White utes forever

Glancing out on to Salim Street at any time of the day or night, I reckon at least 60% of the vehicles are either taxis or utes and of the utes the biggest percentage are either twin cab Toyota or Nissan. Whoever has the local agencies must be creaming it. In front of my building is a small car park (which doubles as a football field for local kids in the evening and weekends) and these two photos were taken yesterday morning. To be fair to see the car park full of just utes is unusual but you get the idea.

Whether ute or not, the colour preference for vehicles is overwhelming white (over 80% without exaggeration). That is not a Kurdish thing but a favourite car colour in the Middle East generally.

At the top of the photo of the whole car park is a small building presumably for the car park attendant. However this has been extended into a covered area, furnished with old couches and chairs and turned into a local tea house. Every day 10 to 15 older men (I really need to be careful  with the words describing 'mature' men now) gather there to chat and drink tea, though by mid-afternoon they are nearly all gone.

A man with a gun gets things done

On my recent short trip to Dubai, I had to hand in my residency card. Despite arguing for quite some minutes with the immigration official in a bid to keep the card (which was valid till December), I decided that when he said politely but firmly "This conversation is over, you must go" that it was probably best not to press the matter.

This left me with having to get a new card which I did yesterday in the company of a driver and a minder who spoke not a word of English. Unfortunately this time I couldn't bluff my way with my contract like I did last time so my minder called in some help. After waiting about an hour, the guy who came with me last time turns up. With barely a word spoken we go through the process again. Entering the building he shows the guard his ID and his pistol and we go through no trouble. This time obtaining my visa took just 10 minutes and when we emerged back into the car park, Mr Silent gave me a wave, quick smile and then disappears.

I have no idea who he is, but my guess is that he is some head honcho in security here. Clearly it takes a man with a gun to get things done.

However, now I know that a blue residency card has to be handed in when you leave Kurdistan even if it is for a short trip and the card hasn't expired.

World Domination

All the international fast food chains are absent from Sulaimaniyah except one. There is no McDonalds, Pizza Hut or Burger King, but strangely enough there is New Zealand's own Burger Fuel! Expanding rapidly in the ME, Burger Fuel first set up here two years ago and has since opened a further outlet in Baghdad.

Yes the burgers are good and even better are the chips but it is very expensive. A burger cost 8,000 dinars ($8) where a local version will cost 3000 and a coke at BF is twice the normal price. This may explain why it wasn't busy at 7pm, though it must be doing OK to survive.
The franchise owner is a New Zealander, though he was there at the time and all the staff are Arab!

 

 

Bats

Strolling one evening up on a hill not far from here I noticed large numbers of swallows and idly wondered if they were gathering for a migration to the south or did Kurdish swallows hang around for the winter even though it is cold here.

On closer inspection I was surprised to see that they were not swallows but hundreds of bats. Their size and movement as they swoop after insects are that of a swallow but the slightly larger bat shaped wings gave the game away.

New Zealand has two species of bat, but they are much smaller and so rare that I have only spotted them two or three times.

Becoming a Kurdish Poltergeist

There I am sitting in the Melody Cafe minding my own business when the window next to me cracks and shatters again!!  Maybe I have developed a strange new energy here in Kurdistan and I am developing into some weird middle-aged Carrie....

Someone unkindly suggested that I am the target of an assassin but they are so incompetent that they must come from Erbil (Suly people tell jokes about Erbil people they way we tell Irish jokes). 

This video makes fun of this popular Kurdish singer and comedian who is famous for his big bushy moustache and who reminds me of my brother Harry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv9DzDa6rrE

Jashnt piroz bet (Happy Eid!)

This week is the Eid holiday and most people in the ME take the whole week off. For those who know their bible, Eid al-Adha (Festival of the Sacrifice) commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son, but at the very last minute God provided a lamb instead.

The actually day of Eid is today Tuesday 15th October and naturally the day begins with prayers in the mosque. This is followed by a huge breakfast and it is also traditional to wear new clothes.

