Rather A Long One About My Exciting Trip To Kurdistan, or, Interesting Characters As Unlikely Bedfellows With Unusual Stories, or lastly, The Souk Of Sulaymania

So Kurdistan was nice! I actually got back yesterday morning, but I was pretty worn out. It was pretty uneventful all around, except for the whole aspect of flying from Baghdad to Kurdistan and travelling around with an Iraqi family and friends as an event. I left Interzone on Thursday morning to drive by myself on Route Irish to the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP)... Route Irish is not as dangerous as it once was, so it's not as crazy as it might have been in the past. There is a pretty solid presence of both American and Iraqi military all along the road and I haven't heard about any incidents in a long time. At any rate, even back in the more dangerous days of Route Irish, I never had any problems on it and I used to drive it much more frequently. My philosophy about safety in public in Baghdad has always been that the more blasé, the better. In my experience, the people who are targeted on that road are the ones driving like idiots in mini-PSD convoys... they will have three to five Suburban vehicles, and they hang out of the windows armed and armoured to the teeth. They weave back and forth in the lanes at high speeds and point their guns at anyone who gets too close. Flashing lights and obnoxious king-of-the-road attitudes accompany them, and they stand out as extremely tempting targets. They also make it very dangerous for other westerners on the road as they slow up traffic, and they don't care about you getting stuck in a jam, surrounded by Iraqi vehicles, who all of a sudden have plenty of time to give you a look-over. If you don't rate a personal convoy, you might as well be a possible insurgent. You know, like all Iraqis. Man I hate those guys. (PSDs, not Iraqis.) Anyway, this particular post isn't supposed to be about them; it's just so hard not to skewer them every time I get the chance! The other attractive targets on Route Irish are of course military convoys. While they are much less asinine than the civilian contract security monkeys, they still stand out quite a bit and halt traffic. So, getting back to the point; As I said, my philosophy about Route Irish has always been low-profile. I get in my white Nissan Sunny or white Peugeot, which are common vehicles in Baghdad, dress normally, and just go with the flow until I arrive safely at the Flying Man Statue, which marks the entrance to the checkpoint you go through to enter the secure (relatively) area known as BIAP, a large piece of land which includes several military bases in addition to the actual airport. It's always worked for me, and I almost never get a second look. When I got to the BIAP this time, I noticed that the old GBG signs are still standing...  I couldn't believe it. I thought for sure someone would have taken them down by now... I hadn't been to the BIAP since March, on my trip to Romania.
Anyway, I had received a sort of underhanded deal on my ticket... Iraqi Airways flies domestically to several cities, and normally you have to book 5 days in advance, although I'm not sure why. This being sort of a last minute trip, I didn't have 5 days. So S. called a friend who works at the airport, and he was able to secure me a flight to Erbil, but he had to use his name on the ticket. Obviously, he had a very Arabic name, and I certainly don't look like a Hassan Al-shamackalackawhatever, but I was supposed to meet him at the airport where he would check me in himself, avoiding embarrasing questions about my ethnicity. Well, he wasn't there, and his phone was turned off, so I was kind of screwed. Luckily I found a friendly airport worker who was apparently aware of Al-shamackalackawhatever's little scheme; so I handed him some baksheesh and he, in situ, got me all checked in. (Baksheesh, incidentally, can be translated several ways. Politely, it is a tip. Less politely, as a bribe or grease money. It is, however the connotation, viewed as the norm in Iraqi society for getting people to do the jobs that they are already paid to do. In a hospital, for instance, the  nurses will hound you for baksheesh, and if you don't pay, they won't do anything for you, such as sticking an IV in your arm, or putting you in a room to see a doctor.)
The flight was only about 45 minutes, and S. and a family friend, Sa., also one of my employees, met me at the Erbil (air-beel) airport, having driven to Kurdistan already from Baghdad a few days before. We then drove for about an hour and 1/2, arriving at mid-evening in a small Iraqi tourist town called Shaqalawa where they had been staying in a rented summer house. We went into town and looked at the shops on the street and had some Iraqi Chai (tea) at a restaraunt. There were nine of us all together: S. & R., (those two brothers I've written about before) their mother I., their cousins H. (mmm briani!) and her sister L., another cousin E., and two friends (and my employees) Sa. and A. And of course myself. I wish I could tell you their names, it would make telling the story much easier. But you know, I'm paranoid about doing that.
