Wicked Quote

[Elphie:] “Do you even believe in other worlds?”

“I find it a great effort to believe in this one,” said Sarima, “yet it seems to be here...”

Citadel Survey #2: Chasing the Sunset Through the Magical Dump

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. 

The Revival of Beer Pong

January 10, 2009

I played beer pong last night for the first time since summer 2006, when I lived in a sticky-floored frat house before moving into the city (in Philly). And the Lebo and I totally killed Team Great Britain with my killer underhand toss. Only, because the host of the birthday party has celiac disease, we used jungle juice instead of glutenous beer. Only, we couldn't find any kool-aid or hi-c mix, so we ended up drinking the most foul, the most tangy mix I've ever tasted. Every time I took a sip of that goddamn juice, my face reacted like Kevin in Home Alone whenever he put on that aftershave. We filled marbled balloons with random objects and popped them like a sick version of a pinata. The Falaballoon (balloon containing a falafel) won for coolest flight pattern- very erratic and tumbling quickly down like a crazed, doomed bird. In my happy state, I kept on going on about how happy it made me to see the Lebo and his HOD together, and how much I hoped for them to stay together forever. Nothing makes me happier than to see a couple who seem made for each other. Lucky in love they are, and they are few and far between, though I wouldn't consider the others as errant, necessarily...Anyway, away from amorphous, inchoate sayings. I fumbled a joke and ended up smashing a cupcake into a colleague's face. Oops. And I fell on my left ass. I know this because I woke up this morning with a sore left ass. Thank god for bruises- because sometimes, memory is just not good enough. 

2009 Begins at the Edge

January 9, 2009

Aw Yeah, starting off the first weekend of the year with a bang!- At the Edge, of course. Before the Edge, we finally decided to venture to the go-cart racetrack, and BOY have I missed driving! I kept thinking, wow I haven't driven in five months! Five whole months without a steering wheel in hand, cruising down the open (or congested) road! And then I ended up breaking my driving fast with a go-cart in Erbil, speeding around the curves until my hands were numb with cold (which took all of 5 minutes), and then some. Afterward, we had drinks and real pizza and chicken fingers and fries at the adjacent lounge before all eight of us piled into a single taxi, and heaved and hummed our way to the old bar-club on the American compound in Ainkawa full of mercenaries. How we fit 8 into a little cab (9 including the driver!) is beyond me. We had 6 in the back, and 2 in the front, and for bonus points, no one had to sit on the driver's lap and steer for him. We must have put on a shrinking spell on us, or a gorging spell on the car. What is the most number of people you have ever gotten into a taxi with?

Anyhoo, despite my continual insistence that the Edge is just “not my thing”, I had the time of my life once again. Just what is the magic of that place? Oh yes, I've already established, it is my fun colleagues that make the Edge such a fantastically unforgettable experience each time I go. The dancing during the Edge Experience #6 was awesomer than usual because they started off with some good hip-hop remixes before the usual Eighties, Pretenders, Arctic Monkeys, and Abba. And then in the middle of it all, the most adorable black puppy appeared at the window leading to the backyard pool (which is now empty as it is too cold to swim). Awwww...my heart was melting like the Wicked Witch of the West...who apparently, in actuality, was not so wicked. Wickedness is relative, I suppose. Or some wicknessness is really just a case of misunderstanding. 

Oh yes, I've begun reading “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, and I am engrossed in the pages of the book, which fleshes out the previously one-dimensional characters of the witches of Oz. It is no children's book, I've discovered. By no means. Maguire is an excellent, excellent writer, and his imagination is...wicked, really the only wicked part of that book. According to Maguire's reinterpretation of the old Oz story, the Wicked Witch of the West was a major misnomer for a witch who was just seriously misunderstood. Glinda the Good Witch is not all that good, though she's not utterly evil either, and Dorothy isn't the sweet little innocent that her pigtails and pinafore set her up to be. This is why I love books that flesh out the old, venerable myths and fairy tales which tend to be sorrily lacking in character depth and development. (Take the Arabian Nights, for instance. Someone should flesh out those pancake characters! And Dave Barry has already done it with Peter Pan- his series which I would also recommend, along with Maguire's book.)