If you can afford it, a sheep, goat or cow is sacrificed with ritual prayers and according to Islamic charity, one third of the meat goes to the poor, one third to the extended family and one third to the immediate family.

The city streets have been packed as local people shop for Eid and the numbers are swollen by overseas Kurds returning home, Kurds from Iran and Iraqi Arabs just wanting a break. With all these visitors security has been strengthened and police are everywhere, though the atmosphere is really relaxed.

I on the other hand have decided to take advantage of the holiday to go to Dubai for a few days as a post-birthday treat.....

Under attack? Er... well, no

Sitting in the Melody Cafe, the large window which I was sitting next to suddenly shattered, though fortunately the glass was contained behind a curtain. While I ducked, many other customers hit the floor clearly thinking that this was some attack and the atmosphere was incredibly tense.

As it turned out, the glass in the window had been badly fitted and in the afternoon heat expanded and shattered under pressure.

A birthday in Kurdistan

The day started with a lie in finishing off the new Donna Tartt novel 'The Goldfinch'. I had never read her before so was greatly pleased to find a fantastic new writer (to me) and a great book. The writing was a bit wobbly at the end, but Ms Tartt would not be the first good writer to struggle with an ending.

After lounging in bed for far too long I strolled up through Azadi Park and along the back streets to the bazaar. Normally the bazaar is fairly quiet on a Friday, but my birthday coincides with the first day of the Eid holiday so the place was packed. The main street was closed off with make shift stalls lining both sides of the street selling everything imaginable.






The next stop was to pick up by newly tailored Kurdish outfit which together with the Iranian cloth of a fine wool and cotton blend,  cost all of $70. I tried it on for size and it fitted very well. The pants are the ultimate 'fat' pants - you never could possibly grow out of these trousers which are tied at the waist with a draw string. Voluminous is hardly the word, but they are amazing comfortable and cool to wear. The jacket goes over the shirt and fits into the trousers with a very long cumberbund to tie it all together. You really wouldn't want to go for a pee in a hurry.

After picking up the clothes, my next point of call was Toqif Halwachy which is is located in a small arcarde with about 10 other tiny stores all selling the same thing - a small range of nougats, lokum (Turkish Delight) and suquk, all handmade. Tofiq Halwachy has the best reputation in the bazaar and the family have made a fortune from the small store and own many buildings and apartments in Sulaymaniyah.

Suquk is my favourite local sweet, partly because it is not all that sweet. It is made by threading shelled walnuts on to short length of string which is then soaked in congealed grape juice. The grape dries to the consistency and colour of soft liquorice and then the strings are hung up until required.When eaten suquk is then cut into bite sized pieces.

What particularly appeals is that the grape juice is just slightly sweet and not sickly like baklava etc.

I headed back down through the bazaar with my next stop a fruit juice stall. These are all over the bazaar and for just 1000 dinar ($1) you get a freshly squeezed drink, ranging from the usual orange, carrot or apple to the more exotic, such as fig or pomegranate. Like every store in the bazaar these are tiny places with a narrow row of seats where you sit and order your drink. Naturally the quality and price varies from stall to stall, but all are noisy busy places.

My final stop for the day was Chalak's Cafe where I had coffee and cake and chatted with Chalak who was unusually dressed in traditional clothes. I had arranged for business cards to be printed and I met the printer and sorted out the payment.

By this time it was mid afternoon and the heat was building (29c) so it was clearly time for an afternoon read and nap....

In the early evening I met up with my friend Aso for dinner at the Venice restaurant not far from the motel. I had chosen the restaurant on a recommendation, but unfortunately I chose badly - the food was average and the service indifferent, though it was a very pleasant balmy evening for sitting outside.We made up for that disappointment by heading off to the Shawany Malik Cafe for sisha.

Sisha cafes have a very pleasant and congenial atmosphere with slouchy chairs and couches and a distinctly unhurried pace. Usually, but not exclusively a male preserve, no one, the staff in particularly, rushes around in a shisha cafe. As well as just idly chatting and smoking sisha, patrons play backgammon and this evening some had come into to watch football - England versus Montenegro.

