My favourite photos of 2014

Taking photos is an important task when working with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Often we need to get the "big picture" to show exactly what is happening in a demonstration or blockade. However, I also like to get closer, to focus in to show the individual, with just enough surrounding information to tell a story. Other times I want to just show you the person- probably someone you will never be introduced to, but that you can meet through one glimpse in my photo.

These photos are some of my favourites that I have taken in 2014. A lot has happened in Iraqi Kurdistan and in the rest of the world since January. I have had the privilege of being a part of exciting events, and meeting fabulous human beings. 

[click on the first photo to see them in larger format)

On a wonderful spring day in Chamchamal with my friend Ann

 Gulan (many flowers) is a tiny ancient farming village in

 Iraqi Kurdistan where our friend Latif lives.

My colleague, Lukasz, speaks with Latif's mother while we all drink tea.

I met this man in the bazaar. When I asked for a photo he removed his hat

 from his head and put it on his knee.

The football field that is close to the CPT house.

This was a demonstration where people marched down the main street in Sulaimani to protest a barrier ditch being built by Iraqi Kurdistan authorities in between IK and Syria.

 A young man watches a dance in the pow wow in Winnipeg on Aboriginal Day 2014

 A family sits under a tree waiting for their turn to dance at the pow wow on Aboriginal Day.

 A CPT delegation in Grassy Narrows presented a 

musical evening for members of the community

 The delegates attended a pow wow at the  Grassy Narrows School 

and were invited to dance.

 A family meets their soldier son on the biggest holiday of the Kurdish year- Nawroz

A young couple celebrating Nawroz

 A shepherd leads his flock out to pasture past an historical wall

A scarf salesperson in the bazaar

Father Jens with some of the children who are living in the small monastery in Sulaimani

 Christmas Day mass

An grandmother living in Virgin Mary monastery

A Syrian mother and daughter from New Arbat camp

 A handwork exhibition in the New Arbat camp

My favorite photo of the year. It was an accident as the woman turned her head just as I clicked. I thought the photo was ruined, but when I put it onto the computer I loved it- the white background brings out the colours and I really like that none of them are looking at me. This is difficult to accomplish!

Still a tiny bit of room at the inn/monastery in Sulaimani

One would think that there was not even a tiny bit of floor space to spare. In August over 200 persons found refuge in the Virgin Mary Monastery in Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan. Many of the families had fled by foot from the Christian city of Qaraquosh when militant forces invaded the area. Father Jens says that when the monks and sisters  heard the news that morning they knew that preparations had to begin very quickly. Sure enough, within hours 600 people had come into Sulaimani desperately looking for a place to lay their heads and for something to fill their bellies.

On December 25 the environment in the little monastery has settled down. Each family has a tiny cubicle separated by blue and green striped canvas. Father Jens says that he has enough funding right now to feed everyone for four months. Long plastic sheeting creates a windbreak and a place for the older children to have school on days when it is not Christmas. This may be  the situation for a long time. The Christians are not going back to Qaraquosh anytime soon, if ever.

On Christmas Day the monastery offered an English mass. People from many different countries came to sit on the straight benches in the portion of the sanctuary that is still held to be the worship space, a place for the sacred that is different yet similar to the holy space that gives rest to  the wandering ones.

 Throughout the service women slipped silently in and out of the little living spaces: gathering food for their family or removing dirty dishes. The room was suprisingly quiet considering how many were housed there, broken only by the occasional small person's voice. And we sat  listening to the ancient stories of the prophets predicting that someday nations would not learn war anymore.

It brought to my mind the story of the full inn or house in Bethlehem. People, people everywhere, trying to get along, trying to survive conditions that are so less than ideal. But as Father Jens pointed out, this is not an unusual situation in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the Middle East, or in the whole wide world.

When the mass was over we were all invited  to join  the families for a cup of tea. I had made two large German stollen as a gift for Jens so they were cut into little pieces and served to everyone who wanted one. It felt a little like the loaves and fishes only there were not even crumbs left at the end.

Before I left the courtyard with my friend Ann, Father Jens asked how it was for me to be alone at Christmas. "You know, if you need company or a community we do have a guest room open. You could come to stay here with us all." I thanked him gratefully. 

