Shanidar Cave: Adventure Through Time

Today, I took a temporal journey into prehistoric times.

It was 11:30 in the morning on a Friday. We could have waited for hours for an empty cab, but we were saved this eternal wait by a large, old, boxy-looking white van that pulled over off the highway to offer us helpless highway loiterers a ride. The first thing I noticed about the driver was that he had these amazing cerulean blue eyes that contrasted strangely with his dark hair.

“Could you give us a ride to the Masif garage?”

Of course he would!

“Could you give us a ride all the way to Shanidar Cave?”

We didn't really believe he would actually say yes, after all, the cave was more than one hour away, driving at the normal speed of 120 km/hour. I mean, didn't he have a job, a family, or something to take care of? But say yes he did! Perhaps all he had was his rickety old white van. Perhaps we underestimated his curiosity, as well as the irresistibly curious appearance of 4 Westerners loitering along the highways of Kurdistan. Clearly, an adventure was forthcoming, if only he stopped and seized the opportunity. Carpe diem- and what an amazing day it turned out to be, for this was no ordinary van, but a time machine that would take us eons and eons into the past.

Before journeying into the past, we stopped by the nearby town of Shaqlawa to buy some of their famous sweets. I tried this glutinous roll covered with green flakes. It tasted so familiar! After a minute of thoughtful chewing, I figured out that the familiar taste was cardamom. Imagine me being able to identify cardamom! Before my tea brewing days, I couldn't have told you cardamom from my own mom. Now I can tell you that one is flat, oval, and greenish with a bitter aroma, while the other...is flat in a way, but definitely not oval, greenish, nor bitter-smelling.

Anyway...onward to Shanidar Cave! It was in this cave that archaeologist Ralph Solecki discovered 9 Neanderthal skeletons in the 1950's, showing intriguing evidence that they ritually buried their dead, and that they healed their sick rather than heartlessly ditching them. Neanderthals, like grieving elephants, were much more “human” (by this, they mean “compassionate”) than was previously thought. Besides the adult remains, the remains of a baby Neanderthal were also dug up from the layers.

The discovery of the Neanderthals inspired an entire fictional book series called “The Clan of the Cave Bears”. It's fun to imagine that hundreds of thousands of years later, our own bones might be dug up by futuristic archaeologists, and fictional accounts written about our own lives by futuristic authors. No matter the dramatic stories they may weave about us, though, I wonder how much of the actual complexity they would be able to capture from a bunch of old bones. Only time will tell. What an awesome coincidence it was that this landmark cave happened to be just an hour or two away from where we were working and living for the year!

Soon, we were driving deep within the mountains of Kurdistan, occasionally sprinkled with red poppies, and that's when I began to get this eery feeling that this was no ordinary van we'd piled into so eagerly, but rather a time machine set to take us back eons and eons into the millennia before the dawn of man. I couldn't stop gaping, like the caves that yawned here and there from the mountainsides, out the dirty window at the sheer enormity of the stone-embedded mountains and endless green valleys, interrupted by absolutely no human establishment for miles and miles and miles, so pristine, so untouched, so very prehistoric. Any second now, a dinosaur was going to pop out from behind one of the gigantic slopes, rawrrrr, I was sure of it!

Eventually, though, we began to see marks of civilization- the occasional shepherd herding his mangy-haired sheep along the mountainside, a women in black flowing robe and veil treading heavily over the uneven, stony fields, a bridge, and Bedouin tents! They come from the south, ND informed us, and it was the northern side's turn to play host to these vagabond travelers, its lush green mountains feeding their grazing animals and providing an open, unoccupied space to pitch their large, elaborate, dark brown tents. A cloudy looking river ran swiftly through the valley- the same river that fed the waterfalls of Gali Ali Beig. Near the cave, we made a stop in a tiny convenience store, where J found “Iraqi dinar rubbers”. “Say what?!” I cried. And then I remembered she was British and that they call erasers “rubbers”. We piled back into the time machine and soon, we'd arrived at the stairs leading to the legendary cave.

It looked pretty average-sized from the bottom of the stairs- like all the other caves we'd seen from the car during our various road trips through the mountains. Everywhere we'd read about it, it was said that the steps leading to the cave numbered over 400. What a major exaggeration. It took like 25 minutes to reach the cave, and that was with my camera in tow, which meant I was making long pauses to take loads of pictures of the same thing at different angles in order to capture the best one. I avoided straying too close to our driver, and politely allowed him to move on ahead every time he came back for me. By now, he had already shamelessly proposed that I marry him and take him with me to America.

The stairway was lined with tall, wild weeds and grasses and those ubiquitous red poppies, and there were these huge beetle/grasshopper-like insects (cicadas) hopping around everywhere, ew. I kept pausing and turning around to gape at the incredible mountainous vista behind me. The two mountains in the foreground formed a V-shape as they came together, like Jesus and the disciple in the Last Supper painting. The author Dan Brown would have seen more than just a natural, geographic formation there. Behind those two foreground mountains, several more faded away into the mist. Eventually, my camera and I made it to the mouth of the cave.

WoOW. It was huge. Looking into the triangular-shaped entrance was like staring into the jaws of a T-Rex right before it clamped down on you for lunch. I heard my friends inside already, disembodied voices echoing from some hideout within this huge cave. T was pretending to be the voice of the Barzanis' ancestors. They crawled on all fours out of a hole deep within the cave, close to the inner wall, but even when 6.5-foot T was standing, he looked absolutely miniscule against the sheer height of the cave. It must have been at least 50 feet high, and three times as wide, three times as deep. The white limestone inside walls were streaked beautifully with shiny black, I guess from all the fires burned from the time of the Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago (when was fire discovered?) up until the present day. In the rear was a space encircled by a low stone wall- a corral, maybe for their sheep, goats, and cows? I'd read that this cave was still in use by present-day Kurds who came back every cold season and went away again in the spring. The floor was covered with light gray sand-like dirt.

At the entrance to the hole that the others had just climbed out of, I crouched down and made my own way in. It was so dark and felt slightly damp, and I hoped that there weren't any creepy-crawlies in here as I stepped forward awkwardly on my haunches like a primate. I took a picture with flash and saw that the tunnel opened up into a larger open space that was perhaps tall enough to stand straight up. The ceiling was spiky with limestone frozen in the act of dripping down. I didn't stay in there long though. It was slightly creepy and I couldn't see what sort of things lurked in the dark, if anything. I made my way step-by-step on my haunches back out of the hole. By now, my clothes were a lost cause- good thing I wore my old jeans today.

Outside of the tunnel, the enormous entrance to the cave was lit so brightly by the sun as if with divine light. There were a few other tourists visiting, standing silhouetted against this unearthly light. I meandered around, taking pictures of the streaked inner walls, the cobwebs strung across the shiny, blackened ceiling, old cow poop, and a rock pillar that looked at first glance like a man-made statue of a woman. Facing the entrance from the inside, the left-hand wall of the front of the cave looked steep but climbable. So I climbed it all the way to the top- about a dozen feet high-, where there was a window-like hole that gave an amazing view of the miles and miles of mountains and valleys below and beyond the cave.

This trek to the cave was about the coolest thing I've done in Iraq so far, I thought as I sat cradled within the frame of the natural window. It was so cool to think that I had stood where pre-human Neanderthals had stood tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago, making fires and tending to their animals, scratching their heads, burying their dead. I had breathed the same air that Neanderthal lungs had breathed, seen what Neanderthal eyes had seen. I wondered if so many thousands of years ago, a Neanderthal had marveled as I marveled now at the geography of the landscape. Were their brains complex enough yet to be able to appreciate beautiful things?

Soon, it was time to go. It was a bit more precarious on the way down because I couldn't see the footholds, so I ended up just sliding down basically. By the time I left the cave, I was covered in ancient dust and dirt from Shanidar Cave. As we were about to leave, a big family of Kurds were wandering in and stood around exploring the rear of the cave. I took a picture of these modern humans whose ancestors had inhabited the cave, whose cousins continued to come back every winter season. The Kurds were a timeless people, half of them living the same sort of lifestyle lived by their ancestors, except maybe with a satellite dish in their home.

On the way back, we stopped at the river and made our way down to it. The murky, gray-brown water rushed madly by. There was the tiniest patch of dark, wet sand at the shore. This would be as close as we would ever get to a beach in Kurdistan. It stunk of cow manure and buzzed with flies.

