Thursday Nights @ the Balcony, Post 1

Somehow I managed to let 2 months go by without posting anything, let alone this picture which I stole from the internet and saved in blogger as a draft post at least 40+ days ago. The photo above is stolen from the Internet. It is of Blind Ibrahim, the star of one of the first 3 three Kurdish albums I ever bought (the other two being Aynur and Agira Jiyan). I post a stolen picture as Blind Ibrahim's surly manager looked too scary to ask if I might take a real life photo of the party assembled on my balcony.

One night in October, I was resting at home when a friend, not knowing that I would come down sick that day, decided to drop by with 2 other friends, 2 singers (Blind Ibrahim and a Kurdish singer from Syria named Xero [spelling?]) and manager. They sat on the balcony, ate and a live concert commenced. Unfortunately, being under the weather, I had to miss most of the live concert, go to bed and leave friends and guests to their own devices.... merely listening to the music from the lousy vantage point of my bed located all the way down the hall through the door at the end. I most decidedly am not from this region or I could never have behaved in such an ungracious way! Not a good hostess.

Security Tagging

Being as I live in "Iraq" people always think that the situation is much like what they see of Baghdad on CNN... and perhaps think that this post is about the security situation in my city. They'd be wrong. It is about a much more serious problem.... for me in my safe little self-centered world revolving around home and work and the problem of not having anything appropriate to wear outside my home ("at work" in other words).

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I decided that it was starting to feel cool enough to wear the fall clothing I had bought in the US. I decided on a summer weight top layered with a thin, but Kurdistan-appropriately long cardigan. Then, as I smoothed out the wrinkles (from just shoving my new sweater onto a shelf without folding it) I felt something hard on one side.... a white security tag that the store failed to remove. Damn you Banana Republic! Seeing as there are no stores using this kind of equipment anywhere inside the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan, I was starting to consider suing BR for negligence. Fortunately for me, a friend managed to remove the tag with a pocket knife.

October Moon over Naz City

Photo by Bg S

No room in the freezer

Earlier today I met Bg in the garden for a little chat. As we were sitting, she noticed that two of the Bangladeshi workers hired to maintain the buildings on our compound were playing in the children's park. One was sitting on an animal shaped seat on a kind of merry-go-round and the other was spinning it around.

On seeing these two men, I was reminded that the shorter of the two playing had rung the door of my flat a couple of days earlier. He didn't speak very much English... or Kurdish (not that I would have understood anyway), but simply extended his hand to me. In his hand was a large bag of raw chicken. "Please ma'am... in there," he said and gestured towards my kitchen. I felt a little uncomfortable as I didn't know him, or exactly what would happen if I took in his chicken. So I apologized and told him my freezer was full (which in fact it was and still is). But I felt a bit like a cold and heartless b*tch.

Anyway, I told Bg about this and about how I had mentioned it to Dr. Fr who said the same thing happened to him. Dr. Fr; however, had not said that his freezer was full, but merely mumbled something incomprehensible and shut the door. Not one, but two people had refused to let the young man's chicken into their freezers and their kitchens. But truthfully, I felt it a little odd to be approached like that. When I told Bg that I wondered what had happened to him, she said, "Oh, he came to our door too. We froze his chicken for him." I felt glad that someone was charitable enough to make room in their freezer, but I also hope that the company that hired these guys can provide them with adequate equipment to be able to feed themselves. Is it a flaw of my socialization that I feel uncomfortable being asked for freezer space by strangers?

bumpy road to recovery

It has been a week since my surgery and 4 days since I have been back. The last few days everyone has been asking after me and telling me that I should be taking it easy. In truth, there is still a little more recovery that needs to be made, but a couple hours teaching doesn't really cause me much grief. I think the only thing I have really done wrong this week was to not stay a few extra days in Istanbul so as to avoid the rocky overland route back to Hawler. Ordinarily, I would fly Istanbul- Erbil direct on Atlas Jet... but all the seats were sold out until Wednesday, so I bought a ticket to Mardin instead. Getting a ticket to Mardin as a domestic destination was a stroke of luck as there are many flights to Diyarbakir, but Mardin-bound flights are infrequent. (If you look on the map above - top left corner- you will see that Mardin is at least an hour's drive closer to the Iraqi border.
In the Mardin airport, I was lucky to run into a Paris-based Baghdadi businessman who was going to Dohuk to visit his siblings in their new safer city. He was able to give me a lift, saving me $160.00 US. (In my delicate state I was willing to pay this exorbitant sum to go directly to the border rather than to do public transport to Silopi and transfer to the border from there.
The real issue regarding my travel, however, was not related to time or money, but rather to the road conditions in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. The roads are very poorly maintained... meaning potholes more jarring than the oversized speed bumps on the path to our apartment. Even though the driver carefully selected the side of the road to drive on by the condition of the asphalt, bumps or sudden swerves back to our side of the road (to avoid the oncoming oil trucks and mac trucks) were unavoidable. Needless to say, I didn't feel so hot by the time I got to Zakho. But at least from, Zakho, my fragile health was not in the hands (or cars) of strangers. In Zakho, Mu met me and drove me to Hawler (Arbil on above map). This was a long stretch, but not nearly so bad due to recently maintained roads and careful driving. Poor Mu. After dropping me off, he had to continue on to Sulemaniya taking the long route through Koya instead of passing through Kirkuk as the latter route is more dangerous after nightfall.