It's been a busy first week back! I wish I had had a few days off after coming back in order to recuperate and organize my thoughts and get back into the teaching mindset- and most importantly, to blog about my trip around the Mideast. Alas, we had to hit the ground running, and jump right back into teaching the day after I got back. At first it was really hard, but I'm finally getting settled back into the teaching routine and remembering that I actually like my students and enjoy teaching them. What really surprised me was when one day, we were just finishing up a page of the phonics book and moving on to the next page, and little 4-year-old Mina with the coquettish head of curly blonde locks said “Miss Angie, this page?” To myself I was thinking, “Yes Mina, must you ask me for affirmation every single time we go on to a new page? Jesus H...” Aloud, I said “Yes, Mina, good girl!” with bright eyes, a wide smile, and as much genuineness as I could possibly muster. 

Then my assistant who was standing off to the side said suddenly with real enthusiasm in her voice: “Miss Angie, Mina speak English!” Wow, yeah, it was true! Better than my Kurdish assistant, actually! All around me, suddenly I realized that day that all my kids were actually speaking full sentences in English, and it really was a big deal. And then I began to notice the other dramatic changes since their arrival all over again and was amazed all over again. I can't tell you how much I now believe in the importance of sending your kids to kindergarten to be surrounded by peers and to learn. It really opens up their eyes, their personalities, and their minds of course. During that crucial kindergarten year, they go from crying whining selfish babies to actual people who know that other people exist besides their own selves, and the transformation is really amazing to watch unfold before your eyes. If asked to do it again, I would most definitely say no because that stage between babyhood and personhood is much too painful and stressful to withstand year after year. But if, at this point, I were asked to trade my KG class for an older group, I would most definitely say no again. They have become my kids now, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. Nor my 2nd graders for that matter. 

And yet, it is still ever so hard to get up each morning to teach these little rugrats. The snooze button on my phone is fading with wear because I push it an innumerable number of times every morning, sometimes getting up a mere 15 minutes before I have to be at work. The Lizst song I have as my wake-up call will haunt me for the next 20 years, I swear. 

Life & Fashion

It's really killing me that the internet is so slow. Someone's downloading movies, and I'm gonna find out who. In the meantime, here's a short update to let you know I'm still alive, back from my winter trip around the Mideast, and trying to write about my trip in between teaching, exploring Kurdistan, reading great books, working out, and partying with my colleagues. Happy 2009 y'all! Make it happen! You only live once, and time is linear and directed; you can never do that day over again. One more thing: I'm wearing baby-blue teddy bear barrettes on my jeans. Along with the importance of family and friends, and the linearity and non-symmetricality of time, this is another thing I discovered during my solo travels around the Mideast: you can spice up your regular weekend jeans-and-shirt outfit by hooking things to the belt loops of your jeans or clipping things to the pockets. 

Marhaba!

(Welcome!) Lebanon just may be the best place on God's green Earth. Real update later- gotta go enjoy what little precious time I have in this amazing amazing country.

The Traveling Reds

(Is that the opposite of the traveling blues?)

I'm going to Lebanon tonight! Then Egypt in 5 days! Then Jordan! Then back to Iraq! OH MY! I needs must packeth! OH MY OH MY!

FREE AT LAST! Balloons, Kindergarten Hugs & the Element of Surprise

NO KIDS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. YOWWWWWW!

As an end-of-term surprise, I gave pink and purple metallic balloons and lindor chocolate truffles to all my kids. You should have seen them tossing the balloons around (and hitting each other with it) and laughing and giggling and having a grand old time. I've never seen them so happy. They grew even more excited when I showed them how they could draw stuff on them, like a small heart, and watch as it grows bigger as you blow the balloon up. Then they all baa-ed and begged for drawings on their balloons.

• I often see my KG'ers as sheep or puppies whenever they come at me en masse. It's quite unnerving to have 27 kids coming at you begging for things and crying out your name, “Miss Angie, Miss Angie!” Baaa, baaa! Oh my god,...I'm not a teacher, I'm a shepherd!

Little Hoz attacked me with the most exuberant hug while I sat around drawing on balloons. For such a little person, he gives the warmest, cuddliest hugs. That is the best thing about teaching kindergarten. Young kids aren't the least bit bashful about showing their love for you. Not being the overly huggy type, I recall my first kindergarten hugs as a truly novel experience that made my insides go 'woah!' A Kindergarten Hug is a real treasure that you won't find in the richest of treasure chests. 

