Hilabja was a key town for Saddam’s army to overrun as it forced the Peshmerga back into the mountains. Saddam’s Al-Anfal campaign, of which Hilabja was a part, is thought to have slaughtered 100,000 Kurdish residents of Iraq and destroyed thousands of villages. Said another way, this crime against humanity was genocide. Saddam’s preferred approach was to use nerve gas.
Dubba became pensive. He talked to Hemin, and it sounded like they were making new plans.
“Mr. Rick, he said. “I want to see an old friend. He is not well. We fought together in these wars. He lives in a village we can visit.”
An hour further into the remote countryside, we navigated a potholed road to a tiny village.
Dubba got out of the car and walked about, asking after his friend. Those he met pointed up a road, and Dubba continued walking as we followed him in the car. I got out, thinking to accompany him on the walk, and then realized I might spoil the reunion. But it was too late to get back in the vehicle, so I made sure to stay a respectful distance behind Dubba.
A man appeared on the road. Behind him a neighbor steered him our way. He looked older than Dubba, and I could see in his hesitant steps and orientation that he was not well. Dubba had offered me no details beyond their comradeship. I confess I had an unwillingness to ask, knowing they’d battled evil together.
Iraq has always been a conundrum for me. A constructed, artificial country held together by tyranny until gifted with democracy, a system peculiar to the surroundings and fraught with instability and abuse. While many observers lack the confidence to call Iraq’s central government “democratic,” it is also apparent that many Iraqis (other than the Kurds) do not view the new setup as a gift. I knew little about Iraq’s Kurdistan before arriving, save for it being an ambitious state, one continually “emerging from” but never “arriving at.” I had read of Kurdish victories against Saddam Hussein, and now I stood next to two men who had fought to make them happen. Standing alongside living embodiments of the struggle, Kurdistan and Iraq were changing from merely visual placeholders on the printed map to a very real sense of emotion and respect I could feel inside me.
“Be kher bi!” the man exclaimed.
“Rozh-bash!” Dubba responded. They embraced.
I stood back until Dubba turned my way and explained to his friend why I had come along. His compatriot shook my hand. They fell into conversation and I backed away from them, and from any sense of Iraq I had previously held. In this corner of the country were stories of brutality and humility, of desperation and destruction, depicting a powerful legacy of Kurdish bravery.
We were in a remote part of a remote land. The surroundings gave me a feeling of both continued poverty and consistent optimism. There were not many people as I walked the length of the village, but those I saw went about their daily chores with a firm resolve. With the exception of our vehicle’s presence, this site had likely not changed since the war years; buildings were tired and dry looking, and gardens appeared difficult to tend. Nothing was new. I was struck with the sense that these people put one foot in front of the other on life’s long walk, never hoping for too much, so they could not be disappointed. They’d known unfathomable difficulties, painful separations from family and community. They knew about starvation and fear. Now, with relative peace, they could see this day as a good one, without making any assumptions that tomorrow would be as well.
“Mr. Rick.” It was Hemin calling me back to the car. I looked over at Dubba and his friend. Two men, whose lives had pitted them against unbeatable odds which they’d beaten, were bidding farewell.
We were in the Zagros Mountains, a rugged range nine hundred miles north to south, forming a border between Iran and Iraq. These mountains carry one particular story from far beyond today, beyond the 1980s, beyond most of recorded history.
It is said that Mount Nisir, in the Zagros range, is another possible resting place for Noah’s Ark.
Well away from the Tigris River, near Sulimaniyah and about three hundred miles from Mount Ararat, are foothills that lead to what was once named Mount Nisir (or Mount Nimush), where the Epic of Gilgamesh tells us that Utnapishtim moored his ship after the flood began to recede. The names mean “Mount of Salvation.” Today the mountain, which has an elevation of nine thousand feet, is often known as Pir Omar Gudrun.
The Zagros Mountains are steep and often treeless, exposing the rock strata. We drove into them on a winding road and pulled over for a lookout. I could see the Mesopotamia of old reaching for the horizon.