Anyway, I am sitting on my sofa now and wishing that I had delayed my trip back... or at least taken my camera with me as Mardin is beautiful. Above please see a picture I stole from the internet.

birthday celebrations in Kurdistan

I promised to upload photos of my surprise birthday party, but as it turns out, there is too much danger of putting up photos of people who don't want to appear online to people they don't know (but those who know me well can view the other photos on Facebook). Anyway, the photo below shows me entering the house and trying to figure out what is going on. My guests were all hiding around the corner and forgot to jump out... but I could see the decorations in the living room! (And I will have reminders of this great party for a while to come as there are little spots all over my walls now where the tape holding up the balloons and the banners took off the paint when they came down).

I don't know if it is normal to have a surprise party on one's birthday in Kurdistan, but some of the elements of my party were as they would have been for any of the Kurdish students at the university on their birthdays (one of my friends back in Canada asked how birthdays are celebrated here). After I came in, I was invited to have some snacks (the students at the university pass around cans of Coke and orange Fanta - at my party it was beer, wine, cherry juice & vodka or a little of the champagne that was left over after it was dumped all over me). Then came the cake, the candle blowing ritual and gift-opening. Finally came the penultimate point of any Kurdish birthday party - the Kurdish dancing. See below photo:

Unfortunately, I have no photos to document what came next (which was more typical of my friends than of Kurdish parties). D dumped all the wrapping from my presents over the balcony onto the balcony of N; Lesley started cleaning, and 3 or 4 other partiers got into a heated game of backgammon. I wonder if it is tonight that G, the loser, will pay the penalty and take us all to dinner.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. I never really expect to do anything much on my birthday, especially since I live overseas, my friends are scattered all over the globe, the postal service here has not proven to be reliable... and in truth, there isn't so much to do here. But I did have some minor plans. Mu had asked me if he could take me to dinner. I accepted, but knowing that Mu doesn't really like or celebrate events like birthdays, New Years, Valentine's Day, Bayram, etc, knew it would be a low-key evening. So we drove around a bit and decided to go to the Chinese restaurant in Ankawa.

Unfortunately, only the day before, Mu broke (or nearly broke?) his toe playing soccer, but he insisted on hobbling from our table in the garden into the restaurant to order a bottle of wine. He came back with not only the waitress and wine, but also a little blue bag containin the bracelet above. Needless to say, I was pleased. I think it seems to be my style... and I even know the shop. Located downtown across from the gold section of the bazaar, a winding area of sardine-tin-sized shops packed tightly together; window after window so strung with gold that you cannot see where one sparkly object ends and the next begins, Atasay looks different. It looks like a 'real' shop (by real I mean that it looks like a shop from a mall anywhere in the world) that hs been dropped by accident into this old style Middle Eastern bazaar. The idea was that if I didn't like it, I could exchange it either here or in Istanbul.

Anyway, this was just the first of the presents and the party because after snacking, Mu said that he wanted to go back to the apartment and cook the main course there. However, when I arrived home, the door opened to a decorated apartment and a bunch of my Hawler friends (pictures to come later). So much more of an event than I expected (which was no event at all)!

Unexpected connections

Today I got up early and responded to an email I had received the night before... from Catherine, a former colleague from Vancouver, BC who I hadn't seen since 1996 when I met up with her in Vietnam where she was working (The time before that was in 1993 in Japan where I was working). Being still sore from my surgery, we arranged to meet in Ortaköy as it is only a 5 minute taxi ride from Beşiktaş. A few days ago, she was in Romania and I never imagine she would get though Romania, Bulgaria and reach Istanbul on time to meet up with me... I mean, this was no easy feat as she came almost the entire way by bicycle! (She arrived with bike in Amsterdam in June). Along with another traveling friend she met alone the way, we were 3 Vancouverites enjoying a late breakfast and Turkish coffee in Istanbul. Wonderful! It remains to be seen whether Catherine takes my advice and takes her bike to Northeast Turkey and cycles on down to Iraq. She would likely be the first female Vancouverite to cycle through the Turkish border into Iraq! How cool would that be?

