Visitor's View of Hawler

All photos below by Tiziana:
The citadel in Erbil
A shop in Kayseri
A shoe shine stand on the street in Bazaari Sirwan
A happy pickle salesman

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.

Nazar Boncuk and other neat stuff

Since nobody was able to guess where these photos were taken (and since they could essentially be taken anywhere where there are tourists) I will tell you that they were taken in the Grand Bazaar. What a shame that I left the bazaar until the last week... and that since I went on the same day that I went to the travel agency to buy my RIDICULOUSLY expensive 1-way ticket back to Erbil. $500 US! The agency is located in Aksaray. I arrived a little after 5, purchased my ticket and went 2 stops back on the tram line to the bazaar. As the bazaar starts to close after 6:00pm, this was a bit of a disaster. All the touts were out in full force, "Madam, Madam, I want to tell you something." "Where are you from?" "Silk scarf? Very beautiful!" "What is your name?" SIGH. However, despite this annoyance, there really are some beautiful things there... and real leather shoes that I didn't have time to try on, but cheaper, more comfortable-looking and of just as good quality as the ones in the shop windows in Taksim. No photo album of Turkey would be complete without a photo containing nazar boncuk. I heard that sometimes mothers pin one of these to the clothing of their children to protect them from the evil eye... and in Cappaddocia somewhere, B found a whole tree of them!
I include this second picture because there was no room in my luggage for one of these lamps. Seeing as the lights in my apartment in Kurdistan are just naked bulbs, how great would it be to hang one of these over the dining room table?

The next time in Istanbul, I plan to start my shopping here, visit the Egyptian Spice Market, and go for coffee on Baghdad Street in Kadeköy.

Braving the heat

The Iraqi sun is hot and Hawleri residents range in suntan color from as pale as a parasol-toting Korean girl to as dark as some in the South of India. And although half my blood is Indian, I have stayed a 'nice' yellowish colour since my arrival here. Generally staying well covered up to avoid a shameful exposure of skin doesn't really lead to summer comfort or a good tan. Today I decided to brave the heat... and the shame of being seen in a swimsuit during daylight hours. At about noon, Tf and I went for a swim. We have noted that from about 11:30am until about 2pm, all the residents of Hawler seem to be home (or somewhere hidden)indulging in a little siesta... hence Tf and I were free to splash about in relative peace... that is after a couple on a balcony got tired of watching.

After drying off etc, we taxied off to the bazaar. After several weekends of unsuccessfuly trying to find someone to fix his watch strap, Tf found a shoe repair man (not one of those guys sitting on a crate on the sidewalk with a shoe form and some superglue, but a real one with a sewing machine and bags of various types of shoe 'materials') in a side alley off of Bata Bazaar. Tf's watch was stitched back together, two pairs of my shoes has the lifts on the heels replaced and a final shoe had the strap glued and nailed back in place... the total - less than $2.00 US for the lot! Then I made my most expensive purchase in months... $35.00 for a DVD player - a skinny silver and black deal with the SAMSUNG logo glued on slightly askew! Logo - Korean, product - made in China like all the other fake products on the market here.

Anyway, now I am at home doing laundry, watching a DVD and admiring my suntan lines. Can't wait for my next weekend off. Tf says there is a bowling alley - even the days or events that would have been most ordinary back home seem fantastically exciting here.

Take my picture, please!

These two photos were taken this last weekend at the bazaar. The boys are competing to weigh you for the price of a mere $250 Iraqi dinars (about 20 cents?).
This woman, on seeing the boys posing for a photo, asked that her photo also be taken.

Accidental Tourist in Kirkuk

(This post is also about the weekend before the one that just passed)

Although bursting with stories when I first got back to Hawler on Saturday, the 10th of February, I didn't manage to write it all down; about the coffee shop in Zagros mall where WOMEN were sitting on their own and drinking cappuccino, about the authentic Chinese restaurant (where subsequently Mu. now goes when he is there for business and Br has had his students take him), about the fact that there were only 5 hours of electricity per night in the motel and only a trickle of cold water from the bathroom showerhead... and most notably about the ride back to Hawler via KIRKUK!!!

