Dear All,
Occasionally I am inundated by golden moments and other times it will be weeks of grey before I have something to look forward to again. One of those golden moments occurred just this week. I was finished with work for the day and our driver, Peshtiwan, was giving me a ride back to the house. As I came out of the office I realized that the mountains that Sulimaniya is nestled between had been covered with snow while I sat in the office. I was enchanted. I love that first snow and didn’t get the chance to see any while I was home in the States over Christmas. Peshtiwan doesn’t speak any English and has limited Arabic. I don’t speak Kurdish and have extremely limited Arabic. He saw that I was rather excited about the “thellidge” snow in Arabic and rattled off something in Kurdish. I do what I always do and nodded agreeably. The next thing I know, he was zooming off to the road that zig zags up the mountains. That dear man decided I had been deprived of snow for long enough and took matters into his own hands. We went careening up the mountain, there is no other way to do – it’s one of those glorious roads with no guard rails, room for one and half cars and everyone is going far faster than they should be. The whole trip I sat there wiggling with joy as Peshtiwan laughed at the foreigner’s weirdness. Once we reached the top of the mountain there was about 3-4 inches on snow on the ground, more than enough to have a really decent snowball fight as I quickly proved to him. I somehow doubt that he had ever seen a girl involved in such endeavors. I rather shocked myself by having decent aim for once. I wanted to bottle that feeling for a later grey day.
For those of you that I didn’t tell before, my trip back to Iraq was rather more eventful then I would have wished. That was a mildly horrific journey. It went smoothly until I reached Istanbul where things started going wrong. After my gate number was posted on the screen I went through the final security
screening at the gate and was waiting for about two hours. I was double checking the screen for my gate number when all of the sudden in switched to "delayed for 9 hours" and the gate number changed. I
made my way to the new gate where there were a bunch of confused Iraqis in the same boat I was. An hour later I checked the screen again and we were only delayed for 2 hours. We gleefully boarded the
plane and were on our way. Around half way through the flight the captain came on the speaker and announced "They refused us in Baghdad so we are turning around for Istanbul." I didn't discover the fact
that this was caused by bad weather till I finally landed in Sulaymaniyah nearly a day later. We landed back in Istanbul and they shuttled us off to the food court as if feeding us would make it
better. They then said we would be leaving at 7 am so there would be no point in offering us hotel rooms and such. They then decided that the flight would be delayed until noon so they would be giving us a hotel for a while. I have never been so grateful for a shower my whole life and a chance to be horizontal. That was reaching a critical point as well. After all that we came back to the airport (of course we had to pay for a 20 dollar visa to leave the airport in the first place to get to the hotel) we stood in lines again to get checked in and went through security another four times. I finally ended up
getting to Sulaymaniyah around 5:30 and my house at 6 pm. My room is still a disaster of clothing, laundry and gifts but I managed to sleep through the night and I'm back to work this morning. There is a metric ton of email for me to sort through and deal with which will make life interesting for the next few days. All in all a trip worth taking though, in spite of the inconveniences.
screening at the gate and was waiting for about two hours. I was double checking the screen for my gate number when all of the sudden in switched to "delayed for 9 hours" and the gate number changed. I
made my way to the new gate where there were a bunch of confused Iraqis in the same boat I was. An hour later I checked the screen again and we were only delayed for 2 hours. We gleefully boarded the
plane and were on our way. Around half way through the flight the captain came on the speaker and announced "They refused us in Baghdad so we are turning around for Istanbul." I didn't discover the fact
that this was caused by bad weather till I finally landed in Sulaymaniyah nearly a day later. We landed back in Istanbul and they shuttled us off to the food court as if feeding us would make it
better. They then said we would be leaving at 7 am so there would be no point in offering us hotel rooms and such. They then decided that the flight would be delayed until noon so they would be giving us a hotel for a while. I have never been so grateful for a shower my whole life and a chance to be horizontal. That was reaching a critical point as well. After all that we came back to the airport (of course we had to pay for a 20 dollar visa to leave the airport in the first place to get to the hotel) we stood in lines again to get checked in and went through security another four times. I finally ended up
getting to Sulaymaniyah around 5:30 and my house at 6 pm. My room is still a disaster of clothing, laundry and gifts but I managed to sleep through the night and I'm back to work this morning. There is a metric ton of email for me to sort through and deal with which will make life interesting for the next few days. All in all a trip worth taking though, in spite of the inconveniences.
Nothing else really to report, still alive, still working and still kicking. I hope all of you are well, please do write and tell me how you’ve been getting on while I’ve been gone.
