Hanging With Our Sheik Friend

(Photos of out Sheik friend compliments of Foster Addington)

Sometimes there are people that automatically command a certain type of reverence or respect the first time you meet them. I felt this way about our new friend Sheik (Sheik is a title for a well respected arabic religious man, I don’t use his full name for privacy sake). He’s a friend of Jeremy’s (our boss) who we were introduced to Monday night. Jeremy informed us that he is an Islamic religious leader that lived in Baghdad six or so years ago. Because of his peaceful teaching and active work against extremism, his house and mosque were bombed, and his family was threatened severely. Though he wasn’t injured nor his family killed, the threats on their life became so severe that they had to leave. Now, six years later and because of his meeting with Jeremy, I was able to sit in his guest room and talk with him. While dressed in his religious robes and headdress, made us feel right at home while he spoke to us about peace and the corruption of Iraq. I listened intently. After a few minutes however, he abruptly says, “Hey let’s go to a coffee shop.” Big change from what I expected. Turns out he really wanted to watch Spain play Honduras, and he left the room and came back looking super slick. Decked out with a European looking suite, he took on a whole different image to me. The feeling is kind of like the feeling you get when your a kid and you end up seeing one of your teachers in the store. It’s just a deviation from what I perceived as normal. We ended up spending the whole night in a tea/hooka bar enjoying each others company while Spain won, and he was not afraid to celebrate every goal they scored. The whole night was unusual and amazing for us all.

Today, he invited us to lunch at his house, and oh dear lord, the spread was ridiculous. Arabic food is different from Kurdish food, and from what I can tell, it might be better. As we sat on the floor and ate the lamb, rice, fruit, beef/dressing ball thing, and fish, I think I passed the threshold of the most amount of food I’ve ever fit into my body. IT WAS DELICIOUS, and words can’t describe it.

The whole experience with Sheik has been... new and interesting. Sitting in a room, drinking tea, and eating lamb with a man who was the target of terrorists because of his life of peace is definitely a world view changing experience in which I have been glad to be a part.

Life in Iraq seems to be filled with deviations from the norm, at least deviations from my norm, and I like it. I like to think the message of Jesus was a huge deviation from what the world considered the norm.

Farewell Habibi (arabic for my love),

Preston

Yousif

(Yousif's Sister's and Joshua)

(Yousif Running Around)

Last Thursday, three other interns, Awara, and myself traveled three hours to a town called Rhanya to visit a Yousif, a six year old boy in need of heart surgery. The trip was three hours of driving through mountains. It was not the easiest of rides (especially after being sick for a week), but it was beautiful. For the part of the drive that I was awake for, the scenery was beautiful. The mountains were not covered in trees like I’m used to seeing, and it makes everything seem so much more open. Also as we drove, we would come up on these rivers that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was beautiful.

As we arrived at Yousif’s town, we pulled into an area where every person’s property was blocked off by concrete walls which in turn lined the very narrow roads we drove on. After finding our way through the maze of roads, we arrived in front of Yousif’s house and were greeted by his sisters. Walking into the back yard past the chicken coupe and cement block concrete shed, I was trying not to initially assume things like how poor this family is, how “better off” I am, or how much this family “needs’ us. There seems to be a bit of a superiority complex when it comes to volunteer or aide type work at times, and while I’m here I’m want to be very weary of what I assume and how I act on these assumptions.

We sat down in a back patio area while we waited for Yousif and his mother. Turns out, they had been working. His mother walked in wearing multiple layers (keep in mind its like 112 degrees) with dust rolling off of her. This lady seems like one strong woman. Skinny little Yousif came strolling in behind his mom with a bashful look on his face while trying to keep his pants up. This kid has a debilitating heart disease and he was out doing his daily labor! Maybe that’s not such a big deal, but he definitely struck me as tough little fella. We all greeted Yousif and the family, and Yousif smiled. His face was already a little blue from working, but when he smiled the dark blue tint of his gums made it obvious that his body was not circulating nearly the amount of oxygen he needs. After a few seconds of being shy, Yousif warmed up to us, especially when I pulled out the soccer ball. Last time someone visited him, they had to borrow a ball from the neighbors. We only stayed about twenty minutes because they needed to get back to work. During our short stay we briefly talked about his medicine and other needs,but most of time we just kicked a ball around with Yousif, his brother Younis, and their many sisters. It was really calm, and everyone had the biggest smiles on their faces. Yousif had the largest of them all. Before we left, i showed Younis how to air up the ball, and when I got close, I could here him breathing so hard like he had to work for every inhale. He was starved for oxygen after just a few minutes of lightly kicking a soccer ball.

