Humanity in the Residency Office

Background:
-2.5 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the region of Iraqi Kurdistan; some have basic needs cared for, others do not.
-CPTers from foreign lands receive a 15 day visa on entry to the region, then they must visit the residency office to request a year visa.
-our team mate Mohammed is our sponsor. He must go with us to this office.

Last Thursday morning I made my last trip to the residency office. I needed a 25 day extension to my year visa to allow me to stay until 17 March when my last plane flies out of Iraqi Kurdistan.

I really don't like the residency office. The rules change every few months and there is the feeling that anyone can, at any minute, question the legitimacy of our query. This time there was a new office to enter and a new signature to obtain. Mohamed and I sat on the black plastic couches awaiting our turn to speak to the official.

As we waited for his answer an older woman with a head-covering entered and sat down. She did not have papers or a passport. The official gestured to her to speak. I could tell that her language was Arabic, so the only words I could recognize was Ranya (a small city two hours away) and Kirkuk (the oil-rich disputed city, also two hours away). She told her story with the beginning of tears in her eyes. He listened patiently, said a few words,  reached for his wallet and pulled out 15,000 Iraqi Dinars ($13). I really could not believe what I was seeing, but I did have a very warm feeling toward this man.

After we received his signature I asked Mohamed to clarify my observations. The woman had fled the violence in Kirkuk with her family and now lives in Ranya. She asked him if he could organise the ones working at the office to give her some donations because the family had nothing. He told her he could not because his employees rely on government salary which has not been paid in 3 months. However, he had money that he could personally give to her. Thus he handed over the 15,000 ID.

This incident is rich on so many levels. It speaks to  the abject poverty of the millions of refugees and IDPs.  It tells of the government workers (approximately 75% of the population) who have not been paid in 3-5 months.  And it shows that even an official  can show compassion. He had the power to  call the security guards to throw her out but he did not and gave her so much more than a usual donation to the poor.

Two weeks ago our  CPT trainees posted a video. It tells the story of the government workers of Iraqi Kurdistan who have not received their salaries. Some are on strike, waiting for the day that the government finds the funds to pay them. Others are still working, serving the public and also waiting.

Not ever since World War II; so many people looking for HOME.

I sit in sunny Manitoba where the heat that people complain about is only 30 C. The trees and grass are green. Unlimited water pours  from every tap in my house. When I sweat I can decrease the thermostat on the kitchen wall  and the central air conditioner takes care of that problem.

  I have been home three weeks and  am now able to re-enter Winnpeg society. I no longer have to cocoon in my house unable to face the huge grocery stores and my friends who ask me how I am.  .Already I can go hours without even thinking of  the people I sat with in Iraqi Kurdistan. I am forgetting the heat and the sweat and the burning hot wind. I am forgetting the tears and pain of mothers sitting on the sidewalk begging with their eyes, families  in unfinished houses asking for a refrigerator so their water can be cool enough to drink  and people living in  flappy  tents that can fall down  in the blustery winds.  I am forgetting the father looking at his 21 year old son who is thinking of paying the money to a smuggler to try to get to a life worth living. I am forgetting the words, "what else can he do?"

I am really  trying to get be aware of  the injustice that is all around me here in sunny Manitoba. I am trying to read the face book posts about  mercury in water, oil pipelines being pushed through by politicians and a thousand and a half missing and murdered indigenous women . I am trying to see that there are so many people and so much  work here in my own land. 

But there are still the hours when I remember. When I read news of 70 people dying in a smuggler's truck because no one would open the doors. When I hear from my colleagues working on the island of Lesvos of ordinary people risking life and the breath of their children to get onto inflated boats trying to find a society who will embrace them and say welcome. I remember young men  with whom I  have sat at a table with a beer and discussed life and the universe and sometimes just silliness. These ones who have set off on the journey to Germany for $10,000. This was not a trip with a backpack poking around to discover the quaintness of  Europe. It was one where passport and computers were left behind and that held the question of whether it was safe to let loved ones know by a text or a Facebook post that they had reached another safe place along the way.