“Oh my god!” said ND with that characteristic angry passion in her voice, her eyebrows knitted fiercely together over her huge, intense eyes. “All this cow poop just smells so good!” She stood angrily with her hands on her hips, enjoying the smell of her youth. I doubled over in laughter. “Good” was not the adjective I was expecting to hear. She had spent her childhood in a poor village in Duhok, north of Erbil, a world away from her present home in San Diego. The smell of cow poop was a source of nostalgia for her. Her wild, curly hair was positively electric with passion as she wandered barefoot along the muddy shore among the flies, determine to stay much longer than the rest of us wanted to stay.

We ended up climbing back up pretty soon though, and having tea with the Kurdish family that lived in what looked like a single-room shack- large for a shack, but small for a family with so many people. One of the older women was quite a lively character. She was dressed in the flowing dark robes of Islam, but sat with her legs spread out, chattering animatedly with J despite the language barrier. Her face looked weathered and was starting to sag, but she still wore her hair in long youthful curls that hung carelessly out of her scarf. There were five girls in the family, all very sweet and quiet while we were there at least, their serious gazes and cheap old clothes setting them so far apart from the kids we taught at the school. They sat in one row on the ledge and let me take a picture of them, one of them blushing adorably and hiding her smile with her hands when I said something to her. We left after two cups of tea. The flies were unbearable and I felt filthy from my spelunking adventure.

On the way back to the present, I stuck my earphones in my ears and watched the prehistoric landscape roll by to music from my 21st century ipod nano. Sometimes, a lone Kurdish man in the traditional baggy jumpsuit with cummerbund, or a lone woman in flowing black robes would be ambling through the plains, looking so small against the backdrop of the enormous, green, rollercoaster-ing mounds. These lone figures suddenly appeared to me to be so beautiful for their timelessness. They ambled through the plains as their ancestors ambled, wearing the same clothes their ancestors wore, living the same way of life their mothers and mothers' mothers lived- which is to say, they lived to survive and nothing more. In less than two hours, we had arrived back in the 21st century. I was back in my 21st century apartment taking a long, hot shower with running water, screaming and killing spiders with my electric vacuum, and clicking through the photos of our journey through time on my digital camera, while music streamed from my ipod into my ears. Those Bedouins have no idea what their missing out on. After the toilet, the ipod has got to be the greatest invention in human/pre-human history.

Naz City Tales: A Wandering Party (Apt. G938)

The night before, I'd been in the Naz City apartment complex, but in a different apartment. V and SJ threw an awesome joint birthday bash there with lots of people from the expat community. I took a couple shots of Yager- one with the NYer and one with SJ- and that was enough to give me a good buzz for the rest of the night. The Brit and I stood over the 9th floor balcony with our arms leaning on the ledge, watching the cars zoom by below, the tiny red light of a cigarette flurrying down 9 stories, hitting the ground and going out without a sound or a struggle. I was reminded of that one night during our way to Muscat that SJ and I spent in Dubai on a balcony, eating cheetos and grapes and watching the Arabs in their starchy white dishdashlas pacing and lounging around in the balmy night. This time, however, the Brit and I saw something even more interesting than Arabs in dishdashlas. We saw Gregory Mendel in the flesh. He was one floor below us, dressed in his brown monk's robe, and serenely watering his pea plants and simultaneously eavesdropping on the party conversations one floor up from his balcony (that would be our balcony). I contemplated watering his plants from above with beer. “YEAH, let's do it!” the Brit cried with zeal. I grabbed his bottle before it could tip upside-down. Idiot! Only he...only he would agree to such a stupid idea like that.

Wandering inside, I started up a dance party with a Baby Mickey Mouse stuffed doll, soon to be joined by a few real people. The birthday girls, for instance, the DJ, and a French expat who was here doing an internship in international law. She was the one with gorgeous, long dark curls I'd met at a previous engagement. Wandering around some more, I found myself chatting with many interesting people about their work and my work and Kurdish politics and even found myself confessing to a complete stranger my nervousness about committing to studying one thing for so long when I have so many other interests, which is exactly what I'll be doing in a year if all goes as planned. Oh well, by now, I figure I can do anything intensely for a year, even if it means hunkering down and studying my ass off at one subject- nursing. The fact that I'll get to heal sick babies and the fact that this is a universally-needed skill will be my motivation. Once equipped with it, I can take it with me wherever I go and put it to use. Oh to feel needed and useful.

Wandering back out for some fresh air, I sat on the ledge with my back against the wall, one foot on the ledge, and the other on a chair in order to keep my center of gravity on the inside of the balcony, as the unusually high-shouldered host put it. At night, this was a fairly pretty view, with lights twinkling from the buildings, many only half-constructed, or fully-constructed but vacant. At one point, the generator shut off briefly, all went dark, and I imagined the collective sigh of all the occupants in all the buildings across the city. Rising higher than any other building was the round form of the ancient citadel. In a few weeks, all this will be nothing more than memories, eh Ang? Of course this was the fate of all events no matter how major, no matter how inconsequential. Time marches inevitably on, and whatever is, was, and whatever will be, is, like an endless procession pointed in a single direction forward- or backward if you're from the Aymara tribe. Why did I find that so damn interesting? Too bad useless philosophical wonderings like this won't help save lives.

“I've never met a girl like you,” said C. Oooh, he'd hit me in a weak spot. It's been awhile since anyone's said that to me. I jumped off the ledge, suddenly nervous about the closeness.

“Wait 'til you meet my sister- we're twins.” I walked away laughing. Taxi was here. Time to go home.

Naz City Tales: The Incredibles (Apt. D314, aka the Pie Room)

I visited a family today in Erbil, at one of the Naz City highrise apartments. When the father opened the door, the first thing I saw was a tiny little girl in a tiny little yellow sleeveless dress with colorful rhinestones on the front. This was D's little sister, the image of a little South Asian pixie with short, glossy black curls and dark eyes alight with merriment. She was a mere 2-and-a-half years old, but she was feisty and fearless. The dress was from India. They were originally from Kerala in South India, also known as “God's own country” because of it's stunning natural beauty. I googled it later and saw that it looks a lot like Oman but greener and even more paradise-like, and with elephants. Looks like I'm adding another country to my list of travel destinations.

D came out of the bathroom. “Hey D, how's it going?” I gave him a hug. We sat on the couch and he told me about how he had visited two friends today, and they had played hide-and-seek and Gameboy. He's such a sweet kid. I never noticed this before, but I discovered that he has a nervous laugh. I don't think he's even aware that he does it, but it's very endearing. His sister is a riot. She stood at the doorway to the living room and wouldn't stop laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. I couldn't help laughing back. I love it when kids do that. Too bad when adults do it, they just sound crazy.

His father was opening up a Majidi Mall from Kuwait here in Kurdistan. They'd lived in Kuwait before coming to Erbil, and every holiday, they returned to Kerala to visit their homeland and family. As I asked them questions, I was shocked to discover that all of D's academic brilliance and hard work, particularly in math and science, was self-driven. His parents had both studied humanities and seemed to have no particular interest in math or science, and neither seemed terribly curious about D's academics. On the contrary, his father had been wondering if D picked a lot of fights with the other kids because that's what he had done at D's age. Wow, this kid was even more amazing than I'd figured.

His sister never stopped roaming around the spacious living room, and we watched amused and amazed as she climbed to the top of the couch and jumped fearlessly down into a sitting position, over and over again. She was a born thrill-seeker, a born mountain climber with not a scared bone in her tiny little doll-like body. What an incredible family. Most of all, I loved how the parents were so nonchalant and relaxed about their amazing children. Later, over dinner at Bakery & More, I noticed that his father seemed to know quite a few Kurdish words. It turns out he could speak Kurdish* after just one year here, as well as 9 other languages. Christ, they weren't human, this family; they were the Incredibles in disguise! Who knew there was a family of superheroes living in the middle of Erbil?

Before leaving for Bakery & More, I'd mentioned that I might buy a bag of bread while I was there. As we were getting up from the table after the big dinner, D asked “Did you say you wanted to buy bread downstairs?” I was surprised that he even remembered I'd said that. It's a nice feeling when you don't think anyone's really listening, but it turns out someone was, even if it was a really inconsequential comment. It's an amazing feeling when the one who was listening was an 8-year-old kid. Before leaving the table, D went around pushing all the chairs in while even his parents and sister were already going down the stairs. I stayed and helped him carry out this ritual of manners which he'd probably learned at school. During the car ride home, he held a CD in his hand, which his father had just given to me because I'd said I liked a song on it.

