A Grand Day Out At The Grocery

I imagine you are tired of me jabbering on about myself! There are a lot more fascinating things to say about living in Kurdistan than what kind of vacuuming I do. I've been consumed with myself more often than I'm typically at liberty to be. I haven't begun work or classes yet. I'm not particularly good at going out and knocking on people's doors, so I've been indoors with myself a lot. I'm practically a bum except that I do entertain myself pretty well. It's a strange feeling being inside most of the time. I'm accustomed to having friends to go see, work to finish and events to attend. I'm used to a fast-paced, work/school environment where I am expected to be in attendance at least 40 hours a week, stressed to the max and loving every minute of it. It's difficult for me to be stuck here even if it's only for a couple more weeks. As a result of my pitiful lonesomeness, I spiced things up a bit yesterday and went grocery shopping alone.

Let me describe to you what it was like. Bou Khalil grocery store is located inside a mall. The mall was closed so I had to walk all the way around the building to go through another entrance. The security guards at this entrance didn't want me to go in their entrance. Quel nightmare! It made no sense because they were basically the same entrances, both with security guards and open doors, just on different sides. It might not sound annoying to you, but trust me, it slowly grates on your nerves until one day you crack. Americans are used to consistency and order, Kurds are not. Here, each individual makes up a rule that seems suitable for his or her situation and it's stated as fact. I've realized that you can't get what us Americans call a "straight answer" here.

Directions are generally pointless pieces of information unless someone is ready to take a lunch break and they direct you out of their store. Actually they would just lie down on the floor and start snoozing. Anyways, have you ever thought about what it would be like if one bank teller told you that you could cash checks at his bank and the next day another told you that you weren't allowed? You would be outraged, but you can't be here or you'll have a heart attack from the amount of times you got upset. You simply cannot expect one person to play by the same rules as another. The west brought the Kurds its ideas of order and structure and  expected things to improve. On the surface it may look that way, but  just underneath it's not what it seems. For example, yesterday I stood behind a lady at the mall security with two knives in her purse. The security guard gave a fuss about it and then gave the knives back to the lady. What is the point of having a scanner and also paying a security guard to open each lady's purse if they do nothing about it? Besides, I'm still trying to figure out why she wasted energy making a fuss about it and causing the whole line to back up. It's a waste of everyone's time.

Sorry for the ramble. Back to the grocery store. I finally made my way into the store. Whew, it was quite the trek in this heat! It's worth it though because this store has gluten free items and some specialty things you can't find anywhere else. As I browsed through the grocery, I noticed many people standing around. I counted 9 men who worked there just standing. It's common to see young guys standing around here. They hang out at the coffee shops, at the mall, at the kebab restaurants, on the street, all day long. I guess they don't have work or jobs to do. Can someone tell me their secret? 'Cause I keep seeing the ladies on my street breaking their backs to get their front porches clean. Someone needs to hand those boys a mop! I'm not sure what's going on there, but all I know is that there were way too many people standing around at the grocery store and getting in my way.

Being stared at is another one of those wonderful things that I get to experience while living here. I was taught that staring is rude, but here it's not (I assume). As I shopped at the store, particularly in the produce section, I got stared down. I made a big frown at one guy while avoiding eye contact. He stopped. What success I've had warding off the leering men! After dodging around corners from the menfolk, I wrapped up the rest of my grocery shopping and went to check out. These carts are really hard to push so it was more like I was spinning my way to the counter, avoiding multiple crashes with the shelves of spaghetti. The two guys at the counter were decent. They gave me two receipts and insisted that I go sign up to win this free car that the grocery store is giving away. I sort of ignored it because I'd already signed up last week. I began to walk out with my groceries, but they stopped me and wouldn't let me out without signing up. I trudged over to the counter and signed up again. Apparently, they pay someone to stand behind that counter and make sure that people sign up for a free car. Sometimes I think Kurdistan is a make-believe world, though it definitely wasn't my brain that thought it up. After that, I finally made it out.

I'm pretty excited to start school and work so that the most thrilling part of my day isn't telling about going to a grocery store and signing up to win a free car.  I hope in the near future to write about hilarious cultural faux pas, successes and failures at work, new friends and delicious Kurdish dinners. For now, I'm sorry to disappoint, but the reality is that my life just isn't very cool right now. More to come so stay tuned if you like.