A few months ago my team interviewed Father Jens. The short video, Father Jens on Christianity,

Islam and ISIS violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, can be found here.

.

Wow, the money flowed!! Thank you Winnipeg.

[Click on the first photo to see them all in larger format]
Photos taken by Brandi Friesen Thorpe and Kathy Moorhead Thiessen

After I had  months of planning, fretting, stressing and some moments of  enjoying the process, the evening of 9 November finally arrived. Ted and Company, a comedy theatre group, arrived at the venue. The chili was ready to feed hungry volunteers. My CPT colleague, Chuck Wright, laid out CPT information on a red table cloth. The pies started to gather on the pie tables. The people began to stream in and man, they did come. By the time the play began we had close to 200 people, including 60 youth  Everyone was ready to laugh and presumably to buy pies at crazy prices.

The price for pies went as high as $380

The event was a fundraiser for Christian Peacemaker Teams- Peace, Pies and Prophets. Over the last 3 years Ted and Company has provided the entertainment for gatherings where people can laugh, think and dig deep into their pockets in support of CPT.  Sunday night was the time for Winnipeg. As the doors closed and everyone was seated we had 55 pies-including many styles and shapes and flavours, although apple was very predominant. Many of the pies had a short story attached to the pie; some factual and some fiction.  People did spend some time at the tables looking at the choices and planning how they were going to bid when the pie auction began.

It seems that I am directing here and my volunteers are

preparing the pies as they come in the door

A CPT logo pie

A Batman blueberry pie

An apple/blueberry Turtle Island pie

(reminding us that the land we are on is the territory

 of the Anishnabe First Nations.)

A beautifully decorated pie box containing an equally beautiful pie.

Taking a look at the pies to see what they would like to bid on

After Janelle Thiessen van Esch capably introduced the evening, Ted and Tim began the play- I'd Like  to Buy an Enemy. In between the loud laughter, we also were led to think. Has our culture programmed us to believe that people who are "the other", ones who we don't know, are our enemy?

The time for the first segment of auction came quickly. A horn blew, Ted and Tim took off their costumes and became THE AUCTIONEERS! Pie runners grabbed a pie, ran up to the front of the church and the auction began. When the pie had a story attached, the men read the story and this created even more excitement about the pie.

Ted gets really excited about an especially high bid

It seemed to be obvious that some of the attendees would not have much money to donate, especially the young people and students. So I suggested to Ted that they have an "under 18 years" auction, to keep the price lower. But, who would have known, even that pie went for $110! The young ones pooled their money and a large group of them were able to buy the only cheesecake for over $350. I imagine that made it taste even better when they all joined together to eat it after the event.

The evening just kept having surprise after surprise.The audience was energised and enthralled. The money just kept on flowing even when the event went over the time allotted.  The people kept buying pies for huge prices. And they continued to give when the CPT hats were passed around for a free-will offering. By the end of the evening, my trusty money-handling volunteers told me we had made over $11,500. Wow!!

PS. As a way of creating beauty out of something that can be used for violence, Brandi Friesen Thorpe created these earrings out of beads and used bullets. She brought  them to the event and donated the proceeds to CPT. Thorpian Philosphy is the name of her small company. (I think that if you have Facebook you can see that link, I am not sure what happens if you don't). The funds from any that she sells in November will still go to CPT). 

The Yazidi Community in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

On Monday I finally had a chance to visit a family who lives in the same city that I do. I had met Koulan four years ago, in January 2011, when I made an attempt to find someone to help me learn Kurdish before I went to Iraqi Kurdistan for the first time. I met a group of 7 women, all with different ways of speaking the language. That day I discovered that for such a small region, there were many dialects!

A few months later as I planned a Kurdish supper fundraiser, I remembered that K. had told me she made Kurdish bread in her Canadian oven. So she taught me and we spent an day making 40 large rounds of bread that added a lot to my meal.

Now this summer the news began to come from Iraq of the people being displaced by the violent, militant forces.When  I heard, via Facebook, of the Yazidi people fleeing Shingal and being trapped on the mountain I looked into the international section of our Winnipeg Free Press paper and saw nothing about it. So I sent in a news tip email and within two hours had a reply. I told the journalist that I knew of a community here in Winnipeg, So she contacted my acquaintances and the next day there was an article. This was published in early August in the Winnipeg paper.