“Look,” D said suddenly, pointing to the back of the passenger seat. A milky reflection in the shape of a CD was cast on it. I told him if he held it under other lights, it would make an entire rainbow of colors. We held it under other lights and watched as thin, web-like neon lines spun in circles as the car moved quickly from one light source to another. Years later, I thought as I watched him, he was going to remember how mesmerized he'd been by lights on CD surfaces when he was little, just as I'd remembered years later how I would squint at various degrees from the darkness of my bedroom to change the shape of the light in the hallway, and then squeeze my eyes shut and pretend to sleep as I heard my father coming home from work. By the time he remembers, though, maybe CD's will be extinct.

*Kurdish is similar to Malayalam, their native tongue, which I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by, since they are both from the same Indo-Iranian language family. They both originated in the Caucasus, brought down by the Aryans, so it makes sense that a lot of their words sound similar.

The Panda

I've got this kid in my KG class who looks like a baby Panda bear. He's got the Kurdish pale skin and dark eyes and hair, but moreover, he's an adorable chubby one. Round and pale, with dark patches, just like a panda! When I met his mother at the Mother's Day party we threw, I was shocked. How did he come out of a tiny thing like her?? And then, my reason returned and I remembered that Little Panda wasn't always so round and chubby. Even the fattest man in the world (currently in Mexico, I think at 1200 lbs) started out as a tiny little newborn babe. 

The greatest thing about Little Panda is, like the gentle giant of stories of yore, he's quite sweet and gentle- you can see it in his huge, dark eyes even. It's almost funny when he cries because he's so much bigger than the rest of the kids, it seems like nothing should be able to hurt him. But of course, as REM sang, "Everybody Hurts," even kids like Little Panda. He has not cried often, but the most memorable time was that one day he didn't look too well. All day, his big eyes looked worried, the corners of his lips were turned down slightly, and his arms cuddled his pudgy stomach. 

"What's wrong? Are you sick?" I kept asking, modeling sickness with my body and asking in Kurdish just in case he didn't understand.

He kept denying it, but I finally figured out that he was indeed feeling ill, but didn't want me to find out because then I would send him to the doctor. Little Panda was afraid of the doctor. The doctor stuck needles where needles did not belong, in his opinion. I tried to coax him into getting out of his seat and to the doctor's office with smiles, words, pats on the back, rubs on the stomach, and all the enticement I could think of. But honestly, there's nothing really enticing about going to the doctor for a kid who has yet to learn about "mind over matter" or "no pain no gain". Besides Alzheimer's patients, little kids are the most successful at seizing the moment and living in the present. The future? Who cares how much better it will be?

So he stayed put. How do you make a bull budge? This was no philosophical inquiry, nor was it a riddle with a witty punchline. Whenever I tried to pull his arm toward the door, he started making crying noises. Finally, with no choice left but force, I crouched down with my back to him and loaded the bull onto my back, no joke. Heaving and breathing heavily and bent over from the enormous weight on my own not-so-enormous back, I carried him piggy-back style to the door, kicked open the door (the other kids loved that), and heaved him into the hallway towards the doctor's office. He was crying all the while. 

15 minutes later, he was back in his chair in the classroom, smiling and no longer holding his stomach looking like he was gonna hurl any second. See, that wasn't so bad, was it Little Panda? 

Request to Google Ads

Dear Ads by Google:

Stop advertising concrete for Kurdistan! There is already way too much concrete around here! Everything is made of concrete! Even the gorgeous natural waterfalls have concrete built around them! This is the last place on earth that needs more concrete.

Say No to Concrete!

Hippies in Rawanduz

At Rawanduz canyon for the second time, I joined a circle of young Kurdish men chanting to a drum, and one of them chanted Ah-ri-rang in its entirety! The Kurd was teaching the Korean the lyrics of the old Korean folk song! Needless to say, I was impressed by his worldliness. It's the ones isolated against their will by force or circumstances beyond their control, who reach out with the greatest zeal to cultures outside their own. Later on, I would meet several Kurds in Istanbul who are able to speak anywhere from four to ten languages as if it is their life's mission to be able to communicate with every tourist that walks into their shop. But that's much later.

Somewhat later, as the sun beat down upon my bare neck and arms, I sat at the Edge of the gorge taking close-up shots of the beautiful red wildflowers that had cropped up since the last time I'd been here. On the long way home, we caught a most majestic sunset over the rolling mountains, and I took a nice picture of it partially reflected on the bus window, as well as tons of pictures of everyday Kurds- old Kurdish men taking a walk in their turbans and preposterously baggy outfits, shepherds and goatherds, a father and son perched on a rocky ledge watching the traffic go by, young men smoking shisha by the roadside, B blowing his nose into a perfumed kleenex with a lovely butterfly print. Just kidding about that last one- that one's just ingrained into my memory for laughs. It should be illegal to make tissue that beautiful. 

It's Official

I have become a full-fledged origami nerd. It all started out with a giant pile of scrap paper with no home. As a teacher, making lesson plans and worksheets and dozens of copies of everything, you end up with a lot of used paper- and if you're in Iraq, most likely you have nowhere to put it because recycling is not a hot-button issue around here at this point. 

Then I got this great idea: why not paint them with watercolors and make paper cranes out of them? 

That was back in December. It took awhile for the idea to take flight, but last week, we finally had our first meeting of the first ever origami club in Iraq (I'm sure it's the first, though I haven't checked), during which Lone and I taught the students how to make butterflies. This week's lesson: The Two-Part Elephant (you have to make the head and body separately). I even have a designated origami box filled with beautifully painted scraps of paper, a pair of scissors, glitter, and all the butterflies, cranes, and elephants I've folded so far!

Update: Metaphor, Prachett, and Looking West

These days, I've been really fascinated by this concept in linguistics called conceptual metaphor. I remember a couple years ago when I was trying to describe cheese while making a round at Di Bruno's, and came to the conclusion that all we ever know, we have learned through metaphor- mappings from known things to unknown things. To me, the conclusion came naturally because in math, mappings are used all the time to study unknown sets. Now I'm reading about how this idea of knowing through mapping is the basis of an entire subfield of linguistics called Cognitive Linguistics, pioneered by George Lakoff. 

I also read my first Terry Pratchett book, "Making Money", which turned out to be a fictional account of how money works in reality. I totally appreciated his wit and spoofing of various aspects of our modern society, including the lampooning of spacey-sounding string theorists going on about 11 dimensions and such. Also, I love the idea of golems- beings made of stones. Most of all, I really liked how there were elements of science fiction- many to be sure-, but it was first and foremost good ol' fiction. Speaking of metaphor, there was a mention of it (was it a spoofing?) in the water tank model of the town's economy.

A couple days ago, I played a vicious game of basketball with the NYer and the Brit. At one point, one tackled the other, and I stood there watching for about 3 seconds before diving into the brawl myself. It looked like too much fun not to join in. By the end of the game, we looked like creatures of the dust mines- you just can't get away from dust here. And unfortunately, it's not Dust. 

The closer the end approaches, the more I think of home. I can't wait to see everyone again, I can't wait to watch shows like Boston Legal and the Daily Show, I can't wait to chill out at a bookstore, and be up-to-date on the politics and pop culture and other goings-on of our nation, and did I mention, friends? And my poor mom. Damn, I wish I had a dog, because then I could look forward to seeing my dog, too. I can't wait! But then, as I scroll through the gazillions of pictures I took here in Kurdistan and in Oman and all the other countries I've visited, I'm sad to think that those days of amazing discovery will soon be over. I haven't told you about Oman yet, but it was truly amazing and unreal that often, I imagine that it didn't really happen. I think it's a sign of a good time when you feel like you're living a storybook life. Hopefully, the story will go on!

The French Expats

Is it possible to become so desperate for (clean) underwear that one is forced to wear a bikini bottom instead? Yes, yes it is.

Yesterday, we had a celebration for the six April birthdays among the small group of teachers living on campus. The food was amazing- Middle Eastern rice pilaf type thing, saucy chicken legs, eggplant in yogurt sauce, tabouleh, a big pot of chile, and 4 different kinds of desserts- including an amazing banana cake with chocolate frosting. Oh man...and then we danced till late in big circles, Kurdish and Lebanese style, which are very similar. The Pakistanis wore lavish, bright-colored saris. Again, I felt underdressed in my long brown skirt and giraffe shirt. But at least I could dance in my non-lavish clothes! I thought I was going to go to bed after that, but no! 