• What's better than a hug from a 5-year-old? A hug from a warm 5-year-old on a cold winter's day, when you are so busy teaching, that you don't even realize you are cold until he wraps his little arms around your legs and you feel your freezing body warming up as if you were standing by a fire. Those warm hugs are much appreciated on a cold winter's day.
  

Last night we had a Christmas dinner at the “Balcony Bar” (just one of our balconies that's usually open for drinks and chats), and boy was the food amazing! My cornbread turned out even better this time, though different. This time, I topped it off with a layer of sour cream/chedder cheese/hot dog/sauteed onions/bread crumbs mix, mmm! There was a nice medium-sized tree beautifully decorated, with Secret Santa presents underneath, and we boisterously broke out into Christmas tunes, singing two different versions of “Away in a manger” at the same time. 

• Isn't it strange that the British have a different version? Same words, totally different tune.

And considering that there is nothing of value to buy around these parts, we all got pretty cool nifty gifts from our secret santas- a barking mug, an etch-n-sketch, and me, quarky costume rings that I wore to school the very next day. I love Secret Santas. Presents from family and friends, you expect, but with Secret Santas, of course, you don't know who the gift is from until they write it on the etch-n-sketch, hold it up, and wait 10 minutes for you to notice it and be utterly surprised. You should have seen my face. They actually caught it on camera. Really, you can't beat the element of surprise.

Baaaa!

Evil Shahan lurks past the camera

Sully Trip Part 2: Man on the Moon

On the way back to Erbil the following day, the passengers of the bus are a lot more subdued. It is the end of a journey, and so many are tired and fall asleep, and the few who stay awake stare, mesmerized, out the window as the enormous slabs and dimpled protrusions of the Earth roll by like infinite waves, baked solid and brown under the sun. Sometimes, small villages crop up, their brown shanties and shacks blending chameleon-like into the hills. Sometimes a cemetery crops up (I counted around a dozen), though none as colorful as the one in Sully; on the contrary, they, like the shanties and shacks, are of the simplest earth-tone, and seem almost a natural outcrop of the landscape. 


When we see people at all, they are lone men wearing the potato sack outfit and holding tesbieh (prayer) beads, which they carry around like a third arm around these parts. They look to me like men on the moon, sitting alone atop the barren brown mountains and not giving a shit, as if the only time he gives a shit, it becomes a part of the earth, and then he goes back to herding his sheep, or watching the clouds and toying with his tesbieh beads until the sun goes down. 

Sometimes, miles of mountain would pass with no sign of human life, and then at the very top of the next approaching peak, would lay a stacked pile of gray stones, and then you would know that a human had been there. Perhaps hundreds or thousands of years ago, or perhaps just last year- who knew when? In this part of the good Earth, such a time range was entirely reasonable. One could only know for sure that a human had wandered through that space at some point in time, and he had made his mark, simple, but telling.

Sully Trip in Pictures

Heading South

The beginnings of the great outdoor market of Sulaimaniyah

They hold hands in Sully

Dream City Amusement Park, Sulaimaniyah

Early morning walk: A construction worker sunrise

Construction worker stands

Bookseller

Tree Trash

Humble dwellings behind the busy bazaar; broken doors and satellite dishes

A woman rushes home in the early morn

Heart-flowers

Shadows of me, the birds, and the bread peddler

Munira

...and her daughter

Generous souls...They opened up their jewelry box and said, "Take whatever you like"

Munira and her daughters on their rooftop; the one in red likes Talabani, the one in orange likes Barzani, but they all LOVE the Korean drama Sad Love Story

Getting ready for school

We ate breakfast together: scrambled eggs, nan, and tea

Their grandmother had beautiful light blue eyes

Sully Trip Part 1: the Living & the Dead

Road trips never fail to bring out the finer facets of our selves that we often miss under the cloak of privacy. Whether that trip lasts two weeks, less than a week, or even a mere overnighter like the trip to Sulaimaniyah that I just returned from this late afternoon, you end up spending an abnormal portion of your time with the same people with little space or time to call your own. 


In that short span of time, you have a constant flow of interaction with them, so that they become like mirrors for your own soul. After all, what are we defined by, other than by our own actions and our reactions to other people's actions? For instance, if someone is being loud on the bus, do you react by ignoring them and slipping on a pair of headphones, or do you get so angry that you very nearly punch them in the balls (or throw them into the Dokan river if you happen to be around that area), or do you find the loudness simultaneously comical and appropriate for a road trip, or do you join in on the loud reveling? Believe me, we had all of the above reactions on the bus trip to Sully, a major Kurdish city to the southeast of Erbil.

