Najaf

We left for Kuwait early the next morning and arrived tired, hot, and hungry. But here in Kuwait there was electricity and water and shops and a restaurant in our building. We attended a flurry of UN and other meetings, worked on our program ideas and proposals, and prepared to move into Iraq to implement our programs. Phil headed back to New York, and reluctantly we said good-bye to him. Jen would be leaving soon as well. Kevin was working on his article; he really hoped to hop a bus to Baghdad and profile the people he met along the way. We were all heading in opposite directions, and we were all far too busy to be pensive or reflective.

It was about this time, in early May, that we learned that a new civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer—a former State Department bureaucrat—had been named to head up the interim government of Iraq. I wondered what that meant for the popular Jay Garner. Everywhere I’d been I’d heard the chants “Jay Garner! Jay Garner!” His name represented hope to the people here. I also learned that the appointed medical administrator, a vibrant, experienced respected physician who’d headed up the interim Ministry of Health in Iraq, had been replaced by an inexperienced political donor to the president. Just when stability was needed, instability seemed to be the order of the day.

We wrote reports, called or emailed family, and said good-bye to civilization once again. We also stocked up on food—nonperishables like instant coffee, jam, peanut butter, crackers, whatever we could think of to supplement whatever meager diet we would get in Iraq—and headed back to Najaf, which would be our base of operations. The team included Jason again, Adam—the Australian field coordinator—and me, for health.

In Najaf, we checked into the same hotel where we had spent one night during the Shi’a pilgrimage just days earlier. Once again, the night was punctuated with bursts of gunfire and what sounded like return fire. My window overlooked a deserted alley, and with nothing to see, I went to bed and dozed in between the staccato bursts. The next morning, I feasted on my only guaranteed meal of the day, my precious boiled egg and bread. I sliced the warm egg lengthwise so it would seem as though there was more of it and made an egg sandwich with part of the bread. I slathered jam generously on what remained of the bread and washed it all down with sips of hot, strong, black instant coffee.

We headed that first morning to the CMOC in Najaf. The Marines were pulling out and the US Army soldiers were just getting CMOC and the Civil Affairs (CA) office organized. We learned that the gunfire we’d heard the night before had been the sounds of a battle between the US Marines and local insurgents right outside our hotel.

We met with the mayor of Najaf, who had an office in the same complex as CMOC. He was an enthusiastic, willing leader and eager, he assured us, to help usher in change for the people of Iraq. Just as in Karbala and so many other places, IRC was the very first NGO to show up, and here, we were literally moving in. The mayor helped smooth our way to meet with department heads and others with whom we hoped to work. He seemed an impressive man, but within days, we heard grumblings that he was a Saddam loyalist, a criminal, and a man who had been responsible for countless vicious acts against his own people. The US Army investigated, and shortly thereafter, he was removed from office. It was yet another reminder that we had to be careful here; everyone had a history, and there were plenty of Saddam loyalists still lurking about.

As we departed the CMOC building that first day, we were surrounded by a crowd of Iraqi men who hoped to get jobs as interpreters with us. Several slick, handsome, well-dressed young men were told to come the next day, and as we were pulling out, a tall, reed-thin man with heavy black eyebrows and a line of sweat clinging to his forehead leaned into the window. “You must hire me,” he said with unmistakable urgency.

With a wave of his hand, Jason dismissed him, but there was something about him, an honesty and openness that I liked. “Come tomorrow!” I shouted as he turned away.

“My name is Amir,” he called as we drove off.

The next morning, the two polished interpreters and an older Iraqi, rather full of himself, showed up and were hired. We would each have our own interpreter and an extra for administrative work. I wanted someone who would be willing to work and to learn with me, someone who would literally not hesitate to get his hands dirty. These guys we’d just hired were all too self-absorbed, too clean, too smooth for me.

Amir strode nervously through the door, almost tripping, his anxious eyes darting around, and I smiled.

Our interview was short. “Are you willing to learn medical terms, work long hours, and help me in any way necessary?”

“Oh yes, yes, I am,” he assured me. “I need this job to feed my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.” There was no shiny veneer to Amir; he was straightforward and uncomplicated and I liked him. I hired him and we went to work that very first morning.

I continued my assessments in the areas around Najaf, and Amir and I made the long trip to Karbala several times a week. We went to each of the hospitals in Najaf and Karbala to keep in close contact with the medical system here, and we attended weekly meetings with the health directors in each governorate as well. I frequently sought out the advice of Dr. Sayed, an energetic young pediatrician I’d met at the Women’s Hospital in Karbala. He became a valuable asset to IRC. He’d been trained as a primary care physician in Baghdad, then the government had sent him to Karbala to work. His background was impressive—primary care, pediatrics, administration. He seemed to have done it all.

I knew I would be finishing up my contract with IRC in June, and that meant I had to find an Iraqi physician to take over my programs. The sooner I found someone, the better prepared he or she would be to manage everything and to work with me before I left. I was sizing up every physician and administrator I met. We wouldn’t be able to get a health manager with international experience, but as long as we could find someone who would be a good fit for us and IRC, the programs would be fine. I thought about discussing it with Dr. Sayed but decided I would have plenty of time in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I had plenty to do, program proposals to research and write, and several more assessments in and around Najaf. People often assume aid work is glamorous and exciting, but much of it, though vital, necessary, and ultimately life-saving, is boring and involves endless days of writing and voluminous research to support what you’ve written. There are only rare moments of excitement and drama, but among those was the nightly gunfire.

