Aswat Al-Iraq Article: Kurdish jalli hugs Arab hashmi over Kurdistan mountains in Nawroz 2009

ARBIL, SULAIMANIYA, DUHUK / Aswat al-Iraq: Non-stop rain since Friday was not reason enough to convince the Kurds to stay indoors and ignore celebrating the Nawroz. The Kurds, who ventured out along with Arabs and Christians, even considered rainfall as a good omen to bring good after years of political drought and deprivation.

Kurds’ garish and flashy colored garments mingled with the colors of the fields and prairies at the foot of the mountain and the valleys of the areas surrounding the Kurdish cities of Sulaimaniya, Arbil and Duhuk as well as Kirkuk, forming a paining that even hundred Picassos, Dalis and Cézannes would fail to depict on their sketches.

The scene was emphasized by the sounds of music and traditional Kurdish dabaka stomp dancing with a merry atmosphere of celebrations and faces full of grins of freedom and optimism for a better tomorrow.

In Arbil, 349 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, several families and young people went out of town on Saturday as there were thousands of vehicles bound for the northern part of the cit, namely Kuwaysanjaq, where women are clad in their traditional jalli and men in their traditional colored attire to celebrate the spring season.

“Nawroz is a national day for us. We have been preparing for it for a few days now as we go out with our folks and friends,” Raffan Ahmed, a Kurd, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Kurds celebrate the Nawroz, which marks the beginning of the new Kurdish year, on March 21. Kurds all over the world deem Nawroz as a national day.

In the evening of March 20 every year, Kurds in the Iraqi Kurdistan region rush to mountain and hill tops to set fire to celebrate the Nawroz and the advent of spring season.

According to the old Kurdish legends, Kurds, thousands of years ago, used to suffer under the tyrant Dahak, who killed two young people each day and used their heads to treat some malicious disease on his shoulders. One day a Kurdish young man of the name Kawa the Blacksmith challenged the tyrant and killed him. Kawa then told his friends to set fire over mountaintops to express their won freedom and joy over the end of an unjust era.

Saleem Ali, a Kurd who was accompanying an Arab family, told Aswat al-Iraq that his friends came from Mosul “to share us our joys and celebrations for Nawroz”.

In Duhuk, 460 km north of Baghdad, Kurdish, Arab and Christian families were all celebrating together.

“I feel so great enjoying this occasion with my relatives and friends as well as numerous citizens others after several years deprivation,” said Dilshad Saeed Sadeq, 38, as he was preparing a lunch meal with many others.

“We used to avoid celebrating the Nawroz or even think about lighting a single candle during Saddam’s reign of terror,” Sadeq recollected.

In the resort of Ducan, 60 km northwest of the city of Sulaimaniya, Kurdish dabakas and music were coming out of the hundreds of tents pitched everywhere.

“I have decided to celebrate my engagement during the spring festivities,” Shadi Halkut, a young woman, told Aswat al-Iraq.

She did not talk too much, only drawing away her fiancée saying, “Kakajian, let’s go celebrate; no more talking”.

Tayseer Al-safeer & Nusrat Al-Badir (This is Iraq)

Iraq is like the Sun
It's light will never fade away

Beautiful song by Tayseer Al-safeer & Nusrat Al-Badir.

The Cat in the Hotel

I returned to Baghdad on Saturday by land, along with a very dear friend of mine from Sulaimaniya. He had some work to do in Baghdad, therefore we decided to come here together. 

We both wanted to check how things are in Baghdad after the sun sets, and since it would be difficult for me to return from downtown Baghdad to my distant district after i show my friend around, therefore i stayed at Babylon hotel where he stayed. We later enjoyed walking down Karrada street at night, and seeing people going out and about. We ate falafel at the famous Falih Restaurant, and drank grape juice from Jabbar some 200 meters (yards) away.

Babylon Hotel, in case you didn't know, is (or let's say it used to be) one of the best hotels in Baghdad. It has about 13 storeys and is built in the shape of an ancient ziggurat. It was (and still is) probably the last known hotel which is accessible to ordinary people, since all the other luxurious hotels are reserved for contractors and journalists. 

Now what we first noticed in the pathway was that a plate of food, left by guests who ate chickens for dinner (at least) a day ago, and the leftovers were mainly bread. 

Now we expected that a cleaner would pick these things up if not today (it was shortly after 2pm) then the next morning, but these leftovers were left there until next morning!

The next morning, we discovered that the leftovers were scattered by cat, which we heard growling two storeys below us! 

The picture in which the leftovers were scattered, was taken *before* the other picture! 

Please remember that!!

After that, we went out to finish some business downtown, and two hours later, we came back into the hotel. My friend was ready now to go back to Sulaimaniya, and i was ready to go back home, and we were ready for checking-out of the hotel.

What surprised us, or let's say shocked us, was when we saw that the leftovers which were scattered by the cat when we went out, were now re-arranged, and "neatly" put next to the wall, right at the same place they were left!!!!!

Now please don't get me wrong! I have nothing against cats. In fact i cannot even begin to imagine the world without cats. I just love cats, and appreciate any feline presence in my life; but not in a 4-star hotel i don't!

We went downstairs to settle the account and get out of there, but before we did, i asked the man (or let's say the dude) who was behind the desk. Remember that this was a 4-star hotel, once upon a time. He was definitely born after 1990, and was wearing a t-shirt, unlike the other ones who wear all wearing suits and ties. I greeted him, and asked him:

- "I'm sorry, but i have a couple of questions, please."

- "Sure!"

- "What's the rating of this hotel? Who many stars?"

