Mr. Pepsi
Our feet dangle close to the pavement moving underneath the humvee along with the waves of heat and pieces of trash on this road into Al-Hillah. Today we are admin, going shopping. The convoys from Kuwait are spotty and our office is out of toner for the third day in a row. Al-Hillah has everything, and we are headed to where everything is, the suq. The suq is sort of like taking everything and everyone in Wal-Mart and putting them all in a garbage compactor, along with the garbage. It is May (or June, or July, or August) and we pass by the kids, who are everywhere. “Mr.! Pepsi!” they yell.
Mr. Pepsi has become the name that everyone calls us. Of course we know that they just want to sell it to us, but after thirty or fifty or a hundred missions like this it starts to sound like we all changed our names. Mr. Pepsi.
There are some good things about Iraq. In Iraq, everything’s a dollar. In Iraq, hot food stays hot. In Iraq, cold food stays hot. In Iraq, we are the customer, and our name is Mr. Pepsi.
We keep driving and reach the suq and pull up over the curb and onto the plaza. All of the kids know us and are close to us as we pull ourselves out of the trucks. They are all talking to us at the same time. We become more alert; two shooters per vehicle and the rest move into the suq to find the computer store and buy the toner. Now there are four guys surrounded by three hundred Iraqi’s of different ages and all with some sort of agenda.
They know that forty years ago Americans built a rocket, lit the fuse and ended up walking on the moon. So you would think it wouldn’t be a big deal when an older gentleman reaches through the crowd with a scrap of paper and asks in perfect Oxford English if we could use our Thuraya phone to call his brother in Canada and let him know that everything is ok.
Of course we want to, and of course we can’t. There are twenty other people yelling at us to make phone calls, asking for mai bareda (cold water), food, even the empty MRE pouches. They cut up the pouches and actually sew the plastic into handy little bags with handles. Then they sell them back to us for a dollar.
Mr. Pepsi buys everything for a dollar here.
The day after the war, in Baghdad, you could buy a folding stock AK74 with two clips and ammo for, you guessed it, a dollar.
Mr. Pepsi, Mr. Pepsi. “Beish?” “Thelatha dolar waheda” (three for a dollar). “Eindek thelidge? (Got ice)” La, La. No. No. Zein. Thelatha pepsi, minfudluk. This is how we kick start Iraq’seconomy, one dollar at a time.
The team comes back with the toner and three rotisserie chickens with bread so good it make you want to leave home and write bad checks just to buy it,.
The Mr. Pepsi soldiers load up into the humvees and say goodbye to the kids who should be in school. The shooters climb up into the trucks, one up on top and another in the front right seat. We pull out over the foot-high curb and drop down into the street again, merging into traffic. The cars are so close you can kick them; we sit sideways so you have to be careful not to catch your feet on a vehicle as it passes.
We drive out past the Polish compound that used to be a school, past the grain elevators with truckers waiting in line to dump their loads, and reach the outskirts of Babylon. More street vendors here: Mr. Pepsi, Mr. Pepsi. La, La. We drive on; passing through the wire and the guards and go to get fuel at KBR (they do everything here). Then back to the TOC to eat the chicken. With Pepsi.
©2003, Tom Kinton
Mr. Pepsi has become the name that everyone calls us. Of course we know that they just want to sell it to us, but after thirty or fifty or a hundred missions like this it starts to sound like we all changed our names. Mr. Pepsi.
There are some good things about Iraq. In Iraq, everything’s a dollar. In Iraq, hot food stays hot. In Iraq, cold food stays hot. In Iraq, we are the customer, and our name is Mr. Pepsi.
We keep driving and reach the suq and pull up over the curb and onto the plaza. All of the kids know us and are close to us as we pull ourselves out of the trucks. They are all talking to us at the same time. We become more alert; two shooters per vehicle and the rest move into the suq to find the computer store and buy the toner. Now there are four guys surrounded by three hundred Iraqi’s of different ages and all with some sort of agenda.
They know that forty years ago Americans built a rocket, lit the fuse and ended up walking on the moon. So you would think it wouldn’t be a big deal when an older gentleman reaches through the crowd with a scrap of paper and asks in perfect Oxford English if we could use our Thuraya phone to call his brother in Canada and let him know that everything is ok.
Of course we want to, and of course we can’t. There are twenty other people yelling at us to make phone calls, asking for mai bareda (cold water), food, even the empty MRE pouches. They cut up the pouches and actually sew the plastic into handy little bags with handles. Then they sell them back to us for a dollar.
Mr. Pepsi buys everything for a dollar here.
The day after the war, in Baghdad, you could buy a folding stock AK74 with two clips and ammo for, you guessed it, a dollar.
Mr. Pepsi, Mr. Pepsi. “Beish?” “Thelatha dolar waheda” (three for a dollar). “Eindek thelidge? (Got ice)” La, La. No. No. Zein. Thelatha pepsi, minfudluk. This is how we kick start Iraq’seconomy, one dollar at a time.
The team comes back with the toner and three rotisserie chickens with bread so good it make you want to leave home and write bad checks just to buy it,.
The Mr. Pepsi soldiers load up into the humvees and say goodbye to the kids who should be in school. The shooters climb up into the trucks, one up on top and another in the front right seat. We pull out over the foot-high curb and drop down into the street again, merging into traffic. The cars are so close you can kick them; we sit sideways so you have to be careful not to catch your feet on a vehicle as it passes.
We drive out past the Polish compound that used to be a school, past the grain elevators with truckers waiting in line to dump their loads, and reach the outskirts of Babylon. More street vendors here: Mr. Pepsi, Mr. Pepsi. La, La. We drive on; passing through the wire and the guards and go to get fuel at KBR (they do everything here). Then back to the TOC to eat the chicken. With Pepsi.
©2003, Tom Kinton
posted by tomk at 6:49 AM
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