Akre

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have already been to Akre, but I was only able to post picnic photos. I didn't really take any of the beautiful landscape (as I was in a foul mood for being forced to go and for not finding Lalish). And due to the incredible picnic traffic which led to us being stalled on the sides of the road with others who were entertaining themselves by blasting their car stereos and dancing beside their cars, I didn't actually see the city itself.
Below are a couple of pictures of the coutryside and one of the city nestled into its mountain. This time what I missed taking photos of (because we viewed it from our moving vehicle) were the large groups of women in their abayas. What was different about this scene is that the women were wearing something I had never seen before in Kurdistan... not exactly your usual burka, but instead there was a oval-face-shaped piece of black mesh sewn into the head-covering of the garments so that from any distance, the women all just looked like completely black ghosts floating around the city. In the peaceful country setting, the effect was a little unsettling. Were they attending some special function? Is this just a local custom? Why haven't I seen this in Hawler?

Leaving Lalish

The post is dedicated to our Lalish hosts, who sent us off with all the warmth of good friends sad to see their guests leave. On arrival, children scattered and we were treated with wariness until Dr. P jumped out and went up to the nearest adults and started chatting in Kurdish. Her warmth seemed to be infectious and soon we had a group of "guides" who seemed happy to take is through the temple, explain the protocol (for example, don't step onto any of the stones in the doorways (the threshholds?). The first picture is of our guides. The second picture shows people dancing. There seems to be a less restrictions on interaction between women and men here than in Hawler as women were holding men's hands and were wearing tighter clothes, some with short sleeves. The third picture is of some children looking at a picture on Dr. S's camera. One of the little boys then got a splinter in his finger and the whole community gathered round to try to help him. The women in the fourth picture are ones who followed us down to the bus and who tried (somewhat successfully) to get us to dance with them. Finally, you see a rather non-descript picture of a white SUV. As we were leaving (in high spirits), our driver put on some music usually reserved for weddings and we all started dancing, hooting and waving hankies in the bus. We neglected to notice that the SUV in front held our Lalish hosts. But they were excited to see us and waved hankies and beads back, laughing and smiling...

Yezidi - Fact or Fiction?

Before coming to Lalish, I had heard many strange stories... that Yezidis were Satan worshipers who performed strange virgin-sacrificing rituals in the evenings and that is why nobody was really welcome there; that thier God was a peacock and they worshipped more than one god; that the Yezidi religion is a deviation of Christianity, Islam or Zoroastrianism... but that nobody can become a Yezidi... We didn't find any of these to be true... entirely.

1. God is peacock/Satan:
As you pass through the doorway into the temple, you enter the tomb of the 7 great angels. All of these angels are incarnations of a supreme god who greated the universe, the seas and of course Lalish! One of the incarnations, the archangel Tawsi Melek (peacock angel) is the one through which the supreme God administers his rule over Lalish, the Earth and maybe even the universe. That Tawsi Melek is Satan was not clear from visitng Lalish, but the word "Shaetan" is forbidden there, so if "he" is considered to be Satan or Lucifer, then the concept is completely different. It appears that Tawsi Melek was present in the Garden with Adam, but to teach him thow to survive in the world and so forth... not to tempt him to evil. At the tomb of the 7 great Angels, certainly nothing malevolent happens... Pilgrims go up to one of the rainbow colored cothes covering the tombs and tie a knot in it while making a wish. After wish-making, they untie a knot that was made prior to thier visit to ensure that the wish of someone else will come true.

2. Virginal sacrices and other strange rituals?
Hmmm... I am really not sure about this one, although lots of violence has happened as a result of intolerance between the Muslim and Yezidi communities. Women from both communities have been killed in the past year as a result of being seen with men from the other community. However, at the temple itself, I could only find evidence of a whole lot of lamp-lighhting, praying and wishing. This picture shows another form of wishing that takes place in the temple. Believers stand in the Cave of the Wishing Rock, close their eyes and try to throw a cloth on top of the rock. You have three tries and only one has to be successful. I failed all three times.

3. Noone can become a Yezidi.
Well maybe not now, but once upon a time... seems that Yezidism is not so exclusive and secretive due to strange and terrifying rituals, but rather due to persecution at the hands of mainstream culture in the area. Perhaps there was a fear that this minority group would grow if people were allowed to convert and they stopped it. The picture below shows the entrance to the cave leading to the Sacred Brook of Zemsem. The cave leads to the brook and beyond where there is a separate exit out of the temple. Once upon a time, exiting on the other side was to exit as a reborn Yezidi. Only Dr. P was invited down to the brook this time, but she didn't go out to the other side. I guess this only makes her an honorary, but not true Yezidi.

