Thursday, 13 March 2003 | Soap

I have a big tan block of soap that flew from Baghdad on Friday. It's made of olive oil, and apparently when you slice it in half, you discover that its guts are entirely green. For the past three weeks my friend David was there, the city with its breath held, and he brought it back for me, along with a hand-woven cream-colored bag that we think might be a loofah. He was there with his non-profit, encouraging communication between the children of that country and those of this one, with the help of a satellite, some scripted questions, and of course motivation. I helped the group with a couple of website updates while they were gone, which is the reason (I think) I was awarded the brown cube of clean.

It doesn't smell like traditional soap, and it doesn't smell like olive oil; I don't think I know this smell at all, so I'm pretending it's the smell of Baghdad. It's strange, holding something in your palm that was carved with foreign hands halfway across the world, in a place where early civilizations built history, a place that may be painfully reshaped if the current administration gets its way.

My hands now smell like Baghdad.