Three nights ago, electricity was plain splendid! They gave us national electricity from 8 pm until 11:00 pm, cut it for some 30 minutes, then they brought it back again until 8 am! It was a very exceptional night indeed. The air and water heaters worked for all the time they needed, and the results thereof were very pleasant to say the least. That night was rather windy, and there was some rain in the wee hours of morning. That rain turned into snow showers above the mountains, and, according to some friends, in some parts of Sulaimaniya, too.
In any event, it gave the mountains that surround the city, a beautiful white cover that included even relatively low altitudes. It’s still there as I type.
By noon, and as I was out to lunch, it snowed for some 30 seconds. It was beautiful! I actually saw it clearly for the first time in Amman in Christmas of 2005, but then it was mixed with heavy rain. This time, it was only snow, but alas, for it lasted for such a short time. I managed, nevertheless, to see the little snow crystals fly around, and see them melt on my jacket. It was very nice. You may wonder why on earth is this guy so excited about snow? Don’t forget that I am from a city that rarely gets a -1 C / 30 F all winter and with a horrible 51 C / 125 F in summertime.
Electricity got a bit worse in the two nights that followed. On Tuesday night, they turned the switches off at around 8:30 pm, which is very early in Iraqi standards. If I haven’t mentioned it, Iraqis usually don’t sleep before midnight, that is after watching the news on Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera or Abu Dhabi TV, if (and a big if that is) they had national or generator electricity.
At that night, I was surprised by the early power cut, and didn’t know what to do. I forgot to charge the rechargeable lantern that I have. I didn’t have any candles (it’s not romantic; it’s a necessity in Iraq!), and there was the walking around that needs to be done properly in order not to step on stuff or hit the walls. I managed somewhat well with the light of my mobile phone (O, my pride, my joy, my Nokia N70, moah moah moah!!!).
By around 10 pm, I felt very hungry, so it was time to have dinner. There aren’t many options to be honest, since I can’t use the microwave oven to grill chicken as I used to back in the good ol’ electricity days. I had to make up my mind between Vietnamese tuna and Moroccan sardines. I picked the sardines, simply because the tuna can refused to be opened the nice way, and I didn’t have the proper device to open it. Sardines it is!
But wait! It’s dark! How am I going to open the sardines can without spilling any of the vegetable oil contained therein? The lantern was dead. The cell phone didn’t give that much light. I looked left and right into the darkness of the night. And I suddenly found out that it wasn’t as dark as I thought. There was the moon, full and shiny, in a clear sky with some coldish breeze, but still it wasn’t that cold.
I took the can and went to the roof where it was completely moon lit. I brought a fork, opened the can and started eating under the moon light. A very beautiful, unforgettable view was the one I saw with all these mountains covered with snow, glowing under the moon light. I tried to take photos, but that was unfortunately impossible. I guess it was a moment to be remembered, and not to be documented.
As I was there, on the roof top, I thought: if someone said to me 5 years ago (when visiting Iraqi Kurdistan was impossible and cell phone service was prohibited in Iraq), that I would be eating Moroccan sardines on a Kurdistan roof top, in a moony January 2007 night, surrounded by snowy mountains glowing from afar, with a Finnish mobile phone in my pocket; I wonder what would I have said to that person!!!
Bottom line is: Never say never!
Oh, and try moon lit dinners, they are less costly (and probably as romantic as) candle lit dinners!
