So you want to freelance in Iraq?

I have decided that hands down the most difficult aspect of working in Iraq is finding a good and trusted driver and translator. The task is fraught with stress, complications, immense monetary negotiations and a great deal of language differences to boot. But the task is also the most essential because as journalists well know, you are only as good as your fixer.

This wasn’t an issue when I was with the military but it did become important once I made my way back to the “Red Zone” to my old haunt at the Al Dulaimi hotel in downtown Baghdad. I had the pick of hotel rooms, I was told. “This hotel is yours, Zayluh. You pay whatever you want.” (though in the end they charged me what they wanted – a fair price, I might add). I was hoping to have input about working conditions from Nadeem and also from Hussein, my two closest Iraqi friends from my prior visit. But Nadeem, I learn, has flown to Amman, on his way to be a big rock star in London. I love him for it. Hussein has not been heard from since he was kidnapped last January. I don’t dare contact his wife. So I must begin again with these precarious negotiations, but in a climate so drastically different from the last time.

Mohammed: I hear from another journalist that he used to translate for the Americans at Abu Ghraib and had to leave because his life was so threatened. It’s been a while now and the man needs work. I’m happy to oblige.

He calls from the lobby and I go down to meet him, then bring him to my room as I don’t want people in the lobby to overhear my plans for the next two days. He reluctantly sits down and I tell him what I need: he will go to the Communist Headquarters the following morning and arrange an interview for me with a woman’s activist as soon as possible. His forehead becomes beaded with sweat and though it’s been freezing all day long I do notice he has on a thick sweater and jacket. Perhaps he’s overheating. He asks if I have an abaya and I say I do. I will cover my head with a hat and a scarf, and my body will be enveloped in the traditional black gown. I will change my shoes (as I’m currently wearing sneakers) and we will not be out long. “And you cannot smile,” he tells me. “Iraqi women do not smile.”
I smile and nod my head. “I know.”
“And you cannot talk too much.”
“Pardon me?”
“The Italian journalist was kidnapped from the mosque here, down the street. I heard that she talked a lot.”
Again, I need clarification.
“You mean the interview was too long? Or did she speak loudly? Or maybe she came too many times to interview. I did hear she had visited more than once.”
“Yes, you mustn’t talk too much.”
“We will be safe, I know,” I tell him.
“Inshallah, inshallah.”
He is assigned to go to the Women’s center in Iraq the next morning and arrange the interview for me for the following afternoon. It is a simple task, and one that does not include a Western girl sitting in the back of his car long. He seems hesitant, or perhaps he’s still nervous sitting in a room with a female and a closed door. I apologize again for this situation. I am extremely nervous about my safety, and want plans discussed in utmost privacy.
“Yes, yes,” he says he understands. “We will pray to God for safety.”

The next morning he does not show and by the afternoon there still is no word. I know he needed time to find the women’s center located on a small sidestreet near the Palestine Hotel with an entryway that is often obscured. But that morning there has been a car bomb at a busy intersection and I am beginning to worry. Initially I thought perhaps he was delayed by the traffic; then I wondered if he may have been among the wounded. I finally reach him by phone and he tells me he tried to call one of my friends in the morning to tell him he could not come, his car is broken. He did not think of calling my hotel.
“I’m just glad you’re safe. So how long until it is fixed?” I ask.
“Two maybe three weeks.”
“Oh.”
My Iraqi friend Sadiq is in my room and looks at me confused. “Three weeks? He can have two or three cars by then,” he jokes. We laugh, but it has nothing to do with mechanics or delays; it is clear that his reluctance is about fear and the dangers of working with, being seen with a western woman, regardless of how completely I cover my face and body. My eyes will give it away.
“It’s not about the car, Sadiq," I say after getting off the phone, but Sadiq knows.
However, my time here is getting short and if I don’t find someone who will work with me I won’t accomplish anything at all. I am a bit hamstrung because as a freelancer I cannot pay the enormous sums that outlets like NBC and Time are paying. I am willing to make the driver/translator the greatest part of my budget in Iraq – if I can only find someone I trust. I trusted Nadeem and Hussein intrinsically. These days I can’t find anyone.

I go next door to the Getty pad, a fully wired top-floor room in the Al Hamra hotel, and ask a photographer if he has any driver translator to recommend. One of the translators in the Getty pad says he has a friend who is good and who needs work, and who has worked with journalists before. He calls him immediately and then says he is coming downstairs to meet me. It’s all happening a bit quickly and I ask my friend Joe if he knows the man. Joe knows nothing. And to make matters worse, the man doing the recommending is new to Getty. Ugh. I want to take a leap of faith but when ransom for a western woman could fetch more money than months of work, “trust” takes on new meaning. Still, if I want to work in Iraq on my own, I have to move on this.

