Celebrating

 Learning to dance, Zakho style with our little fingers interlocked. Dahlia's niece let me borrow two of her Kurdish outfits, one for each day of the wedding.

 My friend in Zakho, Dahlia, invited me back for a cousin's wedding. Until the last few years, weddings were held in homes. "Everything is changing," Dahlia explained. "We used to have the wedding for three days in the home, in the street." The first day was for bringing the bride to the groom's home and the application of henna. The second day was mainly about the ceremony, dancing, and eating. The third day was more of the same, but only a half day. In recent years, venues, like the hall for this wedding, have been very popular. "There's no mess to clean up, plenty of room, and now it's just two days," Dahlia said.  The first day was only for close family, and it felt a bit awkward for me to be there. There was no segregation of men and women, since it was for close relatives only, and about 100 people were there. Yep, that's "close family" in a large tribe, or a patriline to be more precise. Every person in the room, excepting myself, can trace his or her ancestry back to a single male. Amazingly, I could have approached anyone in this room and they probably could have recited their ancestry (on their father's side) and their relation to everyone else in the room. The bride and groom both belong to this patriline, which is to say that they are what we Americans generally call "cousins."

I kept mistaking guests for other guests I had met on my previous visit to Zakho. This was to be expected, I suppose, since every person in the room was (most likely) related through cousin marriage.

An ensemble of Kurdish musicians and singers performed on a little stage (not pictured here). The drumming was overpowering, and our ears were ringing. The bride and groom sat regally upon their own platform, where they received relatives and guests and bore patiently many photographs. A professional studio handled the video and photography. I'm sure hours and hours of footage and photos will be watched and re-watched by the family for years.
 

 This boy, center, was a lively dancer. He's wearing traditional Kurdish clothes, which most of the men did not wear, surprisingly.

 The bride wore the gold/yellow robes (center) on the first night of the wedding. The second night she wore a white wedding gown like you might see in the United States (and in many countries now).

 Gold galore. And it's all (mostly) real. Here Dahlia sews a strand of gold coins onto her robes. The belt in the foreground is also solid gold. We borrowed this gold for the second night. Dahlia laughed and said to me, "You'll see. We will be the poorest people in the room, even with this borrowed gold."  It was true.

 The entrance to the hall and red carpet for the couple to walk down.

This cousin of Dahlia's has been living in Canada over 30 years, where she works as an artist. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation about art!  She exhibited at a gallery in Zakho just last week. And she wasn't the only Kurd in the family who had emigrated. Part of the family lives in Seattle, and something about their living in the U.S. made them easy to spot, something about their manner. That and the black, plastic framed eyeglasses one of them wore (there are hipster Kurds!). For the adults, the wedding was a joyful reunion with their family and their native culture. I think the Seattle Kurds danced the hardest, laughed the heartiest, and took the most photographs. For some of their children, it appeared to be their first Kurdish wedding and perhaps their first Kurdish dancing lessons, for in Kurdish "wedding" and "dancing" are the same word.

 I couldn't have been more thrilled to dance at the wedding. It seems that Kurds generally are more reserved with their smiles and laughter, and I must have looked a fool for grinning so much. I'd dance until my feet hurt, and sit for a few minutes. Inevitably some relative would beckon me back to the line of dancers moving around the hall's perimeter. Learning the steps and arm motions was tricky, as the feet and hands followed different rhythms. Dahlia planted me between male relatives whenever I wanted to dance, saying that they were "stronger" dancers and would help me keep pace. Judging from the grins around the room, I wondered if she had ulterior motives.

 I never snagged a good photo of the bride, as she was constantly surrounded by people. Here you can glimpse her in the background, seated on the platform behind the line of dancers.

 I wasn't allowed a moment to myself, as I was always on the arm of some relative who had been charged with guiding me across the room, escorting me to and from the line of dancers, or serving as sentinel beside me. Perhaps this was filial loyalty, because everyone knew I was with an important lady of the patriline. Perhaps it was because, especially on the second night, there were strange (non-family) males present. I soon grew weary of being jostled about and passed off from one relative to another with little communication.  I felt desperate to learn Kurdish. The crowd and moving about prevented me from snapping as many photos as I would have liked, although I had plenty taken of myself. My cheeks burned from not fitting in, a blonde foreigner in Kurdish clothes trying to dance, who hardly knew any Kurdish and who grinned like a fool. There must have been 500 guests crowded into the hall, and as far as I could tell, I was the only (true) blonde in the room. I kept tripping over my long robes, which looked more beautiful on fuller-figured women whom I admired for their elaborate hair, makeup, and dress.

