Tamas (who actually authorized me to use his real name) has left for Dubai... permanently... meaning life here is even duller without his effervescent company creating excitment at unexpected meeting spots - like Thomas's makeshift office at a table in the foyer of the fake Sheraton... or at the Deutscher hof where he teases poor Pepsi-the-dog until Gunter must chain him under a table (Pepsi, not Tamas). While Tamas once was loathe to leave Kurdistan, problems of the sort we all experience here have now brought him to the point where he is embracing his move with much eagerness. Sigh... Not only did he leave Kurdistan, but he took Lucienne (the camel in hot pink spangly short pants pictured above). I love Lucienne as he reminds me of El Farouk, a lovely camel from Dubai given me by Sol - who lives there still and may even be pictured in this blog (in the pictures from January's trip to Paris). Anyway, to console me, Lucienne made a trip back to Hawler (from Dubai) to bring Leila to me (the wonderfully cross-eyed dromedary seatbelted next to Lucienne in the picture above).
And this is Lucienne and Leila in a tearful farewell. It is really a time for farewells as Tamas & Lucienne are gone (although they will visit in August), Thomas has gone to Austria for 10 days and Cy (pictured with me in the Park the day of the bombing) is leaving on Monday for the US to take care of her family. Farewells are scary here as you can't really be sure that the leavers will return. I think this is the students' biggest fear...that the foreign teacher will all leave and the place where we work will become the same as...
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