Having never been a smoker, I actually enjoy smoking shisha, though shisha tobacco is much worse for your health than cigarette tobacco. The humid smoke is absorbed more quickly by the lungs than dry cigarette smoke, but I figure shisha once a month isn't going to kill me.

We lounged around there till well after midnight and now at 60 years and one day, I thought 1am was a respectable time to go to bed.

 As it happenen Aso had also bought a pair of Kurdish trousers for my birthday, but the ones he bought were made of a very light cotton and supremely comfortable to wear. They are like massive loose track pants....

Five really scary things about Kurdstan

While most folk worry about car bombers and suicide bombers, the reality is there have been only three such bombs in Kurdistan in the last 10 years.

Now these are things that I really worry about.

1. Exploding gas cylinders. Everyone here uses cylinder gas and given the usual state of affairs here, I very much doubt if any of these are regularly (if at all) checked for safety. At night when the stalls are set up along the footpaths of Salim Street there are portable gas cylinders everywhere and if one exploded it would cause havoc in the dense crowds.

2. Dodgy electrics. Much like the cylinders, there is little or no control on the standard of electrical work and wires just hang and tangle everywhere. See next item.

3. Fire escapes. Two years ago a hotel caught fire here and over 40 people died as there were no proper fire escapes. The fire was caused by an electrical fault. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzb9X4lUD8

4. Earthquakes. With very little in the way of building controls, many building here have been constructed cheaply and badly. Crumbling concrete due to the lack of cement is a common sight and who knows what else lies hidden. This is an earthquake zone and a big shake would bring a good part of this city down.

5.Being run over. Kurds are not aggressive drivers and there is little of the pushiness and horn tooting of Lebanon or the crazy fast driving of the UAE.  They are, though careless, distracted, and like many things Kurdish, drivers have little regard for rules. Another disturbing factor is that there are no 'drink driving' laws and drunk drivers are too common especially on Thursday and Friday nights.

Throw into this mix a lack of pedestrian crossings and then getting across busy Salim Street becomes a game of Russian roulette. The vast majority of drivers are polite and slow down to let you cross  and the locals just step confidently into the stream of rushing traffic.But it just takes one.....

The mysterious Babylon Hotel

Two doors down from the Bayan Motel is the four star Babylon Hotel, but for the life of me I can't work out what is going on there and the staff at the Bayan don't know either. Most of the time it appears closed, the foyer is in darkness and the only lights on are at the very top floors. Mind you Kurds keep their curtains closed ALL the time so even if people were in the rooms it would be hard to know.

Then mysteriously on some days it is a normal hotel - the reception is all lit up with people sitting in the chairs and walking about. Last night there were lights on in several windows. It is not rundown, no one working on the building renovating or repairing so what is going on at the Babylon remains a mystery.

Nothing but blue sky.....

I know it is peevish to whinge about sunny weather, but while you are enduring the erratic weather in the southern hemisphere, I just want you to know that endless sunny days do lose their appeal. What is the point of opening the curtains and looking out at the day? It is just going to be blue cloudless sky... Three days we had clouds, but they were just a tease and by next day they were gone and the unrelenting blue was back.

The Kurdish Sky

There has been no rain here since early May and none due until the end of the month. Everything is coated in a gritty dust - leave your windows open and your house becomes a sand pit. Kurdish water consumption is three times the international average boosted by endless washing of courtyards, steps, paths and balconies and quite frankly I can't blame them. I would go mad with a hose. The last few days have seen some strong gusty winds which only  exacerbates the dust...  Cleaning grubby dusty shoes is a never ending daily task.

It is cooling off though with daily temperatures in the mid to high 20s and the evenings are turning distinctly cool.  I have been reaching for a blanket in the early hours of the morning,  the AC is now turned firmly off and some folk are wearing jerseys and jackets.

At the Lavo Cafe

One of my favourite places to eat from the very first time I came here is the Lavo Cafe - the food is Kurdish plus pizzas and they have great salads which are fresh and different every day. They have a menu in both English and Kurdish with prices, but more often than not several items have run out so now I just ask what they have left. And the prices on the menu never seem to match the price paid and I can't work out how they reach the final bill which is NEVER over 10,000 dinars ($10) and is always less than what I expect.

