Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Marine House

The Marine house was three blocks from the American Embassy and by today’s standards of security it was totally unprotected. We were so vulnerable that we could have all been wiped out without a fight.

There were five of us that lived in the Marine house which was in a neighborhood with the well to do. We came and went as we pleased as long as we showed up for guard duty at the Embassy.

We hired two servants, Mohammad and Moktar to clean our clothes and prepare food. Both of them would steal from us and we would threaten to fire them if they didn’t bring what was missing back to us. It usually consisted of clothing. Somehow the articles would surface and life would go on.

We knew that our servants were Muslims and strictly forbidden to eat pork.
So one afternoon while Moktar was asking about how it tasted it was our sign to get him down and stuff some ham in his mouth. Then he realized it had a good flavor and after that day he would sneak a chunk of ham when Mohammad was gone for the day. That one incident could have had us deported if the news would have gotten out.

No comments:

Post a Comment