It was friday afternoon, the day of the week that everyone gathers at the mosque to pray. Walking down the street we could see the crowds from blocks away. The closer we got the more congested it became. Row after row of people in perfectly formed lines all in sync with the call to prayer. Our view in front of us cleared as the masses kneeled to the ground and like a whisper of thunder moved to bow their foreheads to the ground. Snaking in and out of the rows of people we carefully maneuvered ourselves into the center of the mosque. With respect and awe we observed this weekly ceremony as we filmed and took photos. As the call to prayer came closer to the end, little girls and boys with their mothers dressed in rags silently swooped in to set up their stations throughout the crowd. Unfolding their towels and wooden mats they prepared for most likely the only money they would receive for the week. With the hoards of people filling past, the children sat beneath the moving legs all around them in hopes for a few lira. Little by little they collected their money from the “alms” of the attenders. Soon enough though, uniformed guards started yelling for them to get out. Carrying guns and shouting, they cleared out the beggars as the mosque got empty, save a few older devotees and a cluster of blind men convening together…

These are some photos from our time at the oldest mosque in Kurdistani Iraq. The Sheik even gave us a personal tour including the blind room, the weekly feeding of the poor, and the Whirling Dervish ceremony. More photos to come…

Ok, so I was a little trigger happy with my friend here, but I couldn’t resist. She was taking me to see her family’s store and we were just runnig through the deserted streets in the rain. I love how bright she is in comparisson to her surroundings.

The ‘Red House’ in Sulymaniya is a sobering reminder of the immense suffering of the Iraqi Kurds. This secret Ba’ath party prison was one of a string of torture centers across Iraq and here thousands were executed and tortured in cramped and damp cells. The building was taken by force in 1991 and is speckled by bullet holes, with rusting Soviet tanks and heavy machine guns in the courtyard by the former Rape Room. It is now a museum which symbolizes the scale of the physical and psychological violence inflicted on the Iraqi Kurds. Walking through this museum was like walking through an Auschwitz…except the attrocities here were only a few years removed. Everything looked as it had, and we walked freely, alone, through jail cells and mazes of chambers. Sadly it was not hard to imagine what it would have been like as I drug my hand accross the jaged walls where inocent prisoners had desperatly scratched and most likely sobbed against. As I walked into the rainy courtyard where the tanks laid at rest I spotted a lone rose in the midst of the jungle of concrete and barbed wire. It literaly grew out of the hard cement and to me was a physical symbol of  truth that is more real than anything physical. Hope. Redemption. Resiliance. Forgiveness. These are all showcased everday in everything…people, prisons, dreams, despair, suffering, a flower. We just have to recognize them. Where there is despair, there are dreams. Where there is suffering, there is hope.

Lest we forget: in the late 1980s, nearly 200,000 men, women and children were slaughtered in Saddam’s genocidal ‘Anfal’ campaign. Over 4,000 villages were raided and people herded into detention camps. However, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leaders have opted for democracy in Iraq and autonomy for the Kurds - figuring the two go together. The Kurdistan Region is safer than the rest of Iraq, with far fewer terrorist outrages since ‘liberation’ in 2003.

NEVER KNOWN [The Unheard of Orphan Crisis in Iraq] from Discover The Journey on Vimeo.

I haven’t posted in a few days, but there will be a lot more posts coming soon. This is a video Jonathan (www.discoverthejourney.org) made pertaining to the orphan crisis in Iraq. The video speaks for itself. My posts and photos up to this point have been very positive, but this one is not. The photos in this video are from Baghdad and this crisis is real.

One major characteristic of the Kurdish people is generosity. It is not the generosity that expects recognition or something in return. It is the kind of generosity that just doesn’t make sense. Especially in our American minds. The rest of the word should get to know the Kurds and learn from them. Walking through the bazaar we were offered free food, and people would literally refuse payment. There is no logic to it. They really seem to think outside of money and more in the realm of relationships. Many times we would have to convince taxi drivers to take our money…people wanted their pictures taken just for the fun of it…we would take people out to dinner and end up being treated…the hospitality is consistent wherever you go and everywhere people were just trying to welcome us home to their country.

We arrived in the city that afternoon and settled into the house where we were staying. We stayed at a guesthouse in a neighborhood and the gentleman that runs it is a pretty rad guy. He is a teacher at a school and so we went with him to check out where he teaches. It was neat to see two extremes of schools in one day. We were able to see the completely rural school and then a very wealthy private school. We hung out in the school yard for a bit to get some footage.

That night we had dinner with a man who has a child in the school. We ate at the restaurant that he owns and talked about everything from his stories of being in the war, to Islam and Christianity, to his wisdom about family and life. One of my favorite parts about this trip was to hear people’s stories. Everyone had a story. Everyone has been affected by war regardless of their background. The Kurdish people are some of the most resilient people I’ve ever met and they have continued to fight for their identity and hope. Everyone has a story and everyone still has a smile…and that is beautiful.

This set of photos is from a little school house that we stopped at in between cities. The children were amazingly warm and excited to show their visitors their school.

The next morning I woke up to the sun rising and snuck outside into the cool sunny dawn to snap a few photos. I walked through the trees and admired the sun-drenched hills, the shepherds caring for their flocks, and a little boy on his way to school with his father. Right away I knew that it was going to be a good trip and that it would expel many preconceived ideas about this land. This hospitality that we received the first night would be duplicated everyday to our continued amazement by the people in this region.
The town that we would be spending the majority of time in was about two hours away, so we loaded up the taxi and drove across the beautiful hills and valleys of northern Iraq. We stopped at a rural school house to hang out with some of the children and hear some traditional Kurdish songs that they were proud to show off.

(check back soon for photos from the country side school)

Beirut, Lebanon to Kurdistan
I slept most of the way to Beirut and upon arriving was met by a driver to take me to our hotel. After a good nights rest Jonathan and I enjoyed a giant American style/Lebanese breakfast buffet. After debriefing and going through our final checklist we headed to the airport on our way to Iraq. We passed over the snow capped (very small capped) Lebanon Mts.  on our way to a place that most people didn’t understand why we would go. In the photos, you will see a little orange device. That is our “Spot” as it is called and it tracks through GPS where we are as well as sending out messages notifying others that we were safe. And if we were ever to get in a “situation” there is a button that calls the embassy and our contacts. You can check out exactly where we went here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=36.3802,44.075&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

The first contact that we met was, to our surprise, the chief of one of the biggest tribes in Kurdistan, Iraq. We were greeted into his compound that included his bodyguards and servants and enjoyed the evening and night with him and his family. Our first meal in Iraq was one of the most delicious feasts I have ever enjoyed and the hospitality of the chief and his family was incredible.