Yes- somehow the road seemed straight and the journey too fast seeing as the 'safe' road from Sulemaniyah to Hawler bypasses Koya through the mountains and has a number of hairpin turns. Most people prefer this 3 hour journey to the straight 2 hour one that necessitates passing through Kirkuk. The driver was quite cocky and insisted that he was Peshmerga and knew all the right roads to take. He took me through Kirkuk as if we were touring famous sites at a vacation destination: On the left, please notice the Citadel, and now to the right is the bazaar (Would you like to stop - it's much cheaper than Hawler's) and those three menacing looking guys dressed in black poised over machine guns in the back of the truck - just Iraqi police! Seeing as the one with his pointed over the cab of the truck even had a black hood with only a slit for his eyes, perhaps you will understand why I didn't feel as calm as the driver.

Fortunately, we exited Kirkuk shortly after our police sighting and the driver spent the rest of the drive teaching me the Kurdish names for everything we passed; ker (donkey), cher (cow), bisin (goat), mar (sheep)...

Hats @ Bazaar Sirwan

After the last trip to the carpet shop of 2006 (for me to buy a last minute gift for S in London), we continued to the hat shop for O to buy gifts for relatives in France. This picture should really feature S as well as O as it was S who discovered the wonderful hats at the bazaar... but she had already left on her UK get-away. O had been indoctinated into the joys of scarves (a la Arafat- dare I write this?) and hats by S the week prior to S's departure. Note our pleasant salesman. He is pictured to give a few lessons to A. who could practice his scarf-winding technique before embarking on another journey in his Aga-suit (if you know the real name of these outfits, please let me know... sorry A if I have offended).

Street Scenes

This is a scene from Sirwan Bazaar.


And this is the view from the taxi on the way home. Although the picture may not be of much interest to those outside, this was a different route from the bazaar to New City! We passed through residential areas which was a nice change of pace.

Bazaar

Frenzy

Every weekend seems to end with some sort of frenzied carpet shopping mission to the bazaar. Mostly, it is T with the full-on cut-throat FRENZIED shopping attitude. You do NOT want to get in this woman's way! However, this week when we arrived, our little carpet shop man was not present at his shopfront. The boy from a nearby shop brought us tea to enjoy while we waited. However, S (pictured) simply could not wait and crawled up into the piles of carpets and started unrolling them herself! What I have neglected to tell you in prior posts is how terribly dusty and heavy these carpets are! Anyway, as usual, we left with another huge pile... T and S's living rooms are now almost completely transformed into opium dens... as for me, I only bought one small and somewhat raggy, but very pretty floral carpet which may end up in Saint John, New Brunswick someday.

Saturday afternoon at the bazaar

After coming home from my early morning trip to the Citadel, S confronted me and let me know in no uncertain terms that I must work harder to wake her up to go with me next time! Anyway, we gathered Z and returned to the area below the Citadel. We started with a walk around the bazaar and tea at the shop mentioned in the post 'Heart of Hawler'. This was nice as it gave me the chance to sit in a tea shop and read. S was occupied with reading and watching people watch/draw us. Maybe I should bring my sketchpad next time? This first photo shows the tea shop. The entrance is under the pink sign left of the shop selling machine-made carpets that look nothing like the ones in the Kurdish Textile Museum (see below). Some have portraits of religious and folk figures on them. Imagine prominantly displaying such a rug in your home!

After tea, we returned to the bazaar... I am sure you already know where! Luckily we managed to refrain from yet another carpet buying frenzy. This fuzzy picture (taken by the young guy who owns the shop across the way) shows Z, me, S and the carpet shop owner drinking tea and contemplating possible purchases.... CALMLY! (You might not recognize Z due to the lack of facial hair, but he assures us it will grow back within a week).

This final picture is one that Z took of me. This is to let you know that this really is my blog and that I have not delegated the posting to someone else in the community.

