Buildings and Fruitstands...without the fruit stands

From the roof of our office building

So, the main reason it has been a couple of days since I've written anything is I don't know what to put down. I think there is so much I'm taking in that I don't really know how to process it all, and it seems that throwing it on paper will look about like a Jackson Pollack painting…without the international acclaim. So, I'm going to start simple. I will walk you to work.

Its Sunday, because we start our work week on Sunday (I wore a tie, so I felt cool). With the strap of my stolen travel bag across my chest creasing the front of my white shirt, I walk sock-shod toward the rack of dirt covered shoes in the walk way leading to the door at the front of the house. This particular Sunday, my blue slacks are still clean so I grab
the caramel brown leather loafers that were too small for
Uncle Steve and step across the threshold onto the mat. I pretend that the outside mat is not covered in dirt like the rest of the gated front porch, so I can at least feel ok about ruining the bottom of all my dress socks. It's better than bringing dirt into the house. Outside the dirt is everywhere. It covers the tile of the housha (front porch) like a well-prepared shuffleboard. It coats the sky with a dirty orange, like my memories of windy West Texas. It hangs in the air like water in the humid summer. Deep breaths (and yawns) lead to a cough or two. Funny thing, the weather has only been like this the two days I've worn this white shirt.

I cross the housha, which is about the size of my living room in Waco, and reach for the gold latch that locks the red, rusted metal gate closed from the inside. The dust ridden Iraqi street looks like an alleyway clogged with small cars and toyota trucks that have no place to hide. I head left from the gate passing houses on each side. All narrow, three-story (what I imagine to be manhattan apartment style) homes snug next to each other. At the end of the street on my right is a house under construction. Its the only house that looks as I sometimes imagined the streets of Iraq in the mid-2000s. Just cinder blocks and two-by-fours, a whole four stories high. The closer I get to the office the wider the streets get and the car traffic increases too. By this time the streets have gained nice red brick (dust-covered) sidewalks, which would be great except that these specific sidewalks double as street parking. So, the walk to work is a constant attempt to not be in the way of empty taxis. Thankfully these cars drive slowly and honk at every opportunity, so don't worry, I know they are coming. After crossing a minor intersection I come to the business sector of our neighborhood and take a right toward the main road, Salim street. The side road connecting the walking road to Salim descends toward Salim directly beside our building, so halfway down on the left is another red, rusted gate, but one much less likely to serve as a front door to a home and much more likely to be seen at the front of a gated apartment building…in the projects. This red, rusted gate opens onto the back of our office building. It, too, is littered with indications of construction. The entrance into the building changes the atmosphere immediately (I say onto because its like a foot-high step up). After the step up onto the linoleum tiled floor, I raise my head to see a wide, toothy smile from a man dressed in loose fitting kurdish traditional clothes kindly touching his hand to his forehead from behind a glass pane to my right. He sells turkish baklava in our office building, on the floor just below our office. The building is covered with open air hallways, so we haven't quite left the dirt yet. After going up a set of stairs and down another hallway past men who claim to have been working on the elevator for the past week…while holding mops and brooms, I finally arrive at the office door and walk inside. Taking off my shoes, I wipe the dust from my pant legs,  straighten my tie and place my loafers inside the shoe cabinet by the door, and step onto the carpet.