And this meeting with Catherine wasn't the only surprise. In truth, I expected to be on my own this trip to Istanbul. I had arranged a hotel in Taxim and brought enough work to occupy myself the whole 5 days in Turkey. It was not to be so... from the time I arrived in Ataturk Airport, it was one unexpected connection after another. In the airport, I ran into Fadime (not real name) a friend of a friend- a Turkish divorcee living in Hawler who was traveling to Turkey with her new husband, an Arab man also living in Iraq. I saw her in the Erbil Airport, but hadn't recognized her with the headscarf, a new custom she has adopted to fit in better with her husband's family. We had a nice chat before I headed to my hotel.

The next day as I was heading to the hospital for my consultation, I received a call from Gokhan, the boyfriend of Tz who informed me that Tz was NOT in Italy, but in Istanbul and that I should come to their house to stay instead of the hotel.

And tomorrow I take a taxi to the airport at 4:30 am as there are no seats on the Istanbul-Erbil flight and I will have to fly to Mardin and travel overland from there... But Mu will meet me on the Iraqi side of the border and take me to Hawler... where S (another Canadian) is waiting. You will remember her from many earlier blog posts: she is the Kurdish-speaking one with the mermaid-styled Kurdish dress who met me in Puerto Rico this summer. I never imagined she would miss Hawler so much that she would return just 3 months after leaving.

Jinemed - Medical Tourism Center

This is medical tourism at its most effective. It takes all of 3 days for your operation! To the left is Dr. Teksan Camlibel. On Wednesday afternoon, I was ushered into Dr. Teksan's office for my consultation (where I discovered the objects in my abdominal cavity which needed removing had grown even bigger). He explained the operation procedure while I admired the certificates on the wall behind him. While normally, I don't find this kind of display of achievements impressive, I found it somewhat comforting that Dr. Camlibel had graduated from John Hopkin's Medical University and had worked in the hospital there as well as others in Michigan and Ohio.
The next morning (day 2), I arrived at the hospital at 8:30am. The nurses sedated me, prepped me and I woke up from the operation at about 12:30pm in my fairly comfortable and very clean hospital room. Every 2 hours or so, nurses came to take blood, administer antibiotics, change IV bags or help me unhook the IV to use the restroom. I enjoyed an afternoon/evening of sleeping (so very sleepy) and watching US TV (ER, Desperate Housewives, A Side Order of Life, CNN news of the elections and various weird shows on BBC Prime).
At 5:00am on Saturday (day 3), I insisted the nurses take out the IV as the morphine was ineffective and the IV hurt more than the incision sites. At about 8:30am Dr. Camlibel came to visit me to check the healing. He said that everything looked normal and that I could leave whenever I felt well enough. The nurse gave me all the paperwork... which was quite funny. On every very official looking paper, my name was spelled differently and on one of the papers, it gave my complete address in Erbil... but with the country listed as "Almanya" (Germany). Thank goodness the operation was done with more care than the paperwork.
Anyway, at noon I got up for a shower and got ready to leave. Unfortunately, my friend whose house I was staying at had gone to Bulgaria to cover a story for La Stampa Italian newspaper. At 7:00pm, I got dressed and packed, ordered food and at 11:00pm (when I got a text from Tz saying she was almost home), I finally left the hospital - just a little over 2 days from start to finish.

To Travel... or Not to Travel to Turkey for Surgery

Yes, I am back in Turkey... again. And yet again, it is for "medical tourism". This time, not for dental work, but for surgery. Some people are angry at me for not wanting or being willing to have surgery in Erbil, but I find this ridiculous as it seems that those Hawleris that can afford it also opt for Iran (not an option for me with as I would have visa issues). It seems also that my medical "insurance" only covers health care outside if it cannot be performed in the region of Kurdistan.

My issue is not really the skill of the doctor, although unless you know someone who knows someone, finding a good doctor can also be an issue. My issue is the sterility of of the operating theater. I went for a scan at the clinic of a very reputable (and very skilled) doctor in Erbil. However, when receiving the scan, I was asked to lie down on the pleather bench that the woman before me had been on (without it being cleaned in between or paper put down on it). The ultrasound wand? The same... The other woman's gel was wiped off with a paper towel and new gel applied. Meanwhile, as I lay with my midsection exposed, women on the other side of the screen were peering around to see what was going on. Having lived overseas for so long, my need for privacy has become somewhat dulled, but I don't think I could stand this sort of invasion in the fragile state I would be in post-surgery.