Even later, I found myself at a casual house party in Braiyaty, a neighborhood somewhere in the city near Bakery and More. Ushered in by the neighborhood security guard, we walked into the house, and suddenly, I was hearing that language again, which has gone latent in my mind, during my current endeavors to learn the much less useful Kurdish. The party was being hosted by a French ICRC (Red Cross Committee) worker, and most of the guests were French. Besides the ICRC employees, I met a Doctors Without Borders administrative worker with gorgeous doll-like curly hair, and a 7-foot-tall lawyer who worked with the Tacoma lawyer I ran into at the Moose Lodge. I could have sworn he was standing on stilts when he looked down at me from the ceiling and said hello. And also two journalists- one who had discovered the Afghan caves inhabited by that one dude whom we all forgot about in all the hullabaloo over Saddam. What was his name? Oh right- Osama Bin Laden...son of Laden. I asked how he found the caves.

“It was actually really easy,” said the gaunt-faced (yet somehow still handsome) journalist, “I just asked the guy standing there, 'Where are the caves?', and he pointed 'They're over there.'”

And that was it. Thus was born the most defining piece of his career in freelance journalism, written anonymously. 

The host tried all night to get us to play a drinking game involving shaking two dice, but no one could understand it. It is not in the nature of drinking games to be complicated. They should be binary in nature- drink if you get a certain outcome, don't drink if you don't get that outcome. I sat next to a girl who was stoned out of her mind. She lit cigarette after cigarette until the entire box was empty, and then she reached for the chocolates. I watched amused as she tried to focus her eyes on the people addressing her. As the night wore on, I became so intoxicated with sleep that I laid my head down on my stoned, chain-smoking companion's leg, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up next to her in a big warm bed. I'm pretty sure nothing happened. 

We meandered out of the room and into the kitchen, and were greeted by a lovely, tall, thin, blonde, bright-eyed woman who immediately offered us coffee and toast with butter (good ole French hospitality, even with the lack of decent sliced bread around here) and told us about how she takes her daughter with her on all her ICRC missions (except for this one of course), and how she lived in Cairo for three years when she was in her twenties. Day 1, she loved it- the chaos, the crowds, the noise, the animals. By day 3, she hated it, and could not imagine living in such a horrible place for more than a few days. By the end of three years, though, the fondest memories of her life had taken place in that insane city. She says Cairo is an amazing place if you can find the “underground” culture made up of middle-to-upper class folk. She'd stumbled upon amazing places in Cairo that one could never find anywhere else in the world.

We thanked her for the coffee and left. Soon the two of us were walking out of the concrete-walled neighborhood as the rooster crowed from somewhere in the distance. Oh wait, never mind, there it was just a few feet away, chillin' in the middle of the road.

Better or Worse?

You might not recognize me when I come home. A couple weeks ago, ND and Val were studying my face and hypothesizing that I would look good with bangs. I let them test the hypothesis, and it was proven to be true, judging from the positive reactions of my colleagues to my new sideways bangs (they curve to my right). Then this morning, I finally opened the Lancome make-up kit my aunt had given me 3 Christmases ago and tried it out- eye shadow in several earthy shades, black for under the eye, some warm-toned blush, and lip gloss, and...well I let the kids be the judge because they're usually honest.

"Miss, did you do something to make your face better?" 8-year-old Ram asked, making a face-powdering motion.

"Better? Do you think it's better than before, or worse?"

They all started shouting:
-"Better, better!"
-"No, worse, worse!"
-"No, better!!"

Time for a quick 2 minute poll: I counted 19 betters and 8 worses, the votes totaling 27. Someone voted twice it seems. As for my own opinion, I think I finally look like I'm in my twenties. Make-up transforms!

Today, I gave a difficult word problem, and timid AB, who has the look of a startled rabbit permanently etched onto his face, was the only one who was able to get the answer. He was also the only one who was able to find the pattern to the Fibonacci sequence, which I had given out to keep the smarter students from talking after they finished their work. Impressive, little rabbit.

Good

Good...when you are five years old, "good" is easy to define: be quiet, sit down, and eyes on the teacher, and you will get a sticker or a Magic Hat Prize. I always feel like such a liar when I define "good" in this way to my KG'ers every morning. When you are 25, trying to define "good" becomes like trying to divide by zero (you can't, it's undefined).

Two Kinds of Bugs, Two Kinds of Sighs

At 6:15 this morning, I opened my eyes and saw a giant spider hanging around on my orange curtains. Sick. I smashed that sucker with a folder so hard it split, and half of its arthropodal corpse ended up on the floor. Disgusted, yet disgustingly satisfied, I crawled back into bed and sighed. Blink blink.

“DAH!” I yelped. Two other multi-legged creepy crawlies were hanging around on my ceiling! I was gonna let them go because my ceiling is way too high to reach, but then, as I lay there staring at the ceiling, I became filled with ire. I leapt out of bed.

“You think you can hang around on my ceiling and not DIE??? I don't THINK SO!”

I snatched up the folder, aimed and fired- but missed. My folder dropped lamely to the floor, the papers inside scattering everywhere. LAME. I tried two more times, but only managed to send the bugs scattering to a patch of ceiling right over my bed. Stupid folder! I threw it back onto my desk, crawled back into bed, and sighed- a very different kind of sigh, truly.

Walking Through Fiction

April 12, 2009

There is a place in Northern Iraq that is as far as you could get from the war, strife, terror, and grief that plagues the rest of the country. It is located way up north just one hour away from the snowcapped Iraq-Iran border. They call it the “Grand Canyon of the Mideast”, or just plain old Rawanduz. And it really exists, though when you are there, it feels like you're walking through fiction. To get there, the four of us finagled a taxi for 40,000 dinars (~$35) at the Tayrawa garage. We drove northward through Shaqlawa, which now looks like Switzerland with its rolling green hills, past picnicking families, past the Wishing Cave, past the Iraqi war tanks that are on display at the spot where they were beaten in battle by the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army. Past boys and men sitting on the side of the road selling bunches of a vegetable that, according to the NYer, looks like celery with herpes (and tastes just as bad).

After about an hour or so, the driver dropped us off at the edge of a small town so he could go to the mosque and pray. He had dropped us off at the base of a stone-scattered, grassy mountainside that, despite it's steep angle, looked climbable, and so we climbed it. I climbed all the way up to this giant boulder that was flattened in the back and shaped like an arch and connected to a stone ledge staircasing down. Garden snails had wedged their way into its cracks, and bright yellow and red flowers sprouted heartily from them. I climbed onto the ledge, sat and looked out, sweaty from the climb and the heat. There was no doubt about it, the cold season was over and it was only going to get hotter from here. From this dizzying height, dollhouses lay at the base of the towering mountains on the other side of town, and a small forest of trees, toothpick-thin, gathered at the base of mine, the dozens of them all bowing in the same direction to the left, toward a long countryside road that curved all the way to the horizon. To the right, at this extreme height, I was almost level with the peaks of the jagged mountains that enclosed the road we were following like dinosaur jaws. Eventually, the driver returned after his chat with the Almighty, and we made our way down slowly- leaning so far back that I thought my back was going to touch the ground-, hopped back in the car and continued following that road until the fields and chiseled mountainsides and caves gave way to the waterfalls of Bekhal, and then to the deep, hollow chasms of Rawanduz.

The first thing I heard was Xena Warrior Princess cries- aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!- coming from every corner of the resort. Heh. They are sooo tribal. They sounded like they were about to start a war like a bunch of Injuns. The first thing I saw was a ferris wheel. It was the highest manmade point of the region, which I think is so much cooler than having the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building or the Space Needle as the highest manmade point of a region. It was perched in the middle of a field blooming with chartreuse wildflowers, along with a low-rising circus-like tent that housed the bumper cars ride, and a tilt-a-whirl. We wandered around all foreignly down a clean street lined with small beige-stone villas where the vacationers stayed, and it was then that I first felt the nagging feeling that this was not real. I mean, would you believe it if someone told you of a place in Iraq of streets with no rubble nor rubbish, beautiful villas, a ferris wheel, and a rollercoaster in the middle of a canyon, all enclosed by majestic mountains set against a clear, blue sky? Stage props, that's what the whole thing felt like! Walking through stage props designed for temporary delusionment for the sake of entertainment, and for the broader purpose of escaping into another world.

Just a couple decades ago, even the Kurds themselves would have laughed in your face and said you'd “gone to the mountains” if you'd told them that such a place would exist in the near future. Or perhaps they wouldn't have laughed because they were too busy running away from murderous Baathists or grieving over the bodies of loved ones who had just been gassed to death in yet another “project” aimed at eliminating the entire Kurdish population, village by village. It's gutting to see the pictures of this lowest, horriblest point of Saddam's Anfal campaign to wipe out the Kurds because I see my students in the faces of the dead children. If they had been born a generation earlier, that could very well have been them, or their brothers or sisters or cousins. No, even the Kurds themselves would not have believed in a place like Rawanduz.

