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Views on China

(The Erbil dynamic.)
I was walking with a friend in Sulaymaniyah and stopped at a window full of earrings. "Where is a good place to get earrings for my wife," I asked.

"Not buy those," he said in the best English he could muster. "They from China. Dare product junk. You should know, not buy China."

I smiled to myself not bothering to explain and said, "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." The poetry of course is that a guy from a region with little electricity or hot water is weary of Chinese products in a similar fashion as folks are back in America. My friend took me to a local craftsman that handmade some earrings for me at half the cost.

I rolled into Erbil late the other night after my 75 mile per hour ride through the mountains. I walked over to a late-night photo shop and asked a guy waiting for his pictures where a soda pop shop might be open so late.

"Where you from?" he asked.

"America," I always tell the truth about where I am from. Lying can cause problems down the road.

"America? You a crazy man? he asked smiling.

"No, I like to see places other Americans do not usually travel to," I tried to explain.

"Oh I see, I understand," he said. "You military."

"No," I said.

"OK, you government man - contractor," he said.

"No," I said.

"No problem, you CIA," he said.

"No," I said. "Just a traveler with a camera."

"Oh, I know, you the bad word - you mercenary," he said

Actually, that was a backdoor compliment. I assume one needs to be rather fit to be a mercenary. He offered me a ride to the soda pop shop. I made one of those split second decisions and took him up on it. He said he worked for a government office. But a lot of people say that here. I figured if he killed me I would have to explain to my mom in the afterlife why I got in the car with a stranger - in Iraq. They are however, batting 100 percent here in not harming me.

"I am a mercenary if a keyboard and pencil are considered weapons," I said as I climbed in his pickup truck. He gave me a incredulous glance. "Never mind," I said.

Bob Keith
Erbil, Iraq

View more pictures from Bob's travels.