Good morning

J. and S. are two friends from Erbil who came back from Canada and founded a NGO dedicated to the reconstruction of civil society. Yesterday they took my sister (Susanna) and me to one of their projects in Alqush in Niniva province in the territories contested between Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government. Their association set up from scratch a professional training centre for 54 youth refugees from Mosul and Baghdad between 18 and 30 year old. Girls learn sewing, hairdressing and some handicraft techniques. Boys have carpentry and metal workshops. After a first phase of professional training, there is a crash course introducing the basic notions of management and administration that necessary for running a small business. At the end, the best ten students are given a one year interest free micro-loan to start up their own professional activity.

The courses are held in the afternoon, Alqush is a couple of hours drive from Erbil – leaving at noon found us on the road in the middle of a boiling hot day. J. and S. go back and forth every day to supervise the project; on the way, they told us about the details of the initiative and the difficulties they have faced in putting it together. With a relatively small grant from the American Cooperation, they managed to make miracles! The workshops are held in the community centre of the Chaldean Church – the participants are all Christians who fled religious violence. There is a micro-cafeteria under a big pine tree and the workshops are provided with all the necessary equipment: from sewing machines to planers to machine for bending aluminium. The guys from the carpentry section made the tables for the sewing and handicraft workshops. The boys, who are learning how to build aluminium structures, made cupboards and drawer chests where the other groups store their material as well as mirrors – which in Europe would be quite trendy – for the “beauty parlour”.

We have visited all the workshops, received a very warm welcome and obviously we didn’t come home empty-handed! Despite the frustration of not being able to directly communicate because of the language, it has been a very special encounter! In the carpentry workshop, the smell of wood shavings and testosterone mingled with huge smiles and pictures taken on a newly build settee, while J. and Susanna were trying to show their ability with the planer. From the handicraft workshop we left with small decoration for the house. The girls from the sewing workshop gave Susanna a beautiful skirt that seems tailor-made! And I came home blonde… S. jokingly told the girls in the hairstyling workshop that I would offer my head as a model… and, of course, they took him seriously! When they discovered that Susanna is a dancer they insisted so much that in the end she took her shoes off and improvised a micro-performance for them in their tiny little space. The girls help up mobile to record the whole thing and were really happy. They immediately surrounded Susanna and asked her millions of questions: I really thought this would be good enough to divert their attention, but in no time it became my turn to be sited and surrounded by the trainer and all the apprentices discussing what to do with my head. We agreed on highlights – a few small ones I thought I managed to communicate… until in the elevator on my way home I discovered that they are a lot and Swedish blond all over my head….

J. and Susanna went to meet the Chaldean bishop who just came back from Rome. I was left in the parlour with big smiles and no common language. The girls started asking very long questions articulated around one single word in English… in a way or another, among loud laughter, we managed to communicate. A girl scrubbed my wrist to see if my tattoo would go away – another took a picture on my with my head covered in silvery kitchen foil by pointing at me a mobile phone with a picture of Jesus as a screensaver …

We came back home exhausted but very happy – beer and shisha on the balcony pondering about the meaning and measure of things – the possibility of sharing these moments with Susanna makes them even more special while distracting me from the silly question that sits in the back of my mind… how does it feel to be blonde in Iraq?

Until next Thursday

A hug

Good morning

The fresh air of mornings and evenings gives the rhythm to my days that begin and end on the balcony, with a coffee when I woke up and a beer at sunset.

After last week’s peak of exhaustion I feel I am recovering – my sister will be here on Sunday and waiting for her to arrive is working as energy burst. I am happy and curious at the same time. Her presence here will give a “sense of reality” to this part of my life since she would be able to bridge between here and there. I am curious about her impressions and what this place will communicate to her: I really look forward for her to arrive!

Bakherbe in Kurdish means “welcome” – it is the word for hospitality and for the opening to others. Here, as elsewhere, the guest is almost sacred. The generosity of hospitality is moving: spontaneous, deep, without conditions. There is a way of opening their arms with a smile that is incredibly touching.

What keeps on surprising me and I keep failing grasping is how this generosity could coexist with a brutality that is as “natural” and as widespread.

There are moments in which I feel I don’t have enough tools to deal with this excruciating contradiction, I feel paralysed by a mixed flow of love and hate for this place that I cannot rationalise. When one of your students tells you – with a lightness that hides an immense pain – that he is lucky because he twice found himself in the middle of a suicide bomb attack, twice was injured and twice survived – once because his body fell underneath the pile of those who were killed. When one of the women in your class tells you that were she to betray her husband and were she to be caught, she would be killed: but there is nothing strange with it, since this is the rule of the game. When one of your friends is reported to the police for immorality because there are women among his friends and you are co-responsible since you went to his place for dinner.

I don’t understand. And the thought that there is nothing to understand, that rational efforts would systematically fail you, at times drives me insane. There are moments when my heart is as heavy as a stone and the contradictions of this place affect my ability to breathe. But still the more weeks and months go on, the more I realize that it is not time for me to leave yet. I feel somehow bewitched by this place. The harshness and incommensurability of these stories, of the wonders and sicknesses of this place are helping me to grow up: it is as if the daily encounter with the “bare life” is anchoring me to the ground. I am not giving up on dreaming, but I thing I am learning – day after day – to remember to ground my feet.

A hug

Good morning

Fishing for words seems harder this morning. It is a moment of little sleep and loads of passages, of a bit of tiredness and several transitions: towards the end of the semester, the definition of what will be next, the thought of holidays…

It is also the time of a new change in season. The fields in front of my flat are less and less green – the lack of wind and one of the worse sand storms since I arrived don’t quite help. The patches of bright green are slowly being replaced by the sand field that I saw when I first arrived.

When the air is clear, sunsets are beautiful. Balconies, terraces, rooftops are the best place to enjoy the evening breeze. Inbal just discovered the Basra lemons, sun dried lemon out of which you make an amazing tea: a bitter-sweet flavour that is giving the taste to this moment of transition.

I stop here for today. I need to recharge energies, thoughts and words.

Until next Thursday

A big hug