We're in Syria after a long overnight train ride to Qamishle, trying to get into Turkey so we can transit through and get to Iraq. Everyone attempting to cross here is getting their luggage thoroughly searched by the Turkish border guards. We're preparing for a long wait when a customs officer stops us.
"You have any guns?" he asks us.
"Err..no" we say, suddenly paranoid we might have stashed some by accident, like when you're asked 'is there anything in your pockets?' before a metal detector. He doesn't check our bags, the fact that we're clearly tourists seems to be enough to let us through and we're herded into a fenced-off wire enclosure with a Syrian flag to one side and a Turkish flag to the other. Half an hour later, we're scanned for bird flu and let into Turkey.
Our plan is not to stay here, to break straight for the border with Iraq and we hire a car to drive us there so we can make it through before the border closes. Our driver chain-smokes and listens to Turkish music full blast, dancing around in his seat as he dodges broken-down and waiting trucks on the side of the road. When we jive along to the tunes amused, he offers us cigarettes and turns up the volume on his music. 'Like Kurdish music!' he says. As we approach the border town of Silopi, we see convoys of trucks pulled up at the side of the roads. Hundreds and hundreds of them. When we approach Silopi, our driver tries to stop, to signal that he can go no further. 'IRAQ. ZAKHO!' we say, knowing there's a roadblock but hoping that our driver's lack of English and our own lack of Kurdish will motivate him to keep driving. The trucks have been backed up for 50kms by now but we insist. Unable to communicate except in sign-language, we pretend not to understand that he's gesturing we can go no further. 'Iraq. Zakho!' we say, nodding dumbly. He has no choice but to keep driving until we can see there's nowhere left to go.
We pass a huge cloud of smoke, a field on fire and come to a massive crowd walking on the road, extending back several kilometres and sprawling out through the fields on either side of the highway. Our driver cannot plough through the crowd. He stops and we climb out into a throng of people making peace signs and wearing the kurdish colours. We have no idea what is going on, but it's clear that the border to Iraq is closed.
Suddenly an old man walks up to us and gives Anna a bunch of grapes, mumbling something as he walks off.
Anna hesitates and realises the man has just said 'here you go' in Swedish. Anna calls out to the man and continues the conversation. He tells Anna that Sweden is great, Sweden has really helped the Kurdish people. Another elderly woman walks past and shoves a half-eaten apple in Anna's mouth. There are tens of thousands of people here, all dressed in Kurdish colours and madly waving Kurdish flags. Chatting away in Swedish to the old man, Anna figures out that the borders are closed as Kurdish guerillas from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) have crossed into Turkey from Iraq to surrender themselves in order to help broker a peace process with the Turkish government regarding the question of Kurdish people in Turkey. The move is designed to force Turkey to stick by a recent commitment to take a more conciliatory approach regarding Kurdish separatists in Turkey. This event is seen by the locals as the first significant step taken by the Turkish government to address the Kurdish issue and everyone present is here to celebrate the entry of Kurdish heroes into Turkey.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8315088.stm
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| Kurds Celebrating the Arrival of Kurdish Guerillas into Turkey |
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| Newly arrived at the border with nowhere to go |
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| Decked out in the Kurdish Colours |
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| The woman with the apple |
Eventually we accept that we won't be making it to Iraq today. We're told that the border will be open tomorrow, but in the meanwhile we need to find somewhere to stay. We have our driver take us back into the centre of town where we try to organise a hotel room. The clerk on reception is trying to charge us $70USD for a complete wreck of a room. We try to shop around, but everything is full with the influx of Kurdish. We head back to the first hotel and are told the room we were initially offered is now gone. The price has gone up. Annoyed and unconvinced, we have little choice but to take the room and hand over our passports.
Heading out in the street to look for food, we bump into Salman, a Kurdish local with a fetching monobrow who speaks English. Salman offers to help us find food, explaining that no-one in the town speaks English. He takes us to a nearby restaurant and we're introduced to some of his friends as Salman explains that we're the first foreign tourists in the town that year. It's October. When we're done with lunch and the obligatory cup of tea, Salman offers to take us to visit his friend in the countryside. There's nothing left to do for the day and we can't cross the border until tomorrow so we agree. Why not?