I cry, knowing that my offering to the people I sat with was so little. That many are living in tents with not enough water for basic needs , but that they know that soon  the winter rains and the thick mud will come.  They will still be in the tents because there is no place to go. Unless they say, "what else can we do?" and they will somehow raise the $10,000 per person  for the good smuggler and they will try to cross the razor wire and  the dogs and the men with guns and the  broad sea water to get to somewhere else. Where maybe they will find a dwelling that is  warm and dry  in winter and cool in summer.. Maybe they will find a tiny piece of land to plant tomatoes and  where  the children can play. 

A friend of mine posted this poem today. I could not read it all at once because the tears began to flow. Not since World War II has there been so many people fleeing, trying desperately to find a good  place to call home

HOME

 by Somali poet Warsan Shire:

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.

Anticipating things unknown about Ramadan

The photos in this post are taken earlier in my time in Iraqi Kurdistan. They are not the children whose story I tell. 

This stint on team in Iraqi Kurdistan is my first summer and the first time I will experience Ramadan. My body is coping quite well with the nice, dry heat- so far up to 42 C. But I am feeling a little apprehensive about the unknowns of a month of practices that are integral to a faith that is not my own.

My team mates have given hints that our lives must change even though we are not fasting. Taking a swig from a water bottle in  public is considered rude and disrespectful. Many of our favourite restaurants are either closed during the fasting hours or have a white curtain that one must hide behind. The small alcohol shops are closed for the month. There will be many more occasions when I may have to wear a scarf.  And life is overall pretty quiet, with employees leaving work an hour or so earlier than usual. Then  at sundown, which is around 7 pm here,  activity in the streets will pick up and people will break their fast.

But I also wonder how Ramadan will affect the refugees and IDPs who rely on the small bits of money they can collect from those who are thirsty and hungry.

Around the corner from the CPT house sits an 8 year old boy - all day, everyday. His seat is the curb and in front of him are ten bags of homemade popcorn. He waits for sympathetic or hungry passersby to hand him a bit of paper money. He sits from morning to evening until the bags are gone, or it is dark enough to take his earnings home to his mother and siblings. His small amount of money helps to feed the family who are IDPs from the south..

Another small boy caught my attention in the bazaar. Apparently begging is illegal here so most of the many, many working children have something to give you for a donation. This 5-6 year old had a small styrofoam box with a bit of ice and 10 bottles of water. He stood holding a bottle as an example of his wares, for the masses of people passing by. I stopped. I had already bought one 500 ml bottle but had almost sucked it dry. I handed him a  small paper bill and bent to grab the top bottle. With a serious face he gently pushed my hand away and reached down to the bottom to give me the coldest bottle possible. I took it from him, put it on my hot face and said, "zor sarde/very cold". He finally smiled.

My discomfort with the unknown is not something that will harm me. I may be reprimanded for a faux pas. I may experience thirst in the hot sun that I am not used to. But I wonder about these little ones and the families that they support. How will Ramadan affect them?

Poem: The Goats and the Big Bad Wolf (not a fairytale)

This poem is a little late. Winter is over in Iraqi Kurdistan and spring is showing its glorious green splendor. It was a very harsh winter for the people living in tents. It will be a harsh, hot summer for the people living in tents. So, here is my thinking in poetry.

(Screen shot taken from video by UNHCR)

In North America many children hear the story of the Three Little Pigs. The animals are trying to avoid a wolf who would like to end their lives. They build several shelters made of straw, sticks and finally bricks. The last house offers the protection they need and they are victorious over the dangerous creature.

In December 2014 I saw a video (see below) made by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees  about a Syrian family and their attempt to find shelter after fleeing from the militant group known as ISIS or Da’ash. The commentator did not state whether their faith  background was Muslim, Christian or other. So, out of respect I changed the story to be that of 3 little goats- or in this case a family of 7 goats.

The  Goats and the Big Bad Wolf (not a fairytale)

The father of this family built a new house

Not of straw

Not of sticks

Definitely not of bricks.