In the photo is the manager Arez who is incredibly friendly despite having limited English. When I pay he writes down the price in arabic numerals which I then have to read out in Kurdish and then he reads them in English - it is a great way to improve my language skills.

Arez is a bit on the tubby side and he is laughing because I told him to stand straight, stopping breathing and put in his fat stomach just like I was doing.....

Film extras?

Yesterday three English guys walked into the Melody cafe accompanied by a soldier toting a machine gun (I was close enough to hear their accents). Foreigners are unusual in this cafe - at one stage another customer stood about two metres from them starring at them. The staff made the soldier put his gun behind the counter - who has an armed guard in a cafe, I ask you - this is Kurdistan, not Iraq...

However, it was how they were dressed that attracted most attention. All three were tall, in their late 30s and dressed as is they were in an Indiana Jones movie - sandy coloured desert boots, loose tan trousers and a plain cotton collared shirts. The clothes looked brand new and it appeared as if they had all shopped together for this trip. The guard though was Kurdish and it seemed to me that he was just there to complete the 'look'....

Maybe they were geologists or archaeologists, but whatever they were doing in Kurdistan, they looked quite ridiculous...

Final election results

In short the final results are very close to the interim results despite the cynicism of many commentators. The Goran (Change) Party with 24% of the vote and KDP with 38% of the vote are the clear winners, with the PUK at 18% suffering a severe set back and with the two Islamic parties with 17% between them just nudging ahead of last time.

Post election disturbances have been minor and in testament to Kurdish political maturity, a spokes person for the PUK said that they would accept the result and spend the next four years rebuilding the party.

Now we just need to see the shape of the coalition government which is predicted to be a KDP/PUK alliance (as before) but with a very different distribution of ministerial posts.

Bayan Motel

I have now moved to a motel - like a small flat with a separate bedroom, lounge and kitchen and while not as central as the Mihrako Hotel, it is only one km away.

The address is just typical of Sulaimanyah - it might seem strange, street names and numbers don't mean anything here and everything is 'near' something else. Girdy Andazyaran is the Quarter or suburb - Bayan Motel, Girdy Andazyaran,  Near the Cultural Hall and the Dr Khrasraw Overpass,
Sulaimanyah. Easy to find!!

I have lots of windows which open and have clear glass! I can lie in bed and watch the traffic on the Dr Khrasraw Overpass, keep an eye on the Rand Galley Mall and listen to the call to pray from the Husseinyah Mosque, a Shiite mosque that only call to prayer three times a day. However they do rabbit on a lot on Friday. Just 100 metres the other way is the Mar Yousif Catholic Chaldean Church. They are ethnic Assyrians who worship in the Syrian eastern rite, but recognise the pope as head of the church - many have fled to Kurdistan to escape persecution in Arab Iraq

And I have a washing machine.... small domestic things bring great joy!.

Under the motel and part of the same business, is the Melody Cafe which is run by women, mainly from Nepal (the motel is staffed by men). Women working in cafes or restaurant is highly unusual here and I wondered if the cafe was a front for some other dodgy business. Being a single middle aged man I would be the perfect prospect, but after closely watching the behaviour of both the staff and the customers it all looks above board to me.

A Kurdish visa

Last week I had to renew my Kurdish work visa and in comparison to last time, it was both easier and more complicated. This time I had to work through Hero Xhan, the President's wife who is the key supporter for the encyclopedia project. Her assistant Azhy arranged for a driver and said that he would phone ahead and make the necessary arrangements. Last time I had an official letter from the Dept of Antiquities, but this time I was going empty handed and feeling uncomfortable about this, I decided to take my contract as well as my passport.

