Damascus and Maaloula during the revolution

In September 2011 I flew into Syria from Iran, transferring in Sharjah, the capital of one of the emirates, on a dead cheap Air Arabiya flight. Our plane arrived in Damascus airport just before midnight and I was very glad that B was there to pick me up. B and two of his cousins, the bedouins of Palmyra who were now staying in Damascus which is where they go when they are not in Tadmur or sleeping  somewhere in the middle of the desert in the wind shade of a warm camel's back or inside a tent. I was always totally fascinated by his lifestyle, having visions of Jane Digby and her bedroll, listening to the sheikhs planning their next attack or negotiating over some stolen camels. B loved camels and the camels loved him. Now he was waiting for me in the lobby of Damascus airport, a fact that made me feel a huge deal safer than if I had gone there alone, as it was four months into the Syrian revolution.
I anxiously asked a young Syrian woman next to me if I could use her mobile to call them and begged her to tell the officers I was her friend in case they stopped and got suspicious of what I was going to do in Syria during the revolution. Indeed, I was the only non-Arab far and wide in this airport now, except for some Iranians who had arrived on the same flight. But alas, the immigration officer just leafed through my passport to the page of my visa, stamped it and waved me past him, barely looking at me.  Maybe he was tired, or maybe he thought I was one of those few foreign students and expats left in Damascus. He was not interested in checking me out at all. Or was it because I had devised a plan to fly in from Iran?
The young lady, a doctor fom Homs, smiled and waved, and was gone. And there they were, all three of them, waiting for me in the hall. I had not seen B for a whole year, and had not even been sure I would ever see him again.but I was invited to a wedding, an Arabic wedding, and that is why I came to Damascus.
We got in the car, I asked him to text my hotel that I was not coming. I had booked a room in my favourite house in the whole world, just in case something went wrong.
We drove down the airport road to the center of the city. The road that is now often blocked because of fighting and checkpoints. I wonder what it will look like when I go there again. Mezze has been bombed, Qadam has been bombed, the military airport has been attacked, even the international airport received a few bombs too. We were driving past that long wall on the right side, with the guards holding rifles, the wall that hides a number of military facilities.
Then through Mezze, and finally to an area where I had never been before, quite near to the old city but far enough away to need a taxi most of the time, far enough for me to not really know where we were, so I would be afraid to go out on my own, and moreover, where we went, was minutes away from the high rise modern building that belonged to the intelligence, in other words, the police. Maybe not a bad place to hide at all.
This is where they were staying and this was, where I now stayed too.
B and I ventured into the souq every day. He would be on the lookout for the mukhabarat, which I still did not know how to recognize . I could only tell that they were within earshot when he would suddenly changed the topic, and would start talking in a loud voice about sex,  mentioning sleepless nights full of passionate love making, something that was totally out of character for him, as B was usually a stoic, taciturn though fun loving man and he never once brought up this kind of talk when we were at his home. But surely, overhearing his words would embarrass any curious listener enough to not scrutinize us any further, and especially, which was the main purpose I suspect, explain our supposive relationship to the uninitiated observer from the police who might be wondering whether B was walking along here with a foreign journalist or spy and spilling the beans on Syrian politics and complaining about the government to her. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing, as he never mentioned or explained it to me, and instead always caught me off guard with this loud sexy talk in public ,  making me blush and squirm in embarrassment.My way of keeping a low profile was to instinctively never carry a camera, I did not take a single picture this week except during the Arabic wedding of a friend, and I purposely ignored all the fascinating treasures of Damascus, barely glanced at the minaret of the Umayyad mosque, blending in with the crowd and looking as if I had lived here for years.
 Once we sat in a cafe in the middle of the souk and he suddenly started looking me deeply in the eyes, his irises lighting up with green twinkles, , talked softly in a hoarse voice about " do you remember how hot it was when we..." while running his fingers over my knees under the table. I was mortified and nervously looking around in this place populated by muslims, veiled women, minutes away from the Great Umayyad mosque, I could not see anyone, but I am sure, a police officer in civilian clothes must have entered the cafe, observing us from a quiet corner. This is how a British journalist got himself arrested later, by editing his interviews in one of these cafes that were frequently checked by the mukhabarat.

But his device deterred any policemen from wanting to interrupted the hot erotic flirt we looked so intensely involved in.
When Friday came around, we stayed at home, sat side by side on the sofa, and he switched channels on the tv with the remote control til we could see the demonstrations going on in the suburbs of Damascus, and I pulled up my legs and huddled next to him, thanking the Gods that I was here in a safe place, nursing a cup of home brewed Arabic coffee with cardamom. We did not really go anywhere on Friday, just remained at home, in front of the tv, listened to music, smoked cigarettes and talked. And I wondered for how much longer Damascus center would stay this haven of peace.

The morning after I arrived, we all got up and gathered around the table in the living room. B said, he would go out and by bread and butter. I wanted to follow him and he shot me a sharp warning look and told me to stay. I winced and stayed where I was. I had long learned that one must never disobey an Arab when he is serious. We could be seen together walking in the souk but I guess, not around here. The reason was unknown to me but I knew better than to ask. 

After a few days I asked if we could go on a trip. I wanted to see more of Syria, spending my time well. I took out my map and looked at the roads leading out of Damascus. There was nothing much to the West of Damascus, we were close to the Lebanese border. The road north led to Homs which was out of the question. The refugees from Homs would soon flood into Damascus. The road east led into the desert, to Tadmur where B came from. I knew that there was nothing much in between but sand....and I certainly did not want to be attacked or kidnapped on the way...

I studied my copy of the Lonely Planet Syria . "How about Bosra?" I said. This was a place I had not seen yet,and my book described it's archaeological treasures. He said no, pointed his finger to the map. "Bosra is close to Daraa and they have problems, we cannot go there." I finally asked if a trip to Maaloula was possible, the legendary Christian mountain village north of Damascus where the people still spoke Aramaeic. He said ok. 