Making a connection is hard to do in twenty minutes. I’m sure I didn’t affect Yousif tremendously, but being around him has made my trip to Iraq worth everything. It might be a little selfish of me to think the trip important enough to use three hours worth of gas to kick around a ball with a kid for twenty minutes, but it allowed me to finally connect and associate a physical face to the cause of PLC. No longer is Yousif, or any child with congenital heart disease for that matter, just a picture or a blog post. He is the little guy I kicked a soccer ball with on June 17th, and because of that I want him to enjoy not having to struggle for every breathe that little bit more now. Hopefully PLC is a part of making that happen, but PLC is a group of people. It is the people in the office, and you and I at home working and donating to give Yousif heart surgery. Working with PLC is has value to me because money is not only being donated to some abstract idea, it goes to help ease Yousif’s next breath.

New Friends and Girly Shoes

Over the last week or so, things have started to blur together, in a good way. Every day seems to bring new experiences and stories. As a result, separating the days and writing a blog has become a increasingly difficult, but here are a few things that stick out in my mind.

One experience has been developing a bit more of a social life here. A few of us interns go out at nights and find pick-up soccer games to jump in with, and in the process meet some really cool guys. Soccer is definitely a huge deal here for everyone, so no one game is the same. Tonight we played with a guy and a lot of his family. It was basically Americans against Kurds (we got destroyed). The game was a big deal for him organize, and it was a privilege to be invited. The World Cup has also been a huge deal here. Coming in, I expected it to be somewhat of a soccer pandemonium here as the games began, but it turns out that a lot of people watch soccer in there homes or in small tea shops, which has a hospitality all its own. After playing soccer one night, my friend Alex and I walked into a near by tea shop and struck up a conversation some fellas. Turns out they’ve been living in Scotland for eight years and speak English very well (a Kurdish/Scottish accent is quite unusual by the way). So for the last few world cup games we’ve met up and had a great time together. We cheer on America and they tell us England will kill us. You know, the usual (Turns out England didn’t kill us). Tonight, after playing another soccer game we started walking with some guys to a near by park where the game was being shown on a big screen. On the way there, we stopped and had tea, and during the game the guys bought us water, some crazy pickle things, and sunflower seeds. Turning down someone’s offer of food or trying to pay for stuff is extremely hard here. First off, they won’t really let you, and second, it can be shameful (Iba) sometimes. Though people here don’t react to the world cup like I expected, their love for the game is obvious and expressed in a different way. It’s a way in which people can really get to know each other even better through the simple act of watching a sport.

Another great part of the week has been the making of the new feminine Klash, which has been dubbed ‘Klashy Lydia’ (Ballet Flats Klash is the official name I think). Part of my specific tasks here is working with our friend and local Klash maker Aram. Sharing new ideas and building relationship (aka hanging out) is a lot of what I’ve been doing, and though working with shoes might seem unusual or even trivial to some, the people behind the Klash shoe and their unique contributions to children in need are what first attracted me to PLC. While working with Aram, a few of us have tossed around the idea of a more feminine Klash. Ben, Claire, and myself got the ball rolling and the first pair of feminine Klash (pictured above) were purchased by a fellow intern Lydia a couple days ago. Many probably know this, but I’m not known for my style. So, designing a shoe has been a new and exciting venture for me, and I’m happy to be a small part of this contribution to PLC. Not to get a big head or anything, but if I we’re of the female persuasion, I would totally rock these shoes...just sayin. The shoes are up for pre-order now at:

http://buyshoessavelives.com/klash/ballet-red-white.php

So yep, that’s been some of my week so far. Thanks for your interest in my life in Iraq, and PLC’s work for children in need of heart surgeries (http://preemptivelove.org).

Ser Chow (your in my eyes),

Preston

Ahmed Awa

So, in my naivety, I definitely did not know that there are still shepherds in business. Here is a guy moving his flock down the street towards the mountains.

Ahmed Awa (Ahmed's Water), the water fall that we visited after seeing halabja was gorgeous. After being shown the secret way to the top, a few of us jumped across to the middle where some rocks were bulging out, and we met a few more guys just hanging out in the middle of a waterfall.

Iran is just over that mountain, and yes, this is the waterfall where the hikers, who were arrested in Iran, were hiking (we were safe the whole time). These mountains are beautiful.

Pic-Nicing is serious business here. People take hospitality and food to a new level here. This is most of the PLC team here in Iraq plus few guys that came down for the week.