Heart of Hawler

I had lived amongst the jumble of sand-colored buildings that seem to tumble outwards from the center of the city for almost a month without ascending the citadel that sits at its core. At midday Friday, we were invited into an old and famous tea shop sitting in the shadow of the statue you see above. This statue quietly contemplates the frantic comings and goings in the bazaar below and although I cannot tell you who the statue represents, I have been told he is a poet. This seems appropriate as I sit in the tea shop which is filled with young and old men (we are the only women) engaged in philosophical debate (I romanticize). There are shelves of what appear to be literature, poetry and other tomes of academic interest behind the counter and I have been told that many like to play backgammon here.

It is while surveying this scene that we decide to climb the tell and see what is inside the inner walls of the city. It is at the top of these layers and layers of civilizations that I first tasted my first Hawler calm. I also felt something intense and personal which I suspect is associated with my own complex relationship with the past (real and imagined). Here I felt, despite nomadic tendencies, connected to history. Although not born anywhere in or near this region (and my ancestors are still something of a question mark for me), the land beneath me owned me.

This story is to be continued anther day....

Cart full of carpet therapy.

After a morning spent chasing a bag left in a taxi (see below post) and returning to find all shops closed, we finally found our carpet shop. Clearly it was open as those are our purchases loaded onto the cart waiting for a taxi. But even this wasn't enough. As with the last trip to the bazaar, S immediately wanted to return for a few more... which we did!

Lost & Found

When I tell you the story I am about to tell, those who know me well won't believe that it happened to 'a friend' and not me.... but it did! Being the first weekend after payday, a few of us decided to return to the bazaar for some intense retail therapy. And it truly WASN'T me who left a handbag containing... well EVERYTHING IMPORTANT in the back seat of the cab. After the vehicle pulled away from the curb, S's face froze and she must have muttered a certain 4 letter word at least 10 times before screaming at me to ring her. I pulled out my cell phone to ring her mobile- which was still in her handbag with her wallet full of cash and credit cards (not that there is a use for credit cards here) and possibly her passport. No answer. I rang again. No answer. I rang 15 times non-stop.

What are the odds that a non-English speaking taxi driver would pull over, search for the mobile in a woman's handbag and answer it knowing full well that the owner and none of her party spoke Kurdish? He did! After unsuccessfully trying to explain to him that we were still where he dropped us, I panicked, flapped my arms at the nearest taxi driver on the street and handed him my phone. As it turns out, the driver (Mahmoud) was the other driver's friend. He had us jump into his cab and drove us to where the first driver had pulled over.... a considerable distance. S retrieved her bag. The first driver refused to take any money for time wasted while waiting for us. And Mamoud, lovely man, took us all the way back to the bazaar again and tried to give back the money we offered him even though it was just the fare for the return trip from the bazaar and back. Although it is easy to interpret some of the attitudes of people on the street as hostility, you can see we also encounter lots of warmth and honesty in everyday dealings. But just in case of emergency, we now have Mamoud's number stored in our mobiles.

Bimbalo Bazaar Jadesirwan

I’m not sure, but I think the title of this means “I want to go to the Citadel Market.” Anyway, it worked and the taxi driver took us to the right place. All day, S kept saying things like, “I love this place” and “This is the best city in the world!” Actually, I think we both had a GREAT day today. We bought a few silly things to make our motel rooms more livable; carpets, kilim wall hangings, wooden hangers, scarves (which we are using as table clothes, doilies, etc). The kilims and carpets were incredibly cheap! We didn’t have enough money and will have to go back; S has her sights on an incredible antique Persian runner for $50.00! And being a carpet enthusiast (hence knowing a good carpet when she sees one), she reckons the same thing would run about $1000.00 in Australia. (I saw some nice ones from Sulemaniyah- can't wait to go there).

After coming home, S wanted to return to the bazaar with more money, but instead we went to New City with T (pictured holding Kat Kat Tat... a sweet we saw advertised on a billboard on the way to the border). We collectively bought all the ingredients for ‘Mercimek Corbasi’ (Turkish lentil soup served with lemon, mint and paprika). It was fabulous! Unfortunately, T couldn’t partake as she was out with the conductor of the Iraqi Symphony Orchestra and a local poet, but will have hers tomorrow. S and I may return to the market tomorrow. Life is good.