Driving alongside a narrow river on our way back to Sulimaniyah, Huner took a sharp pull and stopped beside the road. The river below us trickled at a creek’s pace. The water argued its way around rocks, creating white foam before breaking into a deeper calm. We walked a path along the waterway, and peacefulness set in. For twenty minutes we did not talk. I imagined my companions pondering all that had occurred in these mountains, of battles won and lost, and the elusive truce.
The main road in Sulimaniyah branched in two as we returned to the city. We took the street dominated by auto parts shops, used goods stores, and shops offering fresh produce.
“You should have lunch, Mr. Rick.” Dubba must have noticed my fatigue.
“I don’t see any place to eat,” I said. “Besides, you’re not eating and I’d prefer to observe your Ramadan.”
Dubba pointed to a closed shop. “There, across the street.”
Parts of Kurdish Iraq convey a sense of modern ambitions, though many places on the author’s drives, such as this thatched barn and out-buildings in a small farm yard—still evoke centuries-old agricultural and living practices.
I protested. “Ramadan. I don’t see a place for food.”
“Behind the curtain,” he insisted. “There is a hidden entrance. That respects Ramadan, because it is not on open display. Go. One of us will come for you later.”
I walked across the street, indeed hungry. Intrigued, I lifted the corner of a dusty and dirty white sheet that hung over the entrance to a building. Behind it was a door, ajar. From within came the smell of grilled meat.
“Hello,” I said, tentatively, to the first person I saw in the room, and noticed it was crowded. Twenty men seated at their meals went quiet and looked my way. The setting was reminiscent of a speakeasy during prohibition. I was too obviously Western to be an investigator looking for non-compliance with Ramadan. If they were worried about being discovered, that concern was not evident, as they soon turned back to their meals.
“Come here. I will set you up.” The manager swerved between the seat backs that made for a narrow passage. I walked sideways to move through the artificial aisle. The patrons pulled their chairs in to let me by, and when we were on the other side of the room I was given a table for four to myself.
“There is beef. There is pasta. Rice, of course. Vegetables cooked on the stove, not boiled. It is as I learned to cook in New York.” All this came from the man who had seated me. It was not a list of menu options; it was what would be served.
My only choice was what to drink.
“Orange soda? Coca-Cola?”
“Coke, please.”
The meal was filling and tasty, and had a spice I’d not encountered before. Around me, men ate in a humble defiance—Muslims breaking Ramadan without feeling guilty, acknowledging their need for sustenance without wanting to publically flaunt religious prerogatives.
Huner came along later and sat with me, but he did not even have a coffee.
“You should walk off that lunch,” Dubba said as we drove away from the restaurant. I knew they had eaten nothing, and wondered from where they drew their energy. We parked high up on a road in the forest. I could hear carnival noises echoing from above. Walking up, we entered a festival set-up of booths filled with toys and hats and barren food kiosks. Hardly anyone was there. “It is empty now, but full at night. So busy you can’t move.”
The footboards we walked on turned into a bridge over raging water. The Bekhal
Falls torrent plunged from a source high above and tumbled down on top of massive boulders, pockmarked with cup-size hollows that had been smoothed out over the centuries.
The author’s three Iraq travel friends: Huner and Hemin of the Jabbar family, and Dubba.
Hundreds of feet above us, the river roared over and around a horde of rocks, some having been broken apart and wedged mid-stream, green moss covering many of them. The waterfall was a hundred feet across. A tree shot out of the cascade, dividing its tumultuous streams. “That wouldn’t be seen back home,” I shouted above the thundering waters, pointing. Two small children were crossing the waterfall. How had they gotten out there? The only way I could see would have been jumping over two-foot-wide rushes of water or using stepping-stones hidden under the powerful current.
One boy stood below the tree, poised to leap over a cascade to where his friend already stood on the only available perch, a slippery rock.
“Wonder where their parents are …” I said, looking around.
