Category: Letter

This month, lots of short notes of support and opprobrium. We guess you’re busy working off those holiday pounds and credit card bills. Jeff S. writes from Hastings to say he recognized himself in last month’s western-wear fashion shoot, and could he please have an extra copy of the issue to keep for posterity? We say it’s in the mail, cowboy! We officially received protest letter number 1,000 on a Stuart Greene column from, like, two years ago, “Should married men go to strip clubs?” (We thought the matter was, uh, settled law.) Jen writes from Massachusetts (lowest divorce rate in the nation!) to say “no”—because women are inherently competitive and jealous. Conversely, Kimberly Joy Morgan gently informs us that her dreadlocks are the real deal, not faux, as we averred in last month’s Broken Clock.

At the top of a high hill on the north side of Amman, Jordan, a Baghdadi grocer tends his tiny store. In a ten- by twenty-foot space, he’s crammed just about anything a reasonable person could need: eggs and milk in an uncooled refrigerator, meat in tin cans, shampoos and soaps in faded, dusty bottles, AAA batteries, and heavy duty packing tape. One evening, however, I think I’ve stumped him. “Bidi laymoon?” I ask.

Like a magician, he reaches behind the counter. “Laymoon? Like this? Yes—I have.” In his hand he presents a perfect yellow lemon.

The grocer is about my height, maybe closer to six feet, and forty-three years old. He almost always wears a gray sweater with an old pair of jeans or dark gray wool pants. There are bags under his eyes and some gray in his hair, too. On most days, he wears ragged stubble on his gaunt face. On those days, especially, he looks very old.

I suppose, in a way, we’re in Amman for the same reasons. Our countries crashed into each other and the jolt sent us both flying. I landed smoothly, having flown by choice, he with a thud, forced from his home by the war. We landed on the same hilltop overlooking a city under constant construction, growing like a field of concrete to accommodate the constant stream of others like us.

The diplomats waging the war, the contractors rebuilding the cities, the reporters covering the events, the students learning the language, the aid workers combating the problems, and more than a half million Iraqi refugees have all settled in Amman. It’s the home base for the Westerners, and the temporary home for the Iraqis. For the Jordanians, this influx has brought with it a one hundred percent increase in property values and a nightmare for the overcrowded schools.

I met my grocer the first day I moved in. “Where are you from?” he asked. “America?”

“Yes,” I said. “America.”

“I am from Baghdad,” he said, emphasis on the “dad.” He looked at me sternly. I looked back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was trying to be sincere, but felt a little bit put on the spot. I didn’t start the war and I needed some milk.

“Yes,” he said. “I am more sorry.” He waited as I poked around and stepped over boxes. I brought my groceries to the counter. “Saddam Hussein is a very good man,” he said. “Believe me—yes—very good man.” He gave me the thumbs up.

“Masalamma,” I said as I left. It was a strange scene for a native Minnesotan. The checkout people at Cub never engaged me in a political discussion, and I appreciated that. They might have commented on the weather, or maybe made a casual observation prompted by something I purchased, but they didn’t touch politics, and never offered up the defense of a murderous dictator. I walked out the door into the warm and dusty Jordanian night, with the grocer’s friendly goodbye trailing after me.

Everything comes in smaller cartons in this country and the shops aren’t as far away from the homes as they often are in America, so I found myself stopping by the Iraqi man’s store nearly every night. Our early conversations were vaguely political. He defended Hussein and sang Sunni praises; I wondered aloud if perhaps this Sunni hero of his went to some unnecessary extremes with the Shiites and the Kurds.

“Troublemakers,” my grocer said dismissively, and changed the subject. “You don’t look so good today. Tired today? Not like a flower, not like yesterday.” I assured him I’d get a good night’s sleep and headed home with my cocoa powder and tomato paste.

Morning and night, there are other Iraqis in my grocer’s store, smoking his cigarettes and drinking the coffee he brings from home. One hefty middle-aged man always sits on a crate chain-smoking and breathing heavily. When he gets up to shake my hand, it’s not without a great deal of effort and several coughs. He left one day and my grocer told me he was about to die. “All of the Iraqis here, they’re all very sick. Yes, something wrong with every one: blood pressure, diabetes, cancer. We are all very sad right now.”

I assumed those problems probably had to do with poor health care under the old regime and the endless supply of cigarettes, but our logic usually differed, and he attributed the ailments to broken hearts. I wasn’t sure I had the ammunition or the willpower to argue.

