Diwaniyah is one of the poorer and more conservative provinces in Iraq. All the women wear abaya (the full body black cloaks) when they are in public, and most of the librarians wore it inside during the day long trainings – presumably because there were men in the room. One of the local young women who works at the PRT as an interpreter and translator is a fireball – full of energy and a zest for living that is amazingly American for someone from such a conservative culture. It is hugely dangerous for her to work for us and every morning and every night she takes a couple of cars and taxis to get to us in order to shake the people who frequently follow her and want to harass or kill her or both. But still she comes to work each day. While most women do not wear the full face covering (the boo-shee-ah), our colleague does so that nobody will recognize her. One day while I was there (stuck there for additional three days because dust storms prevented flights) she agreed to dress me in her scarf/hijab, abaya and bushia so that I could understand more accurately what her life was like. Below is a photo essay of the experience:

It was hot and dark and very hard to see. But let it not be said that it was unattractive. Within minutes of my transformation I already had a suitor. 🙂 One of the other translators, Salah, an absolutely delightful man (like so many of the folks at the Diwaniyah PRT), whose heritage is Sudanese I believe, also dressed up and these photos of the two of us are among my most treasured from my time in Iraq thus far.


There are more photos from my Diwaniyah trip in my Facebook account – including photos of the PRT and CHUs and “Hanna’s Cabana” – an area that Hanna decorated in the PRT CHUville, complete with a small pool and fountain! And photos of the librarians we trained and the central library in Diwaniyah, which has so few books it is tragic. But I was impressed with their primitive cataloguing system nevertheless. The first day of the training was tough, with none of the 30+ librarians talking or commenting or asking questions at all. But by the second day, they had loosened up and really got some creative thinking going and I feel like maybe together we generated a little bit of hope for the future. That was way cool, and why I love my job so much.
The best part was on the second day, our military guys took a wrong turn and got stuck going through this narrow market street in their giant humvees. We were going really really slowly because the hummers were too wide and people had to move their tables of fish and fruit and stuff. But it was great to be that close to people (albeit from inside an armored vehicle) and I spent 20 minutes waving to Iraqis who all but a few gave huge smiles in return and waved right back. Apparently the first hummer was not so well received and knocked a few carts and subsequently got some fish thrown at them… But my exchanges were all about the love! 🙂

Oh yeah, and it is getting hotter. I finally got back to Baghdad and all week it has been topping out at about 49-50C/120-122F