We have been in Suli for almost two months now.  We moved from one hotel to another hotel to our final home in a developing suburb of the city.

We move around in SUVs driven by chauffeurs paid by the university;  although the drivers (6 or 7 of them!) are a collective asset of the university, we often feel like we have private chauffeurs, responding to our needs whenever they are expressed: “take us to the bazaar” or “take us to a bookstore” or “take us to a liquor store.”

    The traffic is insane.  There are no rules, no lanes, hardly a road sign in sight; occasionally a policeman at some busy intersection erratically tries to regulate the flow of traffic.  You find speed bumps every 100 feet or so.  When we go outside of the city limits, on what could be called an “open road,” speed bumps are augmented by check posts manned by armed peshmerga (militia or army men).  As a result a short road trip of say,

50 km, turns into a back breaking ride of two or more hours.

    The people make all the difference.  In stark contrast with the dirty, broken environment they live in, the Kurds display amazing generosity and nobility of heart.  People a hundred times poorer than we are give us food, even clothes, totally unsolicited.  They do it with a beautiful gesture, bowing slightly forward and placing their open hand on their heart, sometimes on their eyes. This is often accompanied by an expression that can be translated as: “ Your footsteps on my eyes. . .”