be a complete mess of people, fierce body odor, and many heavy bags. Granted, most of those heavy bags were mine. Steve Who Was Not Brandon graciously helped me push them over to the customs area. The Iraqi customs agent looked wide-eyed from my voluminous luggage to me, pointed at the luggage, and said in halting English, “What is here?” Mentally recalling all the packing, dragging, repacking, and near sobbing, I just gave him a wan smile and said, “Everything.” He didn’t ask to look inside.
    Warren met us just outside of customs, with his easy manner, big grin, and ridiculous Terminator sunglasses, and I waffled back and forth between wanting to hug a familiar friend and wanting to slap the jackass who recommended hockey bags. I went with the hug. He was the only person I knew in Iraq. Plus, I’m not really a slapper.
    Warren loaded Steve, me, and the luggage into two non-tank, non-Hummer, very ordinary Nissan Pathfinder SUVs. This was anticlimactic. It was like the supermarket tabloids: Iraqis—they’re just like us! They drive Nissans! Not tanks. At this point though, the more familiar, the better. The smell was familiar—rank body odor—courtesy of Warren’s driver Rizgar.
    “Yeah, breathe it in, Gerts!” Warren crowed. “They all smell like this.”
    I balked and hissed, “He can hear you!”
    Warren responded with a dismissive wave of his hand, “He can’t understand a word I’m saying.”
    Warren said he wanted to take us to the local grocery store, for a little orientation, before going to the university. My first Iraqi supermarket! It was called Zara. Exciting and exotic:
Zara
! This was not the international women’s retail store Zara, where nothing ever fits me and they have fat mirrors, and I always leave feeling bloated and unfashionable. Stupid Zara. This was a better Zara, I was sure, and I was crossing my fingers that there would be Diet Coke and no fat mirrors.
    We walked into the exotic Iraqi Zara through the double glass doors and I thought, “Well, hmmm.” The supermarket was totally normal and looked exactly like any small, local grocery store you might find in the United States. It was clean, brightly lit, and organized into a maze of aisles. It was the Iraqi Piggly Wiggly. (They don’t allow pigs in Iraq, though, so maybe the Goatly Woatly? Sheeply Weeply? They eat a lot of lamb here, so the Lambly Wambly? Never mind. Jet lag makes me loopy.) It had food, toiletries, and a functioning escalator that led upstairs, where you could buy clothing, toys, and linens, like towels and sheets. Why had I needed to “bring everything”? They had plenty of everything here. And what’s more, the towels I brought from home said “Made in Turkey” on the tag. Guess which country borders Iraq to the north? Turkey. Sure enough, I checked one of the tags on a towel at not-so-exotic Zara and it had been made in Turkey.
    Me: Warren, I totally could have just bought stuff here! Why did you tell me to “bring everything”? Look, they even have Crest toothpaste!
    Warren: Yeah, but it’s not real. It’s the fake stuff. That stuff probably has cyanide in it.
    Me: What?
    Warren: It’s not the real stuff. Trust me, Gerts.
    I had to take Warren’s word for everything, as he had been living in Iraq for close to two years, and I had been there less than two hours. But the Crest looked exactly like it did at home, except for the Arabic writing on the package. Warren didn’t seem at all concerned about the authenticity of the Pringles and bought two cans for himself. Steve and I didn’t buy anything, as Zara did not