My Biggest Fears of Coming to Iraq Come True…

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the Winter quarter at the Life Center coming to an end, spending time with friends and many photos to edit through; I haven’t a chance to sit down and blog. But the quarter is now done and we have the month off! Which will give us time to spend with our friends and enjoy the beautiful spring that is just around the coroner! I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to read my blog and view my photos. I hope to get better at blogging more often. My last post was featured on the home page of Word Press and many new people found my blog that way, so to you, bahairbay, welcome! It’s very exciting reading comments from people all over the world! A reminder that on the top right hand side of my blog, you can sign up for emails and all new posts will be delivered to your inbox! This is the best way to know when new photos are posted. And as always, by clicking on the photos in the post, you’ll be taken a web gallery of more images related to the post.

As I was getting ready to leave for Kurdistan, many people asked if I was scared about coming to Iraq. I honestly wasn’t that scared, since I knew couple here and they had told me how safe it was here. But one they did tell me about did frighten me. A couple days ago, I was sitting in our living room watching TV and editing photos when I noticed the light changed to a very warm orange-yellow. I looked out the window and saw my biggest fears had come! A dust storm!

Two Kurdish men and a young boy walk down the street during a dust storm.

I was very nervous about the dust getting into my camera and laptop. Even though my lap top is kept inside, the dust still seemed to find its way in! I was sitting there looking out the window and then walked out to our balcony. The light was pretty amazing and it was like nothing I had ever seen before, which naturally made me want to grab my camera and go out to photograph what I was seeing! But I could also feel, smell, and sometimes even taste the dust in the air! I didn’t even want to think about what could happen if some of that fine, tiny dust got on in my camera! But the light (or lack there of at times) was too amazing to pass up, so I just took one lens (switching lenses would surly let dust in) with me and off I went! I was amazed how the light changed from being dark to a warm yellow. As you look through the photos, know that I did not change the color in them, while it was a little difficult to correctly color balance the images, what you see is what I saw.

The sun tries to shin through the dust.

A few seconds later, the sun could not be seen!

While it is normal to see some of the side roads empty from cars, the dust added an eerie feel to the place, almost post apocalyptic!

I'm sure this car was dusty before, but you can see all the dust that was added from the storm.

Despite the dust storm, people were still out showing their support for their favorite political party to really voters for the up coming election. (More the elections coming soon...)

With the dust, a walk through the local park almost seems like a walk through an old photograph.

The local mosque as seen from our roof, normally mountains are visible.

When I got back I cleaned my camera the best I could, didn’t see too much damage! Then I realized I should have taken a scarf with me to keep my camera protected, so next time I will. I also heard that this was nothing compared to Southern Iraq and in Baghdad!

Not the Iraq You See on the Nightly News!

When many of you hear “Iraq” you think of what you see on the news. Desert, bombings, violence, people that hate Americans. While sadly that may be true in some parts of Iraq, mainly in the southern parts, here in Kurdistan it is the complete opposite!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Hastyar, a student at the Life Center, in his village, Tesluja, just a few minutes outside of Suli. We left in the morning and went to a hillside that had a beautiful 360 degree view of the mountains. This was the day after it snowed and is a little higher in elevation then Suli so there was still snow all over!

The hillside we visited that once used to be a village, till Saddam destroyed it back in the early 90's. Now it is a popular picnic site in the Spring,

The view of the mountains and 1 of 3 cement factories in the area. The smaller building on the right is the mental hospital.

On the left is Mount Pryamagrew and to the far right is Azmir Mountain.

After taking a few photos, we headed to Hastyar’s high school. That day he had Kurdish, English, Math, History and Arabic. His school was a fairly large building, with a football field (soccer to you American’s reading this), but due to the snow from the day before, it was flooded and muddy. They also had a basketball court, but without a hoop, basket or backboard. So now the students use the basketball as a football (soccerball). Like Kirsten’s class that I mentioned in a previous blog, a majority of the students were girls, but as you can see from the photo below, I wasn’t the only guy this time. Again, all classes were in the same room and a different teacher came in for each subject. All the students were, like most people I’ve meet here, very warm and welcoming. I think just everyone of them invited me over for dinner!