So I go downstairs and meet Adil. I like his face but am not yet willing to climb into a vehicle with him. We try a first assignment - the same one I had for Mohammed - to go to the Communist headquarters and arrange an interview with the female activist. He’s then to go by Yarmouk hospital and inquire about a female doctor there and arrange an interview with ehr. I interviewed the doctor last year and wrote as much on a small note that Adil was to hand to the doctors with my name and address.
Three hours pass and I finally receive a call that the doctor cannot be found, but the activist can meet when I’d like. The activist and I have a nice phone conversation and for this first day I feel satisfied enough with Adil’s work. We meet to discuss the next day’s plans and I tell him I would also like to go to Khadimiya, where the Shiites are having a pilgrimage.
“No, it’s far too dangerous for you. You must stay here in the Karada district. Believe me.”
As far as I’m concerned Khadimiya is one of the safer areas in Iraq as it’s full of Shias, and unless something tragic happens, like a car bomb, the people there are more accepting of westerners. But he will not go. I wonder if it’s because he’s Sunni. Plus, his English is not so good so he wants me to find another translator. He knows a good one, he says – they all seem to know someone – so he whips out his phone and dials a friend, then begins speaking quickly in Arabic. I say I would like to meet any translator before heading out, so he calls the translator who is Jordanian and has him speak to me, assuming that will be enough. Sure, he sounds fine on the phone, speaks English well enough, but it’s just not about skill at this point.

“If you do not trust me, I cannot work with you,” Adil tells me. I couldn’t agree more.
Iraqis are notorious liars and they see nothing wrong with lying to cover their lack of knowledge. I have had Iraqis lie directly to my face, even when confronted with the fact that I know they’re lying and have the proof in my hands. The other side is that they want to be trusted and if they are not it is considered a question of honor. On a day to day basis, people working in the Middle East have to take this cultural element with a grain of salt and factor it into any working condition. But when it comes to the kind of insanely dangerous working conditions in Iraq, the game becomes much more serious. So I decide to give it a bit more time.

The next day I decide to skip Khadimiya for the moment and start with something a bit less threatening. I’ll go to meet a good friend in his apartment on the other side of town and then we’ll return. Adil comes to my room and tells me I look “beautiful” all covered in black with only my eyes peering through (I’m sure he says that to all the journalists). But he’s still nervous.
“Why can’t I bring him here for the interview?” he asks when I explain the new plan. I appreciate his concern but his nervousness is making me nervous. I tell him the point is that I want to see my friend’s studio and film his newest artworks.
“Then we will need a second car. I’ll call my neighbor and he’ll follow us,” he says without pause. Now technically speaking a second car following us is a very wise idea, and I’m certainly not opposed in principal. But I’m just trying to get used to and trust one man, and we haven’t had much time together. He sees my hesitation
“Is it about cost? Only $15. I know him. He will just follow, wait and come back.”
Only $15? For Iraqis, that is more than most will make in any given day, but it is nothing for drivers working around the area. I immediately wonder if I’m being set up.

I’m also aware that I’m becoming totally paranoid and at some point you have to give it up or you will become paralyzed, which is pretty much the point I've reached. I wish someone would tell me that this person is ok, or that one, that climbing into a car with a stranger is something people do here to write stories. It is how we tell the story of Iraq.

“Please Ma’am. Let me bring him to you,” Adil pleads. Then I give up. At that moment I see his fear and I realize that we really must trust each other to go into the streets of Iraq. If he’s too afraid then I’ll be too afraid, and there’s no way we can do good work. Plus, we’re likely to get ourselves killed, which isn’t in my game plan at all. I realize that this time around it will take me longer to work in Iraq and longer to redevelop ties.
So I let the immediate need go. I stop trying to force things to come together and suddenly it becomes fun. I teach Adil to video and ask him to film my friend’s apartment, especially the Miro painting that was looted from Saddam’s art center then bought on the street for $100! Adil is worried about his skills and for a moment almost asks me to go with him. I can tease him now because I know he doesn’t want me in his car, plus I am enjoying teaching him how to film, and I don’t care if the product is perfect. It is a trust building exercise between us and for the moment it seems more important than anything else.

I spend only a few more days on my own (a total of ten days), conducting interviews around the Kerada area and only twice do a tour of the city in a beat up Toyota truck, sweating the entire time. I’m happy with the interviews I have – and in fact spend more time with individuals than I might have otherwise, but realize that I won’t get much more done given the circumstances. Plus, I have to return to base to attend a city council meeting.
Next door to the council house I have planned to meet a friend – the first person I interviewed last time I was in Iraq!!! I met him by chance while on patrol and have orchestrated a perfect rendezvous with the unknowing help of the military. And the council meetings are amazing: a mishmash of recycled complaints about sewer and garbage collection and why one of the council members hasn’t had his belongings returned after being mistakenly detained by US officials just before the election. Nearby is a center where Iraqis come to file complaints and apply for compensation for damage done or family members killed by US forces. (A story on this will completed soon). These are all operations I would not otherwise have access to and I am grateful. I tell Adil I will call him again when I am next in Iraq. Inshallah, misses. May God be with you, he says when I leave. And with you, Adil.