Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Let them eat Vegemite...

Yesterday, students received the dubious pleasure of being able to sample crackers spread with Vegemite and have their picture taken shaking the hand of a real honest-to-goodness Australian in front of the British (?!) flag.

A new student actually asked one of the teachers why the British flag was hung in the doorway... Oops! (That student isn't likely to do well in our department's pub-free versions of pub quiz). And a politics major commented that he was disturbed by such a display of nationalism (insert suppressed giggle here)! Our Australian colleagues don't even know the words to their own anthem. I don't think Kurdistan needs to worry about misplaced ultra-nationalism or nationalist ego-centric behavior from our genial Aussie staffers.

All that aside, hope all of the Australian expats in Erbil had a wonderful Australia Day yesterday and managed to get to the T-bar for a pint of... Sorry, VB hasn't made its way here yet.

Next year, instead of vegemite, I think D should prepare stir-fried kangaroo rump, spiced barbecued lamb and Aussie pavlova for distribution at the uni... or at least giant Anzac cookies (oops... biscuits). I will attempt maple cookies for July 1.

Turkish Kurds in Vienna

Even in Vienna, you can find the kebab so ubiquitous in this part of the world (Turkey, Kurdistan and the Middle East in general). After I took this photo, the man in white hidden behind the big lamb donair kebab thing came to the window and indicated for me not to take pictures. I started to walk away, but he waved me over. Apparently it was OK for me to take pictures after all, but only if I talked to him... or bought kebab. I opted to make small talk in English. Turns out he was from Diyarbakır.