This particular trip was a school-organized event, and nearly all the teachers that lived on campus decided to go. 19 teachers stuck in a bus for 4 hours- I don't know about the others, but I found the prospect exciting. At the very least it would be an interesting 4 hours on the road. Road trips are one of my favorite forms of travel. The excitement of loading onto the bus with everyone and knowing that we're going on the open road, settling into the cozy spot that will be yours for the rest of the trip, the random singing and chanting that breaks out along the way, the comfy silence that settles in as your travelmates drop off to sleep one by one, and staring for hours out the window and losing oneself in the vast landscape that is speeding by at god knows what speed. 


Usually I love just staring out the window for hours, but on the way to Sully, I was sandwiched between two of the Lebanese teachers, and so instead I ended up learning a good number of Arabic phrases that may or may not be safe to say at the airport. 

“It means 'how are you',” claimed the Mouth, with what little innocence he could muster. “Swear to god!” he added as I eyed him suspiciously. Of course, what it really meant was “I have a bomb”. But don't worry. By now, I've learned which of the Lebos I can trust, and which are thieves and liars. They even taught me how to say “thief” and “liar” in Arabic, which could come quite in handy in Egypt. (”50000 egyptian pounds for this? You little thief!”). 

...The 4 hours passed quickly enough. Every once in a while, I caught a glimpse through the khaki curtains of the enormous, endless chain of brown mountains that define the landscape of Kurdistan. Sometimes they were like jagged cliffs; every once in a while, the soil turned an iron-red; and at one point (right before the series of hairpin turns I think), we saw real snow covering the tops, where there had been no snow the last time we went to Sully. But mostly, the mountains were coffee-colored, smooth, and dimpled and carried on for miles and miles and...


We made a stop at Dokan River- one of the few rivers that traverse this dry, mountain-desert region-, where we chucked rocks big and small into the skimpy waters, and breathed in the unexpected smell of seawater. I was amazed when I realized how much I missed the water- standing by it, smelling it, hearing it rushing and trickling by. Like classical music and bananas, water was another thing that I experienced anew after months of its absence from my life here in Iraq. Honestly, the things we take for granted...

We managed to reach the hotel without anyone being drowned or thrown off a cliff or kicked in the balls, tossed our bags into our rather nice hotel rooms (with actual toilets!!!), and split off to go exploring. It was early afternoon, around 1 or 2 pm. I taxied it with a couple others to the bazaar but we got separated quite early on, and I ended up walking alone through the bazaar's main street with no real destination or agenda in mind besides purposefully getting lost. I've discovered through my previous travels that this is the most fun way of exploring unknown lands. Really, just chuck the guide book into the hotel room along with the bags, pick a general direction, and start walking. You'll find yourself getting immersed and absorbing, rather than “touring” and maintaining that camera lens-separation between you and the land and locals. Oh my god, I sound like a freakin' guide book! Have mercy...

Only half of the shops in the open-air market were open because this was a holiday week, but it was a beautiful day, and there were plenty of locals milling about, enjoying the sunshine. I saw them thoughtfully feeling the fabric of a horribly clashy skirt or a glitzy, shiny shirt (the clothing style of the Kurds is not subtle, needless to say); I saw them bending over a tray of silver jewelry for a closer look; I saw them grasping hands and exchanging kisses and greetings as friends recognized each other. I saw bakers kneading dough, peshmerga in their army attire having tea outside a teashop, and a group of men dressed in the old-style Kurdish outfit (a dull brown, gray, blue, or green one piece baggy potato sack jumpsuit with a cummerbund wrapped around their middle) standing around in a semi-circle in some sort of smithery, and watching as the smithy worked his machine.

I saw younger men wearing modern suits, younger women wearing jeans and skirts with fashionable knee-high boots, and I saw young couples holding hands openly and shamelessly. Sulaimaniyah was a different city altogether, heart and soul- one could see this just in the way the younger women dressed. Besides the dress, though, Sulaimaniyah is much closer to the idea of a city than either Dohuk or Erbil. There is a real urban sprawl of buildings and it feels vibrant, and the people are more natural, open, and free. Because of this relative openness and naturalness, I myself felt more free and liberated as I walked about in the open, though while in Erbil, it had never occurred to me that I was feeling trapped in any way. 