The Other Edge

We threw our stuff down in the grass, and after taking some pictures with a bunch of Kurdish families, we went our separate ways to explore. I picked my way through rough, stony terrain, through tall grasses and weeds that had been allowed to grow naturally, haphazardly, and eventually I reached the lip of the gorge.

Woah, vertigo.

I sat down quickly on the flat stone surface before my body could lose its balance completely and tumble undesirably down the cliff's edge. Wow, I thought, at a loss for words as the sun set behind the gorge, casting a golden glow on the canyon wall directly across from it. I sat there with my legs dangling over this other Edge, watching the glow shifting slowly over the tiered innards of the gorge as the sun sank lower and lower, watching the skinny ribbon-like river running through it way below, opaque and slow-moving, the same milky gray color of the canyon crags. In the distance to the east, screams of delight pierced the tranquil air as the rollercoaster cars spiraled down the canyon, jarring dissonantly with the fluting of the birds that flew above and around me, and through the open space between the canyon walls. I felt like Heidi in the Swiss Alps. Every day she would go with Peter the Goatherd to the mountainside and not come back until the evening. I always wondered how anyone could just hang around on a mountain with no books, no tv, and only a goatherd and goats for company, and not get bored. But actually, it's really easy if your surroundings are beautiful and awe-inspiring, and the air is fresh. You feel like you could stay there on the same rock for hours and hours and be totally content without having to do things. I stayed there until the clouds turned a coral pink, goosebumps covered my bare arms, and a cloud of mosquitos convened nearby, hovering hungrily. They never said anything about mosquitos in Heidi. That's the beauty of fiction- you can read about romantic escapades in the mountainside and sleeping in caves, and ignore the fact that there are mosquitos and poison ivy and rabid bats and ants to deal with. Curse nature.

Later, at night, the four of us emerged from our villa and gaped at the full moon that had risen over the shadows of the jagged mountain peaks. The yellowish orb floated just to the right of the ferris wheel like an eerie crystal ball. The Brit had a bottle of Kefraya under his jacket, and I had the corkscrew in my pocket. We were ready for the wheel. What we weren't ready for were the words “doo ba doo”.

“Two by two?” But how were we supposed to drink communally if we were sitting in two separate cars? This was not making sense to me, especially since the Brit had already hopped into the first car along with a second passenger. That meant the wine and the corkscrew were going to be in two separate cars. After a bit of futile pleading, the NYer and I climbed into the second car, having failed to charm the men into giving in, though they were very apologetic about it. They started up the machine, and the wheel began to spin up into the starry sky. This place at night reminded me of the Moulin Rouge, except with a ferris wheel instead of a windmill. The view of the full moon and the nearby town of Diyana, twinkling like reflections of the stars above, was beautiful. In the car ahead of us, New Day screamed as the Brit rocked their car. The NYer and I took turns swigging the bottle of Jameson he had sneaked in under his sleeve as the wheel spun leisurely around, gently swinging the moon up and down and up and down. Later, we bought tickets for a second ride on the ferris wheel, and this time, through the powers of both reason and, more importantly, my sad puppy dog face, we were able to charm them into letting us all go in one car. Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!

Even later at night, we took a walk along the gorge's rim, all the way to where the canyon splits, and there, I climbed over the fence and sat on the edge of the precipice, hugging my knees and listening to the rush of the river, to the Kurdish music blaring from one of the villas, and the tribal cries. My body was caught in limbo between two kinds of space, both black and enormous, the one above filled with stars millions and trillions of miles away, the one below an abyss carved out by water over hundreds of thousands of years. It was kind of scary sitting at the edge of a cliff. Even if you have no desire to jump, just thinking for a millisecond about falling over the edge makes your body almost want to do it for real, like when you're playing a video game and find yourself jerking around as if you really were fighting or driving. I don't know why that is. The thought that death is just a small step away is shocking. In a split second, you could go from happy and in love with everything and everyone to falling to your death, and that would be end of it all, the end of everything and everyone you love and hate and feel indifferent to, the end of your future plans, your future journeys to Nepal and Argentina, your future kids and grandkids, your future discoveries and gains and losses, and the end of your cherished pipe dreams. Halas. In one split second, all can become missed opportunities and murky, unfulfilled dreams never to be carried out by the dreamer. Crazy. I tried to push it out of my mind so my body wouldn't follow.

We met a Danish-Kurdish family on the way to the gorge, and they were still out there barbecuing and drinking when we headed back sometime past midnight. There seems to be a lot of people from outside of Iraq that come to Rawanduz, like Danish and Iranian Kurds. Even the Kurds from Sleimani three hours south are very different. The three girls from Sleimani wore gorgeous racier Kurdish outfits with totally see-through sheer fabric “covering” their bare arms and shoulders, and they touched and flirted with the Brit worse than a bunch of American college girls. Strange how much of a difference 3 hours makes. In the US, if you drive 3 hours south from wherever you are, I feel like the people would act pretty much the same. Here, if you drive 3 hours south, it's a whole other world. You can go from being a whore to being a prude in just 3 hours. You can go from peace to war in maybe 6 hours, or even just 1 hour if you drive west to Mosul. You can go from having a life worth equal to a man's to one worth only half of a man's in just 3 hours. Who came up with these silly rules? Was it God? Who came up with God? Was it man? What an imagination we have...

I awoke early the next morning in our villa, walked out, and saw jurassic mountains painted in the sky like stage props. An hour later, I was spiraling straight into the belly of the gorge on a toboggan, wondering what would happen if I didn't brake like the signs were telling me to. I'm not stupid, though- I pulled the brakes every single time I saw a warning sign. Some rules are worth following, especially those concerning rollercoasters in Iraq.

The Perfectly Aged Man in Char Chra

April 5, 2009

We spent this most beautiful spring day in the city. After stopping by the textile museum in the ancient citadel for postcards, we lingered at a tea shop in the bazaar below. Eventually though, we realized that the tiny, grungy, tea shop was becoming packed with men with the pretense of drinking tea but with the real intention of making googly eyes at us (3 unaccompanied girls in a tea shop is unheard of; 3 unaccompanied foreign girls in a tea shop? They are clearly not just looking for tea...), so we left and caught a cab to the other bazaar in town. Unfortunately, the taxi driver made googly eyes at us the whole time through the rearview mirror. After we left Lenga Bazaar, we caught another cab to Char Chra Hotel. Unfortunately, this taxi driver also made googly eyes at us through the rearview mirror the entire way. It was a day for being oggled at by googly-eyed men. Who comes up with these words? 

Inside Char Chra was the most perfectly aged man in all of Erbil- possibly in all of Kurdistan. His name was Khaled Mohammed, and on the outside, he looked a lot like the prophet Zoroaster (well I thought he did), with a bare dome of a head, deep-set eyes, and a mustache and salt-and-pepper beard. But it was not his outer appearance that drew us to him- instead, we were drawn initially by his amazing artwork that was displayed outside his little gallery in the left-hand corner of the hotel lobby, and eventually by the man's inner dimensions. 

The first piece I saw was a large, life-sized one of a beautiful fair-skinned maiden walking barefoot in a meadow. Her head was tilted back, while her long, long hair was blowing forward, and her eyes looked startled or serious, I can't remember which. Next to this painting was a painting of a horse, so lifelike you could see its veins popping out of its face- which I had never noticed on a real horse before, actually. Not that I've been near too many horses in my lifetime. Next to the horse was a painting of a woman with her hand on the button of a half-buttoned dress.

“Do you think she's getting dressed or undressed?”

“Definitely undressed. After a long day, she's come home, her hair's disheveled, her eyes are tired.”

“Yeah, definitely undressed.”

Next to the undressing woman hung a painting of a very promiscuous scene: a man crouched inside a small, dark room. Next to him on the floor lay two women only partially covered by brown blankets, clearly nude, and clearly having fun, judging from their laughing faces. I felt like I had just interrupted a threesome, but for some strange reason, the man's face expressed despair, his mouth agape and his eyes gazing upward as if to cry out, “I don't know what to do!”, his arms crossed over his heart. New Day pointed out the faintly-painted heads of two other women floating in the shadows in the upper left-hand corner. And what was that butterfly doing settled on the blankets at the feet of the naked women?