- "Ummmmm, Aaaaaaaa, Errrrrrrrr... I don't know....." chuckling.

- "Ok, there is another thing. There were some leftovers in the pathway next to our door. They were there since yesterday afternoon, and i don't know for how much time they've been there!"

- "The cleaners would get to them..."

- "Well, it seems that they've already got to that sector. You see, they were scattered this morning, and now they are arranged, so a cleaner must've been there."

Right here, the dude lost track of what i've been saying, so i thought i should change the subject:

- "And what about the cat?"

- "What cat?"

- "There is a cat roaming in the floors! I think there's more than one because one was growling and i think there was a fight!"

- "Yes, we have cats problem in the building, and it is difficult for us to restrict their movements."

At that point, i thought that i cannot continue with this heartaching converation. I was really feeling sad for this hotel in which i stayed in 2004 and 2006, and it was better then, but what i was seeing now was a disaster! 

It had definitely turned into a cat hotel, where cats' interests are more important than human interests, although the cats aren't paying $80 a night! The humans are!!!

When I Saw You...

This is a song by Turkish Singer İbrahim Tatlıses (Gördükçe Seni Tazelenir Sanki Hayatım), translated by me...
(The picture is from one of his old movies in the early 1980s)





Is your beauty that of a moon, o precious beloved one?
Are you an angel or a human, o pain of my soul?
May i be sacrificed for the sake of your name!

When i saw you, i felt as if my life was renewed
Is this soul of mine, or this whole world worth an atom without you?

I wonder, is your face made of daffodil?
Are your cheeks made of roses?
You bear the beauty of God's Creation
Are your lips made of milk and sugar?!
May i be sacrificed for the sake of your name!

Baghdad International... Whatever!

So here's how the story goes:

A dear friend of mine who hadn't been to Baghdad for about 4 years, felt encouraged by the latest security improvements and felt safe enough to come to Baghdad and see the places and people he missed for so long.

He was as happy as a kid in a candy store as we drove from the Airport to Karrada where he stayed, especially when he saw the shops of Karrada and the night life on the street; something he haven't seen since 2003.

His visit went even better than what he had planned for. He told me how he commuted from Zayyouna to Karrada in Baghdad's eastern side in a 2008 car around midnight. He even went to Kerbala and a portion of his drive towards that city was at night, also in a brand-new car.

The visit was a great success as we can say; except for the last part.
He and i were leaving Baghdad, flying to Sulaimaniya. The ticket read 9:00am as the departure time, and the man at the Iraqi Airways office (which functions definitely worse than its then up-to-date shape it used to work with in the 1980s), strongly insisted that we should be at the Airport *three hours* before the flight. We decided to ignore that point, and it turned out that it was a wise thing to do.

I picked my friend at around 7:30, and we reached the Airport's drop zone at around 8:00am or so. By the time we got to the Terminal it was about 8:30am.

We went to the Iraqi Airways desk, and there we had our first shock of the day!
"No, the Sulaimaniya flight will depart at 2:00pm, but we will take you to the departure hall at midday!"
Great!
It turned out though, that some people were told earlier that it wouldn't leave until 2:00pm, and they even had that written on their tickets which they took from Iraqi Airways offices other than ours.

So, we had no choice but to sit and wait until we would be allowed to enter the more convenient departure hall after getting rid of our bags, and that was supposed to happen around midday.

During this time, there were two airplanefuls of Iranian relegious tourists who were waiting two flights to their country. They were so many, and they were not organized. The place was suddenly overcrowded by people putting rugs on the terminal floor, and sitting as if they were in some picnic!

If that wasn't enough, the Iranian trip organizer brought them lunch bags that had chicken among other things, and the whole terminal started smelling like chicken in no time! The Iranians were eating left and right as we, the Iraqis had to survive on biscuits. The Iranians filled the terminal with stacks of trash and the place was a real mess, and the Airport officials were doing absolutely nothing to control the chaos!

My friend and i managed to take some photos of this unusual situation through our cellphone cameras, and it was really a day to remember. The day Baghdad International Airport was turned to Baghdad Chicken Restaurant!

Now the weather between Baghdad and Amman wasn't very good that day, which caused the Royal Jordanian flight to be delayed. The Airport loudspeakers aired an apology from Royal Jordanian 4 times about the delay of that flight's arrival. As for Iraqi Airways, it never apologized, or perhaps it thought that it was too big to apologize!

You could guess that nothing happened by midday. It was after 1:00pm when they finally allowed us into the departure hall, which was already full of Iranians who entered the departure hall before us.

We were relatively happy that we would fly out of there in an hour's time, but no!

4 other hours would pass before we would!

It seems that we were supposed to fly out of Baghdad at 2:00pm, but a "very high ranking official" (whose name i wouldn't put here for legal reasons) wanted to fly to Erbil. His dark-windshield car parked next to the airplane, while we were waiting this airplane for 8 hours after the time written on our tickets! The plane which usually goes to Sulaimaniya before going to Erbil, was forced to go to Erbil first, then Sulaimaniya. So the whole delay (let's say from 2pm until 5pm) was just for "him" to come and fly whenever it was convenient for him!!!

The story didn't end here! When we landed in Erbil, the security man at the airplane said that they would stay for 30 minutes before taking off again. Their 30 minutes turned into 90!

When we arrived to Sulaimaniya Airport, we were warmly greeted, perhaps because they know of the long delay we had. This arrival was one of the best i've had to Sulaimaniya, but it unfortunately came only after a long, tiresome day.

This makes Iraq the only country in the World where driving up to somewhere is 3 times faster than flying to it!