4. The Yezidi religion is a deviation of...
what? It really isn't clear. However, the lamplighting and praying to the sun make it clear the connections to Zoroastrianism. Also, there is a supreme God as in Christianity and Islam... and the leader who wrote down the scriptures (as late as the 1100s) was a converted Muslim (to my understanding): Sheikh Adi, the inhabitant of the biggest tomb at Lalish - the one you can kiss and circle to make more wishes/prayers. The picture below shows the Altar of Heaven and Hell (represented by two side-by-side holes in the rock) found in an inner sanctum belond the tombs of the 7 angels, the entrance to the cave of the Sacred Brook of Zemsem and the cave of the wishing rock. Heaven and Hell are other interesting concepts. Apparently, some believe that there is a hell, but only the truly bad people go there, but others believe in a form of reincarnation whereby the greatest ill that cold befall you is to be reborn as a non-Yezidi. Does this hark back to Hinduism? Kurds are an Indo-European peoples.

These are only a few of the mysteries of Lalish. Please comment if you have further information or other interesting points to ponder.

Miscellaneous Lalish

I can't fit all of the pictures of Lalish into one or even two posts, so my first one dedicated entirely to Lalish will be of some of the miscellaneous sights that caught my attention as I didn't fully (or even partially) comprehend what I was seeing on my first foray into the temple (for want of an interpreter).

This picture below is of a room inside the temple compound, but not connected to the temple. The "litter" you see strewn on the "benches" around the room is in actuallity BREAD! It is left here by the devout to be blessed. After it has been blessed, the Lalish pilgrims will take some away with them so that they had have bread blessed by the holy man at their home.

Below, please find the typical type of photo I take when I don't really understand what I am looking at. It is the detailed stonework over the entrance to the main temple building. If I had thought about it more, I would have looked to see if there was a peacock engraved somewhere and taken a photo of that.

Our driver stands in front of the doorway next to a huge black serpent. What does it signify? Hard to say. He couldn't get an answer from our hosts and stories on the internet indicate different origins. Did Shelk Adi turn this menace into stone on the wall of the temple or does it signify the earthly incarnation of one of the great angels?

This is in one of the inner rooms of the temple where the olive (?) oil is stored. Oil is one of the first things I noticed as I entered. The temple smelled of oil (olive or vegetable) and even the stone floor tiles felt slightly oily...

As it turns out, the oil was used to keep the lamps (which were everywhere) during the night. Prayers are said at different times, but the mains ones are in the evening and morning (both conducted facing the sun and between which these lamps must be kept alight). The other prayers can be said facing Lalish!

I hope these snippets are enough to whet your appetite for more Lalish information, be it truth or falsehood.

The Road to Lalish

This time last year I had just returned from North Kurdistan (Diyarbakir) where I spent a fabulous Eid break reveling in the fact that there was cake and coffee... and that there were women in the street. This year, some of that can now be found here in South Kurdistan. For instance, there is cake to be had at both Dilan Restaurant and Abu Afif- baklava bakery from Baghdad.
This year, although I had been thinking of crossing the border to Gaziantep or Urfa, what with the Turkish-army-amassing-on-the-border situation, I decided instead that this was the time to take the long awaited day trip to Lalish, the Yezidi spiritual heartland.

Meet the group of happy travellers: all first-timers to Lalish except for out driver (far right) and his friend (far left)... but funnily enough, the real guide was Dr. P, third from the left (next to me).

And this is where we stopped for a lovely brunch of half-cooked chicken kebabs and tea in the garden:

This next picture has no significant, but of all the silly pictures I took of nothing (in the excitement of finally being on my way to Lalish, I liked this one as I like the drawing of the truck. I remember arguing once in the UBC fine arts department that anything can be art if someone considers it to be so.

And this last photo is where the real excitement started to build! Finally at Lalish - the sight of the distinctive conical shapes let us know that we have arrived and this trip is not going to end in the disappointment I experienced on my last failed attempt to get here!

People in the neighborhood...

Street workers in front of the university. (This pic also highlights the construction so typical all over Hawler).












Care taker at the Citadel.












The guard at the gate of the Citadel.