The next morning we woke and ate some Iraqi concoction of eggs, beef, and bread for breakfast which was actually quite good. A. had said he wanted to make it, so they went to the shop that morning and bought the necessary ingredients, but when they got back to the house he got lazy and there was a fun little family fight about making him get up and make good on his plan... they wound up dragging him to the kitchen. I'm not sure how they actually got him to do it... perhaps R. also grabbed his wrists and had to puppeteer him all the way. At any rate it all came out ok in the end.
We then piled into the two cars they'd driven from Baghdad and went on a driving tour through the Kurdistan mountains to a spring of water that came out of the side of one of the hills. I found out later that they'd done exactly the same drive the day before, but they wanted me to see it because it was such a high point of that part of Kurdistan. Iraqis can be embarassingly hospitable that way sometimes... I felt really bad that they were wasting a day of their trip for me on something they'd already done, but they don't really know the rules of Hypertrekking and anyway they didn't really consider it a waste, being endlessly pleased to show me "The good stuff". Anyway it was worth seeing in two respects: a) it was pretty and b) it's amazing and funny to see how a medium-ish sized waterfall becomes such a huge tourist attraction in this part of the world. The drive itself was also quite pretty; Trees and mountains with winding roads, as anticipated. We drove by a town named Halabcha; it's infamous for being the town where Saddam and Chemical Ali used the chemical weapons which killed many Kurds all those years ago. We didn't go through it, as I understand there isn't much to see, and anyway that's hardly a fitting destination for an Iraqi family on holiday. But they did stop so I could get out and get a picture or two from the main road.
That afternoon we returned to the house and packed everything up for what turned out to be the four hour drive to the city of Sulaymania (sooh-lay-mah-knee-ah). We arrived, and spent another hour looking for a place to stay. There was a serviceable hotel on the main street where we stopped finally, and some of the staff turned out to be Iranian... awkward but interesting. The one guy, as I was checking in, saw my passport and asked, "American?" I said yes and he pointed at himself and said, "Iranian". I took his hand and said, "Pleased to meet ya, Mr. Iranian!" When it was translated for him, he laughed and said (in Arabic) that it was probably the first time in recent history that an American and an Iranian shook hands on friendly terms! Of course I know that can't be entirely true; the Middle East is full of interesting characters and unlikely bedfellows with unusual stories, but it was a tensely amusing moment, nonetheless.
The next day we spent walking around the souk of Sulaymania. A souk (sōōk) is a veritable warren of a street market made up of hundreds of individual kiosks, selling all kinds of wonderful crap. The girls went crazy over the shopping opportunities which are currently unavailable to them in Baghdad. The boys stood around waiting for the girls to finish one kiosk only to stop again five feet away at the next, all the while ogling all the beautiful Sulaymania babes walking about, unafraid of exposing their hair, or wearing tight jeans and loose-fitting blouses, another rarity in present-day Baghdad. And I tried a street vendor delicacy known as Iraqi water gum. It's essentially unflavored gum with odd flavoured water in the center of it, and it tastes like chewy wet tree bark. I didn't try it for very long, actually.
I called Dave and George, as promised, but it turns out that they are working in a fairly secure location, and the Station Chief told them he wouldn't authorize a non-essential person access to their camp; It turns out they're not allowed off of their compound, and surprisingly have never seen the city of Sulaymania, even though their camp is within it. In fact, I apparently caused the camp personnel some consternation as they had never been faced with that situation before: "A friend. From Baghdad. Flew up here. And is travelling around with a group of Iraqis. And wants to visit you here in our high security compound. Ummmm... Let me get back to you on that. - No." So that was that... I talked with them on the phone for a few minutes, but disappointingly did not get to hang out. Which is stupid and ironic because supposedly they escort uncleared Iraqi day laborers onto their compound, well, every day, in much the same fashion that people hire Mexicans for day labor in the back of pick-up trucks out west. But I, a cleared American with a DoD badge, am a security threat. Huh. I even used to work for the same company and client! For fourteen months! I'm telling you, all these military, contractors, and secret service types over here are far more paranoid, delusional and muddle-headed than intelligent or organized. At least that's how they generally come off.
