Loco times in Kurdistan

Monday 17th of October 2008

I have to apologize for not adding any new contributions for a long time now. The latest three weeks I have been very busy. I name this one for “Loco times in Kurdistan”, though I really do not mean it entirely. We are leaving Kurdistan on Thursday night to Friday, and have to admit that I am not that glad for it. We all have obligations in our lives, and as H. says; “there is a difference between need and want. There are things that need to be done, and they may differ from what we want to do”.

Our coordinators from Norway came for two weeks ago and stayed here for some days. Before ending their trip, after visiting some organizations, we all came to reach the same conclusions; this country has a long way to go though it has developed substantially the latest years. Somehow no matter how tall the buildings become, and how beautiful the city develops, it does not really matter. The difficulties lie in the programming and building of the most important institutions like proper health and school system. This year about 21 000 high school graduates were not admitted to any higher education or any other educational institutions; this means that we have about 21 000 youth hanging around in the Kurdistan area without anything important to do, without any mission of the year. I wonder how many of them will try to flee the country? This is caused by many reasons. When there was peace in south Iraq, lots of students were admitted to the universities in there; now the total pressure is on the Kurdistan area. Secondly, lack of universities (buildings, classrooms, lecture halls etc.) compared to the ratio of students is another one. The student/teacher ratio is third reason. And these are just a few among many.

Last week for the first time in my life I a met a person who had tried to commit suicide by putting herself on fire. During the interview, one of the bobbles (damage caused by the fire), burst and body fluids run from her fingertips. She was shivering and did her very best to focus and concentrate to be able to answer our questions. And I will never forget her eyes; wide open eagle eyes. I hope she will be alright throughout her life.

I also went to the “mazat xanai sarawa” (for those of you who know where that is). The human rights monitoring group found several children who all had quit school to provide income for their families by selling pornographic DVDs.

And now for the finali; we experienced an explosion in Suleimanya today. It was close to the main street, Salim Street (jadai swholaka) near by the buildings of the political party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The news said that it was caused by gas explosions in the underground sewage system; one man injured, 4 cars destroyed and the street was divided into two parts for about 200 meters. I was standing about 150 meters away from the place of “accident”; It felt like an earth quick. People gathered to help, hundreds of police men, security police and fire trucks arrived. It was chaotic.

My final comments are that I do not believe in that the explosion was caused by gas. Why then close to the buildings of one of the main political parties? Without making a final decision rather it was or not a planned terrorist attack, still my assumption is that it was planned by terrorists.

The last contribution to this blog will be given from Norway.



LOCO C...

Beautiful mixture

View from Jiyan Hotel in Duhok

The old cita del in Kirkuk

Child worker in Erbil