The Books: “Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia” (Tony Horwitz)

I’m on my history bookshelf.

Next book on this shelf is called Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz.

Tony Horwitz is kind of the Dave Barry of “travelogues”. He’s married to Geraldine Brooks, serious foreign correspondent – and for some reason I just love the thought of them together. His books are laugh out loud funny, even if he’s writing about a serious topic – and, like Dave Barry does, he often makes himself the unwitting star of his own books. Like: “look at what a goofball I am.” If you haven’t read his stuff, I highly highly recommend him. He doesn’t publish ENOUGH as far as I’m concerned. So Baghdad without a map is the story of him basically tagging along through the Middle East and Africa behind his hot-shot wife – and the adventures and “misadventures” he has. He doesn’t have the same access she does – she talks to Prime Ministers – he talks to car salesmen. But he’s one of those people – like Dave Barry, or David Sedaris – whose antennae are always tuned in towards “the funny”. He sees the absurdity of life. Some of the observations he makes in Baghdad without a map seem so spot ON – but he never sacrifices the humor. Like he describes being on a flight to Iran from London or something. Everyone gets on the plane, everyone is “Western”. The pilot announces that they will soon begin the descent to Tehran. And all at once, as one, every woman on the plane starts to drape herself in her burkha. It’s not a funny image all on its own, per se … it’s indicative of some of the issues in the Middle East – but it’s specific, it’s human, and it tells the story way better than some treatise on what Mohammed said about veiling women, or the history of the burkha. Tony Horwitz makes you see it. Women in hip track suits, or chic designer clothes, stiletto heels – suddenly draping themselves, and becoming indistinguishable from one another. The book is full of anecdotes like that. Oh, and he said that after a couple of weeks being in Arab countries, or any Muslim country – where his wife had to put on a veil – the sight of his wife’s hair started to arouse him in the worst way. They would come home after a long day to the hotel, she would take off her veil, he would contemplate her hair, and then just attack her.

In the book, he goes to Yemen, Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad, Israel, Libya (now that’s a hoot – Libya, in and of itself, is, of course, not funny at all – but read his chapter on Libya – hahahaha), Tehran (he is there during Khomeini’s funeral) – and he takes a boat ride in the Persian Gulf.

It was so hard to choose because each chapter is so good – so just promise me you’ll give the whole book a shot – I chose a great excerpt from his visit to the Sudan. He goes to Khartoum, piggy-backing with a group of aid workers. And then they all travel, as a group, to southern Sudan. Tony Horwitz is fascinated by the toweringly tall Dinka – Anyway, while in southern Sudan working at a refugee camp – there’s an impromptu soccer game – It’s one of my favorite incidents in the book.

From Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz.

We made it back to Muglad in time for a sunset soccer game at a field adjoining the refugee camp. Normally, Kevin and one other aid worker played in the weekly contest, but they had work to do and asked Bart and me to go as substitutes. I was weary from the long day in Babanoosa and wearier still at the sight of the field: a two-hundred-yard expanse of thorn and scrub, with crooked sticks forming a goal at either end. The field was almost as wide as it was long and edged with sand and brambles. An underfed goat grazed at the hundred-yard line.

The teams, twenty to a side, were as irregular as the field. One squad was mostly Dinka, the other included members of a clan called Nuer. Tribal markings were the only way to tell the two groups apart. Dinka men have their six bottom teeth yanked out at the age of eight, and four lines cut across their foreheads at adolescence. The Nuers’ faces are marked with six lines and small raised dots. This distinction would no doubt be obvious to an anthropologist. But in fading sunlight, on a playing ground the size of an Iowa cornfield, the players were indistinguishable to me.

When I suggested with pantomime that one team identify itself by disrobing from the waist up, in the American tradition of “shirts and skins”, half of the players politely obliged and half didn’t, irrespective of which squad they were on. Then a self-appointed referee, who had evidently never played soccer before, tossed a lumpy brown ball in the air and announced that the match had begun.

Tents emptied out and the refugees crowded along the sidelines, shouting and banging on sticks. Adults gathered behind one goal and children behind the other, though neighter group seemed to be rooting for a particular team. The game, after all, was a complete novelty to most of them, as were Bart and I. No sooner had we lined up, on opposing sides, than a deafening roar begagn:

“Khawajja! Khawajja! Khawajja!”

Posted at left wing, the only player I could identify was a Dinka with red sneakers who appeared to be on my side. This was hard to confirm, as everyone crowded around the ball rather than playing in position. The referee stood passively by as the players delivered groin kicks and tackled each other in the thorns.

What the players lacked in finesse they made up for in stamina. After two or three springs down the endless field, I was clutching my stomach and gasping for breath. My teammates, many of whom had recently limped into Muglad with swollen feet and bellies, raced up and down as effortlessly as gazelles across the savannah.

Given the size and condition of the field, scoring should have been impossible. Perhaps to compensate for this, both teams passed over their seven-footers and chosen as goalies two youths who were, by Dinka standards, virtual dwarfs, no taller than I. As the goals were thirty yards wide and the posts lacked crossbeams, even wild kicks sailed past the goalies’ arms or over their heads. After twenty minutes of play the score was 10 to 7.

The crowd showed no interest in the scoring, apparently unaware that this was the point of the game. Instead, they were riveted to the miscues, laughing loudly whenever players kicked and missed or let balls roll between their legs. After days spent waiting for rations of sorghum, the soccer game wasn’t sport, it was comic relief. And it quickly became clear that Bart and I were the champion clowns, midget men with straight blond hair and pale skin, loping in slow motion behind the fleet, tall Dinka. Each time either of us touched the ball, the cry went up from the sidelines: “Khawajja! Khawajja! Khawajja!”

Deafened by the noise, I dribbled through the thorns until my wind gave out, then looked for the red-sneakered youth — yelling, pointlessly, “Yo! Dinka in the red!” — and kicked the ball as hard as I could.

“KHAWAJJA! KHAWAJJA! KHAWAJJA!”

After an hour, the sun sank into the scrub in a blaze of purple and orange, with the score tied at 21. The referee called the game. The other side didn’t hear, or didn’t care, and rushed down the field, kicking the ball through the posts after our goalie had fled. The referee threw up his hands. The Nuer had won, 22 to 21. And the refugees wandered off through the dark to pick up firewood and cook their sorghum porridge as another band of refugees wandered in.