So many questions, it was time to ask the artist sitting inside for some answers. The Zoroaster-like figure came out and explained that the promiscuous painting of the threesome illustrated a Kurdish folk tale about an ultra-religious man who, determined to escape the sinful temptation of women, went to live a monastic life in a cave. But upon entering the cave, he found that it, too, was filled with women, nude and ready to seduce and be seduced. Moral of the story? You can't get away from them. Women are everywhere and there is no way to escape this fact of life- hence the look of utter despair and perhaps acceptance of the inevitable on his face. 

Inside the small gallery, he went on explaining several other paintings that we asked about. The most jarring one hung right beside the door frame. An old woman's face screamed out from a black background. Skulls floated behind her head. She wore black- the color of mourning-, white, and red- the color of blood. Black, white, and red- the colors of the Iraqi flag. Part of the white had a very faint smudge of green on it, which had deliberately been whited out but not all the way. Green was a color of the Kurdistan flag. There was never any green. Most of the painting was done in the colors of the Iraqi flag- except for the blue abaya (headscarf) over her head. Blue was the color of the sky, of freedom, but even that color of freedom had been forced into a form of imprisonment- of women.

“Check out this one, Ang.”

“Wow, it's so...swirly!” We studied the painting, a 1.5-by-6-foot one that extended horizontally. It depicted a nude woman entering a swirly whirlpool-like ring from the right side. The picture ended on the left with the same nude woman lying dead, half-way into another whirlpool ring. At her lifeless yet graceful fingertips lay a spread of fruit and wine, while the ring she was caught in was the color of smoking, burning hellfire. I was mesmerized by the ring's blend of swirling colors. In between the two swirling, tempestuous tidal waves was painted two white doves, the symbol of peace and love. 

“What is the story (chirok) in this painting?” I asked.

“Life is like a swing,” New Day translated, “It goes back and forth from good to bad. But the best part about life is love.” The image depicted love as sort of the calm in the midst of a storm. This painter must have an amazing relationship with his wife, I thought. There are too many others who would have painted it the other way around, showing love as the capricious tempest. 

He had been to Korea. He had loved Korea because everything there was so fast-paced. No one was ever talking on the phone. Instead, everyone constantly- on the streets, in the subways- texted at lightning speed. He brought us over to his computer to show us pictures of the Iran-Korean International Art Fair he had attended. He clicked to a picture of his son who worked as a graphic artist in Iran, and told us about how the creator of Tom and Jerry had once told his son: “I would cut off my hand so that you never stop making your art.” I immediately wished that I was that good at something. That must be what it feels like to be born with a purpose. Eventually, he reached the pictures of the Art Fair in Korea, and though he clicked through most of them pretty quickly, he paused suddenly at one that showed a pale, blonde Iranian woman.

“This is my wife,” he explained, though there was no need to explain. His eyes became lost as he gazed at the picture and shook his head wistfully, tenderly. Clearly she was no longer living. And clearly, he had loved her very much. During the lull, I noticed that music was playing softly from his speakers, featuring a woman's strong voice and some unknown folk instrument. 

“That's his wife singing,” New Day translated. “He says she never recorded her songs for anyone but him.” She continued, “He says that he doesn't believe she is really dead, and that she's waiting for him. They're going to be be together again someday.” If these words had come out of anyone else's mouth, I would have dismissed it as religious nonsense about the afterlife, but I recognized that the source of his belief was his profound, genuine longing for another human being- something I can actually believe in. His words were noble rather than psychotic or delusional, and I was more ready to believe them than those of any pastor I had heard before. 

We chatted with the artist for a long time in his tiny gallery inside Char Chra Hotel. He talked about Iran and Hafez poetry and about his love for wine, how once in Russia, he had tasted a wine so old that it could barely come out of the bottle when he opened it, like stubborn ketchup in a Heinz bottle. Does that really happen to wine when you age it for too long? I couldn't tell if he was pulling our leg. The man himself seemed like a fine wine, his soul aged to perfection. 

Angry Asian Angie

I hate the bank. I'm so angry, I could kill an animal right now. I have no patience for idiocy these days, and we all know that call service representatives for the bank are the most supreme idiots of all. Now imagine having to deal with these supreme idiots when you are thousands of miles away, and the connection is so bad that you can only hear half of what they are saying. What's more, they keep saying the same damn thing over and over again: "not a bank error, not a bank error". Is it ever a fucking bank error? IS IT? Do bank errors even exist? Damn you all, damn you and your Minnesotan accents! All I want to do right now is kill an animal and smear its blood all over an effigy of a bank call service representative and burn the bloody effigy to ashes. If any of you ever started working at a bank, I'd have to burn you. Unless you didn't really work at a bank and it was just a cover for your real job as a CIA agent. Then I'd have to join you. 

Update: I can skype call the bank for free! Oh my....

Kindergarten Viruses

The prefects- students in the upper grade levels who watch my kindergardeners while I am on my break- are starting to complain that my babies are kissing each other on the cheek and saying "I love you". Hehe. I don't know whether to suppress or encourage this. On the one hand, this society needs to seriously ease up on their restrictive rules. It would be a small way of changing the status quo to encourage these innocent acts. On the other hand, aren't they a little too young to be exploring this feeling- even if they have no idea what it all means? 

For now, I won't say anything and just go with the flow, whether it ends up dying out or sustaining itself. The worst thing to do would be to make it a big deal- like I did with the "you just wait" threatening hand signal and the sticking-out-your-tongue thing. These things are like viruses the way they spread. But unlike viruses, the more you try to treat them, the more they propagate.

A Day in the Life of a Kurd

There's a book called “Happiest Baby On the Block”, and it should feature Yunis Gulani on the cover. I have never met a happier baby than 2-year-old Yunis. His laughter is contagious- every time he laughs, I laugh, and vice versa, and so we never stop laughing. He has adorable teardrop-shaped eyes and beautiful, wispy, white-blond hair and a tiny set of buck teeth just like the stuffed bunny he carries around wherever he goes. New Day, Meadow and I spent the day with Lone and Yunis at their house in Masif. We picnicked in their garden where she had recently planted apple and other fruit trees, our blanket spread with a tray of baklava, seeds and nuts, watermelon (shuti), and white wine bottled in Giverny, France. They tried to teach me how to eat pumpkin seeds, but I gave up and just ate the entire salty seed- shell and all- just the way I like. New Day and Meadow, both in their twenties like me, talked about their refuge camp days when they were kids. Guam was beautiful, says New Day. Meadow on the other hand got stuck in one of the poor, overcrowded, hungry camps somewhere in Eastern Turkey because it was “just after the war”.

Later, New Day and I took Yunis for a walk around his neighborhood, taking turns to carry the toddler because he didn't have his shoes on. The panoramic views of the green mountains were beautiful, flowering everywhere with those ubiquitous chartreuse blossoms. I lingered a little behind the other two as they ambled down a curving country dirt path lined on either side with wildflowers. Sometimes they stopped so Yunis could pick flowers for his mother. New Day looked so comfortable with the baby at her hip that I couldn't help thinking that she'd make a good mother someday. And she was turning out to be a good friend. We had one thing in common at least- both of us were tired of the usual weekend activity of drinking. We were so much happier here, visiting Lone, seeing the mountains, and exploring the surrounding villages. I'm glad she is here, and Lone as well.

I ran to catch up with my companions and to take my turn with the baby. The path led into a village with shanty homes and all kinds of farm animals. We chatted with the villagers who were surprisingly bold and not so surprisingly, very hospitable. We declined their invitation to come in and have tea because we wanted to head back soon, but stayed to check out their animals. One of the women snuck up behind a lamb (puz, or mr) and grabbed it, and it baaa-ed pitifully as she brought it over to Yunis so he could pet it. They also had white ducks and chickens running around, and two donkeys (kerr). Whoever said a donkey says “hee-haw” needs to spend a day on a farm with a real donkey. They are not pleasant-sounding creatures. They sound worse than a dying motor. Like a dying motor with a dying pig inside it- but louder.

We headed back after meeting the animals. Yunis had had a full day, and so had I! I collapsed on the couch and suddenly felt like taking a nap. But then, when I came back from the bathroom, all four of them- New Day, Meadow, Lone, and baby Yunis- were dancing the Kurdish dance to Kurdish music, so my nap was put on hold. We danced in the living room until we could dance no more, and then Lone- wonderful hostess that she is- fed us some sort of Kurdish soup made from boiling meat for 4 hours and adding tomato sauce and vegetables to it. Afterward, I felt so content and sleepy. I had just lived a day in the life of a Kurd- picnicking, eating seeds and nuts, and dancing the circle dance- what more could you want? We said our goodbyes, Yunis and I exchanged Eskimo kisses, and soon I was in the car, staring out the window into the dark, and seeing picnic after picnic after picnic along the highway.