“There.” Dubba pointed to a middle-aged father straddling the rocks farther down the falls, his butt resting against one to steady the hands that held a camera.
Traveling back down into Erbil that evening, we were subject to several military checkpoints. Security seemed to be on heightened alert, and the soldiers never hurried when it was our turn for inspection. At the third interruption there was a protracted discussion between the officer and Dubba. Words passed quickly between Dubba and Hemin, then Dubba and Huner, and back to Dubba through his opened window to the guard.
Dubba looked at me. “Mr. Rick, he wants your passport. Now.”
I gave it up and listened to the Kurdish debate escalate between Dubba and the guard. The guard walked away with my passport, showed it to a fellow sentry, and returned to my window, holding up the passport photo for comparison. He flipped my passport closed. Then open. Then closed. He stared at the cover and blurted a question. Dubba responded with a flood of words, during which I heard him say “USA.”
Finally, the guard passed back my passport and waved us through. Dubba said something in Kurdish to Hemin and Huner, and they laughed.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“When I gave him your passport, he told me he doesn’t know where Canada is. He said that your passport is no good. I tried to explain Canada. He didn’t understand. Finally I told him you are from USA. That is why he let us through.”
Chastised, I told them, “We travel with a certain smugness about our Canada passport. It obviously didn’t have any cachet here.” Though Canada took a strong role in both world wars and the Korean War, it is a country that mostly aims to avoid conflict; indeed the concept of the United Nations “peacekeeping” force was the brainchild of a Canadian prime minister, Lester Pearson, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Canada’s is a favorable passport to offer up during an introduction. The country’s flag is a backpack emblem that helps travelers get hitched rides that those wearing other flags perhaps wouldn’t. Here though, Dubba explained, the opposite was true.
“Here, in northern Iraq,” he said, “Kurdistan exists because of the United States. Saddam Hussein killed us, for many years. That Saddam has disappeared is because of Bush the son. He and USA are liked in Kurdistan.”
Dinner at Taha’s father’s home was a spectacle, all under his step-mother’s orchestration. The feast was a buffet of grandmother’s age-old recipes. With her in the kitchen preparing the food were the women of the extended family. Taha’s father was distinguished-looking and solemn as he led the men from the sitting room to where we would dine. The men all sat cross-legged on the floor around a rectangular carpet as the meal arrived via a constant march of young women from the kitchen. A few boys helped with the larger platters and when they were done serving, they sat with the men to have dinner. The girls and women would spend time cooking, serving the men, beginning the cleanup, or—as service intervals allowed—eating, in the kitchen; none joined us.
“Nositanbe!” said one of the men, the Kurdish version of Bon appetit!
Dinner at the home of Taha’s parents was comfortable in every way. The rooms were spacious and nicely furnished. The men, seated on the floor with Father at the head of a carpet of food, were served a menu steeped in tradition, complemented by colored soda waters, teas, and coffee.
Dubba was my culinary tour guide, ensuring that I moved beyond the rice dish and wispy bread. In a land where neither beer nor wine is commonly served, and water is plentiful, the treat drinks were dark cola or the bottles of orange soda, sometimes a sparkling lemon drink. Bottles of each popped their heads above the serving dishes on the carpeted floor.
“Mr. Rick, do you know these foods?”
“Some from last night and before. Most I’ve never tasted, never seen.”
“All is traditional. You know, Taha’s mother and other women have cooked this feast because you visit.”
“I wish they’d join us for the meal,” I said.
“They would, if you stayed longer, but you are new guest to them, Mr. Rick.”
He pointed and explained. “That, with peppers, potatoes, is with a sauce from tomatoes and other vegetable. It is tapsi. The broth is good for dipping the pide in, that thick crust bread.”
I could see onions peeking through chilies and green peppers with naan rolled to hold it all together. “Dolma,” Dubba called it. “The bread is from their old oven. It is clay.” Then he snickered. “The oven is clay, not the bread.”
