Rape and Pillage

This weekend I was invited to a salsa party at the American Embassy. Marines were hosting the event. This is not a group of people I would normally seek out. However, all of the clubs are closed during Ramadan and my roommate and I had been jonesin to dance all week. And the relationship between men and women here is so confusing and foreign (not to mention frustrating) that I was relieved to hang out with men I could tell to kiss off if they started getting fresh.

The night was not particularly remarkable. I taught kickboxing until 9:30 and my roommate was at an iftar until 10 so we didn't even make it in time to catch any real dancing. Yet we were still able to enjoy some free drinks, meet some new people and they even took us to a club in the down town area that is open during the holiday.

It was the experience of going to the embassy that was fascinating. The embassy is a huge fortified compound very near our apartment. We basically live on embassy row. Once inside, after a thorough search by several check points with guards, the embassy is like a college campus. I only saw a portion of it, but soldiers and staff were passing us on bikes. It was that big. I found myself walking at ease in a tube top without a scarf, almost like I was going to a party on East Campus back in Missouri. I was on American soil. And the marine quarters where we spent the majority of our night was like a frat house. There was a dance floor, kitchen and bar, bed rooms and huge terrace.

The marines invited us back the next night and once again because nothing was open and we therefore didn't have much better to do, we accepted. It was on this second night though that we noticed a giant poster on the wall of their rec room with a blown up quote by Genghis Khan. I had noticed the author the first night and found it interesting that they had chosen such a brutal conquerer to display on their wall. I paid little more attention to it though, assuming it was something about strategy or discipline.

The second night though, two more people commented on the strangeness of the author and we went over to the wall to read the entire quote. In big black letters, this is what it said:

"The Greatest Happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you. To see his cities reduced to ashes. To see those who love him shrouded and in tears. And to gather to your bosom his wives and daughters."

My biggest regret of the night was that I didn't have my camera. That would have been impossible though because they confiscated those at the entrance to the embassy. My inability to take pictures was not my only regret and after reading something so chilling, we promptly left. I won't be returning to the marine house. In some ways it makes me sad that I will be returning to the US.