My Own Little World Cup Kurdistan

I was talking to a friend here, Alex, the other day about ways that people express themselves, and how often times the ways we physically express ourselves are extremely important. For me, my favorite way to do this is through Dugolie (soccer). While spending time in a place where English is not the primary language (even though most people seem to know quite a lot), I’ve been itching to get out and get to know people through soccer. A few nights ago we were told about a place where people play a lot of pick up soccer games, and what do ya know, three of us show up and we're immediately greeted and asked to play. The fellas we played with were really great guys, and I don’t need words to understand this. Just passing, running, and shooting is all we needed, quality soccer. All the guys we played with were different, some young, some old, some skilled, some not. While trying to act like I had skill, I soon was reminded that even though a man looks a bit older and on the chubby side, this doesn’t mean he still can’t meg you and make you feel pretty silly. We’ve come back a few times since that first night, and played with all types of guys, and made all kinds of friends. There has been one game where we had to prove that we weren’t just a couple American push-overs,and that was a great experience as well. A couple shoves into the fence and we’re good. I'm hoping to come back to Lambuth with some Kurdish style (still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like). Playing soccer with these people is just another way that the kurdish people have invited us into their lives allowing us to grow in our understanding and love for these people.

Attempting Understanding

When something occurs on a massive scale, a person can often times say they have heard about it or learned something about it, but actually relating to and understanding what’s happened is completely different. Try thinking of numbers in the billions. The U.S. is trillions of dollars in debt . We can recite this fact, but actually comprehending it’s immensity is practically impossible. This is often how I and I’m assuming many others feel when we hear words like genocide and reports of thousands of people dying. Maybe a report comes up in the news. We listen, feel terrible, and then are able to go on with our day, or maybe we are moved and try to raise awareness. Still, the atrocity is so incomprehensible and we are so far removed that life can resume with relative invariability. In preparation for my trip to Kurdistan, I have read a few things about the Kurds. Statistics, stories, and other things have made my heart break for these people, but in the relative ease of my life there’s still a huge gap in my understanding and their reality.

However, there are times when something occurs that allows a part of us to be able to further relate or attempt to understand an atrocity. Maybe that something is a particular child’s face or a story of a person that seems so much like a person you know, causing you to feel connected. Our trip to Halabja this past wednesday was one of those moments for me.

In Halabja, a memorial has been built to commemorate the day the town was destroyed by gas attacks. Just to inform, March 16th, 1988 was the day when Saddam’s Hussein’s military dropped bombs filled with mustard and various other gases on the Kurdish village of Halabja. Even before the gas bombs were dropped, other explosives were planted inside buildings to break windows preventing victims from escaping the gas indoors. Within moments following the attack 5,000 people lay dead, many more would die in the days and months to come, and still more would feel the lasting impact for years. As we first entered the memorial building, we were led to a room depicting the rich culture of Halabja before the bombings, and immediately following we were led to a hall filled with a diorama of the terrible scenes from the day of the bombings. Gruesome depictions of a dead father holding his child, dead cattle, and a truck bed filled with dead bodies encompassed the hall. The visual was hard to digest, and after we were led to a large circular room with each wall covered in the names of those who were brutally killed. One name, however, was outlined in green because the person was found just in the last year to be alive, living in Iran. He was rescued as a baby and taken to Iran. The next room we were led to was what made it all sink in. The walls of the room were covered in photos taken by Iranian photojournalists captured just days after the attacks. As we passed the pictures, each was explained in great detail. Some showed scores of bodies lying on the ground. Others depicted whole families frozen in the positions they were in when the explosions hit, and as our guide passed across one picture his finger stopped. The photo was of a truck packed with dead bodies, all with sheets on them declaring the person to be dead. HE WAS ONE OF THEM. The man standing in front of us, recounting the tragedy, was declared officially dead, loaded on to a truck of corpses and almost taken away. Speaking becomes difficult at this point, the point when I realize that I am standing on the exact ground in which Saddam implemented his ethnic cleansing through the Anfal campaign, which was designed to extinguish the Kurds. This isn’t some photo in a news story. The ground on which I stand is real, the brave, enduring, miracle of a man standing in front of me is real, and I am here. The only words I can think of at this point are “This is real,” and the gap between my reality and the reality of the Kurdish people is lessened just that little bit. These people experienced tragedy, and neither their nor any other government (except for maybe Iran) chose to care about them at the time. In fact, many of the weapons used were constructed in and purchased from the U.S., Germany and France. Not until the 90’s did it become much of an issue in the U.S.

All being said, I know I can never truly understand the tragic immensity of that day, nor do I understand the politics behind the international response. However, the effects of this atrocity are still felt by the Kurds of today and will be felt for generations to come. Congenital disease is one of these effects, and this is the reason I’ve grown connected to the cause of PLC. It might seem silly to say, but there are real children here with real genetic heart conditions that are a result from a real tragedy, and from my perspective the community of PLC provides real help.

Pictures: (top) Memorial room with names of all the victims, (bottom) Outside the memorial