15 For anyone who has ever loaned a book and not had it returned, or lost it through the neglect of others, consider Ashurbanipal’s posted notice to anyone thinking to borrow from his library: “May all these gods curse anyone who breaks, defaces, or removes this tablet with a curse which cannot be relieved, terrible and merciless as long as he lives, may they let his name, his seed be carried off from the land, and may they put his flesh in a dog’s mouth.”
16 An assault on artifacts begun as profitable looting and black market selling turned to purging and destruction in 2015. Having destroyed collections in the Mosul Museum, ISIS militants bulldozed into Nimrud to rid it of deities worshipped rather than Allah. By April they were tumbling over antiquities, sledgehammering ancient Assyrian ruins, and exploding ninth-century relief sculptures, forever hindering our understanding of those times and peoples.
SEVENTEEN
KURDISH LANDS
“Be sure this land of nowhere will expel
All those who seek a chance outlandish spell.”
—Gavin Maxwell, A Reed Shaken by the Wind
The night before, Hemin had said it would be best if we rose early, at 4:00 a.m. He wanted us on the road shortly thereafter. The route back to Turkey would lead close to, but not into, Mosul, then north through Dohuk, to the Iraqi border town of Zakho. It would be a two and a half hour trip, and they had to return to Erbil once they dropped me off. I had argued—well, “put forth”—that they could send me there by other means, as I was already the beneficiary of a great amount of fuel and companionship. But the three of them were set on taking me. Our inseparable foursome would become three the moment they delivered me to the Iraq–Turkey border, but not before.
I was sitting up in my bed, trying to fully wake up, when there was a tap on the door. “Soon,” said a man’s voice. When I entered the sitting room, Ali was in his chair, working his beads as he’d done every time I’d been with him. It was a ritual I’d come to admire. I understood it was not fidgeting but an observance to ease his mind and deliver a mantra. He cherished those beads and relied on them for serenity and confidence.
When resting in his thoughts, Ali left his mouth ever so slightly open, his tongue pressing to the inside of his upper lips. He was doing that when one of the sons brought us tea and honey, along with the bread and cheese. Ali, because it was still before dawn, ate with me this morning.
We spoke in our own languages. Our words were few. He remained his stoic self; tomorrow morning he would be here.
Where would I be? I wondered how I appeared to him. Had time with me in his home, in his land, met his expectations of a brother’s friend? I realized that when I’d arrived in Iraq, I’d simply wanted safe passage in a country of complex circumstances. I’d hoped that my concerns about traveling here could be dismissed once I arrived. Ali, his family, and his country had indeed accomplished that.
Ali, Taha’s older brother, is the linchpin in an extended family of relatives and friends, most living in Erbil. A calm face often conveyed the seriousness of his role, but here, his smile of confidence and experience broke through.
I heard Dubba’s car pull up. It was time to leave. I’d been quiet so as not to wake the rest of the household.
Ali stood first and stepped toward me. I rose and reached to shake his hand. Instead, he placed his beads in the palms of my hands and closed my fingers around them, holding my hands cupped in his, his grip soft yet firm. He smiled.
I moved quietly to the first floor, intending to leave without disturbing anyone. But they were all there to say goodbye. The mothers and their youngsters were in morning clothes, and the boys and young men looked ready for whatever chores awaited them. Their farewell words, even though I didn’t know exactly what they said, were clearly prayers of goodwill and safety. I wished them the same, though prayer seems more powerful than wishing. We would miss one another.
Our destination was in the northern part of Iraq: the Ibraheem Khaleel Border Complex, which oversees heavy traffic—both goods and people moving between Iraq and Turkey. A bridge there, over the Khabur River, is the border between the two countries.
“We have one hundred and twenty miles, Mr. Rick. Your last drive with us as bodyguards,” joshed Dubba. “We will leave you at the border in very uncertain hands.” He said the last part with seriousness. Hemin had already fallen asleep in the back seat, and Dubba added, “You can sleep if you wish.”
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