Some hearts are bigger then others

One of our staff invited us to his house for dinner. He used to live in Baghdad with is family, but because he worked with the Americans he had to move his family to Suliamaniya due to fear that something would happen to them. He and his family were so warm and inviting. It was a great honor to go to their house. It was also the first time I had a traditional meal, which meant sitting on the floor. One of his daughters was so sweet and recognized that I was wearing a skirt and brought me a cloth to cover myself. The food was absolutely amazing. It honestly was the best food I have had in Iraq. It was traditional dishes like tabbouleh, hummus, chicken, fish, eggplant salad and rice, but everything was so fresh and tasty. I cannot quite explain it. Most of the food I have eaten here has been greasy and without much taste. This food was just amazing. This is not something I can explain by describing taste, texture, smells and colors, but something from my heart. For someone who has had to uproot his family and move elsewhere to be still so kind to us foreigners is very heart warming. Their house was very plain but it was warmed and colored by their spirit.

Pancakes

I still owe you a story about the Sheikhs, but in the meantime I have a story to tell about pancakes. We went over to a staff members house a couple of months ago and I made scrambled eggs and pancakes. She fell in love with pancakes. So, when she was having a house warming I asked her what I could bring and she said pancakes. I think this is the first time in my life that I have been requested to bring pancakes to a party. Most of you know that I have a pretty extensive cooking repertoire. Just don't ask me to cook meat. I could bake a pie, make brownies, even a bouche de noel, but no, I am bringing good old American pancakes. This is the story of how pancakes became an Iraqi food.

It starts to get crazy

How to explain the last couple of days…

I land in Istanbul and I have the most amazing dinner of roasted vegetables with pureed eggplant béchamel. Dennis if you are reading, please fry the eggplant slices first and then roast them on the grill. I almost did not make it out because I had very little sleep on the plane coming over and it was cold and rainy. I am glad that I did though because it was nice to sit in a cozy restaurant and watch the people go by. I went to bed and got up in the morning and headed to the airport. I was early and spent some time in duty free. I also had a nice big cappuccino. I landed in Erbil and was driven back to Sulaimaniya. Since I had no food I went to get groceries and by the time I got home it was around 7:30. I unpacked, watched some Dr. Who (I’m not sure how I feel about the new guy), read and went to bed around 11:30. I had a meeting at 2PM the next day and I didn’t bother setting an alarm. One of my staff called at 12:35 asking for directions. That call woke me up. I jumped in the shower and then at 1:15 the phone rang again. It was another one of my staff wondering where I was. I was all like, duh, I said 2 o’clock, and he pointed out it was 2:15. I was still on Turkish time. My driver was waiting downstairs for me. I had a 2 hour meeting and then I had to run and get the groceries I forgot because I was hosting dinner for our out of town guest speaker on Sunday. I went to our office, because our internet was out at home, and had class from 5-7PM. Then my ride arrived for another work meeting and I got home at 9:30. I went to bed around 11 and woke up at 2AM. I lay there for an hour before I finally realized I wasn’t going back to sleep so I booted up (hah- do any of you remember boot disks) the computer and wrote a newsletter that I was supposed to write for school. I tried to go back to bed and lay there until my alarm went off at a ridiculously early hour.

I put on my makeup and my suit and went to the hotel for an NGO training we were hosting. Thankfully my staff are really good at this and I just had to do an introduction and brief history of our Institute. Except, I had to talk to people and sit and smile pretty all day- the two things that I am not very good at. At lunch the participants for the tribal/community leader training started arriving. There were a couple of Sheikhs and a couple of community leaders. Then I was talking to someone and one of our NGO team members came up to get me and dragged me over to meet the group from Mosul. There was a Turkeman community leader, Yazidi community leader, Shabak community leader, two Sunni Sheikhs, a Christian community leader and some guards. I am being introduced and with each introduction I’m getting a bit overwhelmed. One of my staff later said I looked like a deer in headlights. He reminded me how three months ago I said there was no way we can get this done. I didn’t even know where to start and there were all of the people we needed to work with walking off the pages of my grant.

That evening I was hosting dinner at my house because I know how much it kind of sucks having to eat out all the time when you are traveling. Thankfully my boss supplied the salad, some chickpea soup, bread and desert. I just made an awesome Turkish pasta dish. I can’t find maple syrup here, but I do get Turkish noodles and the recipe is on the bag. There were a couple of question that had come up while I was reviewing my notes and it was nice to be able to sit and get an Iraqi perspective on conflict and reconciliation. There ends day one of the event. I do not recommend getting off a plane and trying to have an event two days later!