dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog

Travel routes must be kept tentative, because roads can become paths can become dead ends. There is no AAA in Iraq. What started as a detour may soon become the new road. There’s no one enforcing anything.

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I tried to recreate each story’s natural setting, the way an enlightened zookeeper designs a custom habitat for each animal. But ask me to string the stories together into a narrative about me and my experiences, and it feels like each animal is stuck in a rolling cage, announcing the circus has come to town.

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About two miles from the airport, large concrete barriers block the road, forcing drivers to slow to a serpentine crawl — extreme traffic calming. It reminds me of 33rd Avenue in south Eugene, if residents were posted around the clock with rifles at the ready.

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I didn’t expect “journalist” to be a term that doesn’t translate easily, but it was. The role of the journalist for a society in transition is a hot topic right now. We talk easily about how journalists aim to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” but young Iraqi journalists are doing it, at great personal peril.

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Hassan pushes back from his desk, stands and smiles. “Ahh! It’s a big question.” Here his hobby helps his work. He strides to a small wipe-off board and draws a Rorschach blot that represents Iraq. Two horizontal lines near the center divide the blot into uneven thirds.

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Wadi refuses to be lured by the lurid. Women are the invisible victims of many forms of violence, and this culture relies on women to carry a large load. Helping women helps Iraq.

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Published Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 in The Register-Guard.
(ZHARAWA, IRAQ) I’ve never experienced such hospitality as the Kurds extend to anyone who will accept. Taxi drivers often thump their open hand to their chest and refuse to accept payment, preferring that the ride be accepted as a “gift from the heart.” (This gesture must be acknowledged [...]

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Published Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 in The Register-Guard.
(BEYOND SULEIMANIYA, IRAQ) Two million Americans have fled their homes this week to get out of the way of Hurricane Gustav. Every news account leads with photos of empty roads in one direction and a steady migration away from coastal lands in the other. Windbreaker sales are up, [...]

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“People don’t understand the principles of discussion,” Azad complains. “Everybody wants there to be only one voice. But an arrangement needs many voices.”
“Arrangement” — it’s such a good word; and better than “compromise.” More active, less automatic.

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Even when they come, the rains may do no good. Parched land repels water. Likewise, a war-torn psyche may resist help. Mental illness carries a powerful stigma in this culture. It extends beyond the patient to all those around them, including the caregivers. By one count, Iraq has only 20 practicing psychiatrists to serve 26 million possible patients.

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