The staccato rounds of gunfire pierced the heavy night air; a silent night was rare now. Still, we all managed to sleep through most of it, only occasionally complaining about interrupted sleep. We were all well used to those sounds and went about our business barely noticing the chaos of gunfire. We had to move from our hotel/rooming house to another, since we had been informed that Al-Hakim, a Muslim cleric who had been exiled to Iran under Saddam, was returning home to Najaf and his entourage would be housed here in our hotel. It was feared that Al-Hakim would stir up anti-American fervor and violence, and CMOC advised us to keep a low profile.

One morning, before Al-Hakim had even arrived, and before we’d moved from our hotel, I waited alone in the lobby for Amir and the driver to return from an errand. Two Muslim clerics dressed in the full black robes and white turbans that marked them as Shi’a mullahs came into the lobby, sat, and proceeded to enjoy a breakfast of yogurt and bread. They motioned with their hands as they invited me to join them, but I politely declined. I had work to do.

They seemed to be kind and engaging men, and when one asked where I was from, I foolishly never hesitated before saying, “I’m an American.”

They looked at each other and then at me, their eyes blazing. “The filthy dogs,” one snarled as he stood and moved toward me. The other, his forehead one long, angry line, frowned. “Get out,” he said in a whisper so fierce that at first I wasn’t sure what he’d said.

“Get out,” the first one added, his voice shaking with anger. “You are all criminals; here to steal from us!”

No one else was in the lobby, no one to intervene, no one to help. With my heart flapping furiously in my chest, I gathered my papers.

“Americans get out of Iraq. We don’t want you here!”

The blood drained from my head as a knot of fear bubbled up in my stomach. I knew it would take a millisecond to kill one of us, to emphasize a point, or to gain world attention if only for an instant. I hurried out, their shouts ringing in my ears, and stood in a small alleyway so that they couldn’t see me. It seemed forever before Amir and the driver returned.

“What?” Amir exploded when I told him what had happened. “We will go back,” he said.

“No,” I answered. “I don’t want any more problems. We’ll go to CMOC and report it, and I’ll tell Adam. That’s all.” I did report and discuss the incident with the soldiers, who could only remind me to be careful. That same day, Adam found a family-run hotel/rooming house close by, and we moved in. As with each of the other places where we’d stayed in Iraq, a room consisted of a small, wood-frame bed with a pad thrown onto it—no mattress, no comfort, but at least it was like a bed—and a squat latrine/shower combination so we could shower when the taps worked. We would still get the boiled egg and bread breakfast, and I was grateful, since it was still my only sure meal of the day. We were often too busy to stop for a bite, and it seemed when we had the time, the area was not the safest. Though I tried at the end of our day to pick something up, it didn’t always work out. I would feast on bread and jam later if I was able to get the bread; otherwise I went to bed hungry, dreaming of the morning’s hard-boiled egg. I was running low on instant coffee and was rationing my precious morning cups; since there was no instant coffee available in Iraq, I was down to a half cup in the morning. I would need to resupply soon, coffee and food.

I carried out assessments in Najaf and the more rural areas away from the city center. Just as in Karbala, the city of Najaf, though not quite as modern as Karbala, had paved roads, buildings, shops, and a central mosque. The outlying areas were just as destitute as those around Karbala. The people were in a fragile state, barely surviving on the food and resources they had available; with the added insult of diminished health care, life there seemed to be hanging by a thread. We had to have our programs approved by USAID/DART in order to draw down the money necessary to implement them. We worked to put together a Quick Impact Proposal (QIP); I wrote the health QIP, Jason completed the water and sanitation QIP, and a child specialist, new to IRC, worked on child protection.

My QIP included demographic data, thorough problem analysis, and the number and needs of the beneficiary population. The proposals also included an implementation plan with timeline, detailed activities, and expected results and impact. We also included a plan to monitor performance.

We drove to Al-Hillah to meet the USAID/DART representatives and present our proposals. Al-Hillah was also home to the ORHA representatives, and all were housed in what had once been an elegant, four-star hotel. As we approached the area we saw, in large red neon letters on the roof of the hotel, the letters O-R-H-A for all to see. That sign courted danger. Better to maintain a low profile until you could be absolutely sure that you were accepted and safe. The garish sign was almost an embarrassment, but the ORHA staff didn’t seem to notice how odd and out of place it was. Jay Garner was still there, and though we didn’t meet him, we did notice how well received he was by Iraqis. He walked through the lobby in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, smiled, shook hands, made people feel important.

No wonder Iraqis liked him.

Hell, I liked him.

We met with the USAID/DART team and presented our proposals, answered their questions, and, finally, gained their approval. Now we could finally implement our ideas.

First, we would head back to Kuwait to resupply, make arrangements to have our pre-positioned supplies moved into Iraq, and tidy up final program details. There would be no work for the interpreter staff in our absence, and I had to convince Amir that I would be back and so would he.

We left Najaf early, before the sun rose, hoping to make the trip before the sultry heat of the day was upon us. Suleiman, an IRC employee from Tanzania, had joined us for a short stint to help with logistics. He would drive us to Kuwait City, and from there, he would catch a flight home to Africa. Suleiman had a wonderful and gentle nature but a terrible sense of direction. It took hours before we realized we’d been driving in circles. The heat was indescribable; hot enough, we thought, to truly fry an egg. We’d all brought our bottles of water, but they quickly became as hot as the air and offered no relief from the sweltering breeze.

When we finally arrived in Kuwait some twelve hours after we’d left Najaf, we rushed for the air-conditioning our hotel offered.