An announcement was made around 10pm, and women began pushing toward the door, speaking over one another and looking for misplaced relatives and handbags. A young woman appeared (pictured second from the left in the photo below) and gently placed my hand in hers. "I'm Dahlia's niece," she explained.

"Yeah, yeah, you're all her cousin or niece," I muttered, a bit flustered at being jostled by the anxious women.

"We go eat now," the nice explained. Hence the frenzy, I thought. Our pack of women crossed the parking lot and entered a second hall where rows of tables were covered with a variety of Kurdish dishes. Women scurried to and fro looking for the choicest platters. The niece pronounced several dishes "Ni xweshe" (not nice) before settling for a rice and chicken platter. We stood, as there were no chairs, and everyone ate rapidly from shared dishes. Within ten minutes, the crowd began pushing again out the door to rejoin the men. (I think the men ate later, although I didn't notice their absence.)

Around 11pm, Dahlia decided we'd had enough over-loud drumming, dancing, and socializing. We returned home to settle down, but guests continually passed in and out of the house. We heard their tea cups and dishes clinking until 3am.

The following pictures are actually from my first visit to Zakho. Dahlia took me to the market, where we looked at fabrics and jewelry. All the dresses you see pictured in this post are tailor made. Women typically select their fabrics and coordinate them with accessories. Sometimes women embellish the fabric with rhinestones.  The Canadian artist (pictured earlier) chattered happily about how much she loves Kurdish fabrics, her artist's sensibility for color and pattern evident. "The fabrics make great scarves," she said,"which I wear in Canada. So unique, the fabrics. My tailor in Canada loves it when I bring fabrics back from Kurdistan."

    "I wanna know where the gold at. Show me the gold."

 Gold jewelry is usually part of the groom's wedding present for the bride. During the first night of the wedding, a box of gold jewelry was presented with great ceremony by the groom's family. Trilling, dancing, and snapping photos, their phalanx approached the bride's platform bearing the box above their heads. Some minutes later the couple was coaxed from their stage and beckoned to join the dance. They were surrounded by males, the lead male waving a white cloth overhead, dancing with redoubled effort.

Not to get too carried away with romanticizing, but this wedding, especially its bold display of material wealth and celebration of kin relations, reminded me how very old a thing marriage is. That no matter how much "everything is changing," as Dahlia and many Kurds say, this rich ritual and symbolism seems as deeply engrained in Kurdish society as the Khabur River that cuts through Zakho.

Perhaps I'll take some tips for my own future wedding?

Grieving

(A disclaimer: There have been many interesting encounters and events in the past couples weeks, encounters I wish I could share on this blog. To protect others’ privacy, I cannot share them here, even with pseudonyms. However, here I can recount a very public event, a kind of funeral service. Although funerals tend to be more intimate, private events in the U.S., in other cultures they can be very public and large, even lasting several days.)

I have had the opportunity to visit mosques in Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia (and Istanbul, see post "Istanbul on the Fly"), usually as a tourist. This night, I was headed to a mosque in Dohuk under very different circumstances: a funeral service. “Don’t you think we ought to cover our heads?” I asked from the backseat of the car. The two women with me in the car, also non-Muslims, paused their conversation in their native language, Syriac.

“What? No,” said the one who was driving, waving her hand dismissively. After a moment’s pause, “Should we?” 

She glanced at the rear view mirror and our eyes met. “Well, every time I’ve been in a mosque, which is perhaps five times, I’ve covered my head,” I said.

Turning to her mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, the driver translated my suggestion that we should cover our heads. Mother and daughter argued. Their family is fiercely proud of their Assyrian Christian identity. The prospect of covering their heads in a mosque touched a nerve. 

“Ok” said the daughter, turning off onto a side street that would lead back to their home. “It’s better to take the – what do you call it?”

“Scarves, veils, you know, hijab,” I offered.

“Yeah, it’s better to take the scarves in case we need them,” the daughter concluded. She cursed under her breath at this unexpected turn of events. Abruptly she parked beside their home, dashed inside, and returned with five or six scarves. She tried each one in succession, experimenting with the style. Cursing and sighing, she tossed the pile of scarves into her mother’s lap and declared, “I’m not going to wear it.” Yet she handed me two to stuff inside my purse, “just in case.”

The problem was eventually solved by calling a friend, also a non-Muslim, who was already at the mosque. “No, no, you don’t have to cover. Even some of the family are not covered,” she told us.

