January 10, 2009
Sarah-Jessica (the newest teacher from northern CA who looks like a Sarah and a Jessica but is not named either) and I ventured up to the Citadel today some time before sunset. This was my second visit to the more than 8000-year-old fortress city, and SJ's first, so I was so excited to accompany her in her first steps into the most magical little dump of a place in Erbil. It took us ages just to take those first steps because as it turns out, we are both photo freaks and enjoy taking pictures of every leaf, every brick and angle. I got a picture of the “50 cent” graffiti on the ancient walls leading to the arched entrance, as well as a shot of SJ getting solicited by a child selling gum for a quarter a pack- and I found out later, she got one of me in the same sticky situation. As soon as she gave money to the child, another one, and then another one came running toward her with their own boxes of gum, and I felt kinda bad- but mostly amused- for being the one to have advised her to just buy one in the first place.
After getting rid of the ragged children, we turned to step into the actual Citadel, but then we saw the giant statue of the Kurdish literary figure whose name escapes me, and decided on the spot that it looked quite climbable. But there could be no way with the guards standing right there, right? I put down my purse and approached the statue because what was the worst that could happen? Before I could reach the statue and attempt to climb it, though, the figure of a 3rd guard popped into view at the head of the ginormous statue from behind. Hm...well I guess it was okay to climb it then if the guards themselves were all over it like monkeys! I climbed the base, and expected to have to struggle up to the lap of the statue, but then the guard on the statue actually offered his hand to help me up! I grabbed it gratefully and he practically pulled my entire weight up. In seconds, I was sitting against the face, with my legs resting on the pages of the giant open book in the statue's lap. The guard took off his red beret and earmuffs, stuck them on my head and ears, and posed with me for SJ and the two guards below who had their camera phones out. Hehe. This is what I love about Kurdistan- it is not yet a major tourist city, and so the rules at the few attractions here are very lax, and the guards are easygoing, friendly and always up for a bit of fun. A guard sits inside a little ticket box at the gate below, but there is no entrance fee nor ticket needed to go in.
After SJ had her turn on the statue, we finally stepped foot within the actual city walls and began exploring with our cameras out, ready for action. Unlike the last time, there were no stray cats to greet us at the entrance, and I wondered where they had all gone to. No big loss since they kinda freaked me out- so silent and watchful, the lot of them. We wandered toward the back of the Citadel, and on the way, stepped into one of the old vacated homes. Wow, the rooms were tiny dumps, crumbling walls made of gray stone bricks, dirt floors. Late afternoon light poured in through a large gap in the low roof made of splintering wood, providing some light for us to see that old, dirt-clogged water bottles and an empty bag of chips lay among the sticks and other rubble in the dirt. I snapped a photo of SJ silhouetted against the open door I had just walked through, painted a bright blue with splotches of red or pink showing through from previous paint jobs. She was looking upwards toward the roof in a pose of discovery, and I could just imagine her thinking words of amazement as she witnessed what I had witnessed just seconds before her.
We wandered out of the room and back out another door, and continued on toward the back of the fortress city that used to make up the entirety of Erbil. While snapping photos of the old mosque in the middle of the city, SJ pointed out the full moon that rose only so high near the mosque's turret. We turned off the main street and ran up the rubble-lined path, intent on capturing the moon from a good angle. Even with the late afternoon sun still lighting up the sky in hues of the faintest blue and lavender, the full moon appeared luminous and white between the crumbling shanties and wiring strung between the telephone poles. Telephone poles in an 8000-year-old city? Weird...but before I could snap a picture of this sight, a guard who'd spotted SJ snapping away with her SLR called us away from the area, saying it was off limits (I presume- he was speaking Kurdish of course). She left to distract the guard, giving me a few seconds to snap away at the moon between the shanties. Then I followed suit, greeting the guard in Kurdish with a friendly smile so that he wouldn't be mad at us. He smiled back and asked us our names, so we knew it was gonna be okay the next time we came.
We continued on toward the back entrance- another crumbling archway made of stone which appeared from a distance to open up into yet another stunning view of the more modern city that surrounded the Citadel from below. Before we could reach this archway, we got asked to have our pictures taken by two men visiting from Sulaimaniyah. Then just before the archway, I got distracted by a curious little kitten peeking out of a 2nd-story window frame, and paused to take a picture of it while SJ continued on through the archway. Before I could snap a proper photo of the kitten though, I heard SJ's voice calling my name “Oh my god, you've got to see this!” Snap snap snap, went the shutter of her SLR. “You've got to get a picture of this!” Snap snap snap. I could see her standing framed between the archway, facing left with her camera at her eye working frantically. “Is it gonna go away soon?” I asked, wondering what in the world it could be. I wandered through the archway and turned left to see what she was going on about, and a brilliant, blisteringly blood-red sun stared back at me. A sliver of the blood-red coin was already hidden behind the horizon of buildings. I turned and looked the opposite way and saw the full moon on this other side, a luminous, white coin pressed aloft against a pale blue and lavender sky. Deja vu, deja vu, I thought as I suddenly remembered a similar experience in Sulaimaniyah, minus the tombstones and junkyard in the north and the south.
The two visitors from Sulaimaniyah asked us for another photo, but we waved them away as we frantically tried to capture the stunning view on camera (impossible! but we always try) before the sun sank away completely behind the buildings. Then we dashed away, leaving the two men waiting for us in the dust as we tried to get to the other side as fast as possible to catch the sunset from there. As we sprinted through the dirt, I told her about the Sulaimaniyah sunset-moonrise, and we wondered aloud between huffs and puffs whether we would make it because the sun had taken only seconds to sink halfway down. At last, we reached the front entrance and hopped down the steps, but alas, it was too late! Twilight had set in, that dusky hour just after sunset when the sun's light still brightens the skies from just below the horizon. Only a thin, hazy smearing of pale yellow, blue and pink remained along the horizon in front of us, and of course, the moon behind us, the ancient tan-colored citadel walls off to the side, and the rows and rows of flat silver rooftops 30 meters below. We weren't terribly disappointed because there would be plenty of chances to chase the sunset in the next 6 months, and so we just lingered there with the guards. Pairs of tourists and locals lingered around us: a few straggled along the hill leading to the Citadel entrance; at the top, a couple (most likely Kurdish) tourists stood posing for pictures under the moon next to a bare-branched tree; two locals in their teens or twenties sat together with their legs dangling over the ledge and facing the silver rooftops, their backs to the citadel and curved at similar angles downward toward the bazaar below; a bicycle lay on the ground behind them. Eventually, we made our way down the shallow, uneven steps, past the 50 cent graffiti, and out of the Citadel grounds.
A wandering through the bazaar and two deliciously salty shwarmas later, we were back at school in Matt Damon's room, watching a horrible movie called “Blindness” and yelling at Julianne Moore for being such a ninny. What a terrible terrible movie. But terrible movies make for hilarious comments from the viewers, so it was not a complete waste of time after all. Weekends are just too damn short dammit! I wish I had a time-turner.
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