Rock the Bus

Last night, the usual crowd of teachers piled into the shuttle van, ready to party or sleep or both after a long week of teaching. Farhad cranked up the house music, and we rocked out and took the piss out of each other the way we usually do in the van, and watched the dozens of half-constructed buildings fly by, gawking at one with the skeleton of a giant dome on top. 

“I don't know why, but every time we're in this van, I feel so...happy!” cried New Day. 

“It's the best part of the night,” I joked, “Watch, it's going to all downhill from here!”

And actually, it was. Damn my words! But the rest of the night wasn't bad, either. 

Impressions of Rebirth

Post-internet blackout updates:

March 22, 2009

Happy Naw Roz, my deer!

I feel born again- but don't worry, not in the religious “washed of my sins” kind of way. Tanned and toned, and my brain full of amazing images from the Gulf region, I feel born again- like the green, green grass that has sprung miraculously from the dry, rocky, brown soil of the Kurdistan mountains. The transformation from winter to spring is sudden and miraculous here in Northern Iraq. Since my arrival 7 months ago, I didn't think it possible that anything nice could grow from these stony, bare-brown slopes patched with half-dead grass. Then, along comes March 21st, the day of the spring equinox, and bibidee-bobbidee-boo! Suddenly, Erbil has transformed into the Emerald City. Bright green grass sprouts overnight from the barren hills, even brighter patches of chartreuse-colored flowers bloom from the darker green blades, and the crickets have returned. And so have the flies and the spiders. Gross. I can't wait till the bats return- I miss my little black Bartoks whizzing around over our balconies.

The feelings of rejuvenation and rebirth are redoubled by the noise and color that burst from the seams of this region in celebration of this spring awakening. For the Kurds and other descendent cultures of the old Persian Empire, March 21st marks the true first day of the new year, called Naw Roz. Yesterday, I went out for a walk outside of campus to see for myself how Kurds celebrated their biggest holiday of the year. Surprises awaited me as soon as I turned out of the workers' compound. The spry, green hills, which are normally empty of people except for the occasional shepherd or lone picnic-er, were littered that day with cars, pick-ups, taxis and semis. Huge extended families of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents sat on blankets eating dolma, rice, flatbread, and boxed cake. Tea boiled over the open fire. Kites flew like colorful angelfish high in the sky among the few puffy clouds that had managed to find their way into the otherwise azure plane. 

At the ends of the kite-strings stood little Kurdish boys in their own potato sack outfits like miniature versions of their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles. The women and girls of the families sat or stood like bright jewels in their sequined Kurdish dresses and the accompanying gold jewelry. One of the families waved me over to join them, and as I sat down and made the round of greetings, I noticed that all the girls wore eye shadow that matched their dress- pink, purple, blue, green- even the young ones wore make-up. I immediately regretted coming out in my lame jogging clothes, but honestly, I had a feeling I would always feel underdressed at a traditional Kurdish gathering, no matter what I wore. One simply cannot compete with the layers of glitter and bright colors and loads of jewelry that constitute the traditional Kurdish dress. 

Anyway, I sat in my lame jogging clothes and tried to strike up conversation with my limited Kurdish, as they handed me sugary tea in the traditional Kurdish tea cup- tiny, handleless, pear-shaped, and embossed with gold arabesques around the rim. I had just read parts of Leaves of Grass, and so being introduced one by one to each aunt, uncle, mother, father, cousin, grandfather and grandmother, and so on, all sitting on the newly sprouted grass, it immediately called to mind the idea of grass symbolizing rebirth, and I tried to make a comment that the grandparents were like the grass. Luckily, there was grass all around us that I could motion to because I didn't know the Kurdish word for “grass”. Still, I don't know if my meaning caught on. They started up their Kurdish circle dancing, called dopka, and I was entranced by how quickly their tongues moved as they yelled like Xena Warrior Princess- a high-pitched, rapid alalalalalalalala! 

Before I knew it, the sun was beginning its descent behind the hills, and it was time for me to go. I thanked them and kissed all the women goodbye on the cheek, and then one of them urged me to kiss her son (who was my age) in the same way, to which I impulsively let down my guard and obliged. The entire family whooped and clapped their hands in glee as I gave him a kiss on the cheek too. The guy was profoundly shaken. I waved goodbye, and they continued dancing to the car radio as I made my way back to the school. Before I turned into the hills where picturesque silhouettes awaited my fanciful vision, I took one last glance back and saw for the first time the colors of the sunset outshone by the moving glittering jewels that studded the grassy green slopes and by the angelfish swimming in the sun-splashed skies. Never forgo a chance to glance back one last time. God, what a vision...

That evening, the teachers and I took the shuttle van to the speedway, but we got stuck in a Cairo-like traffic jam because of all the families driving home after their picnics. Every car was packed with families like a VW stuffed with clowns. Kids sat dangerously at the tops of huge semis, boisterously waving and giggling and yelling in revelry. Entire buses were packed with people clapping and yelling like Xena, with a passenger standing in the front, conducting the revelers with an imaginary baton. New Day and I screamed simultaneously as we both saw the strangest vision of a woman in black Muslim robe and scarf wearing a twisted goblin mask over her face. The flag of Kurdistan- red, white, and green, with a yellow sun in the middle- poked out proudly from every car stuck on the road. Families still camped in the dark with actual tents pitched on the hills overlooking the highway. Someone on the bus claimed he even saw some kids swinging at the end of a construction crane. In the dark fields, I saw a family dancing around a fire, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand...

March 26, 2009

The Accountant and His Three Daughters

I made a visit to the home of the school accountant, whose daughter is in my 2nd grade math class, the splitting image of her father- brains and all- except with long hair. It was a smaller house than others I've been too, but the coziest. I felt so at home as I played with his three daughters. The smallest one is only a year and a half and she loves to catch and throw things- balls, socks, food. The best thing about the parents is, they don't freak out when the baby does this, and simply vacuum the mess up at the end of the day before spreading out the blanket on the floor for dinner. Despite the lax attitude of the parents, the kids are not spoiled at all. The house is comfortably messy, and there are blankets spread out on the floor at the foot of the parents' bed for the kids to play on. The two older daughters adore their youngest sibling and I laughed out loud as the three of them started dancing Kurdish style to the Kurdish music that had been dubbed over the Three Chipmunks movie. 

Later, I wandered outside to where the mother was making deep-fried lamb with her aunt, and the three of us chatted about many things in the dark with the sound and smell of sizzling meat until my haunches were numb from sitting on them for so long. Religion is such an important element in the lives of Kurds. It's not just about truth- it's their culture, and as well they really do believe it is the “right“ path. Yet, they didn't condemn me when I told them I wasn't religious, let alone a believer in their Allah. They told me about the mother's uncle who was at the moment lounging on the couch inside, but in another lifetime had been a prisoner of Saddam's party for two years, a victim of hangings and beatings so bad he lost an eye. The uncle kept pulling out ID cards and showing them to me. One of them showed him as a member of the Kurdish Political Prisoners Group. He seemed like one of those grandfatherly figures who had lost an eye in war and seen many tragic things and lived to tell the tales with jolly detachment. 

After dinner, we had tea, and then I taught the oldest daughter several card games. Not surprisingly, she caught on to them really quickly, and I found myself actually enjoying the company of an 8-year-old until it was time for me to go home. As we said goodbye, she reminded me to bring my contact solution over next time so I could sleep over. I just might do that. 

April 1, 2009

Kid-tonic & the Board Effect

Yesterday, during Lady's Night at the “Sheraton”, I felt sad and annoyed about many things. Then, on the way home, the taxi driver proffered his ring and pinkie finger onto my leg while the other three fingers held onto the stick shift. The annoyance turned into anger, the sadness swelled into tears, and I ended up bawling myself into a drunken stupor on my couch until sleep finally overcame me. 

I considered calling out this morning, but I'm so glad I didn't. Teaching is teaching me how to compartmentalize. As much as they wear me out, my kids make me so happy. I don't think I'll ever have a class as smart and animated as my 2nd graders, no matter how many decades years I end up teaching. And damned if I ever met kids as adorable and loving as my kindergardeners. 

I took pictures of them today while they played outside, but none of the pictures captured the little mannerisms of each that has made me grow so attached to them this past year. I can't bear the thought of leaving them (except for this one spoiled rotten attention-seeker whom I'd kick out of my class this very day if I could), but it's going to happen in less than three months! Wow...

