Thanksgiving and the Zoo, Iraqi Style
Today slownewsday and I celebrated our second Thanksgiving in Iraq. I took the morning off and did my husbandly turkey-cooking duties while Jayme did the not-insignificant task of preparing everything else. We fed 15 people on a 5-kilogram bird, a huge pile of mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn & green beans, giblet gravy and toasted samoon (Iraqi bread). Jayme's coup de grace was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting - made from a package of American cake mix salvaged from a corner market after weeks of searching.
No cake in the world could possibly be as bad as Iraqi cake. It's like a dry sponge with frosting. Every Iraqi we've fed an American cake to raves about it, and it's just Betty Crocker from a mix. If only someone would tell their bakers.
Preparing our turkey, Mr. Nancy, was a minor ordeal. It had all the usual "oh yes, we are in Iraq" moments. The propane tank on the stove ran out during the roasting, despite my demands to buy a spare tank two days before. The stove has no temperature indicator - merely a feed control for the propane, which of course isn't constant as the tank empties. We don't have an external thermometer. The turkey arrived plucked but otherwise anatomically complete, including the head in the bag.
Jayme was not amused by my shaking Mr. Nancy's lifeless head at her.
The day was saved by my fast-acting, faithful manservant Noor Al Dien. He not only cleaned the turkey with frightening precision, but taught me how for next time. The damn bird still had a gizzard full of bird feed. Also, gizzards make great giblet gravy. Mmmmmm, birdseed-grinding muscles. Mr. Nancy was still warm when we got him, which is one advantage of freshly-butchered birds. No defrosting.
In the end, the turkey was delicious. Ever self-critical, I have plenty of ideas to improve it for next year. Jayme's food was fantastic, and I have no complaints.
We shared the myth of Thanksgiving with the staff - the tale of the friendly Native Americans who saved the pilgrims from starvation and the feast they shared at first harvest. Then we shared the true story of how we systematically killed them all, but we still celebrate in their name. Happy Thanksgiving, every one! No dogs or Indians, please.
Afterward, Jayme and I went for a walk at the park behind our hotel. She chopped up a giant bag of carrots to share with Camel Friend, a 160 cm-tall dromedary camel that lives at the zoo inside the park. She often meets us in the open park grounds, where she is let out to graze daily. She knows us, and about the carrots we have, which means she literally chases us around the park looking for her daily snack.
Today we met her in the zoo, and fed most of the other animals as well. The zoo is free to enter, and they have never objected to us feeding the animals. Sometimes we bring banana slices for the primates too.
I learned that jackals eat carrots. I hand-fed them through the cage, which in the case of the jackals means carefully tossing them in before their razor-sharp teeth take a chunk out of my finger. The carnivores - a wolf, two dingoes, two lynxes, among others - don't like carrots, so I was surprised the jackals did. They are scavengers, so I guess that makes them omnivores.
We usually feed the goats, who are very polite about not biting our fingers, and have very soft lips (like Camel Friend). I also feed the two badgers, who are ravenous and vicious little creatures that are usually covered in the blood of the last chicken they tore apart. My favorite is the porcupine, who seems to be stunningly near-sighted. I have to put the carrot against his lips before he'll realize it is there. He will very politely take it in his buck teeth and then deliberately pick it apart.
There is also an abused primate with intelligent brown eyes. She might be a large monkey or perhaps a small ape such as a bonobo - I'm not really sure. I heard a staff member calling her Shina, a common name for a Kurdish female. Shina wears a collar with a two-meter chain on it. She isn't always caged; staff members sometimes put her out on a stump and lock the collar to a cinder block. This isn't a particularly good idea, because the children and some cruel adults taunt her. This means Shina can be a vicious little punk, even if you're being kind to her.
Shina and I have a feeding game. I walk to the extent of her possible reach, and hold up food. She reaches as far as she can, and I put the food in her hand. She'll snatch it away quickly, and then eat it while watching me. The next time I hand her food, she will reach a little less far, and will take it from me much more gently. But this is a trick - as soon as I get too close, she'll grab my hand with both of hers, forcefully pull me toward her, and bite me. Last time she did this it was only a warning - just enough pressure to let me know she could do it if she surprised me. I haven't given her the chance again. The feeding game is often a tense standoff.
Finally, there are two brown bears. They play the feeding game too, except they thankfully don't try to kill me. I hold up a carrot or other snack and look at one of them. The bears looks at me, aligns his mouth with an opening in the bars of the cage, and opens it wide. This is a pretty amusing experience, as he wiggles his tongue and exhales his terrible bear breath. I toss the carrot onto his tongue, the mouth slams shut like a trap, then two chews and a swallow later the carrot is gone. When they're not being fed, they "dance" in the cage by swaying side to side in what is perhaps a bear's version of pacing or knocking a tin cup against jail cell bars.
The animals live in terrible conditions - too-small cages, bare concrete floors with poor drainage, animal waste everywhere, and a diet that seems to consist of bread, random vegetables, and chickens for the carnivores. Sometimes I feel very sorry for them. But I like this zoo. Being able to closely interact with the animals has taught me more than any zoo with better conditions, "don't feed the animals", and pretty educational signs ever has. And we've practically adopted the camel. Sometimes I fear Jayme will kidnap her and hide her on the hotel grounds. For now, we'll stick to the carrots.
