January 9, 2004
Today is Friday, January 9th, and it’s snowing gently away outside… There was a big electrical storm on January 2nd and there has been virtually no phone or Internet service since then. In order to get to the Internet, we’ve been camping out at the local Internet café-which has been a fun experience in and of itself, although not as convenient. Just as the phones were starting to recover, we had another storm two nights ago. I have made a Swedish acquaintance here who has renamed the mobile phone service company: instead of “Korek Telecom”, he now calls it “Korek Inshallah”-or, “Korek, God Willing." (I do not mean to be disrespectful, but it can be quite amusing trying to function without any form of communication...)We moved into our new house four days ago. Originally the word was that we would be moving to Erbil (a city of 1.5 million people which lies in the valley below). At first it seemed like a good thing that we were moving to Erbil because Salahaddin is a pretty tiny little town with not much “to do.” However, the traffic in Erbil is pretty darn crazy, and it’s pretty dirty, too. (Certainly, though, it’s a fascinating place!) Our new house is quite lovely-slightly larger than our apartment and, yes, it has TWO bedrooms! It has an enormous generator out behind the house which virtually guarantees us steady power: this is probably the biggest sign of our good fortune. For now we have to switch it over manually to the generator when the power goes out, but they have sent to Baghdad for a part which will make the switching over automatic in the future. This is amazing luxury.
The past three days have been very busy ones here in Salahaddin. First Bremer was here to have discussions with the KDP (my employer) and the PUK (these are Kurdistan’s two main political parties) about the future status of Kurdistan. The question is whether or not Kurdistan will retain its special status as an autonomous region, especially in regards to security issues. Kurdistan is much more secure than the rest of Iraq, and the Kurds are determined to maintain this situation. After the meetings with Bremer, the members of the Iraqi Governing Council were invited up from Baghdad to partake in similar discussions about the future of Kurdistan. I have no idea how either of these sets of meetings went…but the security has been tight all over town with road blocks and soldiers everywhere. Our big white car (and foreign faces?) seems to work like a charm as far as getting past checkpoints goes, however…
To get around the problem of no internet connection, I am composing this e-mail here at home and then I will take it on disk to the café and send it.
Frank has been working hard to learn the Persian alphabet. He is taking the more formal, straightforward route toward learning Persian: studying the alphabet carefully and the grammar rules. I have been trying out the more organic approach: learning a few nouns and verbs here and trying to parrot folks. It does help me to go back and review the rules in the textbook which Frank brought, but it’s kind of fun trying to put it together like a puzzle in which one doesn’t have the box with the picture on it…
The snow falls more heavily now, and Frank and I will try making our way (by foot) toward the Internet café. Inshallah, this e-mail will be on its way to you soon.
