A change in perspective

January 05, 2005

As I pulled up to the Crowne Plaza in Kuwait City shortly after midnight, I realized that it could take a while to shake the war zone mentality.

I’d been warned about this.

Soldiers found themselves at home on R&R looking down alleyways for bad guys with rocket-propelled grenades — in south Arkansas.

I saw a man walking with a package at an intersection and immediately wondered if it was a bomb. I listened for gunfire.

Silence.

It was pitch dark, of course, but I couldn’t mistake the shadow of the man sitting in the gunner turret of a military vehicle. He was guarding the entrance to the hotel.

Concrete barriers created a maze into the entrance, a deterrent for car bombers, I figure.

Inside, everyone went through a metal detector.

Armed guards are posted.

Surely it will look different after dawn, I thought.

This is too much like Iraq.

Sleep was fitful.

I had a king-size bed, but when I awoke I found that I never moved beyond a space the width of my Army cot. I wonder how long that will last.

Americans flock together on foreign soil.

I made new friends at the hotel. Two of us had just come out of Iraq, but neither of us talked much about it unless someone else asked.

Even then, we didn’t have much to say. People wanted to know how dangerous it was, if we’d been shot at.

Yes, we both had. In fact we realized we’d survived at least two of the same rocket attacks, not that it really matters.

We survived and now, for a brief time, all of us were getting away from it. And looking back at where we’ve been, what is there to say?

You just have to see it to understand it.

Our little group ate — first American cuisine, then Libyan — but never ventured far from the grounds.

Well, until I had to find my airline tickets.

I headed out this afternoon to the Air France office to pick up my tickets.

My taxi driver, Hamoud, spoke no English and I speak limited Arabic, but we made it work.

I looked out the window of the cab and my mind fell back to my first days here last March. I remember thinking how dirty Kuwait looked. I remember being amazed at the sand and the trash.

I remember thinking how strange it was to see men in native cloaks and head scarves and women completely covered except for their eyes.

My, how my perspective has changed.

Kuwait seems remarkably clean.

The roads are well paved and brightly lit.

There isn’t any sewage in the streets and the roadside trash is almost unnoticeable compared to Iraq.

And Arab dress is normal to me now.

We passed a sandy field filled with Bedouin tents, a place for the transient tribe of herders to live as they pass through. Camels were tied up outside some of the tents, Land Cruisers and Mercedes parked outside others.

Soon we were in downtown Kuwait City, among high-rise office buildings of glass and steel.

It could have been any large city, cleaner, in fact, than many.

The Air France office said my tickets were at the airport, which is exactly opposite of what they told the travel agent.

As I walked out of the office and back to Hamoud, who was waiting for me only because I remembered the Arabic gesture for please wait, a man said hello.

I guess it was pretty obvious that I’m American. Levi’s, tennis shoes, Eddie Bauer polar fleece jacket. Yep, American.

Soon I was back at the microcosm that is the Plaza.

It’s a world in itself, a mix of people stranded for whatever reason somewhere between home and Iraq.

And that’s exactly where my mind is right now, somewhere in between.

Posted by Amy at January 5, 2005 01:46 PM