At some point, I made a turn away from the main bazaar street, and then kept walking south toward the tall red, jagged mountains that surround the city like a fortress. Eventually, the shops peetered out and the street turned residential, lined on either side with gated, fairly nice stone houses built so close together they were nearly stuck to each other. Kids played out on the street. They didn't look rich, or even “middle-class”, but from the looks of their homes, they were better off than those who lived in the residential alleys that snaked through the bazaar area. I stopped at one of the doors to try to read the sign (something doctor), started chatting with the women hanging around there, and ended up going into their home for a cup of tea- and to play with their adorable 4-month old baby. Baby Anoush, like all Kurdish babies, already had her ears pierced and ornamented with real gold earrings that reflected beautifully against her baby-smooth porcelain white skin. I lingered for about half-an-hour before I set off again, my purse laden with candy from the generous women. 

By this time, I knew where I wanted to go. As I was walking through the residential street which rose steadily higher and higher the closer I got to the mountains, I had noticed in the distance a plot of what appeared to be tombstones cropping out by the dozens out of a plot of land that rose high (around 6 feet, I would hazard a guess) above the level of the street. This was where I headed next, though god knows why. Why did a cemetery draw my fancy? I dunno...why not explore the scenes of the dead as much as the scenes of the living? Later, when I told the others about my destination of choice, they were baffled. A cemetery? How is that cool? They didn't get it...Wasn't it obvious? Yet, I couldn't give them an exact reason. It was no tomb of King Tut, no majestic pyramids here, no famous legends or myths associated with the dead of Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. 

No stash of jewels or mysterious hieroglyphs. Only beautiful Arabic script painted in calligraphic black ink onto the arched headstones that capped either end of the humble rectangular-shaped coffins. I crossed the busy street, finally arriving at the odd destination, and climbed the stone stairs that led up to the dead. By now, the light was beginning to fade into that golden late-afternoon look, but it was still plenty light outside, and cars and people still bustled about. Yet as I weaved slowly through the dying grass, studying the colorful stone tombs, each infused with shards of pastel colored glass and topped with a little grassy plot of its own, I felt a slight chill anyway. Dozens and dozens of decaying corpses were lying just six feet under my plodding feet, and the idea was just every so slightly creepy. I was alone, but if I had seen a single living person then, standing in the cemetery with me, I think I might have screamed. I began walking off the grass, westwardly, along the edge of the raised cemetery plot, placing one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker, and I passed through the rest of the cemetery in this manner, until I reached the end and jumped down onto street level. 

Lo and behold, another cemetery plot stood before me, and another after that one. Lordy, there sure were a lot of dead people in Sully. I opted for the streets this time rather than wandering around above dead people, and soon I reached the next street crossing, and beyond that, I could see the top half of the golden sun setting sleepily behind the mountain tops. I crossed the street and ran up the wide dirt path, chasing after the setting sun. Guess what this dirt path led to? MORE TOMBSTONES. Lord, you just never think about how much space the dead take up. I climbed up a pile of rocks and checked out the view. To my left, the dirt path sloped downward, leading eventually to a space for the living this time. The sun set amazingly quickly behind the shadowy mountains that towered majestically over this space for the living, while to my right was the full moonrise, the lavender sky, and the jagged red mountains towering majestically over eastern Sully. In front of me lay the tombstones, and behind me lay acres of junk. It was the biggest junkyard I had ever seen, with piles of car skeletons and other unidentified rusting objects just...rusting. 

In a week, I'll be in Lebanon, and a week after that, I'll be in Egypt visiting a much more famous set of tombs. All I could think of though, as I stood there between sunset and moonrise and surrounded by dead people and rusting junk, was how glad I was to be here in Kurdistan before its transition from “developing” to “developed”, before the rest of the world got a chance to lay eyes on it. But even once the region opens its gates to tourists, will they be able to see the things I've seen? How much of its hidden beauties will be forever buried under the influx of modernism? How much of the mountainous landscape will be littered with incongruously built houses and “malls”? How much of the seamless transition from field to sun-splashed sky will be abruptly interrupted by a colony of suburban American-styled houses like the one just behind the school? How many of the old bazaars will be torn down and replaced by modern shopping malls filled with franchised stores? 