So after breakfast we were on our way out of Damascus . The taxi dropped us off at a bus terminal. We took the bus and headed north. The bus drove through the suburbs, the industrial area, and I saw a sign that said "Douma" and shuddered. I had made sure we would not have to pass directly through Douma. This was where the demonstrations were, the shootings on the street, the raids and the arrests. But Douma lay invisibly in an area off the road. Thank God. 

After an hour or two we arrived in Maaloula . The bus stopped on the side of a mountain. We got off and sauntered down the main road which lay deserted in the afternoon sun. I could hear Arabic music blaring from a speaker on the other side of the valley and we discovered later that there was a wedding going on. Men carried the groom on their shoulders while the street filled with wedding guests coming out of a mosque off the road.

We decided to see the village on the mountain first. We walked up the long turn of the sandy road and entered the village from one end. These were houses that had been glued to the mountain with concrete, each row higher than the last, with narrow winding alleys in between. But it was completely still,not a soul seemed to be there, no voices, no breath, nothing moved. We stumbled over the broken stones and rubble that lined the alleys between the tight rows of houses. Silence. "Where is everybody?" I asked B. He had no answer. We kept walking, careful not to get lost inside this labyrinth of small alleys. After we had passed through whole village we came to a gate which had some graffiti scribbled over the top, in blue paint. "What does it say? " I wanted to know,and B said laconically "Ma'assalaama" - "Goodbye". 

"That is not very helpful, isn't it?" I said in despair as I still did not now where we were. He shrugged his shoulders and walked on. 

After we came own from the mountain we came to a cafe. Nobody there but the host. B ordered a beer and I drank some juice, and he sat with his chin in both hands, elbows on the table, looking grim. It was one of those long moments of silence where he looked into the distance and it was impossible to know his thoughts, so typical for him. I thought of it as the pensive Bedouin look, lost motionless in silent brooding, eyes focused on something far away in the desert. Only this time his look was dark and grim , his eyebrows wrinkled in a frown. The host came out from the cool inside of the cafe and they had a long talk in Arabic, and B looked even more pensive and concerned. But he did that say a word to me about the contents of their conversation. Then we drank up, gave the host a few coins and  crossed the valley to the other side of the mountain. The music blaring from the speaker became louder and louder and here was where we found the wedding, half way up to the monastery, near a mosque . 

 This part of the village was inhabitated and there were a few souvenir shops, another cafe where I bought more juice to quench my thirst on this hot, dry afternoon in the glaring sun, and then we came to the monastery. Mar Thekla had a church, a chapel and a small mountain cave. A sign explained the story of how the girl Thekla, over a thousand years ago had escaped here from her pursuers which were Arabs trying to kill her, and the mountain had opened up and swallowed her and given her shelter so that she survived. "But that is good!" said B when I read the sign to him, and I felt surprised that he sympathized with an early Christian. But thinking about it now I knew that it was the perfect story to please someone during the revolution. B himself had an injury. He described it as a motorcycle accident where the bone in his leg had been crushed and cracked, below the knee. The doctor told him, it would take a year to heal. I wondered if B had escaped into the desert on a wild ride on his bike, during a shooting or arrest in Palmyra. I had no idea, and he did not tell, all I knew was that he bravely ignored the pain when we walked for a long distance.

We walked through the inner courtyard of the monastery. I looked at the well, and the signs on the old stone. Now at this time, all the nuns have been taken to another place, no one really knows where they are, to protect them from the fighting that even reached Maaloula. I hear that even the inside of this holy place has been damaged, by some people who do not want to understand what Syria is- a country where four or five religions used to live in peaceful coexistence for hundreds or thousands of years. I fear for this ancient church inside Mar Thekla which is named after the girl that disappeared inside he mountain. 

We entered the church. It was a dark Orthodox Church with ancient walls and dark gold frames shining dimly in the rays of sunlight entering the door. Here we met a nun, a young woman all clad in black, with broad hips under her long robe. She and B had a long talk in Arabic while I looked around. B had never been inside a church before as he was a Muslim , and he looked around in awe and said softly:" it is so different!" But it sounded as if he liked it. 

I myself had never seen B like this before. Standing inside a church,without his kefiyeh , looking around at the paintings hanging near the ceiling. The B I knew was an irreverent handsome man on horseback, his long lanky but muscular body hidden under a dishdasha, wide trousers and a vest with many pockets that held his Marlboros, keys and a mobile phone that would howl every so often in an Arabic tune. And I almost never saw his hair, always hidden under the scarf the bedouins wear. B was beautiful, and he looked like two different persons. Now we were standing together in this ancient church, and he was befriending a nun. I don't know what she told him. But I believe, it is the same nun that I saw in the video of the 12 nuns of Maaloula giving an interview telling the Internet viewers that they had been taken to a safer place at the end of 2013. 

I hope they will be back, and all will be as it was. I pray it will be so. 

Nobody has told me where B is now. I still think of him often and hope to see him alive, some time soon.

