Nir Rosen
Freelance writer
I met a young Iraqi guy [in April 2003], college student, secular Shia guy, very street-smart, from a poor family, who became a very close friend of mine and sort of trained me how to be Iraqi — taught me the Iraqi dialect, taught me things I needed to know to fit in in the mosques, fit in on the Iraqi streets. I sort of joined a local gym, mostly Shia neighborhood kids who worked out under horrible conditions. They were lifting bricks. But it was a great opportunity to mix with young men and hang out with them, go to restaurants with them, and because I was their age and I was into exercising, I got to get into the world of young Iraqi men. I never really made contact with young Iraqi women — I think that was mostly impossible. I think most did [know that I am an American], but I stressed the Iranian side of my ethnicity.

Richard Engel
NBC News

[My Arabic is] a little confused now. By now it’s become fairly Iraqi, because I’ve spent a lot of time. Most of the people I speak to now in Arabic are in Iraq. So it’s become confusing; if I’m speaking to someone on the phone, they won’t know where I’m from. They’ll be confused. They’ll know that I’m not Iraqi, but they don’t really know. Who’s this guy? Is he a Lebanese guy? Is he a Syrian guy? Who is this person? It’s confusing. So, that can also be to my advantage. It’s not just speaking Arabic, it’s the gestures, it’s the religious references, it’s the sense of humor, it’s the old — we can talk about movies, old Egyptian movies that we’ve both seen. When they’re talking about some sort...

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