But nothing gets more stonewalled than the DEFAC. Naturally, our cafeteria is the only place where we get food consistently and, since the enlightened Western Man grew up in the land of plenty and is therefore used to choice, the sheer lack of it offends him to the very core. Every convenient excuse is used to point finger at something that the dining facility, again, screwed up. Never mind that we have a barbeque day (‘I’ve never eaten so much meat in my life!’), a Mexican day (‘Where did he learn to make salsa?’), a fish-n-chips day (‘Is this what he calls tartar sauce???’), a local dish every day (from ‘who eats this crappy Iraqi food anyway’ to ‘ha ha, we Arabs never knew that this dish was part of our cuisine’), at least six different dish choices at every meal, excellent curries and steaks, ice creams, pastries, fruit, and a salad bar – nothing can satisfy the eternally moody legion of world famous experts on agriculture, finance, and this and that.
The storm of accusations becomes most intense when it comes to something unpleasant that is a part of daily life in a developing country – an upset stomach. Our fragile refined Western bodies have a hard time dealing with local germs that penetrate our defenses with water we drink and brush our teeth with, with food we eat and, it seems, with the very air we breathe. Everyone who has traveled to a less developed place knows how terribly unsettling and derailing this can be. And no matter what we try, many still end up spending a good amount of time on a toilet.
This has become a constant tug-of-war between the consultants and the company that provides everything for us – from security to food to electricity. Aptly named ‘life support services’ department of that company gets a lot of, well, shit from us about our health situation. The Big Kahunas are certain that this is the result of poor hygiene in the kitchen but the evidence to this, of course, is anecdotal. The life support people become righteously outraged and declare that it is ourselves who need to be blamed because we are dirty nasty kids sucking on our thumbs. It’s a never-ending vicious circle of idiocy, really.
As a result, a series of drastic measures was undertaken. First and foremost, the DEFAC has been completely rearranged. One day, the morning zombies wandering in for breakfast were startled to find that drinks re-located closer to the door, ice cream away from the door, the pastry table changed the wall it was located next to for the opposite wall, the toaster was found on the other side of the salad bar, etc. The clock that used to hang next to the silent violence streaming from al Jazeera was suddenly located above the daily Arabic dish. The walls were painted green. The picture of a beautiful Bedouin woman in native dress went missing. It took a little getting used to but we understood that we had to be patient if noble goals of fighting diarrhea were to be achieved.
Second, health freaks were prohibited to come into the dining hall directly from the gym lest their sweaty faces drip salt-embalmed calories into the food. The connection between sweat and stomach problems is not at all clear to me but the rule is strictly enforced: we now have a special person who earns money by opening the door leading to the dining facility and banishing the red-faced heavy breathing culprits who try to occasionally sneak in for water or a quick bite. This person also came to play a crucial role at the DEFAC’s PR campaign aimed at winning hearts and minds of the compound’s disgruntled population. He smiles, welcomes people in and says good-byes, and recommends today’s specials. Amazingly, the place became transformed from a cafeteria to a restaurant overnight. Monsieur, voulez-vous essayer notre spécialité du jour?
Simultaneously, an education campaign has been launched promoting hand washing. Signs castigating those who do not use soap and lauding those who do, signs demonstrating in great detail what it really takes to wash one’s hands, signs explaining in which situations hand-washing is strongly recommended, signs prohibiting entry or exit with hands unwashed, signs reminding us of this important duty – all of these appeared in all bathrooms and in the dining hall. Seriously, we should really learn from our life support providers about re-branding, marketing, PR and capacity building as we try to teach the same to the Iraqi people.
The average age of our population is around fifty five-sixty. All these measures make us feel a little like we are being treated like children. And, yes, the measures are a little ridiculous and often go overboard. But they did an excellent job at eliminating every possible reason to blame our support staff for our health problems. And maybe being put back in kindergarten will teach us to finally look at ourselves first for the source of our troubles in this and any other situation. After all, no one can really support our lives and make life choices for us. One can extend this further to universal proportions and start asking global questions as to who it is to blame for this war, this attack, that misfortune, and learn the age-old wisdom that evil can be uprooted if one starts with oneself.
Although I somehow doubt that we will ever be capable of making this mental leap.