Anyway, later that afternoon we went to the Iraqi Airways office so I could change my return ticket, as I'd have to fly out of Sulaymania the next morning rather than Erbil. It turns out that tickets to Baghdad only cost around $75, so H., L., and A., also purchased tickets as they wanted to get back home, and had never been on an airplane before! I guess once they realized how easy it was, and the fact that I was going anyway, made it a no-brainer for them. The eight hour drive between Baghdad and Kurdistan is, I imagine, endless.
That night we went to this amusement park they have there. It was rather like a small-town carnival that showed up in some way-off-the-track borough 20 years ago and never quite got the energy to pack up and move on again, but it was nice. We went on a ride; one of those swinging ship things... more like a 20-year old prototype perhaps, of what you might see at Oktoberfest today. We sat at a lawn restaraunt and had a beer and a nargila (water pipe) with apple tobacco, which I don't count as a lapse in my having quit smoking because it's very different and, for me, is a rare special occasion, anyway. It never makes me want a cigarette, and it tastes like apples. Mmm, apples.
The next morning the four of us that were flying woke at 5am and caught a ride with Sa. to the airport, where there were 3 separate security checks and at each one they completely emptied the contents of my bag, carefully sniffing my deodorant, peering suspiciously into my vitamin bottles, and prodding superstitiously at my camera. THREE times! The Iraqis didn't generally seem to get nearly as much scrutiny... that was certainly a new experience for me, being the suspicious character in the airport because of my race. I guess they don't often see westerners in them there parts. It felt karmically correct though, so I accepted it good-naturedly, anyway having little choice in the matter. We boarded without any incident, and my friends had a lovely time on their first flight. H.'s young sister, L., was delightfully terrified and enthralled by the window seat, not to mention the goosey feeling of the ascent and descent.
So that's my trip to Kurdistan... S. and his family continued on to the cities of Dahouk & Zakho that day, where their family had originally come from. I'd like to have gone with them, but I needed to get back... even though nothing much is going on, I would hate to not be around in case something does happen. We're still waiting to hear from the JASG, or the Iraqi Ministry, or ANYBODY, as to what our fate is to be...
I've loaded my pictures from Kurdistan onto my smugmug site... unfortunately there wasn't a whole lot to photograph, and many of my pictures had my Iraqi friends in them, which I won't load for the same paranoid reasons I won't give their names, so this gallery will be a small one. Click on this picture of the flag of Kurdistan to go see them.
An interesting final note, on the flag of Kurdistan: One of the high muckity mucks in the Iraqi government is a Kurd (Jalabi, I think; we drove by his hometown in Kurdistan on the way to Sulaymania), and he is causing trouble in the Iraqi Ministry because he wants the Iraqi State of Kurdistan to retain it's own flag, them being such an independently-minded people who are, after all, very different from southern Iraqis. The current Iraqi Prime Minister, Al-Maliki, wants all of Iraq to share the same standard Iraqi flag, eschewing the more local flags which, he thinks, only help to further divide the newly formed Iraqi Republic. Dude, if flags were the major impediment, or even one of the top one-hundred roadblocks to a unified Iraq, I'd sympathize more. But he's got way more serious problems than that, and besides, the Kurdi flag is pretty, don't you think? Iraq needs more pretty.

Comments

[Dad]

My computer's been down for days... DAYS!!! So it was good to catch up on your rather prolific-if-not-exciting life. Kurdistan looks a bit less dusty than Bahgdad for sure and I think waterfalls, no matter the size - always attract people. After all... it's water, and it's cool watching it run over the rocks. Anyway, I'm glad you're safely home (though to hear you tell it it's all a matter of style)...but what were those clothes you were wearing???

[messiestobjects]

What do you mean? Which clothes? My tourist attire? Standard issue.
Yeah, Kurdistan was less dusty and less hot, but still Middle Eastern.