Konya- Rumi's rose

Summer 2012

After talking to a Sufi friend of mine, learning Sufi dances in India, reading Vilayat Inayat Khan, Chishti, Rumi, Rabia and Attar, watching dervishes spin and learning how to whirl myself, I felt a visit to Konya in the conservative middle of Turkey had grown into a necessity.
I had also read that only those who are meant to come will get to see Rumi's garden, while the journey of others may be riddled with endless obstacles.
Mine was not. One day in August 2012 , after flying into Turkey and before setting up a meeting with my friend from Syria on this side of the border, I arrived in Konya on a bus, rolling in from the fantasy hills of Kappadokya.
I had called a hotel with the name of Ani ve Shems, which turned out to be large, proper, a bit dusty and completely deserted. It was just me, the waiter lurking near the television set, the receptionist,  the hijab wearing breakfast lady in the basement and me, plus a handful of other guests who I never met. I just noticed them by the crumbs on their plates when I arrived in the basement in the mornings to have " kahvalti ".
The whole part of this city seemed grey , moist and shady, the sky eternally overcast, my curtains thick and lace curtains covering the window panes even in daytime. My bed was as far away as possible from the window and unless I went outside, no one would have ever known I was there.
I soon discovered why this hotel was named like this: it was across the street from a small park that contained the tomb of Shams-e-Tabrizi, Rumi's beloved friend. The tomb was kept inside a little mosque where people went to pray, including me once, but the tomb was empty. Shams of Tabriz was not there. In fact nobody here knew where Shams was, there were various stories and theories. Maybe he was killed by the jealous followers of Mevlana, maybe he just quietly left . Either way, he left Rumi heartbroken and lonely, and in need for a new source of inspiration.
So I went and prayed on the second floor of this mosque, facing the empty tomb of Shams-e-Tabrizi, one evening at dusk.

The next morning I started my slow approach to the monastery. It was visible from a window of my hotel but once I went outside into the shady street, it disappeared. 

I walked along the park and to the left. Then between the dusty houses in the morning heat. After what seemed like a very long time, I hit the main road. 

There seems to be one main road in Konya which is more like a boulevard, an avenue cutting across town , with a green hill, an old mosque, tea gardens and a museum on one end , and at the other end- the monastery. 

It's roofs were a bright turquoise and shone over the city, a proud monument to it's past. 

The street which was called Mevlana Caddesi led in one long straight line to it's end. 

I arrived at a fence. There were people doing ablutions. The door was off to the left. 

I had read that his door opens and closes unpredictable intervals. It might open, or it might be closed for the day you get there. 

On my day it was open and no trace of it's closing hours. I went inside. 

The first thing that meets the eye after passing through the gate is a garden filled with small shrubs and paths between them, all of  them roses. Some in bloom, some invisible, and some dyeing. 

While I walked among the roses, signs and a recording explained stations in Rumi's life. 

Then I arrived at another stone wall  that had another gate. Here there was calligraphy on the walls. 

I made a detour to see more of the roses and tried to smell them, and then I went inside. 

Most people went directly to the main entrance. But I started walking around the hallway that passed in front of all the other rooms, so that I would see the main room last. There were smaller rooms with figures dressed up as Sufi masters giving lectures to young dervishes. I had heard that dervishes are celibate, and I wondered what life in this mevlevi monastery must have been like. Spending all your days in these chambers made of old stone, walking in the rose garden, worshipping God by scrubbing the floors... The kitchen was the biggest room among them all, and strangely, it was in front of the kitchen where the dervishes had trained whirling. There were figures of men sitting in the kitchen scrubbing vegetables , and there was a figure of a dervish apprentice standing in a corner of the room, ready to practice whirling by placing his left toe on a black dot on the floor while driving his body with his right foot, learning to spin in place without losing his balance. When the body rotates it imitates the basic movement of the universe and energy flows upwards. The dervish tilts his head to one side, offering the side of his neck, like a sheep to have its throat cut, or like a woman ready to surrender to a man. The dervish closes his eyes and spins. He wears a tall felt cap on his head and people say this cap symbolizes death. Maybe whirling is the ecstasy of dying and being taken away into the universe in one great silent tornado. I don't really know. It certainly makes thoughts stop and the mind go still. Similar to being in the middle of the desert at night, the stars above, the roaring silence of the sand hearing nothing but the pulse of your blood and the noise of your own beating heart. 

I envied this young apprentice dervish who only had to learn whirling in a corner next to the kitchen. Even if he was only a doll. 

After walking barefoot over the ancient floor boards I went outside and crossed the courtyard. Here was another fountain for doing ablutions . 

Then I went inside. The ceiling was very high. There was light wood, lamps everywhere, people were silent or spoke in hushed voices, there was dark green and black and gold and these were the blankets draped over the tombs. 

In one glass case there were all the clothes of a dervish. White clothes, grey wool colored coat, and the Sufi cap. 

There were six tombs, I think. Some high, some not so high. The last and greatest tomb was that of Hazrat Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi himself. 

I stopped and stood. I could sense the people walking around me. Hundreds of visitors passing in front of the tombs, greeting them, looking, talking softly , offering silent prayers. Ii stood still in the middle of the mass moving by, took a step back to let them pass. My eyes closed, the shuffling ,rustling noises turned into a buzz, a hum, then silence, and then just the great heartbeat of the room. There was black in front of my eyes. When my heart slowed down, I started to open my eyes slowly, the lights returned, I saw the coats of people, the shiny light wooden boards of the floor. I inhaled, gathered myself,offered thanks and left. I knew a small part of me stayed behind, near the dark green, and under the roses,  dew drops falling to the ground. 

