Friday 4 October: Day 85
“Do” is a very popular drink with the Kurds. The stuff is made from yogurt mixed with water and flavored with handfuls of fresh dill, topped with salt. Do is drunk after meals to help with digestion.
Do is made by mixing the ingredients into a large plastic jug and shaking it, violently, for about an hour. Chaman informs us that automatic mixers can be purchased in the bazaar for next to nothing, but tradition demands this straining activity. After 20 minutes, pure butter collects in small droplets on the surface, and Chaman showed us how to bunch up the globs into a small ball, wash it in cold water and store it for later use.
Do is traditionally made by, surprise, women. While the men sit in the parlor and the sons stare at a smart phone, mothers and daughters shake this massive, heavy jug for an hour. I stayed in the kitchen tonight while Mitsu, Chaman and her sister Chawan talked about how weird it felt to be sitting around while a man made the food.
Do tastes sour, salty and earthy, like a dill-flavored saltwater taffy or the milk warming in a saucepan for an alfredo sauce, before the cheese really begins to melt. The first time you taste do will be shocking, and the light film that coats your teeth afterwards will be unpleasant. Try it again, after a heavy, oily Kurdish meal, and its effects become obvious. It stays with you, ending a full dinner like the last line of the last chapter of a well written book.
Thanks for the lesson, friend.
“do” (doe) – delicious yogurt drink
Saturday 5 October: Day 86
“When you can ask that man what he used that gun for, in Kurdish, then you can post that picture.”
Mitsu and I visited the home of a nearby café owner and broke bread with his family. Nobody could understand each other, and as we slurped on the delicious okra soup all ten of the family stared at us, strange foreigners visibly uncomfortable resting their weight on their ankle bones for so long and, stranger still, eating their rice with a spoon instead of ripped pieces of flat broad molded into an edible boat between the thumb and middle finger.
Afterwards our host’s father visited and shared chilled, plump dates with us (serious contender for the sustenance of angels). We watched a children’s TV channel and laughed as Mitsu and I learned a few new words. In the corner behind us stood the elder’s bolt action rifle, a German model assembled in Iran from the 1950s, stamped with Farsi, resting against the wall like you and I might forget an umbrella. He caught my eye and motioned for his son to hand it to me. A few seconds later his daughter was taking pictures of us.
I asked Mitsu if I should share the picture online, and she once again showed wisdom beyond her years.
“chak” – gun
Sunday 6 October: Day 87
Our Kurdish teacher, Sroor, is an incredible human – way too patient for how lazily we complete our homework. She’s given us magazines meant for children to read every evening and we’re at the point where we can stumble through a whole page, which is really exciting. The Peace Corps taught us how to learn a language – what questions to ask, what rules can be translated – and once again I find myself thinking about Rwanda and my language lessons with Moses and Zilpa and Joelle and Sam and the dusty classroom in Rwamagana.
“khol” – dust
Monday 7 October: Day 88
We’re organizing the office space at EAI and I found the drawings that my younger students did back in July and August. “I like learning English because I want to be a doctor,” one reads. One of the kids drew a Kurdish flag against a sky-blue background, but we didn’t have any yellow so the sun in the middle of the flag is blank, incomplete. We spent the evening after class decorating the office with the drawings and organizing the supplies we have to take stock. Another day at the office.
“nusinga” – office
Tuesday 8 October: Day 89
Today I visited Garmian University, the only major government college in our province. The large campus sits outside the limits of Kalar, looking over the small town like the camp of a hillside invader, and when the taxi pulled up close to a thousand students were pouring through the main gate to make their way to one of two large educational buildings. I met with the University students – my former students from English Access as well – who invited me to visit their college and they introduced me to their professors and even the head of the English Department, an energetic man with very British English.
The entire morning I was walking around Garmian I was thinking about my own university experience at USF and how far away college already seems. It was what, less than three years ago? I thought about the I relationships I had with my professors and late nights finishing papers and spring afternoons reading by the lake near my Freshman dorm. It felt so good just to step in to those memories momentarily, and to be in a place where so many young people were being given the chance to make those kinds of memories themselves.
The students, teachers and I toured the campus and even met the University President, who approved our proposals for a partnership between the University and the Institute preliminarily. Big things ahead.
[Update: apparently Garmian wrote a flattering article about my visit. Pretty cool, eh?]
“zanko” – university
Wednesday 9 October: Day 90
Troubling news that Turkey is amassing soldiers on the Syrian border. It looks like Erdogan might invade and start to murder the Kurds living in Northern Syria. What’s going on? Everyone is tense.
Rojava – area of Northern Syria where a large number of Kurdish people live; espousing a liberal, democratic political outlook and renowned for fierce fighting
Thursday 10 October: Day 91
We’re in a state of shock. With Trump’s permission, Turkey is invading Syrian Kurdistan. Everyone in Kalar is talking about it and a demonstration against Erdogan is scheduled for tomorrow. We’ve been shown videos of little girls with their legs mangled off, crying for their dead parents while reporters crowd the child and take pictures of her dying. There’s other videos of ISIS prisoners, kept isolated by the now-scrambling Syrian Kurds, praising Erdogan as their liberator.
Doesn’t Trump know that the Kurds bled with the same spirit that stirs the American soul? Doesn’t he know that Turkey has spent a century trying to wipe the Kurds off the map? Doesn’t he know that Erdogan wants to destroy Israel and return Turkey to the backwards, Islamist autocracy it was in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire?
What the fuck is going on?
“khain” – traitor
certification 
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