Looking up from the picture, I noticed an ever-so slight brownish tint of the sky that had not been there earlier. Dust was gathering. It hit me then just how brown everything in here was today. The mud-brick buildings, the dirt ground, and now even the sky was reflecting an off-white tint.
I made my way up the main road toward the other archway in the back of the citadel, pausing to take photos of an adorable Creamsicle-colored cat lurking at the top of a railed staircase behind some old bricks and leaves. Seriously, it is the cats that rule this place now. Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks have come and gone, and now only the felines remain.
By the time I passed under the back archway, the dust had thickened so much the sky seemed to be dropping down on the city, the smoky film along the horizon having spread forward to turn the clear outlines of distant buildings into indiscernible shadows shrouded in mist.
I climbed up some old crumbling staircase along the right side of the citadel walls, over loose boards, stones, and mounds of dirt. There was supposed to be an amazing view of the city during sunset from a window up here somewhere. But even as I began climbing, I could see a guard out of the corner of my eye making his way toward me. Argh, since when have they become so annoyingly thoughtful of the tourists' safety? I sat down on a cement block and pulled out my camera, indicating to the guard that I was just going to sit here taking pictures. He seemed to be fine with that, though he lingered to keep watch. I'll come back another day and try to get up there, I thought. Of course that day never came.
Perched on the cement block and leaning against the old mud-brick wall, I watched as this one came to an end, the sun sinking slowly down from its lofty roost. Its gold light cast a yellowish hue over the westerly sky, diffused by the intense dust clogging the atmosphere that day. The entire sky seemed to glow with a soft, nebulous light. Strong gusts of wind blew that infernal dust my way. I shielded my eyes with my hands, and futilely tried to brush my bangs away against the direction of the wind. The winds were shifting, the air hung heavy. Gee, the day sure felt ominous. I toyed with my camera for awhile until suddenly, a fat raindrop splattered on it, and I looked up to see that the world had been drenched in coffee.
Or so it seemed. Brown, brown, everywhere brown! Muddy brown skies hovered over a muddy brown city with brown buildings and white buildings that looked yellowish-brown under the strange glowing light from above. I was impressed, but also, I had to get out of the rain that was about to be unleashed.
I ran down and took shelter underneath the arch next to a young girl about 12 years of age, but already as tall as me. Possibly, I have not grown since I was twelve. We huddled against the bricks and watched the muddy rain drumming down, heavy as pebbles.
Soon, though, the wind was sweeping the downpour sideways, so we were getting wet anyway. A soldier motioned for us to get inside the old security station. Grateful for the tiny, but dry shelter, we sat down on the old stone bench and sighed with relief- but I yelped and leapt up a second later because water was dripping down from the ceiling onto the bench where I sat. So we stood side-by-side, waiting for the storm to pass.
The girl's name was Raman, and she was visiting from Denmark with her grandfather. Raman dreamed of living in Kurdistan forever. The houses here were big and beautiful, she said, and nowhere else has she ever seen such beautiful things. I liked how she could say these things about her homeland even in the midst of a giant, disgusting mudstorm. A shattered window directly in front of me framed an old man standing under the eaves of a house across the dirt path, one hand resting on a large, yellow garbage bin, the other wiping the rain off his balding head. The old man was her grandfather, a school headmaster. The rain slashed down like needles past this viewing frame.
We watched the river of coffee flow and splatter past the doorless entrance. It reminded me of a time more than a dozen years ago, when I stood under the protective eaves of a storefront somewhere along the route to my aunt's house in Korea, watching a muddy river rushing madly by through the cobblestone street. Now that was a rainstorm. I had been exactly Raman's age, but unlike her, I remember being scared stiff by the torrential flood that looked like it could easily sweep me away if I tried to step into it to get home. All I wanted, though, was to get home, so I braved the torrents and blindly made my way back to my aunt's house eventually. I remember my lovely aunt yelled at me for not taking an umbrella. Hmph. As if an umbrella could have held back a rushing river. She must have been mistaking me for Moses.
This time, I waited. Quite suddenly, the downpour slowed to a trickle, then stopped completely. We stepped out of our tiny cement shelter, amazed at the transformation. Having dumped all its dirt onto the city below, which remained a murky, muddy brown, the sky looked positively cheery: light and clear and fluffy with clouds. Had it been a cartoon, it would have started whistling a tune. Had it been a deer, it would have started frolicking after a butterfly. How beguiling. Raman and I joined her grandfather and the few other tourists heading down the hill and out the citadel. Her grandfather invited me to their home, so I waited with them in the flooded streets for a cab, taking care to step upon the more solid islands of mud. The sun had sunk low and was glowing a pale orange, visible just over an old brick wall across the street. I followed them into the cab for an evening of ice cream and babies at Raman's aunt's house.
“If I had all the money and time in the world...” We ended up playing this game somehow. Raman said she would live in Kurdistan and help other people. Wait till she finds out just how many ways there are of doing that. How would she choose? Her younger sister would be a princess. Would that be a full-time occupation? I guess in this day and age, depending on which realm you're in charge of, being a princess might entail getting involved in politics on top of wearing the tiara and pretty dresses. In the old days in Kurdistan, a princess was also a warrior (Remember Princess Khanzad, the 12th century Kurdish warrior princess? The Yezedis, before the Islamic conquest, did not care much for distinct gender roles.). Her older cousin was studying to become a civil engineer, which sounds a lot less glamorous than Occupation: Princess, but in a developing region like Kurdistan, would be a hundred times more useful.
In the corner of the room, swaddled in blankets, the littlest sister, still just a baby, cried out in her sleep. I wondered what dreams had startled her from her tranquil slumber.