His English class was more advanced then Kirsten’s was, when the teacher asked the students questions their reply was (in Kurdish), ask the visitor! She said I already knew the answers, so I didn’t have to answer and she wanted them to try first. Near the end of the class she asked me talk about what our classes were like back in America. I don’t know how many of the students understood me, but she said it was good for them to hear a native speaker and that it helped them. During history class, I really wished I could understand what they were talking about. Hastyar told me that they were talking about Halabga, a village south of Suli where within minutes Saddam killed thousands of Kurds; young and old, men and women. Someday we will visit this village that has a museum that tells the story about what happened. When we go there I will for sure blog about it and tell you more.

Some of Hastyesar's classmates. It's hard to see, but there is a small space heater that they were all sitting around to keep warm. Click on the photo to see more.

His last class was his Arabic class, but we played from hooky because he wanted to show me his home and his village. I told him that it would be just fine to stay for Arabic, but he insisted. He showed me his doves and chickens that live above their house and we drove around the streets for a little while. Click the above photo or here to see more photos. Next we picked up Goran, Hastyar’s classmate at school and fellow student at the Life Center. Then we headed up to Zewe,  a small village on Mount Pryamagrew. It was a beautiful sunny day, with very few clouds in the sky, perfect for photography!!  A visit to the mountains was just what I needed! I couldn’t have asked for more; good friends to share the joy of being in the mountains and magic hour (the time of day when the sun is low and lights everything with a warm gold glow)!! Some parts of the mountains reminded me of the North Cascades, while other parts looked like areas of Eastern Washington! Made me feel like I was home! Of course, as anyone who has traveled with me would guess, we pulled over many times driving up the mountain to take photos. At one spot that we pulled over in, we took of photo of Goran and I. As I stepped back, my foot went down in about a foot of snow! At another spot, there were some men that had build a small fire on the side of the road to stay warm and cook some kabob. Nothing like a winter picnic!! They offered us some and told me how much they love America. When I told them how good the kabob was, they offered to give us more to take with us, I told them thank you very much, but we couldn’t take the last of their dinner! Click on the photos below to see more images from Zewe.

Hastyar, myslef and Goran with Mount Pryamagrew behind us.

Mount Pryamagrew. Click on photo to see more images.

When we got back we had to switch cars and drive about 30 minutes north to Dukan to pick up some students that are taking classes there in what could be compared to a technical college in America. A friend of Hastyar usually does this, but that day he couldn’t so Hastyar did it for him. We picked up 7 students and then drove them to another village about an hour from Dukan called Bazian, near another cement factory that one of my former students works at. (There is a link to the photos in the Photo Gallery Page) Even though they didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Kurdish, we still had a good time, one of the students was playing different Kurdish and some American music for me from his cell phone. I almost died of laughter when he scrolled down to one song with a Kurdish title, hit play and I heard “My Humps”!! When we got back to Hastyar’s home his sister had made us a delicious Kurdish meal of rice, lamb, two kinds of soup, and shifta (a small meat patty with spices) After dinner, it was getting late so Hastyar asked if I wanted to spend the night. Here it’s  normal for people to ask you to stay the night if you visit. So his mother set up an extra mat for me to sleep on and after breakfast the next morning we went back to Suli, just in time for me to serve tea for the women’s morning English class.

Maybe now when you hear Iraq; you’ll also think of the Iraq I know,  beautiful snow capped mountains, peaceful villages, and people that love Americans.

Round Two of Snow

Back on the 5th of February we had our second round of snow here in Suli! This time it lasted the whole day and measured to about an inch or so in some places! Take that East Cost! That afternoon we called our friends Ahmed, Fazel and Telzar to see if they would like to go to to Azmir Mountain to play in the snow with us. On our way there Ahmed’s car broke down in the middle of Shusty Street, one that  could be compared to Aurora in Seattle. Luckily this happened by a traffic cop so he was able to stop traffic for us as we pushed his car across to the side of the road. As we waited for Telzar to go back and Fazel’s car, we found a little snow and had a little snowball fight to pass the time. By the time we had everyone in a car and were headed up to the mountain, traffic was pretty congested and we knew it would take a while to get up the mountain, plus we were losing day light.

Everyone wanted to enjoy the snow, so traffic heading up Azmir Mountain was stop and go. The icey roads didn't help much either.

So we decided to pull off and park on the side street and just play at the base of the mountain. After we crossed Shusty and walked through some mud we were at the base of Azmir where we started our snowball fight. This was and probably will be the closest I get to seeing any type of war here in Kurdistan! And it was an all out war!! Ahmed has incredible aim and always seemed to get us right in the face, with iceballs!! At some points it seemed to be Kurds vs Americans! A hand to hand combat broke out between Mark and Fazel, leaving Fazel with a war wound. Click below to see more war photos.

