Berwari is quite far from Hawler and I now understand why more of Lorene's classmates have not been to visit her. After a 2 hour drive to Dohuk, you should try to find a taxi willing to take you to Berwari... an area it seems most taxi drivers don't know well. Our driver, however, agreed to take us. Unfortunately Lina didn't wasn't so good at directions and we drove around in the mountains for several hours before we found Lorene and Lina's village of Iyate. Luckily, we ran into some of Lina's relatives as we got closer; men with rifles slung over their shoulders... Goodness knows where they were going in the dark (it was dark by then) in the treacherous mountain paths with rifles.
We finally found our way around the hair pin turns and onto a path balanced precariously on the end of a drop into a valley which gradually narrowed into two tire tracks with grass growing in between... Lorene's family's house! We got out and went directly to her uncle's house... one of the men with rifles. There was a fire crackling and grilling on the fire were skewers of freshly caught wild mountain boar interspersed with the skewer of garden-grown vegetables.
As Lorene's family are Orthodox Christians rather than Muslim's, we were able to wash the chunks of boar down with plenty of beer and raki. Lesley said the Iraqi raki is smoother and more licorice-like than the Turkish variety. (I suppose you already guessed they weren't Muslim given that we were eating pork)
Although I am not sure that I can say that boar is my favorite meat, the leftovers, served a couple days later, cooked with fresh organic veggies from the garden in front of the house (tomatoes, onion greens, marrow, zuccini, etc) was fabulous. Lorene and Lina's dad is a great cook!
And in case you were wondering what Iraqi mountain boar look like, here is a picture of a few babies that the hunters managed to capture. Believe me, the adults aren't nearly so cute.
(Top photo is by Sarah, bottom one by Lesley).
We finally found our way around the hair pin turns and onto a path balanced precariously on the end of a drop into a valley which gradually narrowed into two tire tracks with grass growing in between... Lorene's family's house! We got out and went directly to her uncle's house... one of the men with rifles. There was a fire crackling and grilling on the fire were skewers of freshly caught wild mountain boar interspersed with the skewer of garden-grown vegetables. 
As Lorene's family are Orthodox Christians rather than Muslim's, we were able to wash the chunks of boar down with plenty of beer and raki. Lesley said the Iraqi raki is smoother and more licorice-like than the Turkish variety. (I suppose you already guessed they weren't Muslim given that we were eating pork)
Although I am not sure that I can say that boar is my favorite meat, the leftovers, served a couple days later, cooked with fresh organic veggies from the garden in front of the house (tomatoes, onion greens, marrow, zuccini, etc) was fabulous. Lorene and Lina's dad is a great cook! 
And in case you were wondering what Iraqi mountain boar look like, here is a picture of a few babies that the hunters managed to capture. Believe me, the adults aren't nearly so cute. (Top photo is by Sarah, bottom one by Lesley).
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