"John" the translator

Sunday, 22 April 2007, P.M. Barbecue # 1. Earlier in the day, I received an email from a strange email address. I recognized it once I read the message in broken English. If you read my blog from February, you know that my team and I spent some time with the Military Transition Team (MiTT). The MiTT employs local Iraqi translators in their missions. My team and a couple of the MiTT team military members and translators traded email addresses back then. One of the email trades was with a young 21 year-old translator, “John”. Back to the email I got: the gist of the email I received was that a MiTT translator saw me in the Dining Facility and told John. John was asking if I was, indeed at this base. I replied that I was and he countered with an invitation to a barbecue that they were having. Of course, I would try to go.

I showed up and was greeted with smiles and a couple of familiar faces. It's good to see familiar faces when you're traveling by yourself in Iraq. They had a primitive looking grill that looked like it was made of about a 12-inch diameter cut in half and then welded to 2 metal tripods. The pipe was then filled with charcoal and lit...there was no grill rack, the lamb kabobs were put directly on the coals. I don't usually have much of a taste for lamb, but this lamb was pretty good; apparently it was from a local village "outside the wire." The had about 10 lbs of local flat bread wrapped up in a black plastic bag that you would use to wrap up the meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions in. It was really quite delicious. John gave me a local canned beverage which was like orange juice with lots of pulp; also very good. A few more guests arrived and we ate until it got dark with rap playing in the background. After the eating it was time to make chai tea. They drink a heck of a lot of chai tea in Iraq. John brought out a small metal teapot filled with loose tea leaves and put it directly on the coals. It seemed like forever, but finally it was ready. A middle-aged Iraqi translator was answering many of my questions about the proper way to brew the Iraqi tea; the proper color, and the amount of sugar to add to it. He prepared a few styrofoam cups full and it was sooo sweet and also soo good.
John gave me a bag of the tea and some other kind of tea pods to take with me. I thought it was very sweet that he was so eager to share one of his native foods. I also appreciated that he gave me some from his supply knowing that he is not able to buy it very often.

John is a sweet kid and, although I barely know him, when you meet people over here there is not much time to be anything but genuine and honest, so you feel like you've known people longer than you actually have. I worry about him working with the MiTT team and the impact to his family. If the wrong people were to find out who he worked with, it could mean very bad things for his family. He told me that he has almost completed the visa process to get to the U.S. for a little bit to spend time with a Major from the previous MiTT team. In the near future he wants to join the U.S. Army an become a linguist so he can become a U.S. citizen. He said that that was his dream, to be a U.S. citizen. It's crazy to think of all the people that are born with seemingly nothing EXCEPT their U.S. citizenship and how much that is worth to so many people. So many Americans don't realize its value and here this young Iraqi was putting his life in danger every day so he may eventually gain that which so many people don't think about.

So, John will be in my thoughts when I think about Iraq. I hope he will reach his dream and I hope to get an email from him one day telling me about it. I took a couple of pictures, but i can't post them because it could potentially harm his safety...think about that.