Don't get me wrong- the bazaars are filled with cultureless crap, imported goods, cheap jewelry, tacky trinkets, and ugly clothes. But the form and function of the bazaar- its labyrinth-like structure with old walkways, the lack of doors, the dirtiness, the noise, the shouts of “yek hazar, yek hazar!”, the smell of baking dough and shwarma spices wafting right onto the streets, the sight of turbaned men in potato sack outfits rolling huge carts of fruits and vegetables through the crowd, the shoe-shiners shining away right on the streets- these images are worth preserving. Currently, rumors flow about that the bazaar at the citadel in Erbil will be replaced by a huge shopping mall. I hope it is nothing more than a rumor, or a mangled half-truth. Perhaps the old and the new can co-exist? For the sake of the Kurds and what little of their old culture they seem to have left, I hope developers work just as hard to preserve as they do to develop. 

For now, though, the old world and its ways and rituals still remain. By the time I returned to the bazaar, night had fallen and of course, even here in “liberal” Sulaimaniyah, all the women had disappeared into their homes and so some of the men stared a bit more leerily as I walked by. The bazaar at night is like another world, romantically lit with streetlamps, lights from the stands, and the occasional bonfire, and still bustling with energy and people. The only shops that are still open at night are the groceries and food stands. Along Sabun Keran Street, I passed by cart after cart selling shwarmas and kabobs and tea, with the men standing around in their potato sack outfits and checkered headscarves, eating the food right there at the carts and chatting with each other and the owner as he dug his hands into the large pile of raw ground meat and stuck it onto the stick for the next kabob. I passed by a fruit cart where a group of workers stood around a roaring fire in order to keep warm in the chilly night. I stopped for a minute and joined the small ring around the fire to warm up my freezing hands before moving on. It was nearly time for the group dinner that the school was providing for us that evening. 

The Lebos & Ping Pong

The Lebos (what we call the Lebanese teachers here) are very serious about ping pong. One of them keeps saying that I must have the talent, and that we must look for it because it must be there. This is because I'm Korean.

"We must search for your talent!" he says in his abrasive, staccato way of talking. Then he starts turning me around and looking inside my pockets, saying, "it must be here somewhere! We must search for it!" (He has a tendency to repeat himself.) 

He's so convinced that I must have the talent, and I think this is why he keeps throwing me those awful fastballs. He thinks if he throws me enough fastballs, the talent will just pop out at some point or another. Naturally. Because I'm Korean. I hate fastballs. I play to hit the ball, not to win or lose.

I've concluded from watching the fierce competition between the Lebos that in fact, the Lebanese are more Korean than me. Or else, the Lebanese are genetically closer to the Koreans than we realize.

Nerd Alert: Analyzing Harry Potter

In the middle of rereading Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, I am struck by two thoughts: 

First, of all the individual characters whose lives were ruined by Voldemort, there is none whose tale is more tragic than Sirius Black's. Imagine how he was feeling, and all the thoughts going through his head, as he begged Hagrid to hand Harry over to him. And then consider what happened to him afterward. The fate of the 4 best friends, the Marauders, is tragic, and Sirius' the most seriously tragic. 

Second, all of this trouble between Voldemort and Harry could have been avoided if Voldemort had just used a plain old knife and slashed baby Harry's head off, instead of using a fancy magic wand. Oh right, but he was against all things Muggle. Ultimately, Voldemort's pride was the source- the very root and cause- of his own demise.

The Evolution of Magic

How far storybook magic has come since our childhood days! Cinderella's fairy godmother would be laughed out of the magical realm if she tried to pull off that bibbidee-bobbidee-boo silliness at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, where Latin is the language of choice for spells and incantations.

Screaming Souls

No no, kids are not naturally clean and quiet. They are germy and loud and egocentric and whiny. Of course, some are better than others, and some are way worse...the natural state of a human soul is a spectrum; it is neither purely good nor purely bad. Its nature is not rigid like a stone, but fluid, having tendencies to swing this way and that, like a pendulum, its direction influenced by singular events as well as millions of little prods and jabs in the form of stickers, smiles, and scalding stares, of images, words and deeds...