No cake in the world could possibly be as bad as Iraqi cake. It's like a dry sponge with frosting. Every Iraqi we've fed an American cake to raves about it, and it's just Betty Crocker from a mix. If only someone would tell their bakers.
Preparing our turkey, Mr. Nancy, was a minor ordeal. It had all the usual "oh yes, we are in Iraq" moments. The propane tank on the stove ran out during the roasting, despite my demands to buy a spare tank two days before. The stove has no temperature indicator - merely a feed control for the propane, which of course isn't constant as the tank empties. We don't have an external thermometer. The turkey arrived plucked but otherwise anatomically complete, including the head in the bag.
Jayme was not amused by my shaking Mr. Nancy's lifeless head at her.
The day was saved by my fast-acting, faithful manservant Noor Al Dien. He not only cleaned the turkey with frightening precision, but taught me how for next time. The damn bird still had a gizzard full of bird feed. Also, gizzards make great giblet gravy. Mmmmmm, birdseed-grinding muscles. Mr. Nancy was still warm when we got him, which is one advantage of freshly-butchered birds. No defrosting.
In the end, the turkey was delicious. Ever self-critical, I have plenty of ideas to improve it for next year. Jayme's food was fantastic, and I have no complaints.
We shared the myth of Thanksgiving with the staff - the tale of the friendly Native Americans who saved the pilgrims from starvation and the feast they shared at first harvest. Then we shared the true story of how we systematically killed them all, but we still celebrate in their name. Happy Thanksgiving, every one! No dogs or Indians, please.
Afterward, Jayme and I went for a walk at the park behind our hotel. She chopped up a giant bag of carrots to share with Camel Friend, a 160 cm-tall dromedary camel that lives at the zoo inside the park. She often meets us in the open park grounds, where she is let out to graze daily. She knows us, and about the carrots we have, which means she literally chases us around the park looking for her daily snack.
Today we met her in the zoo, and fed most of the other animals as well. The zoo is free to enter, and they have never objected to us feeding the animals. Sometimes we bring banana slices for the primates too.
I learned that jackals eat carrots. I hand-fed them through the cage, which in the case of the jackals means carefully tossing them in before their razor-sharp teeth take a chunk out of my finger. The carnivores - a wolf, two dingoes, two lynxes, among others - don't like carrots, so I was surprised the jackals did. They are scavengers, so I guess that makes them omnivores.
We usually feed the goats, who are very polite about not biting our fingers, and have very soft lips (like Camel Friend). I also feed the two badgers, who are ravenous and vicious little creatures that are usually covered in the blood of the last chicken they tore apart. My favorite is the porcupine, who seems to be stunningly near-sighted. I have to put the carrot against his lips before he'll realize it is there. He will very politely take it in his buck teeth and then deliberately pick it apart.
There is also an abused primate with intelligent brown eyes. She might be a large monkey or perhaps a small ape such as a bonobo - I'm not really sure. I heard a staff member calling her Shina, a common name for a Kurdish female. Shina wears a collar with a two-meter chain on it. She isn't always caged; staff members sometimes put her out on a stump and lock the collar to a cinder block. This isn't a particularly good idea, because the children and some cruel adults taunt her. This means Shina can be a vicious little punk, even if you're being kind to her.
Shina and I have a feeding game. I walk to the extent of her possible reach, and hold up food. She reaches as far as she can, and I put the food in her hand. She'll snatch it away quickly, and then eat it while watching me. The next time I hand her food, she will reach a little less far, and will take it from me much more gently. But this is a trick - as soon as I get too close, she'll grab my hand with both of hers, forcefully pull me toward her, and bite me. Last time she did this it was only a warning - just enough pressure to let me know she could do it if she surprised me. I haven't given her the chance again. The feeding game is often a tense standoff.
Finally, there are two brown bears. They play the feeding game too, except they thankfully don't try to kill me. I hold up a carrot or other snack and look at one of them. The bears looks at me, aligns his mouth with an opening in the bars of the cage, and opens it wide. This is a pretty amusing experience, as he wiggles his tongue and exhales his terrible bear breath. I toss the carrot onto his tongue, the mouth slams shut like a trap, then two chews and a swallow later the carrot is gone. When they're not being fed, they "dance" in the cage by swaying side to side in what is perhaps a bear's version of pacing or knocking a tin cup against jail cell bars.
The animals live in terrible conditions - too-small cages, bare concrete floors with poor drainage, animal waste everywhere, and a diet that seems to consist of bread, random vegetables, and chickens for the carnivores. Sometimes I feel very sorry for them. But I like this zoo. Being able to closely interact with the animals has taught me more than any zoo with better conditions, "don't feed the animals", and pretty educational signs ever has. And we've practically adopted the camel. Sometimes I fear Jayme will kidnap her and hide her on the hotel grounds. For now, we'll stick to the carrots.