A Day of Service: Day
6 Back in Iraq by Steve Clemens
The action was purely symbolic. After our tax dollars were
spent creating rubble in this land of early civilization, it is time Americans
started cleaning up the mess that was created by our destructive obsessions.
Picking up litter and debris from a neighborhood street is designed as a
symbolic act of repentance (I didn’t pack sackcloth in my suitcase for this
trip) as well as an act of humility for Americans who came as conquerors rather
than partners.
Members of the Muslim Peacemaker Team as well as a
representative of the NGO organizing Najaf as the 2012 Cultural Capital of the
Islamic World joined with us in picking up in the neighborhood where Sami
Rasouli resides. I was honored to have his youngest son, Omer, just turned 5
years old, as my partner. He held the trash bag as I picked up and then I held
it for him. Several of the neighbors came out to see what we were doing and
some wanted to take photos as well.
Sami described the virtually non-existent garbage collection
process for neighborhoods which are not part of the downtown tourist area and
remarked, “If you are a Prince and I am a Prince, who will lead the donkey?” as
an explanation why many men in the Arab culture stand by and let the women do a
lot of the work. He hopes to break the stereotype and Omer was eager to join
us.
Actually today was a day which called for a lot of
flexibility. We no longer had access to the Foreign Ministry’s vehicles for
today so MPT secured some 4 seat pick-up trucks and some cars to transport us
with MPT members as drivers. Last night we decided that today we would go to a
school as a brief stop before our service project to distribute the letters
Jess Sundin gave me from her daughter Leila’s class. The original plan was for
½ the group to go to the girls elementary school and the other half to the boys
school across the street but we all ended up at the girls school.
After being greeted by a supervisor/inspector from the
Education Ministry, the Principal told us she had a brother who lives in
Minnesota who is married to a woman from Lebanon. She welcomed us and
introduced us to one of the teachers of English. I read the letter Jess had
written to the school and Sami translated it so all could understand and showed
them the photo of the Leila’s class. The teacher suggested we give the letter
to the sixth grade English class since the students would better be able to
read the English words.
The girls smiled broadly and greeted us as we entered and
Sami asked me to say a few words before distributing the 16 letters. Since
there weren’t enough letters for the approximately 25 girls, the teacher handed
them out to each recipient. Each “letter” had a dove on the backside which the
American students had decorated. That small gesture of reaching out to other
students will hopefully help these future leaders of Iraq see at least some
Americans in a different light than the fear and anger they experienced during
the occupation.
The plan was to do the trash pickup and then travel to the
local Al Sadr organization – a “Black Panther-style nationalist” group who show
their solidarity with the poor by service programs. By their opponents they are
mostly know for their militancy but by those who receive necessary aid, they
become heroes. Alas, it was not to happen today as our schedule kept slipping.
The school visit, designed for 20 minutes lasted almost an hour and then we
walked nearby to see where Sami and his family lives. Their baby had been fussy
the other evening so we missed seeing Suad and Roi’ea but we got to spend time
with them this morning. The home is simple but welcoming.
Sami explained to us how the water filter works in his home.
First he filled a small bowl with filtered water from his wall-mounted unit and
then a second bowl of water from the tap – city water from Najaf. After it set
for a minute and both appeared to the naked eye to be alike, Sami put a saline
tester into first the filtered water, then the tap. As he was doing this, he
explained that 1-120 was acceptable for drinking. The filtered water scored 31
and the initial reading for the tap water was a little over 120. Sami said,
“Oh, I should have shaken the filtered water out of the device before measuring
but even before he could, Deborah, who was filming this “experiment” exclaimed,
“Wait, Sami, the numbers are continuing to go up!” She counted over 200, over
300, up and up until it stopped at 986. But Sami wasn’t finished his
demonstration. He next took an electrolyzer, similar to an immersable hot water
heater, placed it in the cup of filtered water and plugged it in. As it heated
the water toward boiling, it grew amber in color from the minerals in the water
reacting to the heat. Next the tap water. As it heated up, it grew darker and
darker until almost pitch black. He removed the electrolyzer, stirred the tap
water and we were both amazed and horrified as he said, “Many of the poor
families have only this to drink because they can’t afford a filter or the
bottled water.
Sobered by the stark inequalities, I still needed to
demonstrate my faith in the water filters that my wife Christine and I have
contributed toward under the IARP Water For Peace program. I asked Sami if I
could drink a glass of his filtered water and he handed me a glass filled to
the brim. It tasted fine, and now, eight hours later I am still fine. Others in
the group might not have been ready to drink up but a half an hour later when
Suad, ever the gracious hostess brought it a tray full of glasses of filtered
water, almost all the others drank as well. I’m convinced this Water For Peace
project is a life-saver.
After learning about the present realities of trash pick up
and sanitation in Najaf from Sami, we did our service project, washed up
thoroughly afterwards and then walked to lunch since it was now too late to
meet with the al Sadr people.
The sumptuous meal took quite a while of our afternoon,
having to move from one table to another for our desert and then wait for the
tea to be served at the end. By the time we left the restaurant, it was time
for our bridge vigil to begin but we did not bring the signs with us. The
original plan had us returning to the guest house for a rest before the vigil.
Instead, Sami asked if he could drive us to one of Najaf’s poorest neighborhoods.
When delegations from Iraq come to Minneapolis, the city tour they receive does
not usually include either the near Northside or Phillips Neighborhoods. I know
Islamic Cultural Capital folk won’t include this neighborhood either but Sami
wants us to see all sides of the reality of Iraq today. After all, if our guest
house is a former Saddam palace, we need to experience the other side as well.
Sami takes us to the home of a man who worked as his
gardener several years ago. He graciously invites us in and brings carpet for
us to sit alongside the walls of his courtyard/garage because the lights have
gone out in his house and he is not on the private generator list for the
supplement. Actually, no one is on the list in this neighborhood because you
don’t see all the additional wires connecting each house. Our host pours the
men coffee as the women go to the side of the house to greet his wife and
children. He tells us 14 live in his 200 square meter house and the man next to
him has 23 people in his house.
Although we dropped in unannounced, the room quickly fills
with other men who want to meet his visitors. As we prepare to leave, he asks
us if we will return tomorrow because he’d like to host us for dinner! Sami
tells us, “Please just tell him thank you (in Arabic) and I’ll respond to him.”
These people are the salt of the earth and we are honored that they can receive
us as friends. They may never meet the Governor while he will entertain us
later in the week. Something to ponder as we close another full day.
Just before entering Zuhair’s house, across the street was a
neighborhood generator with multitudes of wires entering and exiting the mud
brick structure. Maybe it was a portend for the future? The Sharba residence
was built in the 1980s before economic sanctions crippled most of Iraq if you
weren’t related to Saddam Hussein or his Baath Party. He, too, seems proud to
have us as honored guests in his home. Two of his four daughters and his son
are there to greet us but later we are told it was a third sister, a married
adult, who cooked the entire meal – and what a meal it was. None of us can get
over the huge amounts of delicious foods are placed before us with a
seldom-ending plea for us to take more. Today’s New Years feast was preceded with fruit, candied nuts
and tea before we moved to the dining room table almost 3 hours later. There we
encountered two types of rice, a traditional bowl of a stew-like combination of
hummus, meat, and tomato, a beautiful plate of vegetables and olives, and a
huge platter of chicken, lamb, and beef and chicken sharwma. There was that
much for every 4-5 of us and after sitting down, we are handed a bowl of soup
in addition. Sodas, water, and yogurt drinks also were included in the feast
that seemed to engulf the entire table. It made many American Thanksgiving
meals look anemic. 