The new house is built of white plastic sheeting

And bits of wood found lying about the village.

The cost was all they had left

 60,000 Iraqi dinars –about $50

A necessary renovation as their canvas tent leaked from the winter water pouring from the skies.

                                                    ********************************

The family does not fear the wolf- it has already been and gone.

Wolf-like men: huffing and puffing and screaming defiance

“Be gone or be done”.

Now, a family of seven in a plastic house-huddled together exchanging body heat.

Craving donations of blankets and kerosene to survive winter’s chill.

They had heard….

“Family, family let us come in….”

 They replied--“Not by the hair of our chiny, chin chin”.

“Then we will huff and puff and blow your house in.

It was done.. and they ran- fleeing, running, scampering

Leaving everything behind----to live in a house of white plastic.

 Video: Iraq: Preparing for Winter in Dohuk

Mud, wonderful mud?: Winter time in Arbat Camp.

(Photo by  UNICEF- Belgium)

A well known  musical movie, My Fair Lady, has a famous line-"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain". However, in the winter in Iraqi Kurdistan, the rain falls on the mountains (in the form of snow) and on the fields (where it waters the winter wheat  that grows and turns bright green), in the cities (running off the concrete houses and yards and down the  streets) and in the IDP/ refugee camps (where the trucks, cars and hundreds of people turn the dirt into muck).

As one drives into Arbat Camp the ruts on the road are full of water and the mounds of dirt are wet and mushy.  The adults walk from tent home  to small shop to Aid distribution through the mud. The children run from tent to small toilet buildings to school through the mud. Some of the children have nice rubber boots, others have winter boots made for snowy conditions and others have bare feet inside summer plastic sandals.

The white UNHCR tents are supposed to keep the rain off the occupants, although this is not necessarily always accurate. But the women work very diligently to keep the muck out of the sitting, resting, eating, sleeping area. I saw  one woman was scrubbing the rubber mat at the tent flap entrance trying to keep a mud-free square meter of space. Another was  washing the family's clothing in a small plastic basin and then hanging them outside with the hope that they would dry before the next rainy day.

 (Photo by Sectorserbil.blogspot)
A photo taken by an Aid resource NGO of the clothes washing facilities in the camp

They all have fled from their brick, stable, waterproof houses to live in the enormous tent village. They now need to fight the dirt and muck with very limited resources.

One way to keep the mud out is to compel everyone to take off their footwear at the door. This is a usual cultural practice anyway, but in Arbat it is a necessary fact of life. A week ago I visited the long rounded tent that serves as the kindergarten. When we arrived 20 small ones aged 3-6 were inside singing an Arabic song at the top of their voices. Just outside the tent door was a large pile of boots and shoes- everyone of them covered with  brown mud.

When the last drum beat had sounded the children rushed to the door to head back to their family's tents. But there was one last last hurdle to overcome- how to match the right footwear to the correct feet?

This boy is pretty secure in the fact that he found his own boots.

The pile has depleted by a lot.

However, at the end there were two children left and three sets of boots- all of them did not belong to the other. The teacher here is trying to convince this little guy  that 

he should give one of the spare pairs a try.

The saga of the confusion of the boots ended well. He was convinced to try one of the pair of yellow boots on (you can see them in the first photo of the pile of boots). They fit very well and off he went. The last child got a "new" set of purple boots and she headed back to her tent. 

The volunteer teachers and I had a long laugh at the craziness of it all. And the lone unwanted pair of yellow boots stood by the door- awaiting their next chance to find a set of feet that wanted them.

Poem to Mud     

 (Zilpha Keatley Snyder)

Poem to mud-
Poem to ooze-
Patted in pies, or coating the shoes.
Poem to slooze-
Poem to crud-
Fed by a leak, or spread by a flood.
Wherever, whenever, whyever it goes,
Stirred by your finger or strained by your toes,
There's nothing sloppier, slipperier, floppier,
There's nothing slickier, stickier, thickier,
There's nothing quickier to make grown-ups sickier,
Trulier coolier,
Than wonderful mud.