Fun

Several friends and family members seem to think I'm working too hard and not having enough fun. Others have asked some variation of the question "What in the world do you do for fun in Baghdad?" The answer is not much, at least outside our tiny little neighborhood. But that's not to say we don't have any fun at all!

I've mentioned the swimming pool in the back yard, which feels pretty great when it's 115 degrees. Although everyone in our house is very liberal when it comes to social customs (I wear jeans and a t-shirt, not an abaya, in the house, which I wouldn't normally be able to do in a house full of Muslim men not related to me), a bathing suit would still be pushing the comfort limit for some of them. Consequently, I wear shorts and a t-shirt in the pool, which makes it difficult to swim laps but is fine for floating around. My friend and co-worker D had never been in a swimming pool before she started working here, so she asked me to teach her to swim. She's perfectly comfortable getting in the water, but the idea of actually swimming scares her a bit. I taught a few swim lessons back in my lifeguarding days, so I have some idea of how to do this, but D is going to be a challenge. I started by having her hold on to the side and kick her legs, but as soon as I let go, she stopped kicking. We've got some work to do.

Tonight the people in the hotel next door (who all work in "the industry") are throwing a party, which will be a rare chance for me to socialize with people who don't live here. They're almost all Americans, and almost all of them have been here for several months, so I'll be the new kid in the group. I don't think this will be a huge rager, but it should be fun.

Still, even though I'm having fun I realize there are so many things I don't get to do. Yesterday afternoon the two women in our office, D and I, went out shopping in the downtown neighborhood of Karrada. They very kindly asked me if they could bring me anything (and D ended up bringing me a very cool light-reflecting Iraq paperweight), but I didn't have anything else to do and wanted to go out with them. Of course I couldn't; it's too dangerous for an American to walk around out in the open, but it made me fiercely jealous.