From Duhok back to The Iranian border, almost arrested near Halabja

The next morning I checked out of my hotel, had a last breakfast in the restaurant of the man I had never called, and then asked how to get to the taxi terminal. The guy in the hotel said, I should go to the Main Street, turn left and walk there. He balked at the idea of calling me a taxi. He said it was near, but the idea of dragging my suitcase down the street to some unknown destination did not appeal to me at all. Once again, unlike the gentlemanly Syrians, they did not offer to help. So I had them call me a taxi. A mistake as the taxi drove off with me in the opposite direction, seemed to go all the way around town, got stuck in a traffic jam, countless red lights, and finally, after a huge detour, or possibly, following a one way road , arrived at the taxi terminal. There were signs outside, listing Erbil, Baghdad, Sulaymaniye and a few other places as possible destinations. I walked inside, and asked the bullish surly man , once again mustached , and arms covered in thick curled black hair, to put me on the list for Sulaymaniye . Then I waited. Nothing happened. The room filled up with Kurds, one wearing brown Kurdish traditional clothes, all of them big, bullish and very very Macho looking. There were only one or two women, silent, in headscarves, accompanied by their husbands. I felt vulnerable and intimidated. The man at the desk was talking into his phone, his eyes looked fierce and unforgiving, the hair on his head was shaved very short. I decided not to talk to him. I waited. Finally I went outside, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, trying to look distant and unfazed. I waited. The clock ticked, nothing happened. A few people left by car, new ones came. It was now going on 13.30h, and I still had to go all the way to the border. Finally I stood up, went over to the desk and asked what was wrong. Why was there no car? He said, I was the only one who wanted to go to Sulaymaniye. I asked:"Ok, can I go to Erbil instead and change cars there? " he said, in that case, the taxi would be there soon.and indeed, two minutes later we were off. Me, and an older Iraqi who sat on the backseat. The car seemed to be brandnew. He did not drive past Mosul, he drove through small towns in the mountains instead. On the way he stopped at a butcher, bought half a kilo of meat and put it in his car. It could not be far from here, I figured. Then we stopped at a restaurant.
The Iraqi and I shared a silent meal of kebab and rice. Suddenly he looked up and said quietly:" I am from Baghdad. I am Christian." Utterly surprised, I asked incredulously:"You are Christian? Are there Christians living in Baghdad? " "Yes", he said , "there used to be 200000 of us, but now only 50000 are left, everybody else is gone. Al Qaida comes into the cafes and shoots us, because they serve wine." I looked at him sadly, letting his words sink in. Al Qaida was driving the Christians out Baghdad, I had not known. We finished our meal and went back to the car. I pondered the fact, how safe and quiet Kurdistan must seem to him, compared to Baghdad.
Some time after that we arrived in Erbil, and the taxi for Sulaymaniye was already waiting. A man took my suitcase immediately, walked off with it and put it into the trunk of a car. Again, like at Marivan crossing, I had trouble remembering which car in the row of cars that was, but I found it and we were off.

When we got to Sulaymaniye it was getting dark. The driver offered to drive me alone to the terminal for Panjwin, for a charge that was half the price from Erbil to here. I was surprised but agreed, there was nothing else I could do. At the next place they arranged a car for me, made me wait quite a while, and then a Kurd again dressed in salwar suit , started driving. He said it was late, it was dark now, and I should just take the car alone. It was a bit more expensive but not much. But after about 15 minutes his mobile phone rang and he was asked to come back. He made a u-turn and took me back to where I came from. Then he stopped, lifted his big heavy body out of the car, and started a screaming row with the other driver and almost got into a fist fight with him on the street. I had no idea what was going on. Then the other driver, a young man, in normal street clothes, no salwar baggy pants and kummerbund, got into the car and we were off in the same direction again. He did not explain. One checkpoint. I was asked for my passport, this time, then we drove on . He said, he would take me all the ay to the border instead of Panjwin because it was so late now. After 11pm passed, some lights appeared in the distance on the right side of the road. He pointed at them. "This is Halabja", he said. Tjhe place where Chemical Ali had gassed and killed thousands of Kurds, I knew that . The friend of my Iranian friend who I had met in Sulaymaniye had shown me the pictures. the long rows of dead, wrapped in white body bags. The famous photo of a little boy jumping over the bodies and running away which had been mistakenly shown in the news about Houleh once, and been attributed to Syria, before the real photos came out. This was the place where the tragedy had happened. The driver explained that Halabja had two parts, old and new, the bad and the good part. Then we came upon another checkpoint and were stopped again by the Peshmerge. Again, I had to show my passport. The soldier asked the driver where I was going. He said, to the Iranian border. The soldier turned to me, gave me a sharp long look from his black eyes and said, I sould come out of the car. I had to follow him in to the police station. He gestured that I should sit down on a couch, while he sat at the desk, leafing through my passport. "Do you speak Kurdish?" he said, "Kurdi?" "La", I said, no . "Arabi?" "Qalilan"- a little. He looked at me from under his dark brows. "Ism?" - What is your name? I told him . "What is your profession?" "Are you married? Where is your husband? Do you have children? What is the name of your child?" "Where are you going?" "To Panjwin, and then to Iran." "Why do you want to go to Iran?" "I have friends there. And I have a flight ticket from Tehran." "Tell me the names of your friends. Where do they live in Iran?" I told him. I told him the name of my Kurdish friend. The other officer seemed to say:"What kind of a name is that?" and the soldier explained that it was a form of some other name they knew which seemed to appease him somewhat. Then I told him the name of my friends in Tehran. How I knew them. He asked, if the man was a doctor, I said, no, an engineer. He seemed satisfied. Then he leafed through my passport again, shook his head and muttered:"Look at all these Turkish visas she got, she has been there so many times..." Then he got up from behind his desk, my passport in hand, walked around it and came towards me and sat down next to me on the couch. He stared me deeply into the eyes and snarled:"Shughl!"-Tell me your profession. I clenched my jaw, ruffled my brows, and resolutely took my passport from his hands. Leafed through it, opened the page with my Syrian visa. "See this visa?" I said. "This is from the embassy of Syria. Here it states my profession, in Arabic!" and held the open passport under his nose. He read it and after a few minutes decided to let me go.
We got into the car again. Drove for 15 minutes, another checkpoint. The driver stopped. "Where are you going?" the soldiers wanted to know, kalashnikovs strung over their shoulders. They looked at me with curiosity, in the semi dark of the car. "To the Iranian border." "Where did she come from?" "Duhok." "Why didn't she take the airplane from Erbil?" Exasperated , I rolled my eyes. Is this so f...g unusual to be a woman in a car in the night, driving towards the Iranian border? Was this place of such ill repute that people chose to fly across it? Was this nothing but a smugglers route, used by the odd Kurdish tourist? The driver explained something, they tipped their hats, and we were off again.
Then we approached the border. By now it was 1.30am, and I wonder if the border guards would be there at all . They were not in the building where I had received my visa for Kurdistan before, but instead in the back of the building. The driver and I walked down a long hallway to find them. Again I had to explain that I wanted to go to Iran, and after some checking they gave me an exit stamp. But then the officer came out with my driver to our car and said:"You cannot go there without hijab. You have to change your clothes, can you do that?" I opened my suitcase, took out a sscarf, put it on. They looked at me quizzically. "You can't go like that, you have to cover yourself completely!"  Appafrently my long blouse was still too tight, the sleeves only reached below the elbows. I took out a loose long orange Indian shirt, pulled it over my blouse, and I was covered in two layers now, down to my wrists and half way down to my knees. They said, this was ok now, and I should take my suitcase and go over to the Iranian border post. I said goodbye toi the driver and started walking. But then they called after me:"No , wait, we have to make sure..." They came after me, and shouted for the Iranian border guards to come out and meet them. All the guards gathered oin the middle of the bridge that led across the river between the two countries. The Iranians looked at my passport. "It is ok", they said . "Mush mushkila?" the Kurdish Iraqis asked, incredulously? "Really? No problem?" "Mush mushkila" the Iranians said, "She can come" The Iraqis smiled happy smiles of relief, the driver waved at me, and they walked back into the dark. I entered the Iranian border post. In here it was warm, the officers looked well groomed, graceful, slender and considerably less macho than the Iraqis. They were friendly and charming, and I felt really happy to be back in Iran, and left out a long breath of relief.
And indeed there was a bus, waiting, at this ungodly hour, to take us all to Marivan town and Sanandaj and the bus was full, too. Suddenly I was surrounded by Kurds who all wanted to invite me into their home in Marivan, to get some rest, have tea, get some sleep, before I go to Sanandaj. But I knew that my friend was waiting for me. I was hours late, after the long wait in Duhok, the interrogation and near- arrest in Halabja, and texted him with the phone credit he had kindly sent me that I would arrive at some time before 4 and 5 in the morning. Again! Like in Tehran, I had to rely heavily on the kindness and tolerance of my Iranian friend to come out and meet me, the lone traveller, at some crazy hour, to take me to his home.