Driving into the countryside, Salman points out Mount Judi, the place where according to early Christian and Islamic tradition is the place where Noah's Ark came to rest following the biblical floods. We drive through tiny villages consisting of one or two buildings, a cow and chickens, up to the top of a hill where we can see where Turkey ends and Iraq begins. Up here we can feel the excitement of Iraq, just on the horizon, so close but not reachable until the morning. We're not there yet, but we can feel we're getting closer.
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| Judi - The Resting Place of Noah's Ark |
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| Iraq on the horizon |
Heading to Salman's friend's farm, we're fed pomegranates and tea under fig trees while the resident cow swats at flies with its ears, watching lazily and occasionally kicking over its water bucket for attention. When we leave the farm with Salman and his friends, Salman says it's a pity we've booked into the hotel as we could've stayed with his sister whose husband is a truck driver, currently stuck behind the Iraqi border. Salman asks how much we've paid for our hotel. When we tell him he says it's too expensive, he says he knows the guy on reception and offers to get us out of the room we've booked. Next thing, Salman's on the phone chatting away in Kurdish. "Ok, it is sorted. You don't need to pay. We will pick up your bags and passports and you will stay with my sister."
Back in Silopi, we head for Salman's sister's house. Salman's sister is 21, married with a child and eight months pregnant with her second. As soon as we get into the apartment, we're surrounded by neighbours who've come to gawk at Silopi's first tourists for the year. We're greeted warmly by everyone, despite speaking neither Turkish nor Kurdish. Salman is the only one who speaks English. We're instructed to put our bags in a room with a king-size bed and child's cot. We ask Salman whether this is his sister's room. "No, no..." he says. We're doubtful and say so.
"There is another room next door!" he says
"But the baby's cot..." we say.
Again he protests, this is not his sister's room. Trying to avoid offence, we put our bags down and head into the living room where a community gathering seems to be taking place. The room is empty of furniture, carpeted with cushions thrown about the floor. One girl, about 22 years old is introduced to us as a neighbour. Another girl of about 14 is also introduced as she busies herself setting down cups and saucers so that we can have tea. Another girl is also present, perhaps no older than 20 with a stern expression on her face. Everyone sits on the floor cross-legged and the questions begin. Using Salman as a translator, the girls are keen to figure out how our lives differ from theirs.
The whole discourse starts innocently enough, where are we from? what age are we? what do we do? Once the simple stuff is out of the way the questions progress. Why are we here? What interested us about Kurdistan and what do we think so far? Salman explains that his sister's husband drives trucks in Iraq and is often gone for two weeks at a time. He explains that all the girls in the room are married, including the 14 year old. When a young boy comes in the room and sits down smoking a cigarette, the 14 year old girl runs to grab an ashtray and Salman explains that this boy is her husband. The women ask us, is it true that where we're from it's not important to be a virgin when you marry? We say no, it isn't. Their eyes widen in amazement. But that's not to say that these girls are innocent and naive prior to marriage explains Salman. He elaborates to say that while intercourse in the usual way is forbidden before marriage, anal sex is used as a conciliatory measure. We're asked whether we have boyfriends and both Anna and I lie and say yes, we do. The girls ask how we can travel without our boyfriends? How can they trust us? Anna explains that if her boyfriend couldn't trust her, he wouldn't be her boyfriend. The girls look amused by this answer. The 20 year-old says she's worried because her husband is looking for a second wife. He spends a lot of time on facebook and she can't understand English. She's worried about what he's doing online. I can't help but feel somewhat amused by the fact that, even here in Kurdistan, at the border with Iraq, such basic concerns about fidelity can have such universal (and modern) mediums. Facebook indeed!