Erbil during September and Erbil during December are two very different places. The last time we had gone to Tarin, it was so warm outside and bats flew around above our heads as we ate outside at long tables, our dinner plates lit by the dozens of lamps that lined the walkways. By now, it was too cold to eat outside, so all the long tables had been whisked away, the lamps remained unlit, the gazebo-bar stood dark and lifeless, and the fountains with their neon lights no longer ran with water. Still, despite the cold weather and lack of life, we hit the playground afterward, flying on the seesaws and kiddy swings (where I had to keep my knees unbent so my feet wouldn't hit the ground), and climbing the rocky fountain and screaming our heads off at the stars.

Well, it might have been just me screaming. Screaming can be very cathartic. Like during Roadtrip 2006, when Sarah and I would roll down our windows, stick our heads out and scream as the wind swept past our faces at 90 miles an hour. Like some of my 2nd graders after any given math lesson, when they just randomly start screaming at extremely high pitches for no goddamn reason.

Here Comes Barzani! Strike Up the Band and Make the Fireflies Dance!

Tomorrow is a big day for the school. The Prime Minister of Kurdistan is visiting along with 600 other "important" people/family members of important people. Real flowers sprayed with perfume have gone up around the school, and I watched today as the children held up giant Kurdistan flags and practiced their presentation of the national anthem. The funniest part of this whole charade is that they will be pulling out 15 or so kids from their regularly scheduled classes in order to stick them in the pool for when the PM walks by the sports arena. I suggested they throw some dolphins in there too, but dolphins are rather hard to come by here in Iraq.

Not Your Average Granny Smith Apple

Kid's drawings are such a treasure. I watched, trying desperately to hold in my laughter, as Ahmed laboriously drew apples that looked exactly like the ass of an elephant (the stem was the trunk).

“Look Miss Angie,” said Liya, who was watching from the other side of Ahmed, “upside-down hearts!” 

“Yes, Liya, that's exactly what it looks like- upside-down hearts.”

One of Those Nights

We spent the evening in Ainkawa (the Christian neighborhood), first to catch dinner at Beirut Bar, then to check out a hookah bar in the area which turned out to be really nice. It was decorated with locally woven shepherd bags, and felt like a cozy deer hunter lodge. Under the influence of screwdrivers made with fresh-squeezed OJ (with pulp!), we ended up, how shall I say, being really honest with each other. One of those nights. 


It was nothing disastrous- quite the opposite. I feel closer than ever to them now. You can spend all the time in the world thinking about a person, but you'll never really know him or her until you spend time together, in each other's presence. Over drinks, to speed up the process. It was one of those nights where you come up with random, t-shirt worthy catch phrases like “I'm not dirty, I'm inquisitive.” One of those nights where you regress to your college days and play flip cup and discuss orgies and 5th dimensions in a half-serious manner. One of those nights.

She's Outta Control!

Sorry about the loooooooong posts lately. They just seem to grow uncontrollably sometimes.

Liya: The 5-Year-Old Who Stole My Heart

November 27, 2008

Have you ever felt that all your friends are pairing off left and right, leaving you feeling like maybe you should start making a more serious effort to find someone too instead of just letting the river run its course? Nowhere has this feeling been more pronounced than in the tiny, isolated community of teachers here at the school. Not that I fancy anyone in particular here, but just the fact that even in this tiny group, people have been pairing off left and right- it makes me feel like I must be mad not to be jumping on the couples wagon with everyone else. What'd I say about love and the law of gravity back in September or October? It seems to be playing out just the way I predicted, though the particular couples that have formed have been a great surprise. Who would've thunk? 

My own heart has been stolen by a 5-year-old named Liya. I've mentioned her before on this blog- she's the one in my kindergarten class with the great imagination, the whimsical personality. From day 1, she never cried. For the first month or two, she came to school every day wearing 11 little bracelets on her left wrist and silver sandals with a heart embossed on each. Every time we counted hearts that I drew on the whiteboard during math warm-up, she took great pleasure in lifting up her stockinged foot and showing me the silver hearts on her sandals. “Miss Angie, I have heart!” she would say with the excitement and the shining eyes of one who has just made a great new discovery. In the same way, she would tug at my arm and show me her newest discovery- skipping, for instance, from one leg to the other, arms swinging to and fro. She took a great liking to twirling after the time I played “Aquarium” from the Carnival of the Animals Suite for the class and picked out students one by one and waltzed with them around the room to the beautiful tune. I did this in order to show them the connection between music and dancing, and music and counting. Liya took to it like a duck on water. 

