Sulaymania is about 3000 feet above sea level and is surrounded by hills that are snow-capped at this time of the year. Snow does fall in the city in January and February. There was a slight snowfall on Christmas Eve, I'm told. The winter months are when it rains and it can get quite cold, but there are days where the temperature has been 15c and sunny.
Today is not one of those days. It is near freezing and has been for a couple of days. It has snowed several times, but I have not asked Heather to FedEx me the snow shovel.
There are two hotels that we expats use – the Sulaymaniya Palace and the Ashti.There are very few restaurants. The Palace has three, but two of them have the same menu and this menu is also used by the two restaurants in the Ashti. Nobody can say why things are set up this way. The third restaurant at the Palace serves Indian food, or rather, an Iraqi version of Indian food. If you plan to have rice, this needs to be ordered before 8 PM, since the chef does not cook rice after this time (another why). Rice is also scarce in the other restaurants because they only serve it at lunch time.
Vegetables are not served in the restaurants, but can be purchased at the market. I was advised to bring vitamin supplements. I didn't, so if I come down with scurvy I've only myself to blame. Under strict instructions from my wife last night, I just ate two oranges. The water is potable, but we normally only use it for tea and coffee. Our South African programmer has had the trots for a few days now and has just given up drinking the stuff raw. There are lots of bottled water and soft drinks available.
I had a rough time with the chicken wings the other night. I poured out my sob story to my sympathetic wife (preceded by pouring out the chicken wings for most of the night!) We agreed that I should stick to fresher fare like fruit and I decided to eat more bread and peanut butter sandwiches. I have not found a Pizza Hut or Wendy's anywhere. Remember the big toilets I mentioned in Page 1? I'm not the only one who's had problems. We expats have started calling it the "Iraqi bacci".
There is a club that has a better offering of food, but to go, one needs to be invited by one of the local senior managers. It is a family place. There is also another hotel about five minutes from the Centrum offering semi-fine cuisine. I have not been there yet either. Apparently, the best place to eat is in Huawei’s restaurant. Huawei is one of the two switch vendors AsiaCell is using. They have their own chef who cooks the local fish wonderfully and you get served vegetables. To get an invite, you need to be a friend of their senior management. I'm working on that part.
It can get very hot in summer (40c) and there is malaria, although I'm told it is more prevalent in the villages. There are also doctors here. AsiaCell has a doctor and a dentist working for them in various roles. The pay scales for doctors and dentists in the public sector is about $100 per month. They earn many time that amount at AsiaCell. As in many Middle Eastern countries, you can buy most drugs over the counter so if one has an ailment some sort of treatment is available.
As for personal safety, in Sulaymaniya, some of the staff walk to work unless it’s raining. Then the ceramic tiles on the sidewalk are like ice. There have been no incidents of any kind in the town directed at us. A couple of nights ago, when we left work, the streets were deserted except for the ever-present security guards, nervously fingering their machine guns. We found out that several Afghans and a Yemenese national had been arrested by the local police that evening. An intensive search of the area produced several TNT explosive devices, just a few hundred meters from where we work. It surely put everyone on edge, including me. I think Heather heard the nervousness in my voice when I made my nightly call. AsiaCell does have operations in two other towns, Kirkuk and Mosul, and is starting work in Erbil. There have been incidents in these towns. The worst was the bombing at the two party headquarters in Erbil. I have been through each town and may have to visit again. It’s a personal call though. Nobody will force me to go if I don't want to go.
We have appointed a security chief now who is well connected in the area the locals call Kurdistan. Connections are the biggest thing here. You do not get a job here if your last name is wrong, or if you wear a scarf over your head. This company does not want any sort of extremists. It is tough on human rights, but I am not going to take up the cause. Life is too short and has minimal value here. Nearly everyone here is related to someone else. You have to be careful what you say, who you say it to and where it's said. Otherwise, the person sitting nearby might be in the Chairman's office, telling Uncle all.
One of the drivers, who speaks English well, was telling us about how Saddam (in 1988) decided that the Kurdish villages were giving aid and comfort to the guerillas fighting in the mountains. He used his army to wipe out hundreds of villages. One of them was the driver's village. At that time Sulaymaniya was a very pretty town, but Saddam's forces destroyed a lot of it and there were many bodies lying in the streets after being shot dead, for no other reason than they were passing by at the wrong time. Many of the prettier girls left or were sent by their families to places like Germany to avoid constant rape. We sometimes hear some of it on the TV, but it is so very sad to hear it face to face from someone who has suffered through those times.
On a more palatable note, the local people are grateful to the US who helped evacuate many of them during those times. The UN did not help. Our Western news reported demonstrations against US presence in Sulaymania on Valentines Day. That was crap. There were anti-US demonstrations in Baghdad, but the very peaceful march here was for Kurdish independence. Nothing more. One of my American friends even marched along with them. Shame on you, Globe and Mail! I have been thanked by many local people for coming here to help rebuild their country. OK, OK, that is one of the reasons I am here!
(Click on the thumbnail to see the large picture)
While Heather and I are not ruling out a visit here, now we are talking about sand of a different sort. When I get home, we are now thinking of taking Genavieve and the wonky-Winnebago and heading for a sandy beach somewhere. Maybe we can get a Disney-deal! I'd sure like to show them places like Daytona where I've spent a few Bike Weeks, and drive over the causeway at Pier 7 where the cruise ships dock. I have to think a lot of these things.
And, no, I have not seen any thieves, much less 40 of them.
Regards to all,
Steve