...they've changed me as much as I have changed them. Empathy, as much as I value it, has always been a weak trait of mine, but these days the first thing I notice when I walk into a classroom is a sad kid among all the happy ones. When I see a kid crying, I see myself during times like last night, and then my heart goes out to them because I know exactly how they feel. 

The Board Effect

Earlier this week, I redecorated the board outside my classroom with a flying theme. “Come Fly With Me to KG1 B,”, it says in bubble letters at the top. Below are cloud-sheep, balloons and soon origami butterflies and cranes will be added. While the rest of the class sat inside watching “Dora the Illegal Immigrant”, I let Liya hang out and watch as I worked on the board and described what I was doing to her. At one point, I asked her to go get some staples for me.

“Staples?” she repeated, looking confused.

“Don't worry, I'll get them,” I told her. I got some staples from the classroom and showed her how to insert them into the stapler. 

“How do you know to do that?” Liya asked, her voice full of amazement. This is one of my favorite things about teaching little kids. Even with my older 8-year olds, there has been several moments where they are so amazed that I know something that seems like nothing out of the ordinary to me. When did I not know how to insert staples into a stapler, or how to work a water well, or that there exist numbers before zero or between 0 and 1? My kids allow me to vicariously re-live that time of not knowing, and it constantly reminds me that most things are not ordinary. 

They also remind me of homophones:

“But Miss Angie!”

“Yes, Ghaid?”

“Why is it when you teach us something, you always after say 'Does that make cents?' How many cents is it?”

It would have been a horribly cheesy joke about our most recent topic of different kinds of currencies, if only he hadn't been dead serious. But his confusion was genuine, so it was like the funniest thing ever. 

I showed the class the board when it was almost finished, and of course all they wanted to do was touch it and tear it apart. I had to give them a brief tutorial on how to avoid this wild animal instinct. My kids are so rowdy, and I've finally figured out one of the reasons why: in both of my classes, out of 26 kids, more than 2/3 of them are boys. What's with that?? And Tara acts rougher than some of the boys so the ratio is nearly 4:1 in my KG class. Gee, what a boys' club! 

Not that I mind. Not all the boys enjoy guns and punching and other modes of violence. Mohammed the Algerian- probably the smartest kid in my KG class, and so sweet with huge dark eyes that his face and skinny frame have yet to grow into- called me over at the end of the day when it was almost time to go home, and said “Miss Angie, I-I have a question!” (He has a bit of a stutter when he speaks English.)

“What is it Mohammed?” I asked, leaning towards him encouragingly. 

“I-I-I want to fly!” He smiled bashfully as my eyes widened in genuine surprise. I often dream of being able to fly- especially when I'm on a plane looking out the window, or laying on the ground staring up at the immense blue sky-, but obviously...It felt peculiar to hear my fanciful dream being voiced aloud by a 5-year-old, with the earnestness of a 5-year-old. How long had this “question” been simmering in his mind, just waiting for the perfect moment to be asked? Possibly all day since I showed them the board. 

“Me too, Mohammed!” I replied with just as much earnestness, “I want to fly too!”

Of course, when the other kids heard this, they all started shouting exuberantly, “I want to fly! I want to fly to KG1 B!” Oh dear, look what my board has started. I hope I don't get calls saying a kid of mine tried to jump off a rooftop. 

Sweeping

I just spent an hour sweeping my balcony for the first time in months. It was a fucking sandbox! I could have laid out on it in my bathing suit and pretended I was on a beach in Oman again! Okay, it wouldn't be exactly the same. For some reason, laying in sand is acceptable, while laying in dirt makes you an animal. 

Sweeping with the sun setting before you is a very meditative activity. A lot of different kinds if people passed by while I was sweeping: Aslan the Historian and the school principal, a couple security guards. “Choni bashi!” I said as Farhad #2, our shuttle driver ambled by. "Hello, Angie flowers!" Farhad had just learned the word “flower” in his English class. 

New Day walked by 1 year older, 1 year wiser, and I asked how her birthday was going; a car whizzed by playing American R&B; a moth fluttered up from my balcony as I swept away its dirt nest; and as I set down my broom for a moment to take a break and stretch my neck, I looked up and saw a crescent moon between the vents, hanging tranquilly in an indigo sky. I think the moon exists to remind us of our place in the universe- which is nowhere in particular. 

Fool Loops

A few days ago, I had a sudden hankering for good ole Froot Loops cereal*, so yesterday at Kok Market, I bought a box that said "Froot Loops" on it with a picture of Toucan Sam and the Kellogg's brand name- just like the authentic Froot Loops you find at Safeways and Albertsons all across America, except with Arabic translations off to the side. 

Now, as I sit here eating a bowl of these "Froot Loops", I realize I've been fooled. This is definitely a knock-off version of the true Froot Loops. It's only half as sweet- it fails to sweeten the milk- and it's missing a few of the "variety of bright colors" that the loops usually come in, namely blue, yellow, and red. 

Now, according to the box, this cereal was produced in Germany which is not a developing country so really they have no excuse. Which leaves me to wonder, does Germany have a dislike for primary-colored cereal? And is that really Toucan Sam, or his DNA double? I knew I should have done a retinal scan...

*Actually, I remember the exact time and cause of my hankering- it was while I was watching the scene in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" where he's eating that kimchi bowl-sized portion of Froot Loops instead of a reasonably-portioned, reasonably-healthy salad. 

Confessions

Where, oh where is my Mr. Darcy? Sigh...My apologies- I should never watch chick flicks. No matter how bad it is (and Confessions of a Shopaholic was a horrendous waste of my last night of freedom), I'm always left with the feeling of, or reminder that I am utterly, utterly-

Woah, thanks for slapping me there. What am I moaning about? I'm in Kurdistan, I'm only 24 (almost 25), and I'm seeing the world! I've got great friends here and even greater ones back home, and I'm in love with the world. Hello world! (It only answers back when you're inside a cave usually.) Let me tell you more about my world. Come fly with me to the Gulf...

Owl Back in the Hole

I'm back (and my back is burnt). Whew, what a trip. Gonna go crash now in my warm, warm bed. 

Hoot hoot to horizontal warmth,

The Owl Archimedes

Only In Iraq

“2 Chicken Escalopes with cheese please.”

The waiter at Stars Cafe on Shawarma Street made the universal (in the Mideast anyway) handwiping signal, which means “finished”. No Chicken Escalopes with cheese today. 

“Ok no problem, what can we get today?” asked SJ.

“Anything,” said the waiter. Naturally, we assumed he meant we could get anything else.

“How about a burger?”

The waiter made the handwiping signal again, looking deeply apologetic. 

No burger? Okay...I browsed through the food section of the menu once more time. The waiter continued making the handwiping motion and added something in Kurdish.

“No food?” I exclaimed.

“No food at all?” echoed SJ.

He continued making the handwiping motion with a sheepish smile on his face.

“Okay. I guess we'll leave then. Thanks.”

We got up and left. We burst out laughing even before the door to the misleading café was fully shut. 

Only in Iraq is it totally OK to advertise a whole menu of foods you don't plan on serving.

And Then It Was Spring

The air has been biting-cold for so long that I forgot I was living in a semi-desert region. Then last night, as I stepped outside after dumping my laundry into the dryer, I braced myself for the familiar, unpleasant jolt of wintery, chilly, icy, shivery, bitterly- but it never came. Instead a pleasantly warm, almost tropical breeze blew languorously over my face and hands, skimming over the hills with their deadened grass, over the plants with their drooping leaves, and ruffling the sheer curtains hung over the open balconies. Wake up, wake up! whispered the tropical breeze. I felt a bit like our man Adam must have felt when God blew his own hot (hopefully minty-fresh) breath into him to bring him to life. 

And then it was spring.

The next day, today, I had to leave my heavy red coat off and it was still too hot, so after lunch, I returned with flip-flops on for my last hour of teaching before spring break. And because it was the last hour before break, instead of teaching, Mr. Tom and I sat in the front of the classroom in the little kiddy chairs, entertaining the little kindergarten babies with our guitars until one of them, Shahan, fell asleep with his head lolling all the way back over his chair and his mouth open like a fish. I almost got out my camera to take a picture, but decided to let him be while all the others ganged up on him and helped him put his head more comfortably on the table. He slept through the entire thing. As for my last day with the 2nd graders, I taught them about prime numbers today, the basic building-blocks of numbers. 

"You can break down any number into these prime numbe-"

And then the bell rang. 

Goodbye kids! Hello Oman! Hello beach, sun, and sea! And castles and cliffs and fortresses and wadis! And men wearing flowing white robes that match the sands and the glistening white capital city, Muscat! Hello Sarah and Jin!