One night he hardly muttered when I walked in the door. He was slumped behind his counter on a crate, looking ragtag, gray, and tired. “You see what happened today? Senseless!” Thirty-six people had been killed in a Baghdad roadside bombing. We talked for a while. “Iraq has made my words tired,” he said as I wished him good night. “I must go home.”

The next night I hardly muttered when he issued his usual ebullient greeting. “I’m just homesick,” I said, “and I think I have the flu.” He prescribed a remedy in Arabic and we talked. It was a pathetic follow-up to a roadside bombing, but he didn’t say so.

Through the International Catholic Migration Mission, Suzana Paklar has been working with the Iraqi refugee community in Jordan for the past fifteen months. For refugees, she says, “it’s a question of missing their normal, everyday life. Maybe their life wasn’t even that good back home, but they had a community, and they were somebody in that community.”

Atop a high hill on the north side of Amman, my Baghdadi grocer longs for the community he left behind. Around Amman, half a million Iraqis join him, and around the Middle East—in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt—several million Iraqis hope for the same thing. My grocer is somebody in the community here—somebody to me and somebody to the friends who share his coffee and cigarettes. And because he’s somebody here, and somebody to me, I wish he was home, too.—Leah Fabel

Bruce writes: The attached picture was taken at Havre, Montana on Wednesday Oct 12, 2005. I am standing next to Great Northern locomotive 2584. This 382 ton locomotive fascinates passengers on Amtrak’s Empire Builder. Built in 1930 to pull the Empire Builder and other Great Northern passenger trains, 2584 was placed on display next to the depot on May 15, 1964. I had picked up the “The Rake” a few hours before I boarded the westbound Empire Builder in the Twin Cities on Tuesday, 10/13/2005. While reading it, I came upon the “Red-Handed” section and thought the Havre picture might be interesting.

Alan writes: Here is a picture from the Royal Palace in Visegrad, Hungary.
King Corvinus made this palace his summer home and it is said the red
marble fountains in the palace flowed with wine. We are sitting on a
wall overlooking the Danube.

The Rake in Tokyo Bay, Tokyo, Japan.

Christine writes: This photograph was taken in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia while doing medical work there in October 2005 with forheartsandsouls.org. Christine Larson RN of Stillwater was part of a team of 21 doctors and nurses who went to Mongolia to screen children for heart defects. The team also taught surgical repair of minor heart defects as well as pre- and post-op care to doctors and nurses of Ulan Bataar.

Dave writes: We took this while in Glacier Bay, Alaska a couple weeks back. PS- I really enjoyed Musicapolis (6/05). I am 44 and grew up watching and listening to many local and regional bands. Thanks, Dave

Cindy Jindra writes: Much to the delight of our Overseas Adventure Travel companions, we brought along our Rake as we enjoyed a two-week trip on the back roads of Costa Rica. This issue was passed around until it fell apart. Of course, the volcanic mud bath really took a toll on the condition of this well-read missive. The four of us hail from Minnesota. From left to right: Diane Hansen (Eveleth), MaryAnn Okoren (Virginia), Cindy Jindra (Biwabik and Fort Myers, Florida), and Sue Bateman (Virginia).

Kate Hearth shared some extracurricular reading material with her son, Nick, in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
Nick was working at a field school of the University of California-Riverside Archaeology Department, about 25 miles west of Cancun. Kate and
husband Steve visited Nick and helped him and his work partner map several Mayan dwellings at an archaeological site. “We may look overdressed for 95-degree heat … and 95 percent humidity,”
she writes, “but protection is essential—snakes, poisonous spiders, poisonous trees. Too bad you can’t see the snake gaiters, leather wraps around our lower legs.”

Sara Stiles, of Edina, writes: For your wonderful magazine: Giddy for Gondolas! I visited Venice, Italy in late September this year, on a tour with 46 other
people. I caught up on a little Rake reading before boarding my gondola,
and left my copy of the Rake at St. Mark’s Square for the locals to
appreciate. Our group went gondola riding as a group–we had five gondolas with seven
people each (not quite everyone went on the ride). We were quite a sight,
cruising the Grand Canal side by side, as one great mass of gondolas! The
gondola in the middle had a singer and an accordian player in their boat,
and they serenaded us down the Grand Canal, as well as many tiny, winding
canals (we had to ride single-file here!). Locals leaned their heads out of
their windows, enjoying the music, waving to us, and smiling at our
enthusiasm (we even gave them a rendition of “Roll Out the Barrel!” It was a truly magical evening, laughing and singing as the sun set on unforgettable Venice.