Dear Dad, I'm in Iraq...

Dear Dad, I’m in Iraq…

 

I got a phone call on a Friday morning: there was an emergency situation at the Iraqi field office of the same NGO that I work for here in Beirut, and they needed someone to come immediately to take over for an English teacher who left the country in a rush. They wanted to buy my ticket, take care of my accommodation, and pay me a good amount of money. Could I come the next day?

 

As you know, I was without a job and completely broke. I had just returned from my financially reckless trip to southern Africa, and my new (low paying) job wasn’t due to start until the 6 weeks from then. I was sleeping on a friend’s couch until I could find a new apartment and move in a few weeks later. Last but not least, I have always wanted to go to Iraq, in spite of your hesitance for me to do so. The only negative was leaving my boyfriend; but he is Lebanese so you probably wouldn’t really like him very much anyways (Grandma would, though: he is Catholic)!

 

I boarded the plane 26 hours after I got the phone call. I knew I wasn’t in Beirut anymore when I saw a sandstorm scratch the windows of the plane as it landed. I knew I wasn’t among Arabs anymore when everyone actually formed a line at customs instead of pushing and cutting in front of each other.

 

Let me clarify one very important thing: I am in Erbil, not Baghdad or Basra. This is northern Iraq, not Shiite territory in the south. The NGO office is in the Kurdish part of the country, which is a semi-autonomous state that boasts safety levels at almost normal, roads to rival Beirut or Jerusalem, and a telecommunications network that will keep me in touch with everyone for the duration of my residency here. Basically, I am in the safest—and only—place that I could be in the entire country. It might even be safer here than in some parts of America. Might.

 

So that’s my news. Now I want to tell you about the Iraqi Kurds and their land!

 

So far, days are pure sun and desert, and nights are pure activity and…still desert. People come out exactly as the sun goes down, and even though they are mostly very conservative Muslims, they still know how to enjoy the respite from the scorch. Cars here, mostly Toyotas, are huge, and the roads actually have laws that are followed about 60% of the time. Electricity is unreliable in spite of the massive amounts of money and oil in this region, so everybody is hooked up to a generator—one per house in most cases but sometimes one per street. This means there are thousands (literally) of wires passing above the avenues, in between houses, and over the tops of playgrounds and parks. Sometimes the wiring is so dense that you can barely see the sun: it would be a veritable super-highway for squirrels! The food, which they claim is Kurdish, is as Arab and delicious as you could hope for. They have something called Doma—all kinds of vegetables (tomato, onioni, cucumber, eggplant, grapeleaves, squash) that are hollowed out and filled with cooked rice and meat and lemon juice and spices. This, by any other name throughout the Middle East, still tastes as savory and filling. The bread is actually BETTER than the normal stuff in Lebanon, and they put boiled eggplant and tomatoes in your falafel sandwhich!

 

The Kurds harbor an obsession with all things Lebanese (as does everyone who is not lucky enough to live there). There are at least three Lebanese restaurants in the small Christian town that I live in, one hookah spot/pub called “Beirut,” and a “Lebanese Fashion” clothing store on my morning running route. Of course none of it is the same as the real thing, but its nice to know that the rest of the region appreciates my adopted hometown.

 

The land itself is breathtaking… for those who have not been spoiled by places like Charleston and Bavaria and Lebanon. I know this because I went on a road trip with my boss and some of her friends (on my one day off since arriving 10 days ago), and they couldn’t stop marveling at the views in the Barzan Valley as it wound between towering mountains spotted with shrubbery. We followed the snaking river—a light, foggy sky blue path around 20 feet wide—all the way to a famous little town perched on the top of a rather conspicuous hill. It is called Amedy, and it’s renowned for archeological sites like the gates that date back to the 2^nd century AD and the dome tombs for one line of Ottoman Sultans. The town is almost at the Turkish border way up in the North among sharp edged folds of mountainous rocks. It is the pot of gold at the end of a long and deep valley named for the Barzan family—the political keepers of the ALL 40 million Kurdish people (in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq). It has been rumored that this city, Amedy, is the place that the three Magii either originated or at least passed by on their way from the Orient to see baby Jesus back in the day. We were actually given a tour by a proud and energetic team of archeologists, but I myself was more interested in the people: their manner of dress, their impression of outsiders, their hospitality, their homes, and—of course—their politics.

 

I’m learning a bit about the Kurdish situation. I am teaching four English classes a day (EXHAUSTING), and one of them is the upper-intermediate level that craves conversation, especially with a native English speaker. Last night, for the second half of class, we discussed the recent history and politics of this part of Iraq. They told me what it was like to be Kurdish under the Saddam regime before the Americans got him under control in the 1991 Gulf War. They then educated me about the inter-Kurd fighting that took place between 1993 and just before the start of the 2003 Iraq War. I normally don’t mention the fact that my father is part of the US Military, but when I told them that you fought in 1991 and patrolled the No-Fly zone in subsequent years, I got to see first-hand the appreciation and reverence they have for what America did back then. I’m not sure that we did it entirely for their human rights, as I don’t think we do anything without an overpowering self-interest, but it was one of the rare moments in the Middle East when locals didn’t say that they ONLY love the American people: they actually like the American government too! It made me proud of you; Thanks.

 

There are (quite) a few Kurdish negatives, too. Its bloody hot here—in the unsustainable 110 degrees and drier than Arizona kind of way vs. the 98 degrees and humid sort of way that I’m used to in Beirut. The people speak Kurdish rather than Arabic as their first language, so I am not getting as much practice as I would like. Still, they speak more Arabic than English—so I am still communicating in my broken Lebanese dialect. I am also working a quite intense schedule: training Airport personel for four hours in the morning, and returning to the office for either 2 or 4 MORE hours of teaching—all 6 days a week. My one day off is Friday, but since I don’t really have any friends here yet that’s actually quite enough.

 

And so, as you may have noticed, it all comes back to how much I miss Lebanon. I like it here in Kurdistan—I might even be convinced to stay, since the money is good and the experience is (lets be honest) better than teaching Kindergarten just so I can stay in Beirut. But the bottom line is that its not home, and I doubt it ever could be. I believe in moving on and seizing new opportunities—and my boyfriend is moving to Saudi Arabia anyways—so we will wait and see. In the meantime, please stop holding your breath: I am safe; the people are almost as nice as the Arabs; nobody will let anything happen to me Inshallah (god willing); and I am happy.

 

Love you,

 

Me