The car arrived just before nine along with a body guard named Karwan who could fortunately speak some English. Arriving at the Immigration Office Karwan made a few phone calls and then we drove off. I am now unperturbed by sudden changes in plan, so I relaxed, unconcerned in the back seat, while we drove to the President's opulent house on the outskirts of the city where we pick up another man who role in this escapade remained unclear throughout. Returning to the Immigration Office, the three of us pushed through the milling crowds of Syrians and Iranians, to meet with an immigration guard who then guided us through a series of offices. Karwan and Mr X had to hand in their guns at the door - guns I hadn't even realised they were carrying, though by now I barely notice guns as they are so common here. Casually I said to Karwan 'Ah you have a gun', and in reply he just grinned and said 'I am a Kurd'.

We traipsed through crowded corridors and busy offices with at least three people checking my passport and Karwan making several phone calls, though to whom I was never sure. Finally came the question of papers which I had anticipated and with a confident flourish I handed over my contract. I knew that the contract was in reality pretty worthless as a document  as it had not been counter signed and was with Unesco in Jordon with just one reference to Sulaimaniyah.  However, it looked official and did the trick and we continued on our way to the next counter.

In the meantime I discovered that gun toting Karwan was an enthusiastic amateur photographer with a love of trees and flowers so we passed the time looking at his very good photos of flowers, dew drops on leaves and autumn leaves. At the final office Karwan, in typical Kurdish fashion, then insisted on paying for the visa (around $9). Meantime the man whom we had gone out of our way to collect had barely said a word. My guess is that he was an official for Hero Xhan while Karwan was just a security heavy, though in reality Karwan was much smarter and far more useful that kak X.

Now I have a work visa until the middle of December. 

A Scottish ATM

Usually those electronic programmed voices are exclusively American, but the ATM of the Trading Bank of Iraq has a lovely Scottish woman shepherding you through your cash withdrawals. It really does made a  pleasant change...

Chavy Land - the Disneyland of Iraq

Chavy Land is a huge theme park located on a hill side just on the outskirts on the city. At the entrance is a large sign with a waving Mickey Mouse which I very much doubt has Disney's permission. Covering a huge area, it has all the theme park rides you would expect including the 'Slemani Eye', the largest Ferris Wheel in the ME and three roller coasters - interestingly the Kurdish word for roller coaster is simple 'Death Ride'. A highlight is a multi coloured fountain that 'performs' to music every 10 minutes. The entry fee is just 1500 dinars ($1.50) and the rides are not expensive either so lots of Kurds come here in the evening to picnic. It also attracts many visitors from Arab Iraq and Iran.

Dilshad leaves today

In Kurdish 'Dilshad' means 'happy heart' and this applies perfectly to Dilshad who works in the hotel. Both Dilshad and his brother work in the Mihrako and like all the staff are very friendly and helpful. He works in the restaurant during breakfast, clearing tables and washing dishes and looks after me making sure I have the freshest bread, the best fruit and anything else he thinks I might need. He really has a good heart.

Although from Mosul, he is going to study computers for two years in Duhok as Mosul is too dangerous. I hope the studies go well as Dilshad is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and when I jokingly told him that the singer Adele was Kurdish, he believed me! He did see the joke but I felt really mean....

Bombing Aftermath

Following the bombing on Sunday, security has been substantially increased throughout Kurdistan. There are road blocks within the city, police are everywhere and today police were doing random identity checks in cafes and hotels. As usual the Kurdish security forces are unfailing polite, and people are pleased to see that they take safety seriously.

As expected there is a backlash against ethnic Arabs with calls to close the border between Kurdistan and Arab Iraq, though that won't happen. There are many Arabs here both permanently and temporarily fleeing the violence in the south and west and many are young and male and the obvious group to come under suspicion.

Along with the attack in Erbil there were three further bombings in Iraq on Sunday afternoon and since Sunday a further 11 attacks. Surely by now Al Qaeda must be running out of suicide bombers?? All the suicide bombers are very young - why don't they recruit amongst the elderly or the terminally ill? Apparently one of the bombers captured on Sunday was reported to said that those organising bombers told him that he wouldn't feel any pain!

A positive aspect is the bombings have galvanised Kurdish nationalism, and the bickering over the election results has all but halted. Kurdish are no strangers to violence and when the cards are down, Kurdish identity throughly trumps political, sectarian and religious divides.