Birthday 2007

Yesterday marked my second birthday celebrated in Hawler! But unlike last year, this year my birthday fell in the middle of the Eid break, so many who were here last year were all off on a short break. But the day was extraordinarily well spent... I got up just before my bell rang - my friendly neighbour come to sing a loungy-jazzy redition of "Happy Birthday!"
This first picture is taken in D's apartment. She and her daughter made and decorated cupcakes and even arranged for one to be topped with a tealight (must be resourceful in Erbil) so that I could have my birthday wish. It was fabulous.
After lunch, I headed off to the Citadel again, but not to view Nasdak, to get a set of keys cut and to explore. This pic was taken in the mirror at the little museum next to the textile museum at the top of the Citadel.
This is just for fun - new friends with scary faces (taken at the same museum)... I wonder where the museum found their mannekins. Just so you know, everything there is very much for sale, including the '70s floor lamps, the brass giraffe paperweights, the paintings of Saddam and/or Barzani or the cantelope piggy banks.
After all the wallking around, we needed a little snack: Falafel from a little window. We took them next to a little parky-area where people, mostly men, were sitting under striped umbrellas and chatting. It was gorgeous. we were so naughty. We laughed and chatted everywhere and Hawler seemed to be OK with it... at least more than last year. Too bad the key cutter was closed by the time we got there... 2nd night in a row to be locked out of my house (but now I know I can get into my house via balconies in two different apartments- Tf's AND Noor's).
This last photo was taken from dinner upstairs: prawn curry, onion bhaji and pilaf. Sorry there are no food photos, but this is one of B taking a photo of me... Flash!

Citadel Close-ups

the NASDAK

Have you heard the news that Erbil is slated (by whom I don't know) to become the next Dubai of the Middle East? And supposedly Nasdak (a mall complex built by 3 Armenian-Iraqi brothers, nothing to do with stock indexes) is proof of development in that direction. It took a flock of cranes and a billion dollars to build this complex at the foot of the Citadel. So on the afternoon of the 15th, we headed off to the check out what had happened over the summer.
While some aspects of the compliex were impressive; there were escalators to facilitate better access to the 800 shops... and stairs to reach the upper 400 office spaces, I am not convinced that I will give up shopping in the bazaar to come here. The shops were smaller in size than some of those in the bazaar and the merchandise didn't appear to be any better in quality. Plus, where will the international traffic come from? There aren't that many affordable flights into Erbil from the outside world...
Anyway, here is a view of the Nasdak from the Bazaar...
And a final view from the Citadel... a huge ugly ship-like structure (air craft carrier perhaps?) floating on waves of crumbly bricks capped with satellite dishes.

Traveling on the Edge

All of you who live in Hawler probably think that this post is going to be about another rought night at the bar in the compound... but it isn't (at least not directly). Although Eid falls on a weekend this year and we technically were only supposed to get 3 days off, our department got the whole week and many planned trips abroad - 2 of "Daily Hawler" readers' favorite characters were planning a trip to Beirut. On the morning of their flight I got a call from character A. He wanted me to get out of the shower, dry off quickly and go bang on character B's door as he hadn't shown up to pick up A at the agreed time and didn't seem to be home. Nor did he answer his mobile. A went solo to the airport only to find that B wasn't there either. Dilemma...

I went down and rang B's bell twice. I was about to give up when B answered the door fully dressed, looking completely relaxed, but somewhat bewildered to see me at the door. I told him A was waiting at the airport. He asked what the time was, thanked me and sauntered off with the door still ajar. B apparently called B to say, "I might make it on time." He DID make it... JUST!

B is now my new hero. Not for being so casual about time that A is unlikely to ever take a morning flight with B again, but for not having a heart attack when he realized he had 20 minutes to get ready, get to the airport and get on the plane.

Discreet Dining at Dilan

Ramazan is over and life is good! Today while walking to the university, we chanced to walk by Dilan restaurant just as the owner was exiting the wide-open front doors. He stopped to chat with one of our group and invited us all in for gâteau - beautifully-fluffy chocolate-adorned caramel-scented creamy cake! Since Dilan has opened in Hawler (can't remember there being cake at Dilan in Shaklawa), there is no more need to go all the way to Diyarbakir's patisseries just for coffee and cake (not that anyone would chance crossing by land this week in any case). AND... one of the best parts of our little decadency is that there was no real need to feel guilty about this sugary pleasure as Ramazan ended Friday night and the curtains have come down from in front of Dilan's windows (see photo). No need to worry about us infidels taunting and flaunting our consumption in front of those fasting.

Moon Viewing marks the start of Balcony Season

I know that I haven't posted and there is oh, so much to post about after the first two weeks of class! However, I am allowing a little time for reflection first (no initial impressions this year). Anyway, one of the most fabulous aspects of being back and living in our little "bubble" of relatively uninterrupted electricity, apartments with more square footage than most know what to do with (there is even one staff member who has closed up 5 of our 6 rooms to live entirely out of his kitchen and main balcony) are the balconies. While in summer it was far to hot and there were too many mosquitos to sit out on the balcony in any kind of comfort, now is the season for balconies!
This post and the last show the view from my bedroom balcony... it is unfortunate that I couldn't get a better photo of the moon before it rose so high because at the point where it breaks free from the horizon is where it looks its absolute best, mellow and larger than I have ever seen it anywhere it the world before!
The next photo I post of a balcony will have to be from my or someone else's balcony as we have all started purchasing plastic deck furniture and serving drinks on the balcony. Haven't thought of a theme for mine yet, but (as usual) feel free to post suggestions.