I left for Istanbul on Wednesday night. My flight was packed and I started to worry what the flight back would be like - jostled and shoved as people push to get in and out of customs, push to get on and off the bus to the plane, and push on and off the plane. It really irks me that on a flight from Erbil to Istanbul, that the only languages spoken on the plane are ENGLISH and TURKISH. OK, so Sorani is not the national language of Iraq? Then at least provide Arabic. Then at least some people would know what was going on and how to form lines. I started to wonder if traveling for surgery was the smartest thing after all. At least if I had the surgery in Erbil, there would be people to visit me in the hospital and I wouldn't have to travel far to go home. Then at the moment I had that thought, the guy beside me took the napkin off his meal tray, rolled it up and proceeded to clean his ears, after which he dropped the napkin in the seat pocket in front of him. OK, I think I may have made the right choice not to have my insides opened up in Hawler.

First day back at school

Actually, the government apparently declared the Eid holiday would extend for a few more days... meaning that today was "officially" (?) a holiday... but not for us at the institution. I met my first class of students who looked stunned as I explained to them that I would be teaching not English, but modern literature (or were they just confused by my rambling?)

Anyway, I find the above cartoon funny not only because I am starting my year off with Children's Lit (Lewis Carroll), but because it reflects some of the atmosphere at work. Every year a lot of policies change and students, not really being familiar with appropriate means to voice concerns, picket or otherwise create chaos over issues both big (and possibly deserving) and small... VERY small. This year, they have been told they MUST FOLLOW POLICY... Let's not forget that it seems a distinct possibility that some of us might actually have been hired to be some of seven maids with seven mops to clear the quantities of sand.

In my suitcase

(Photo from this website)
After the summer vacation, it is always interesting to visit everyone to find out what they used the precious space in their suitcases to bring back. In my case, it was coffee, habaneros (brought illegally through the US to Iraq where my friends thought they were GREAT gifts) and best of all, Sriracha Sauce, one of the hottest (literally and figuratively) things on the table in Chicago's restaurants. In my fridge is nothing but condiments, but if there aren't at least 5 kinds of hot sauce, I feel that food is almost not worth eating. The Sriracha sauce in the middle is the one I have and is made, surprise surprise, from California, but tastes almost like the real thing in Vietnamese restaurants (but less fishy). It's a real luxury to have these things in the middle of Kurdistan! (Thai hot sauce made popular by a Vietnamese immigrant to the US who named his company "Huy Fong" after the ship he left Vietnam in)... Now you know whjat to bring me if you come for a visit... coffee (the real thing only) or hot sauce.

German Reunification Day

This is an important day for me as I arrived just after German Re-unification Day (and hence missed the only dinner that my employer held at the beginning of term to welcome all new employees) and just before Eid. I don't know much about how this day is celebrated in Germany, but know that in Hawler, it is honored with a barbecue of chicken, lamb and sausages (non-pork) and beer. Also, there is German music (sounding to my untrained ear like polkas and marches) set to a slide show of images of the Berlin Wall coming down.... not to mention a speech by Gunter, the owner of the Deutscher hof.

Maybe this will mean more to me next year as I will go to Germany for the first time ever from Hawler this winter: Erbil - Vienna - Frankfurt via Austrian Airlines. I will meet my mother for Christmas and go from there fo Nuremburg and Munich (making sure to visit other choice Bavarian towns), but will unfortunately miss Berlin.... I am happy to note, however, that my favorite beer at the Deutscher hof comes from Bavaria!

Barbecue Feast for Eid

Yes, this is yet another post about food.... What else is there to do during Eid in Erbil? Mu, being picky about his meat (he only buys at New City as he others aren't fresh-looking enough) is happy to be able to choose his own and grill it at the table himself.
Maybe because of Eid (?) the self-service mezze were also better last night. There were even mint leaves and pomegranate seeds! Nice to have more than humus and salads made from varying proportions of cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, eggplant and onions.
The wait staff brings your meat and plate of hot peppers, onion slices and tomato halves to grill with the meat. They also serve the best of Turkish raki (if you like raki or arak) and speak Turkish. Maybe that's why Mu always knows someone here whenever we go... Since coming back, I have already been dragged here far too many times.

But being bad at directions, I can't tell you how to get here... other than it is not on the main drag (of course in Ankawa), but is just after the church with the hidden creche in the garden. Maybe you will recognize it from the bottom picture the next time you drive by in a taxi.