 

Duhok and Lalish, Iraqi Kurdistan, in the middle of nowhere

  Duhok , Iraq

Unknown female tourist in the middle of nowhere, asking to go further

After Sulaymaniye and Irbil (described after this) I took a taxi from the Irbil "garaj" to Duhok, The driver was yet another bullish Iraqi, with mustache, gray stubble on his balding head and  long curled black hair on arms, chest and probably most everywhere else, a sporty car and an authoritarian attitude. His first act was to loudly tell me to stop smoking when I lit a cigarette, the second, when he caught me softly singing along Islamic lyrics with Maher Zain in my earphones, to demand that I hand over my iPod and share my music with everybody in the car. His big hand was held open next to my thigh and obediently I removed my earphones and handed over my music. He plugged his cable into my iPod, connected it to the car stereo and soon, with "Paradise" blasting out of the speakers, we were zipping along the gravelly highway towards the Northwest of Iraqi Kurdistan. He smirked. The three young Iraqis in jeans in the back seemed quite happy with the soothing swinging rhythms of the Arabic song. I felt them grinning after they found out what I had been listening to. 

The only thing they did not like among my music collection were kurmanci songs, probably because they were speakers of Sorani Kurdish or Arabic  and could not understand. 

We arrived in Duhok after dusk, at around 8pm, and the driver offered to drop me off at my hotel, after getting my phone number ("Call me if you need any help"). The Parlaman hotel , whether named after politics or the cigarette brand or something unknown, seemed past it's glory days. Described in Lonely Planet guide as "fast becoming THE backpacker hotel in all of Iraq" , it now seemed deserted, the poster they said was in the lobby, of GWB shaking hands with the Kurdish president , was gone, and I felt like I was the only tourist in the whole hotel, and probably in this whole little town. The man in the lobby spoke English, gave me the keys to my dead-cheap room (14$ for two , with shower, since there was no single) but he was soon to be replaced  by two young Kurds taking turns in shifts, who did not speak a word of English. Nor much Arabic, it seemed. It meant, they did not even understand my question about breakfast. "Fil Sabah, kam zaman al fatour,  min fadlak?" was all I could muster in my failing miserable Arabic repertory, but to no avail. "Fatour" was an unknown word in these realms, and produced only uncomprehending looks, making me wonder if I had it right. "Fatour is breakfast, hesap is bill, fatoura is also bill, not to be confused with fatoush which is a Syrian salad , isn't it? Isn't it? Why the hell does he not understand fatour if he is working in an Iraqi hotel? Is there any other word? Damn!" I was wrecking my brain, and resigned myself to eating in the restaurant. There did not seem to be a dining room in this tiny hotel anyway. 

It was badly constructed. The stairs were barely wide enough to drag up my suitcase and it took some coaxing to get the second young man from the reception to do it for me. My request was met with incredulity, but he did not protest when I insisted to be served by this sullen chubby lad. "This is certainly not Syria, where everyone is a gentleman and readily comes to assist a lady in distress" I thought, "oh well". Maybe they rarely see any women arriving here, much less on their own, like me. More misconstruction in my room. The window led out to a roof full of rubble and a water tank, and the toilet bowl was too shallow while the water pressure was too high. Every time I flushed, the water splashed all over the bathroom floor, which was thankfully tiled and had a drain, so it was always followed by passing the shower head over the entire bathroom floor to wash up. Appalling, but this is what I got.  The shower was next to the toilet, and I had to place my cosmetics out into the corridor in front of the door, or they would get all wet every time I showered. The bed had only one sheet and a woolen blanket, so I was glad I had two beds, and could pull the sheet off the other bed and use it as a cover. It was hot. 

