When I first arrived on Al Asad a few months ago, I was amazed to find that this military base has about a dozen stores which are run by Iraqis. These stores are known to the soldiers as “hadji” shops. The term “hadji” in Arabic refers to a holy man (sort of the Islamic equivalent of “guru”), but among the soldiers here, it is often used to refer to any and all things Iraqi. As an example, there was a controversial (and truly horrible) song which was recorded right here on Al Asad called “Hadji Girl” which tells the story of a soldier who fall in love with a local Iraqi girl, with predictably dire consequences. And on this blog a few days ago, an anonymous commenter referred to a foreign national as a “haji.”

The hadji shops are mostly clumped under and around the stadium, and have a very home-made look about them, like this:

In these shops, one will find a very friendly proprietor (usually a twenty-something Iraqi male) who is eager to serve. Items for sale in the shops range from satellite dishes (a few of my medics have bought these along with a programming package which gives them BBC channels and a few others, most in Arabic or in English with Arabic subtitles), to bootleg DVDs (poor-quality home-made camera shots of current movies, like Iron Man), to transformers, gun holders, combat boots, bikes, and cheap souvenirs. There is also a whole lot of random stuff in these store, including clearly broken/burnt-out stereos which carry sticker prices similar to what they must have cost when brand new. (Does anyone actually buy those?) One can also find strange drinks with Arabic writing on them, tobacco products, and other bits of randomness. In one of the stores, I found hundreds of silver-dollar-sized coins with the logos of American colleges pressed into them and painted. (Yes, I did look for a BYU coin, and yes, I did find one. Think about that for a moment: a Brigham Young University coin in a store run by Iraqis, on a military base in the middle-east. How did it get here? Why?)

The hadji shops only take cash, and each has a permit on the wall, stating that they have been allowed to sell their goods on post. Some soldiers love hanging out near the hadji shops, and spending their dough on the strange foreign stuff. I have yet to spend any money there, though I may buy a few things when I am getting closer to the end of my deployment.

There are a few other shops of interest on Al Asad, including an AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the DoD-owned agency which runs the military “PX” exchange stores) “Carpet Shop.”

These carpet shops are a fixture on military bases in the middle east, and they sell authentic (or at least, authentic-looking and authentically expensive) Persian rugs which can be purchased and shipped home. I’ve yet to set foot in one of these stores.

Also on-post here is a store which sells impressive-looking and very expensive Turkish suits and other clothing, with the wonderfully generic (and wonderfully authentic foreign) name, the “Daylight Shoping Center.” I caught this picture of the “Daylight” at twilight.