The backdoor entrance to the mosque was a jumble of ladies’ shoes, as removing one’s shoes before entering is customary. This service was only for women, and at another mosque across town, the male relatives and friends were gathering. I hesitated in the doorway, a little overwhelmed by the prayers playing on the loudspeaker inside. A young relative of the deceased approached and beckoned our group to follow her. Her sea green, short-sleeve Kurdish dress, over which her long brown hair tumbled, stood out among the black dresses and black head coverings of approximately 50 women. We were in a long, narrow room with a low ceiling and harsh fluorescent lights. The dark, forest green carpet felt warm and moist under my bare feet. Women, sitting on floor cushions, lined the perimeter of the room. In their black, traditional Kurdish dresses they were harshly silhouetted against the white walls. We stopped. 

The young relative in the sea green dress had brought us to the center of the room, to a row of plastic chairs where the bereaved family members regally sat. The image of a woman dressed head to toe in black rose before my eyes. I felt my cheeks burning, both from the heat and from the feeling that many people had been staring at me, a blonde foreigner, as soon as I had entered the mosque.

The woman for whom we had come (to express our condolences) was standing before us, receiving us with outstretched arms. Her black Kurdish gown was covered in tiny rhinestones, and the fine, silk-like fabric shimmered. Her right hand clutched a Qur’an and the only splash of color on her whole body was a large turquoise ring. She pulled me into a semi-hug, making the customary kisses on the cheeks. Her pale cheeks were like cool stone against my hot face. In her stoic grief, like a classical statue draped in black, she was beautiful.

After some minutes sitting on the cushions, the call to prayer began. Most of the women moved to the back of the room and faced the direction of Mecca. Our group of three moved to the corner and joined a handful of relatives and friends who did not cover and did not pray. I remained quiet out of respect, but these women soon engaged us in conversation. Was I American? What was I doing here? The conversation turned to a discussion of all the people who had gone to America, to Germany, all the people who had left Kurdistan. 

Meanwhile, hired help began unfurling plastic sheets on the mosque floor and bringing large pots of rice and soup into the room, so that the mourners could share a meal.  Plates of chopped vegetables, mounds of rice and chicken, bowls of tomato-based soup, and loaves of bread – enough for 100 people - were laid along the plastic sheets. “Come,” the bereaved lady said to me. “Come eat with us.” We sat with our legs and feet tucked beneath us, chewing slowly, deliberately. Most women silently stared at the food or into the space before them. I stole a few glances at the grieving lady, wondering at her stoicism. As quickly as it began, the meal was finished, the plates were cleared, and we said our goodbyes. In the car, mother and daughter were quiet. The daughter, who has a fondness for the Beatles, played “Yesterday” on her mp3 player. Night scenes of Dohuk shops and cafes flashed past the car windows, and the feeling of being out of place and time grew with the darkening sky. 

Zakho Part 3: Dolma

 On my third day in Zakho, we made Dolma, a dish distinguished by its stuffed vegetables and grape leaves. Like the kubbeh the day before, it was labor intensive.

 First, Dahlia washed and prepared the vegetables. She deftly hollowed out the eggplant and squash. She pried the layers of onions out of each other like nested Russian dolls. Then she prepared a mixture of rice, tomato paste, hot pepper, and bits of beef or lamb meat. She stuffed this mixture into each of the hollow vegetables and placed the stuffed veggies in a large pot.

 Above, the rice mixture and the pot filled with stuffed vegetables.

 Most of the dish consisted of rolled grape leaves containing the meat and rice mixture. My job was to unfurl stacks of wet grape leaves which had been soaking in a saltwater mixture.

 Like the kubbeh, rolling the vegetables bundles was tedious. As we worked, Dahlia listened to the Friday sermon coming from the mosque across the street. I asked her to explain the sermon to me.

Li

Then she sent me outside to pick more grape leaves off the grape vines hanging over their car port. 

 The grapes will be ready late July or early August, Dahlia said.

The finished dolma served on a large silver platter like its predecessor (the kubbeh). This dolma fed a hungry household of relatives, neighbors, and the needy who drop by Dahlia's house because they know they can count on her charity and goodwill. The dolma had a savory and sour (from the sumaq seeds) flavor, and to be honest, it's not my cup of tea. But I appreciated Dahlia teaching me, and I thanked her profusely. "I'm your Kurdish mother," she said, "and all Kurdish mothers must teach their daughters to cook. We tell our daughters, 'Today you must learn to cook, because tomorrow you might go the house of your husband.'" I laughed and said, "Well, Kurdish mother, you have a lot of cooking to teach me!"  Surprised, Dahlia asked, "Why, cheechay (little bird)? Are you going to the house of your husband tomorrow?" 