I managed to find a restaurant across the Main Street, a minute from the hotel, and there i pointed to an image on the luncheon mat, and ordered kebab. Then I went back, and spent an hour in the lobby, sharing cigarette smoke with the young silent receptionist, and using his wifi to tell the world where i was. Then i went to sleep in my tiny room. It was simple but it felt safe, more or less. Even though I wondered where that rubbled roof terrace in front of my window led to. 

The next morning I went to the same restaurant for breakfast. Now an older man was there who slipped me his phone number, surreptitiously, asked me to call him and said, my breakfast was free. I said ok , thanked him and did not. In the evening I defiantly went back to the same restaurant, ate more kebab, at a discount this time, promised to call him in five minutes and did not. The next morning, when he started to complain, I told him:"I just want to eat in your restaurant" and he gave in. I am sure these men get turned down 50 times a year, they are used to it, and hardly expect otherwise. Though they take their chances with western women, and I was intent on proving them wrong about western women. 

I would, however, gladly have let down my defenses and misstepped with the cute handsome sun glassed young taxi driver the hotel guy arranged for me, but this guy did not ask,and neither did I. He just drove, in silence, keeping his long, jeans clad slender legs spread casually and held down the accelerator, he too spoke neither English nor Arabic.  He took me on a long tour into the mountains. I had bargained him down by 25% simply by hesitating and not asking the hotel guy to call back immediately, after hearing his price . After 10 minutes he offered a cheaper price, which was still disproportionately high compared to the hotel and the food, but this seemed to be the case in all middle eastern countries I have visited. 

I asked him to take me to Lalish. They knew where it was, at least, here in Duhok, and yet, he missed a turn and had to backtrack, it seemed, he rarely went there or maybe had never been there himself, before. Lalish is the sacred village of the Yezidi, a religious sect that is considered heretic by the others. Yezidism seems to be an ancient religion , a missing link between Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. They worship nature, the sun, moon and stars , fire and the fallen angel. In their belief shaytan is not the devil but the highest of the angels who bows only before God, not before man. He was thrown out of heaven for this, and spends his time crying and longing to go back. They worship the black snake

that stuck its head into a leak in Noah's ark and saved it from sinking. They  worship Tavuz , the peacock god-man, who spreads his tail and shows the whole beauty of the world. There was a painting of an Indian girl in a saree on their wall, holding a peacock on her hand. She reminded me of Saraswati , the Indian goddess of music, math and intelligence.

 

 

When we arrived at the village, a delegation from a Kurdish party was there , meeting their sheikh. I got out of the taxi and soon after the reception provided me with a free English speaking guide who showed me around and explained their customs and rituals. He was a school teacher. Afterwards we had lunch together, cooked by the women of the village, but when I asked him to invite my waiting driver, he told me that these drivers never accept their food and will not even touch their tea. It seemed, the Yezidis were treated as outcasts , and it saddened me. This peaceful little village, made of old, light brown clean swept stone, overhung by green vines and climbers, where everyone had to tread barefoot on the sacred earth,

 

how could they be ostracized as devil worshippers for praying to their crying peacock angel who refused to bow to man? Did not the Kurds who had been outcast by everyone around them have enough sympathy not to outcast their own? But this was the way it was. The Sunni Muslim drivers did not touch their tea. It could not be helped. He did not ask and we ate alone, just the two of us.

Then he took me to another room, to interview me for their website, and made me tell him what I knew about Yezidi and what I had learned now, after he had told me about their faith. It will appear one day on www.lalishduhok.com 

 

 

I walked down the sacred path with him, put on my shoes, and met my waiting driver. Then we went to Amediye, the walled town on a flat mountain top. I took many photos, but of course could not convey all it's unique beauty, which can only be done from the air above by plane.

 

We drove back to Duhok in almost silence, his stereo playing the same Mazyar Fallahi song I had in my iPod , Iranian pop. "Maybe this is why this guy is such a gentle soul, he listens to Iranian songs, who knows where he is from? " I thought to myself but did not ask. 

He dropped me off at my hotel, I braced myself for another dinner in the restaurant of the man who I had not called, spent my last evening with iraqi henna on my hair, and uploaded my photos. 

The next day I checked out, refused to walk to the garaj and took a taxi as I did not want to drag my suitcase down to street and get lost in a town where almost nobody spoke a language I could understand. 

It took me over an hour to find a car, at last I worked up the courage to complain in this room full of mustached aging macho men and the fierce looking manager who kept barking into his phone in Kurdish. It turned out, the problem was that I had asked for a taxi to Sulaymaniye where noone else was headed, and all I needed to do was change my destination to Irbil first of all, and a car was prodiced after five minutes, that　I could share with a man from Baghdad who told me on the way that he was one of the Christians still living there after so many others had left, as they kept being attacked by terrorists in locales that served wine. It took almost three hours to get to Irbil, and from there I headed back to Sulaymaniye and on to the border of Iran. But this is the stuff of another tale.   

Crossing into Iraqi Kurdistan - via Marivan and Panjwin from Iran, the way almost nobody takes