After Ahmad naied us in the face a few times, it was his turn!

After we had enough of our little war and the sun had set and we couldn’t feel our fingers anymore, we went to Mark and Kirsten’s to watch The Office and have some dinner. It was a Friday night so I was suppose to teach that night, but it was a snow day… not to worry, we made it up the next week…

A Quick Update

This past week has been very busy for me and I have a lot to update you on, but more on that later. I’m currently editing the photos from this past week and will post them soon. On top of all the events that have happened this week, I had quizzes to grade for the Level Two class and the final two classes of my Intro Class, so I had a review and a final to make. I also added another page of some brief Kurdish history with some videos I found on YouTube. Click here to learn a little about Kurdish history.

You’ll also see I added some photos from our visit to the Saddam Museum back when I first arrived. I’ll try to add captions to the photos soon.  For now, here is a brief history on the museum. Back in the  early 90′s when Saddam was still in power in the Kurdish region he had offices and prisons where the museum is today. They have kept some of the rooms the way they were and have added statues to represent the Kurdish prisoners. They have also changed some of the rooms to teach people about Kurdish life. Some of the rooms you will see were the over crowded sleeping areas where Kurds of all ages slept, other rooms were used for torture. Some of the images my be hard to see, but it is important to know what has happened, sadly many people do not know much about this time in history despite the fact that only happened a few years ago. It is good to know that while the grounds saw so much sadness, it is now being used to educate people about what has happened.

One of the sleeping areas for the prisoners. This room held over 30 people.

School Dayz

For their language study, Mark and Kirsten go to a local school for adults who did not get to finish what we would call high school. There are many different reasons why these students didn’t get a chance to finish school. For some they had to drop out of school to work, to take care of their families, or because of the war.

Today we had the opportunity to go with Kirsten to her classes, Mark had a meeting today so he was unable to go. We talked to the school, which took about 20 min, but is considered to be outside of the city. On our way there we past some cows grazing, crossed a bridge over the river, which the locals use as a car wash, and as we saw on our way back, an onion wash as well!

Cow grazing

Not as green as Brown Bear! Good thing they don't have salmon spawning!!

Washing onions, why they do this, I don't know!

They go to school in the afternoon for two hours and have 3 classes, each one is about 40 minutes. Today they had Kurdish, English and Arabic. They stay in the same room and a different teacher comes in for each subject. When the teacher walks into the room, you stand up to show them respect. There were about 7 local students today plus the 4 of us (Sarah, Elise, Kirsten and myself). I was the only male today. Usually there is Mark and 2 other guys, so it’s always a majority of women students. It was a small room, with old desks (I thought they were kind of cool, but wouldn’t want to sit in them for more then 2 hours) and a white board. They had a poster on the wall that read [in English], “Teach a man and you teach a person, Teach a women and you teach a family” and a clock. Which Kirsten said were just added a few days ago. Not very much, pretty simple. A little better then some other classrooms I’ve seen in Kenya and Honduras, at least this one didn’t have a dirt floor.

The classroom during Kurdish class

Kurdish Class

First was Kurdish class, there were maybe 5 words I could understand, the rest was too fast and too advance for me! Next was English class, they went over a few vocabulary words of things you might find in a classroom. The teacher said the words and then had the students repeat them. Didn’t seem to be the best teaching method, but then I was only there for one class. Next was a 5 minute break followed by the Arabic class. For this class they read something from a book and the teacher discussed it.

A student listens during the English class.

It was an interesting experience, one of the things I enjoy most about traveling is seeing schools from different parts of the world. I hope to get to visit other schools in the area to share more stories with you. Thanks for reading!

The village as seen on our way to school.

Snow Falling on Suli!!

I know this is LONG over due, but here I am FINALLY getting to my first blog post! Over time I’ll try to fill you some stories that have already happened, but in the mean time, check out my pages. They can be found on to the right.

Tuesday morning Cheryl woke me up around 8:30. It was my day to sleep in but I had no trouble getting up when she said it was snowing!! At first it was coming down quite fast and the flakes were big, then it slowed down a little and within in about 45 minutes or so it stopped snowing and was all melted within two hours. Kurdistan snow is a lot like Seattle snow, you don’t get a lot and it doesn’t last long! But when we did have it, it is very beautiful!

The snow in Suli!

Click on the photo to see more photos of the snow!