Healing Powers

Unfortunately, I am still behind in posting and we are STILL on the LONG road home to Erbil... but we are a little closer to Shaklawa (and hence Erbil) than we were at the mud huts two posts down. At this point in the road, I was beginning to get a little antsy as 6:00 pm was fast approaching and we still seemed to be far from Erbil and my dinner engagement. Why is it that when you are in a hurry, people suddenly come up with these bright ideas of things we absolutely can't wait until the next time to do?
It is at this juncture that I learned the true reason my Kurdish friends wanted to take the long road home from Suli. Nestled to the side of one of the sharp turns in the road is a little stream steaming with what I can only imagine is sulphur, the waters of which are purportedly healing! A number of cars were parked haphazardly along the side of the road and men, women and children all armed with empty plastic containers (my friend had a 2 liter coke container)were all trudging through the long grass looking for a good path down to the water. Because I was in a hurry, we couldn't just quickly fill our bottle with the stinky water and go, but rather had to loll about the side of the stream, taking photos of each other and children swimming in the stream.

In retrospect, I think the trip along the LONG road was rather nice, but I will be sure to chance it only when I have no other prior appointments.