http://www.gomapper.com/travel/where-is/panjwin-located.html

After a lonesome breakfast in a men's cafe in Sanandaj where it seemed like I arrived first and was served last and had no idea how to complain about that as my Farsi was so limited, I paid the grinning, blue eyed, friendly Kurd of my cheap hotel where all the rooms' wondows seemed to be facing the hallway instead of the street, took my suitcase and left.
A Kurdish friend had booked a bus ticket for me and now I bravely took a taxi to the terminal, not sure what to expect from this day...
The man at the desk of the bus company demanded to see my passport and printed me a ticket from his computer, and we waited on this chilly morning for the bus for Sulaymaniye, Iraq, to arrive, a  small motly group of people seated on a bench, all Kurdish except for me, the only foreigner. And  then we were off, on our way to the border. I got a seat by myself but soon the young man from behind my seat asked if he could join me. His English was limited, and rather odd, but he kept trying to keep up a conversation with me and asked me one question after another, even though I could barely understand him.
We drove North and the bus headed int the mountains. Not quite as spectacular as driving directly through Howraman vally as I did two years ago, but still, spectacular enough. My Kurdish friend sent me sms saying, we would see a beautiful lake. We drove by it and the man next to me explained that the lake had a high sugar content. "Shirin, do you understand?" he said. Shirin means sweet in Persian, I knew that, but what was he trying to say? Exasperated, I texted my friend for an explanation, and he told me that the lake's water was pure and drinkable, and came from many springs at the bottom of the lake.
Finally, the bus took a turn to the left, passing through a small town where we stopped. I managed to buy some juice, with my poor Persian which consisted of a few words and a handful of phrases now, and plenty of gesturing.
After that we approached the border, and then a long, tedious and complicated process started, getting out of the country. At first our passports were checked. But we did not get any stamps, apparently this first check was just to take a look, to see whether we had the necessary papers or something.
After that we all had to get off the bus, take our luggage and line up and wait, in the heat, on the road that led past a booth. The process was very slow.  Finally it was my turn. The immigration officer opened my passport.
"Where is your visa for Iraq?" he asked. "My visa for Iraq...?" In my mind I remembered that silly phone call to the Iraqi embassy where some Chinese sounding woman explained to me in rude broken English that nobody ever travels to Iraq and tourist visas do not exist, and if I did not believe her, I should send a fax and ask her superior to call me back the next day.
"Yes, where is it?" he demanded to know, "you don't seem to have one in your passport?"
"I don't have a visa for Iraq, I don't need a visa, I am just going to Kurdistan..." I said helplessly.
"You go back to Iran!" he told me.
My guts heaved and contracted. "But...I don't need a visa! I can get two weeks at the border, I am European!" I protested.  He looked at me. Then he stamped my passport with an exit stamp and gave it back. "You go Iraq" he said, and waved me away, with an air as if I was now entering at my own responsibility and was likely to end up being stuck between two countries. Timidly I walked on, filled with anxiety and desperately hoping that what I had read on websites was true, that the rumour about the law changed was untrue, and that the Kurdish officers would accept me with my EU citizenship as a visitor for 14 days. If even the Iranian border guards did not know of this possibility? Next I was pointed toward another small building that looked a bit like a luggage deposit, and here I was asked if  I spoke Kurdish. No. Arabic? A little. The man started talking to me in a hard rough Arabic dialect that seemed totally incomprehensible, I did not recognise a single word or anything that even sounded much like Arabic. I was being asked to open my suitcase, I knew that, but what else, I have not the slightest idea.

The officer seemed satisfied and now I was pointed towards another building, 200m away. I wandered  down the dusty path with my suitcase. Here I lined up again, among a crowd of people crowding in front of an open door. Nothing happened for a long time. I looked around.I seemed to have lost all fellow passengers from my Iranian bus,  and was alone among strangers. Again, the only person who was neither Iranian, Kurd nor Arab, and, naturally, the only woman traveling alone. I decided not to give this any further thought, as I had once been shocked about being left behind without my luggage at the Syrian border near Tripoli, only to discover that my bus had driven 100m down the road where it was waiting for me to finish my border procedures. I was sure, our bus driver was doing the same. 

A man in uniform came out of the building, took my passport and a few others and disappeared inside. I wondered if they would process our visas without even looking at us? I waited. Time passed. Everyone stood in the sun, nothing happened. Finally, I was told to come inside, sit down in a row with others along the walls. In front of us 5 windows, of which one or two were occupied. The officers seemed to be on break. They talked to each other but not to us. After what seemed like 30 minutes or more, the officer finally pulled out my passport from under a pile of others and called me to the window. "What is your name? ...What is your father's name? You want to go to Iraq?" "Yes." "What do you want to do in Iraq?"  I shrugged my shoulders. "Turist" , I said, trying to sound as convincing as possible, still feeling low rumbling in my guts.  He leafed through my passport, like the Iranian officer had done, forwards and backwards. Then he stopped, read some of the visas . I waited, nervously . At last, he reached across his desk and with a heavy, determined "clonk" put a stamp into my passport. I exhaled, my shoulders dropped. "Oh my God, thank you, I am in!" I thought . He handed me back my passport. The stamp had Arabic and English which said:"You have to report to directorate of Residence within 15 days". I picked up my suitcase and ran to the nearest toilet. My churning, trembling guts now exploded with the huge relief of having it made past the authorities after arriving at the border of Kurdistan, Iraq without a visa, not being interrogated as a suspected spy, smuggler, journalist and whatnot on either side. OOOOOF!!

I now started looking for my bus, realising, I did not even really remember what it looked like, what company it was...I was kicking myself inside for not even memorising the name on the bus, but I found it. It was standing, among other buses, down that dusty road from the border booth. And it was empty, noone was there. I wondered how after all this time, I could be the first one to have gotten through the controls? There were two three other people, from other buses. Somebody brought bottle of water from somewhere and I begged him to give me some. It seemed like another hour until one of them showed up, and more time, until they were all there. Just like on the Turkish side, we seemed to spend the major part of this trip just hanging around at the border, waiting, even though it was not even very crowded.

At last the bus started driving, and we entered a green, mountainous area, and then my phone lost contact with Iran, and I was, once again, without a sim card I could use .