"No, I'm going back to my apartment in Dohuk, and I am tired of cooking myself eggs, pasta, or lentil soup," I replied. She laughed. 

Zakho Part 2: What's Cooking, Kurdistan?

 The black berries came from a tree in my hostess' garden. Their dark juice stained my fingers and lips. The cherries were from the market.

The first morning in Zakho I told her my hostess, Dahlia,* that I wanted to learn to cook Kurdish food. Eyebrows raised, she said she would "allow me to watch her cook" kubbeh. I was supposed to play the role of guest, not helper. As I helped her put away the breakfast things, I wondered what I would do in the interim between breakfast and lunch. It was only 10am, yet Dahlia began gathering items to prepare lunch. Perhaps they eat lunch earlier than the characteristic 2pm lunch, I thought. Nope. Preparing kubbeh for a household required about 4 hours. And so it began.

 Dahlia poured a sack of cracked wheat into a bowl, added water, and began kneading it with her large hands. "This wheat is no good," she said scowling. "It's imported from Turkey like the other wheat I buy, but this brand is just not sticky like it should be." When I commented that everything in Kurdistan seems imported from Turkey, she nodded in agreement, saying, "But you know we couldn't buy this wheat during the 1990s (during the economic sanctions after the First Gulf War). We used to bring wheat from the village, mill it, and sort it ourselves. Then we would beat it until it was fine and soak and knead it. Women used to come help us with it, and some of them still come to our house every week, although it's been years since we made our own."

 I stuck my hands in the putty-like wheat and tentatively kneaded it. Meanwhile, Dahlia had rescued her sister-in-law who was tearing up and sniffling over her onion peeling. Plopping the dozen small onions into a food processor, Dahlia flipped the switch on and lifted her hands as if in prayer. Turning to me, she said wryly, "I thank God for whoever made this machine!"

 "Hey, cheechay," Dahlia said to me."Little bird." She had coined this nickname for me after I had trailed behind her in a crowded market space. Several times she grabbed my elbow to pull me closer to her, saying, "You are like a little bird who will get lost in this market." Handing me a plastic bowl, she ordered me to "Go outside and pick some mint." The sun was hot in my hair as I bent over the fragrant mint. I picked it absent-mindedly. Upon my return, Dahlia laughed, saying, "I see you threw in some grass and weeds in there, like the cheating farmers," she laughed. We washed the mint.

 Meanwhile, Dahlia had thawed a large cut of beef in a saucepan and was fraying the cooking meat off the bones. She took a second saucepan and combined flour, water, and the chopped mint, which would be the filling for some of the kubbeh.  To the meat saucepan she added the onions, some black pepper, and chopped basil leaves. This would be the second filling. When both filling mixtures were cool, she scraped them onto two large silver platters.

 Then Dahlia instructed me to "make nice little balls" with the dough. Inspecting a few, she shook her head, saying, "These are like stones. Make nice balls." A steady stream of relatives and neighbors passed through the kitchen, whose door always remains open. Some of the male visitors merely glanced in the kitchen, then proceeded into the guest parlor through a separate entrance. Some relatives or visitors nodded approvingly at seeing me help, while others seemed to see nothing out of the ordinary. Dahlia's brother passed through the kitchen and chuckled. "Do you have kubbeh in America?" he asked.

 After I made dozens of little dough balls, Dahlia showed me how to form the ball into a bird's nest. I was reminded of my childhood making bird's nests with Play-Dough in my Nana's gazebo back home. Then Dahlia and I packed the nest with either the meat or the flour filling and sealed the packet. The discs were arranged on the silver platters. It took us about two hours to make all the kubbeh pieces.

 Next, Dahlia emptied a carton of fresh yogurt into a sauce pan and instructed me to stir it with a whisk. After the yogurt began boiling and smelling quite sour, she added dried mint leaves. In a second saucepan she strained sour seeds called "sumaq" in boiling water. To the boiling red water she added only meat-filled kubbeh. To the yogurt sauce she added both meat and flour-filled kubbeh. Then the kubbeh boiled for maybe half an hour.

The finished kubbeh, served into shallow bowls and eaten like dumplings. "I always wonder who will eat all this food," Dahlia confessed as we rested in a semi-dark room upstairs while the kubbeh boiled downstairs. "But then people show up and it's all gone," she said chuckling. Sure enough, a pack of hungry nephews and their friends, relatives, and even a poor woman wheel-chair bound and accompanied by her son all showed up at Dahlia's table. Some of the kubbeh pieces (mine) were a little malformed, but Dahlia proudly pointed out that I had helped her make it. "Tomorrow we will make dolma," she said to me, smiling.

