I can honestly say that I like about 99% of the people that I meet in Duhok. Friends that I have known for a months, random repair men, and taxi drivers alike have proved to most adept at making me feel welcome and comfortable. I have documented their level of hospitality in this blog quite a few times now, as I truly believe their friendliness is top notch. Given that I have elaborated this point a few times now, you can probably guess that this post will be different. You would be correct. This post is about friendliness gone completely awry.
There is a man at the gym who I have noticed on a fairly regular basis for a few months now. Probably around 60 years old, he is portly around the waist but otherwise rather thin; he is most awkward in shape, and given his half-baked workout routine, he will probably remain this way. His figure means very little to me, but in order to fully describe the peculiarities of this man I must continue. He comes to the gym wearing low tennis shoes and dress socks, capris, and a tank top that barely extends past his protruding belly. His arms are fully covered in hair and I think Teen Wolf would be proud. To top it off, literally and figuratively, his hairline is akin to Friar Tuck and is completely grey, yet his moustache is nearly all black. His stench is nearly always rancid. If I had to design a cartoon character of an awkward neighbor who is friendly, yet you always sneak into the house to avoid contact with him, I could simply take this man’s picture.
Despite the caricature of his physical traits, he does genuinely try to be nice. He is always pleasant, even if he never makes any sense. His level of English is at a low-intermediate level. He can understand you if you talk to him slowly, but if you want to slip into stealth mode you can speak quickly and it will go right over his head. It honestly took this man 6 months to even comprehend how to pronounce my name. I don’t think that it is an overly difficult name, especially considering Rayan is an Arabic word denoting a particular gate to heaven. But for months he called me Fryan; for a short time he even concocted stupid jokes like, “Why Fryan no fly?” I endured his childish sense of humor as it was mostly contained to a few minutes at the gym.
However, the other day he managed to convince both Paige and I to accompany him to dinner at the Kurdistan Writer’s Union. Evidently he is a writer who speaks Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi, and some Turkish (he also adds English to the list but that is clearly a stretch.) After a long day at work and a session at the gym, this oddity of a man is ready to head out. At this point it was fairly clear to me that he was a weird man, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps some more in-depth conversations would purge the intrinsic bias that I had developed. In a word, NOPE.
As he is taking us to Zeri Land to change our clothes after the gym I think he tried to stop at every turn imaginable. Fearful that I wouldn’t tell him where to go, he naturally assumed that we must live on every possible street corner. The blinker would continuously go on until I exhorted him to continue driving; it was not until the final turn that he finally understood. So he picks us up and we head to a new part of town that neither of us had visited before. The writer’s union is a fairly large building with a gated driveway, only a short distance from the main road, and a large parking lot. Inside the lot there are a few security guards, and another oddity of a man: a solider wearing a full uniform….and dress shoes.
We ascend the stairs to go inside and, I have to say, the building was quite nice. There were numerous tables adorned with crimson cloths; waiters were dressed in suits or, at minimum, shirts and ties with a vest; most people inside (except for me, of course), were dressed up as well; and there was a woman singing traditional Kurdish music, accompanied by some guitar-like instrument. The overall atmosphere was pleasant, yet slightly dark. It was not until a waiter lit a candle that I could even discern what was on the table. A cart pulls up and, within minutes, our entire table is full of appetizers. There were warm, freshly baked thin breads with meat on it; hummus; vegetable mixtures; and a few other things that I have no idea what they were. Overall, the food was quite good and the service was exemplary.
The only problem was the company. Paige and I started off the evening in a slightly subdued, due to teaching and our workout, yet jovial mood. We were talkative, and even though we didn’t want to drink, we agreed to partake in a few glasses of wine. It was all downhill from there. In 6 months in Kurdistan I have never felt pressured to drink. Even in America the feeling of those around me telling me I “must drink” is now a rarity. Light prodding may be normal, but that is typically in jest, and once it is clear that you don’t want to drink it stops. This man picked up on no such social cues.
After one bottle of wine, split between three people, Paige and I clearly wanted to stop. However, it seemed as if at 60 years old it was his first high school party. Perhaps he has a taste for the sauce, but the tolerance of a child, I do not know. But every 3 minutes we were trying to “Cheers” something inconsequential in an effort to stimulate Paige and my alcohol consumption. I was slightly annoyed, yet played along. Going from one glass of wine to three wasn’t going to kill me.
If that were the end of the story, I would not be writing about this now. With each sip of wine his level of English seemed to get more unintelligible. A semi-decent conversation turned into babbling incoherence, followed by dumb-sounding chuckling. I didn’t know whether to shake my head in disbelief or try to take his car keys. He also got a lot more touchy with Paige. He sat next to her at the dinner table, and it seemed that every few minutes he would grab her wrist or her hand to articulate some ridiculous point about nothing. Clearly, he just wanted an excuse to touch her as he spouted effusive compliments about her beauty. For the first time in Iraq, I felt the genuine urge to protect her. It was not from terrorism, hijackings, muggings, or anything like that….just an old, drunk man.
At this point I am feeling frustrated, and for anyone who knows me, I do not hide my feelings nor do I intend to. I plainly stated that we are leaving in 30 minutes and we are not drinking anymore. Two bottles of wine, I felt, would be enough to subdue his 11th grade urges to party. This was not the case. Rather than recognize that it was late, we didn’t want to drink, and we wanted to go home, he ordered 3 glasses of whiskey. He then proceeded to tell us that it was from the owner of the place and it would be “shameful” if we did not drink it. By putting on his version of the full-court press he must have imagined that I would capitulate.
Little did he know that his upping the ante would only further solidify my resistance. From that point forward I refused to even touch my wine glass, let alone the whiskey. Rather than giving in, I felt the need to prove that I will not be told what to do. I don’t care if you are paying for the bill or not, a point he felt the need to proclaim, you do not own me. If I don’t want to do something I am not going to do it; simple as that. Frustrations were visibly showing at this point. Paige kept it pleasant and happy, as she always does, while I expressed little care about what he thought. I told him that I wanted to leave and I refused to drink. He shook his head, made some comments about my being “shameful”, and babbled some more. But I did not touch that glass and said I will proudly leave in “shame,” even in a taxi.
Eventually, the actual President of the Writer’s Union came to sit at our table. Within a short period he noticed the ridiculous behavior of our awkward companion, and he too asked him to stop. Luckily for us, he even asked the waiter to take our drinks away and made it clear that we wanted to leave. He was actually quite friendly and personable. Although, I must admit, his invitation for us to return will be met with a cold shoulder as I have no reason to hang out with the pear-shaped man again.
I was not entirely comfortable driving home with him, but a quick assessment of the situation led me to believe it would be alright. It was, as I am now home blogging from the comfort of my lime-green bed adorned with a tulip pattern. Compared with the rest of the night, I think my bed is actually quite “normal.”
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