Roadside Manners

Having survived car bombs in Kirkuk and a ribbon-cutting in Efraz, done the last of my interviews and confirmed my flight for tomorrow, I was ready to congratulate myself on another mission accomplished in Iraq, when I was struck by a motorcycle.

A big Honda minus headlights driving against traffic sent me skidding along the pavement of a street I was trying to cross. Luckily, I was wearing a leather jacket, or I'd be picking gravel out of my arms.

I took the opportunity to practice my extensive Anglo-Saxon vocabulary on the two teenage boys who had been driving, and who now pulled to the curb. They just stood there and said nothing. Only later did I realize that they were Arabs, and probably refugees here in Kurdistan.

Not knowing this at the time, their silence made me even angrier. "Why don't you appologize?" I shouted. But these kids were probably thinking that if they said anything, my Kurdish friends and I would recognize their Arab accents, and they'd be on the next Kurdish police truck back to the war zone in Arab Iraq for almost killing an American. On the other hand, if they don't appologize, we might also call the police, they may have worried.

So the oldest one hesitated for a moment and then figured a way out of his refugee Catch 22. He put his hand to his chest, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Arbil