　

Yazd- Zoroaster and the desert stop for travellers like you have never met before

In both September 2011 and 2013 I went to Yazd, the city in the desert, located on the Silk Road, and home and refuge of what are probably some of the last remnants of Zoroastrianism, though this old religion is closer to the heart of many an Iranian than meets the eye. Ask them and you will find out...Iranians were forced by Arab invaders to give up this faith and convert to Islam, and now Islam is even official in the Islamic republic Iran has become after the revolution .
The Shah forbid the Zoroastrians from performing Zoroastrian burial rites, saying they had to change this in order to become a modern country, and he also forced the muslim women to remove their hijab. Ayatollah Khomeini forced the Iranian women to put the hijab back on, give up their mini skirts and wear a tchador over their clothes in the street. Somehow, what women wear seems terribly important in being closer to God or closer to modern times, or so some politicans and clerics would have us believe. I personally am convinced that God (or whoever is out there watching over me) does not give a damn what I wear. Yet, I comply with the Iranian laws and dutifully dress up in long tunics, and drape a scarf around my hair, and I also think, it looks quite pretty and also provides some protection from the intense sunshine.
Yet, also to me, the foreign visitor, Yazd and it's surroundings is the closest to my heart, and Zoroastrianism feels like something I could believe in and get used to, and I also am sure, our old Germanic religion carries certain elements from it.
One more reason, apart from my fascination with the fire temple and Chakchak, the Zoroastrian sacred sanctuary in the desert, that I keep returning to Yazd is the Silk Road Hotel .
A place looking almost like a caravanserai and with the atmosphere of one, hidden among the clay and chalk walls of the old city, behind the bazaar. Here is where all the mad people gather who feel restless at home and find peace by doing crazy things like riding a bicycle from China to Europe, choose practically unknown countries like Kyrgizistan for a vacation, the Chinese girl who wants to go to Armenia because this is one of the few places she can get a visa for, the young man from Georgia (Russian Georgia) who arrived here by hitchhiking through Kurdistan, the couple who are both environmental engineers who are asking whether the road through Yuksekova or Dogubeyazit is flatter to ride their bicycles into Turkey, the Australian who has been to countries I have never even heard of and humbles me with his travel tales, the Italian who is writing his doctorate about water politics and wants to see the channels by which water is transported from Esfahan to Yazd....and me, who always seems to get the same single room in the left back corner of the second courtyard....

In the middle of the Silk Road Hotel there is a leafy courtyard with a blue fountain pool and flowers and Green . There is a raised platform with benches, tables, kilim cushions and Arabic paintings on the wall. There is a menu with delicious food that offers plenty of choices other than the eternal kebab, and also Indian curries and homemade pomegranate and watermelon juice. When there is nothing to do one can hang out here in the reasonably cool shade all day,enjoying the wifi, having conversation with the most unusual world ttravellers you will ever find, exchange experiences, advise and get advice where to go and what to do next...And then there are the tours...camel tours into the desert to watch the sunset, early morning tours to drive to Chakchak, Kasavargh the abandoned desert village, Maybod and it's museums and monuments made from adobe...I never tire of Yazd, this is one place in Iran that makes me feel at home away from home...
and then there was the walk through the old city I took one afternoon, exploring the old allys between the adobe houses, the arcades near the bazaar, trying to find Alexander's prison and Rukneddin's tomb and wondering whether I should wake up Yazdis from their slumber in the heat so I could climb on top of their roof and enjoy the view, as the sign on their shop offered...
And then there is the fire temple, Atesh kadeh in Farsi, and Silent towers, the funeral hills outside the city that belonged to the Zoroastrian faith. I went out here one night and as I walked back I looked up into the sky and saw a meteor, a falling star floating in a great arch through the sky and exploding into shining pieces...

 

Farsi notes

Farsi notes

I go  raftu

 I am going   Miravan

I want to go mikhaham (ke) bear am

I want to go be istgah otobus to the bus stop

                                             Gatar to the train station 

Sunshine. Aftab

Moonlight. Mahtab

Shadow. Sayeh

Teshne. Thirsty

Goshne. Hungry 

Mi khan am chili bokloram. I want to eat something

Mikhoram. I am eating

I want to drink something. Mi khan am chili benusham 

Nush! Prost!

Nushejan! Guten appetite

The. Food is very tasty.  Ghaza kheyli khoshmaze ast.

Taste. Mazeh

 The house is beautiful. Kane ghashang / Ziba ast

Traditional restaurant. Sofrekhane

Directions:st

Straight mustaghim 

Chap left

Right rast

Balance up

Payin down

Biya berin beravim.  let's go

How chegune 

What Che 

Shoji

Where Koja 

Wohin be Koja 

Who're az Koja 

Ich komme aus Deutschland  man az alman umadan 

I want to go to Yazd . Man khan am be Yazd beravam.

The sun gorshid

Moon mah 

Happiness shadi 

Farsi gerefti.-  Did you learn Farsi? 

Kam Farsi baladam. - I know a little Farsi 

Hamas cheez  khob ast.- Everything is alright.

• Farsi notes 2
  
  now I write you farsi too=alan be farsi ham minevisam
• yes I can help you=bale man mitavanam be shoma komak konam
•  I checked this weblog=man in weblog ra check kardam
• there are some miswritings =chand neveshteye eshtebah ham vojood darad

you know farsi alphabet? =shoma horoofe farsi ra mishnasid?
man horoofe arabi ra mishnasam= I know the Arabic alphabet.
 

bale,,horoof haman alefba hast: Yes, the script is the same like the Arabic alphabet?

 

·        alan= now

·         minevisam= I write
neveshtan = to write
 neveshtam = wrote

·        mitavanam=can?

·         komak konam= help?

 

·         man horoofe arabi ra mishnasam

horoofe= alphabet?

mishnasid= you know- how is that different from gerefti?

• neveshtan=to write
• Komak only)=help
•  can do=mitavanam anjam daham
•  kardam=did
• chand=how much
•  eshtebah=wrong
• bale,,horoof haman alefba hast: Yes, the script is the same like the Arabic alphabet?

how is that=chetori hast?

do you take?=gerefti?

kheyli khubi hast ama man bishtor mikhaham = Very good but I want more

Man dar chayhaneh hastam= I am in a café

Dar=in

Man yokohama hastam= I am in Yokohama

Man daram, to dari, ou dare= I have, you have, he/she has

Fahmidam= I understand