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| Anna gets decked out in a Kurdish head-scarf |
We chat while Salman's sister and the other girls get dinner ready. We explain that we can eat elsewhere, after all, we're vegetarian and we don't want to cause difficulty, but next thing we know, they're serving up a massive dish of pasta, yoghurt and salad. We all sit cross-legged in a circle, eating off a large plate that has been set down in the middle of the floor. We make conversation as we eat, only learning later that it's considered impolite to talk whilst eating. I watch as the girls tend to the food and Salman asserts his authority as the resident male, eating off everybody else's plates, as well as the communal platter. As he talks, Salman talks about his views on polygamy and how, personally, he's a one-wife kind of guy. In this small Kurdish community, Salman tells us that people can't begin to understand his logic. Throughout our stay, it's clear that Salman wants to battle any preconceptions we might form by drawing our attention to common assumptions about polygamous cultures and establishing counter-arguments however the precedence of men over women in this society is well-established. Even the eighteen month old son of Salman's sister is given complete reign, crawling over plates and picking up people's food.
After dinner, we're served tea and sweets while we take photos of Salman and his family. They love the camera, especially having a look at the camera afterwards to see how their grins have turned out. Once we're done with dinner, Salaman says he'll take us for a walk. We've been hearing fireworks, chanting and jeering coming from down the street for a while now. The news is on and there's a live feed of the Kurdish guerillas being greeted with a heroes welcome in the streets of Silopi. When we head down the street, it appears that things have wound-down somewhat. The only real action we see by this stage is three cows eating out of a rubbish bin. When we hit the main street, we can see all the welcome banners still up but the party is over.
We turn to head back to the apartment, however Salman directs us into a card den en-route. Being in this place, it's clear we're in a haunt for men, not women. The card den is a big, sky-blue room filled with tables of men chain-smoking and playing cards. Salman takes a cocky strut about and makes a grand sweeping gesture for us to sit down. It's clear that we're on display. As we sit down, we're brought tea and Salman teaches us a card game, reacting to each move just loud enough to keep the attention of the boys at the other tables. When we're finished with our first card game, I vote to return to the house rather than begin another game. It's clear that Salman's spirits are dampened but he agrees to take us back to his sister's place.
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| Chilling out with the locals |
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| Salman's sister, her child and Salman |
On arriving back at Salman's sister's house, a whole gang of girls is sitting on the front steps waiting for us, including two small girls who hadn't been in the apartment earlier. We take photos and the smallest girl grabs me by the hand, leading me into her apartment to meet her father and we end up in a face-pulling competition in the middle of her living room. Heading back up to the apartment, we shower Kurdish style with buckets of hot water, a stool in the middle of the bathroom to sit on. Salman organises us a taxi to the border for early the next morning and we head to bed. We ask whether Salman's sure that we're not taking his sister's bed. 'Yes, yes!' he says, frustrated that we keep pushing this point. When 5am arrives, we're packed and ready to go. The front doorbell rings. We assume it's our taxi driver, but we don't want to open the front door to a house that's not ours. I walk into the hallway and see the living room door open. The television is going and lying on the floor asleep are Salman and his eight-month-pregnant sister.
It's early, really early. The sun is a long way off rising and we're speeding towards the border. In the streets of Silopi, the banners above the street are the only thing remaining of the chaos from the day before. Soon enough, we reach the Turkish border and are asked where we're headed. Iraq. While we wait, our driver gets us fresh bagels and curiously enough, there's a duty-free shop at this border. When I point this out to Anna, we catch our driver's interest.
"Me' he says 'Kurdish airport!" and gives a giant belly laugh.
Next stop, the Iraqi checkpoint. We pull up under a giant "Welcome to Iraqi Kurdistan Region" banner and walk into the immigration office. Anna and I are asked to take a seat and wait. After five minutes Anna is called into a room and asked questions. She emerges a few minutes later with a passport stamp.
"What did they ask you?"
"Where I was from, where we wanted to go in Kurdistan, who we were visiting, how long we wanted to stay."
"And then?"
"He stamped my passport and said 'Welcome to Kurdistan'."
My name is called and I walk into the immigration office.
"Clare?"
"Yes"
"What is the purpose of your visit to Kurdistan?"
"Just looking. I'm curious."
The guard looks at me, smiles and stamps my passport. "Welcome to Kurdistan."
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| Bagels at the border |
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| Entering Iraq |
Excited, Anna and I head back to the car. I'm craving a photo of the "Welcome to Iraq" sign, but it's right next to the immigration office. I see the guard watching us from the window. I point to my camera and to the sign with a questioning look. Straight away he nods vigorously, grinning at these strange girls come to gawk at Iraq. And just like that, we're across the border.
