But before I continue, a little housekeeping.
Most names of people/places I post in this and all other blogs will probably be pseudonyms. I will also not be able to be extremely specific about where I am going all the time or where I have been. This is probably a bit overcautious given how safe I have felt every second I have been here, but it is something I have been asked to do.
I can't give a perfect item-by-item list of why I am starting to love this place so much. As I was eating that sandwich, watching the crazy driving on the main street and looking around at a beautiful scene of Suly surrounded by mountains, I started to reflect. There are certainly differences, and even things that, from my cultural perspective, don't make a lot of sense. And there are so many things that I have not even begun to scratch the surface of. To act like I understand this place after (how long has it been... 4, 5 days?) would be incredibly arrogant. Still, I feel like the more time I spend in Suly the better it gets.
When you get on a bus here, you just pass up your money, and as it makes its way up the bus people change it out and give it to the driver, and your change finds its way back to you. Who would tap the random guy/gal in front of them on a MARTA bus in Atlanta and hand them a wad of bills? I don't think I would. I feel like there is just so much more of a collective spirit here. Your relationships are more important than your time. And it is so easy to make friends! Some of the interns and I went to a party last night, and I had not been through the door for ten seconds before I had met three new Kurdish friends. We sat and laughed as we tried to speak Kurglish with each other, and joked and hugged and got really, really confused. A huge dinner was served, consisting of a few different rice dishes, a Kurdish favorite that is something wrapped in grape leaves (I have no idea what is inside), bananas, oranges, a golfball size plum-like fruit, a delicious pudding/banana dish, cupcakes, and later a regular cake. The last piece of cake came to our table and was handed to me, and I told the Kurdish guy next to me "no, you take it," and he did the same and passed it to the guy next to him, and round and round it went for about 3 minutes until everyone had been offered it 2-3 times, before someone finally accepted it. Mind you, this cake was delicious, and I guarantee you almost everyone at that table wanted it, but each wanted the next guy to have it more. After hanging out a bit more, someone put on some Kurdish music and everyone started dancing! The Kurdish dance is a circle-type dance where everyone holds hands or links arms, and dances in a spinning circle led by someone twirling a scarf. Someone will occasionally shout some noise along with the beat and people will repeat it- YEE-AH! ... YEE-AH! ... YEE-AH! It was an amazing time. It is experiences and thoughts like these that continue to draw me in to this place.
To give an update of the last couple days that I haven't posted: on Tuesday we finally got our last two interns, Lydia and Lauren, and headed to the bazaar in two groups to show them the same first experience that we had. After the bazaar we walked to the huge park nearby, and Ben, Lydia, and I went to Zara marked to pick up some pizza (Yes, there is pizza in Kurdistan. Yes, it is better than the pizza in Italy.) and sharwma (a type of shaved meat or chicken) for dinner. We ate this next to a large pond in the park, and enjoyed the late afternoon air. Six o'clock through the rest of the night here feels amazing. The next day we had our first full office day. This started with dividing up tasks and setting personal goals. We have a very diverse group of interns with different skills, so this was fairly simple. Daniel, Esther, and Lauren are the writing team. They are overseeing a lot of different projects including the PLC blog, the weekly newsletter, and the year end review. Sophie is working on preparing for the fall tour (a huge task). Preston is working both towards our children's banquet, and on the standardization and diversification of the Klash. Lydia is our extremely talented intern photographer. Joshua is taking care of all things video (with a little editing help from Sophie). Claire is in charge of getting the ball rolling on developing "Self Help Groups" for families with CHD kids here. Ben is our fearless leader and is helping on the SHGs and the Klash standardization.
Although we have divided the tasks up, there will be plenty of teamwork involved. My primary task is maintaining/updating/using the PLC database of kids, working to organize sending kids to Turkey, and helping determine what kids will be part of the upcoming Remedy Mission. I will also be helping Jess with finances a bit and working towards gauging the interest in and possibly helping to implement an inter-organization database of kids in all the different organizations/hospitals/listings. I am super excited about my task as it is going to allow me to spend time speaking to doctors, seeing hospitals and offices, and really experiencing a lot of the medical side of PLC's work.
Speaking of hospitals, Preston, Lydia, and I went with Awara yesterday to the local heart clinic to check out some equipment for the Remedy Mission. If you haven't heard yet, the Remedy Mission is an incredible opportunity for both the kids and the community here in Iraq- we will be bringing a highly experienced surgical team in to perform 30 complex pediatric heart surgeries and train local doctors from Suly and other places throughout the area. We are doing everything over here to be ready to make a huge impact this summer through our Remedy Mission, but we still need more support! If you want to know more about it, check out this link or email me at alex@preemptivelove.org. Back to the hospital- We met with Dr. Jhafar, a surgeon, and Dr. Mohammed, an anesthesiologist. Dr. Mohammed took us into the ICU where we photographed and got information about their three ventilators (machines that keep people breathing during surgery). After contacting the leader of our Remedy Mission team, we were relieved to hear that with a few extra pieces of equipment he will be able to use these machines! This is great news as each piece of equipment we can use here is one less the Remedy Team has to figure out how to bring.
Today is Friday, which is our day off, so I'm headed out into the town! I hope that this post finds everyone healthy, happy, and full of love.
Xua hafîz.
Alex
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