Liya has a heart indeed, a great one full of wonder- the heart of an explorer. She also has a great love of treasures, always eyeing my stickers and other prizes with a treasure-seeker's glint in her dark eyes. “Miss Angie,” she'd say tugging at my arm, and whispering loudly with her hand cupped to my ear, “I want 2 cranes! I want 3, no 4 cranes!” and nodding with shining eyes, as if she was letting me in on the greatest idea in the world. This is one of the things I love most about Liya, the way she says everything as if it were a delicious secret, or a great discovery. Last week, she came to school with a new pen. “Miss Angie, look! I have magic pencil!” “Wow, why is it magic?” I asked. I thought it might be a led pencil- the children here only use regular pencils and sharpeners for some reason. But nope, it turned out to be a pen- the kind you click on and off. “I like magic,” said Liya with whole-hearted belief in its existence. Me too Liya! 

I find myself wondering how in the world a child like this was brought into existence and raised. How amazing her parents must be to nurture such an extraordinary kid! It's hard to find out the background of these kids- where they are from, who they live with, etc.- because they are only 4 and 5. They get confused when I ask them what their father does for work. One kid said “computer”. Another kid said “computer games”. “Your father plays games for work?” I asked, laughing inside. The kid nodded uncertainly. He's probably the Minister of Education, or something equally as posh, but his kid just told me he plays computer games all day. One day, though, the first day it rained here in Erbil, I taught them how to say “it's raining”, and told them to go home and tell their father “it rained today!” “Miss Angie!” cried Liya, “I no have father!” “You don't? Where is he? Where's your baba?” She didn't know. She said she had a mother, though, and that she would tell her it rained today. “Okay, Liya,” I replied with some concern. I wondered where her father was, whether he was even alive.

This past week, I brought in my guitar and played and sang for the first time for my KG class. It was a huge hit in general, but no one was more entranced by it than Liya. While other kids around her stood up and tried to touch the guitar and giggled and looked at each other as if it were a huge game, Liya sat in her little chair with an absolute stillness that belied her age. Her eyes were cast in the direction of the guitar, but the look in them made me think her mind was elsewhere. Where, in what sort of fantasy land she was now lost in, I could only wish to know. What her mind was making of the music, I could only guess at, knowing only that it had to be wonderful and amazing because it was all happening in Liya's mind. 

Recently I started rewarding my KG'ers for independent work (finishing their work by themselves), and it's become a source of frustration because now all the kids just copy off the paper of the smart kid next to them and hold up their page expecting a sticker and the usual exaggerated praise. It drives me crazy because I'm busy trying to teach the class, and have to interrupt the flow to praise and reward them, and weed out the ones who just copied off their smart neighbor. “Wait for Miss Angie!” I have started to say to these cheaters. “You must wait for Miss Angie!” My frustration must have shown because one day, when I said “Wait for Miss Angie!” for the millionth time, a little voice piped up and said earnestly,  “I am waiting for you.” It was Liya. My heart melted right then and there for the girl. I wanted to hug her. Instead, I only said “thank you Liya” from the bottom of my heart. And maybe I gave her a sticker, I don't remember.

At the end of the day, I went down to the bus shed for the second time to see my kids off. I saw Shene and Hoz again (and stopped by to give the little midget another lift onto the bus), and some of my 2nd graders, as well as some of the 7th graders whose exam I had proctored earlier that day. Then I looked for bus no. 11, which I knew was Liya and Mohammed #1's bus. “Hi Liya! Hi Mohammed!” I said as I peeped my head into the tent-like darkness. It was the most joyful reunion you could ever imagine! We hugged like long-lost friends, and in a voice bubbling over with excitement, she started introducing every single person on the bus to me, as if I were her father coming back after a long absence, and she wanted to show me every aspect of her life that I had missed while I'd been away. In fact, somewhere in between all the introductions, she told me that her father was coming home today. So he was alive after all! I was so happy for her. And her father. As the last person got on the bus, and it was about to leave, she opened up her arms for a last hug goodbye. “I love you, Miss Angie,” she said. “I love you too, Liya,” I murmured as I held her dark head against my waist, my heart once again melting like ice cream on a hot summer's day.