(Sarah Taylor/ Winnipeg Free Press)

Nafiya Naso (middle) with her son Lavan, mother Koulan Fandi (right), father, Ahaz Jallo

 and her older son Maher

Now, at the end of September, my activities finally slowed down enough for me to meet with the family again. Nafiya and her family were at her parent's house so I was able to see Koulan, as well as Nafiya's young boys. The TV was on a satellite Kurdish station telling of the attempts to push back the militant IS forces. They translated some of the top headlines for me while shaking their heads at the horror of the situation.

Nafiya told me that their families are scattered and some have lost their lives. She is helping to lead the community here in Winnipeg (40-50 families) to plan a memorial service for the many people of their faith who have died in the last two months. She would like to raise funds at that event to aid the displaced people in Iraq. 

The family expressed gratitude that they were able to come to  Canada about a decade ago, but also helplessness at only being able to watch what is happening in Iraqi Kurdistan. Nafiya said, "It is not only our people. There are people suffering from all different faiths. We can't just think about the Yazidi people. It is not a religious issue. It is a human rights issue."

Living (and visiting).in Parkdale (Toronto, Ontario)-a good place to live?

A sign in Parkdale, Toronto

This summer I have spent some time  in Toronto on three occasions. One of the times  happened just this weekend. I had the chance to accompany my husband on a trip during which Toronto Tourism wooed church groups to schedule their large assemblies in Toronto (specifically the area near the airport). For these three days I experienced a lifestyle that is quite foreign to me, that of the more wealthy sector of society.

Breakfast Entre.

On Saturday morning I was eating breakfast with the group when one man asked if I visited Toronto very frequently. I said that I had just been here two weeks earlier, in a very different capacity. I told him that I had been staying in Parkdale. He proceeded to tell me that Parkdale was changing from a "bad" place to a very nice place to live. Young couples and students were buying houses and condominiums and making it a "good" place to be.

I sat there listening and feeling sad for the Parkdale that I had experienced just two weeks earlier. Now, maybe my perspective is a little skewed. I walked the streets during daylight hours and I did not see any evidence of some of the less pleasant aspects. But the Parkdale that I saw appealed to me- the life and activity and society of a place to live that is a huge mixture of all kinds of people.

On the other two visits  I stayed in the Christian Peacemaker Teams Aboriginal Justice Team's home in the area of Parkdale, west of downtown Toronto, and  that is quite close to Lake Ontario. The large house that my three colleagues plus two housemates live in is an old lovely duplex that was formerly the Catholic Worker house of hospitality. I have heard stories from my colleagues of visitors:  a homeless couple who lived on the porch for a period of time last summer, of racoons and little kittens or  the lonely CPT guests who drop in for a time to be with fellows of like mind . Some of these visitors have been rehoused quite quickly, others were invited to stay for a while until they were able to find suitable housing. Others made their way back to lives in other parts of Canada or the world.

This is a tiny taste of the Parkdale I experienced.. On my walks I saw a mixture of all kinds of ethnicities and cultures and ages and genders. I saw children spending out-of-school hours playing footfall/soccer together on the schoolyard, women in traditional Tibetan dresses carrying groceries home, and community gardens thriving beside a weekly vegetable market.

I don't know who lives in these apartments. But I did see of lot of Canadian flags- people making a new life in this country.

However, I witnessed one interaction that exemplified the village that Parkdale is, in the midst of a huge city. As I waited to cross Queen Street I spied an elderfy man walking slowly along the sidewalk. Another man met him and asked if he was going home. The first man mumbled, "yes, yes, going home".

"Then you have to turn around. Your home is that way". And the second man pointed in the opposite direction. "And (woman's name) is hunting for you. You need to go find her." He then turned the man around and sent him back up the sidewalk.

The second man then came to wait for the walk signal alongside me. I smiled at him. He said, "It sucks to have Alzheimers."

This is a place to live where every day you walk alongside new and old immigrants to Canada, old and young people, broken and not-so-broken people. I pray that this part of Toronto will not change too quickly to be a "good" place to live. Because, in my opinion, it is already a GOOD place to live.