Zakho Part 1: Something Old, Something New

Gazing up at the entrance, I watched a Kurdish flag flapping proudly in the cool evening breeze in this amusement park nestled in the mountains above Zakho, a northeastern town perhaps ten miles from the border with Turkey. Mouth agape, I looked from the Ferris wheel flashing rainbow lights, to the Dutch-style windmill towering above the park entrance, to the mini-roller coaster carrying exuberant passengers trilling “lee-lee-lee-lee-lee!”  I kept telling myself, “I’m in Iraq at an amusement park. This exists.” When my hostess, who I’ll call Dahlia, invited me to a “park,” I assumed she meant a grassy area with trees and benches. This was a spectacle. I felt like I had walked into an alternate universe, that I had been sucked into the computer game Roller Coaster Tycoon where some precocious ten-year old (me) got a kick out of buiding their theme park in Iraq. (I’m pretty sure that game had windmill-like structures for park entrances.)

After the initial shock subsided, my heart was warmed by this earnest little amusement park. It seemed appropriately local, built with wide lanes for large families with many children traipsing along, holding balloons or licking cones of Turkish ice cream served by young men in short red vests and red fez caps for less than a dollar. Along the lane were shelters constructed for families to picnic, which is immensely popular in Kurdistan. I shared my admiration for the “bring your own food policy” with my Kurdish hosts. They were scandalized to hear about the exorbitant food prices in amusement parks in the U.S., where park visitors are discouraged from bringing their own food and instead pay, say, $20 for a simple meal and drink. Here were families happily bearing coolers and plastic sacks full of neat little shwarma (grilled meat) sandwiches, with blankets and dishes carted from home.

My head was spinning. Here was something local and something global; something old and something new. We arrived around sunset, and the park loudspeakers sounded the evening call to prayer. Some people spread prayer blankets on the park grass and said their prayers; others continued their park revelry. Most of the older women present wore hijab and traditional Kurdish dresses, while younger women also generally covered their hair but donned more Western styles. Packs of young Kurdish men with dark hair greased and slicked back, tight dress shirts tucked into their skinny jeans, sporting pointy European brogues and large wristwatches, circled around the park – as they are apt to do in every public area – checking out the women. As a blonde foreigner, I was openly gaped at, and several people said, “Hello,” or “How are you?” It was friendly and harmless. One woman sheepishly approached and touched my hair, asking if it was natural or dyed. I asked my hostess’ niece to teach me some Kurdish, and as I fumbled with the words and phrases, passersby heard us and good-naturedly laughed. I was just as amused with them as they were with me. I snapped photos, sampled Turkish ice cream, and nearly skipped down the path with joy for the indoor ice skating rink, water and light show synced to classical music, and bumper cars (as if driving habits weren’t already erratic enough in this country!). But mostly I was happy because here was a public place where men, women, and children were all welcome and children were free to play. 

Also I was amazed because I was in a place I had read about in a book, an experience I’ve always found deeply satisfying. I was in Zakho, a “dusty little town in northern Iraq,” as Ariel Sabar describes it in “My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.” Earlier that day Dahlia and I had reclined in a dark room in her home, after a large lunch in the heat of the day. “You know what I’m reading about?” I asked her, eyes dancing. “Zakho!” I said. I explained the premise of the book, and she told me about her grandfather, an aga (tribal leader) who used to protect the Jews of Zakho. Grinning, I told her, “I know, he’s in this book!” I asked her if we could see the ancient Dalal bridge, “the famous upside down V,” Sabar writes about, a bridge his father and generations of Zakho residents had traversed. Noting my interest in the bridge and the river, my gracious hostess invited me to eat at one of the river-side cafes, where we ate our evening meal and talked about many things. “You know, many things here have changed,” Dahlia said, falling silent. The skeleton of a large grilled fish sat divided and conquered between us. We sipped hot, sugary black tea. As the sun sank below the horizon, I watched the murky water rippling in the Habur river below us and mulled over how some things, like that river, remain constant, while others pass with the currents.

 The Habur River (or Khabur, or Habor, or...)

 The Dalal Bridge. Dahlia says that Saddam laid the heavy concrete over what used to be dirt steps. The concrete is apparently weighing down on the stones and causing the bridge to slowly crumble beneath the weight.

  Tourist shot.

 It was a steep walk to the top of the "upside down V."