Chapter 30: Kurds and Survey - Erbil in Heat

UNDP-ENRP Headquarters in Ankawa

In one of my early emails home I referred to my new surroundings as having all the trappings of a surreal, late-night, B grade movie that doesn't make a scrap of sense. At the time of writing, I know doubt was still on an emotional roller-coaster ride wildly swinging through the spectrum from intense fear to sheer joy and exuberance. I was in one bizarre place and on one bizarre merry-go-round.

Erbil

With the passing of the weeks, my emotions settled and I was able to analyse my environment more objectively.

Under cover market in Erbil

It still, however, remained a surreal and perplexing place. Erbil I came to discover was a low, sunburnt, dusty, dirty and noisy place. One day I did drive pass the “official” tip but the boundaries were blurred beyond recognition. Litter was everywhere throughout the city and so were small black shopping bags which blew across the landscape with careless abandon.

Ankawa

On one occasion when I challenged a driver for throwing rubbish out of the car window degrading the environment his reply together with a shrug was, “what is the problem, Mr Peter; it’s already stuffed?” How could I argue with that? 

Erbil

With petrol and diesel at only a few US cents per litre the inhabitants could not get it through their vehicles quick enough, and in most cases accompanied with belching plumes of black smoke.

The sight of countless numbers of machine guns and several bombed and shrapnel pitted buildings reminded me that things could be turned on if necessary and quickly as well. I had an uneasy feeling that it was quite possible to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The bombed remains of a hotel in Erbil

The bombed remains of a hotel in Erbil

Occasionally a car bomb would arrive from the south, managing somehow to avoid detection at the checkpoint, and I did have the pleasure of hearing a couple of them go off whilst seated in my office, although in each case the damage was usually minimal.

Erbil

Once I began using the “front” roads to reach the other governorates I was shocked to see tank installations to the south of the road. They may have appeared Second World War vintage but I would sometimes spend restless nights calculating how long it would take for them to cover the ten or so kilometres to Erbil.

The political significance of the region was continuously being reinforced by the sound of American and British jets flying overhead high in the sky. So high in fact they were impossible to see even through the telescope of the theodolite.



Roadworks in Ankawa

And then there was the heat. When it reached forty-five degrees I was informed by my national staff that it was to get hotter. It still had to reach fifty degrees they said. I wondered what on earth the difference was between forty-five and fifty degrees. I couldn’t imagine it getting any hotter. But it did, and I was soon to find out that there IS a difference between forty-five and fifty degrees. The heat was indescribable. Hair and clothes felt like they would ignite. They were almost too hot to touch. It was like being baked in an oven. The highest reading I saw was fifty-two degrees. For three months the temperature remained above forty degrees and I saw not a single cloud in the sky.

Ankawa

I also witnessed something peculiar happening in the high temperatures. Most houses had a reservoir on the roof for the cold water supply. Through this period of scorching hot days the cold water coming out of the cold tap was hotter than the water coming out of the hot tap which was heated by a gas burner.

Many internationals struggled in the searing temperatures and I knew of one instance when someone left the project due to the heat.

Bread Shop in Ankawa

A device developed in the region to combat the heat to enable sleep was a bulky, clumsy device which when connected to an electrical power source would turn a tumbler which forced air through a wet matting subsequently cooling it. But with the houses without any form of insulation, constructed entirely of glass, metal, concrete and stone, the effect of these cooling devices had limits and I found sleeping in the heat preferable to the machine’s constant rattling noise.

The hot nights encouraged alfresco dining in the front yards of the Kurdish homes surrounded by the orange trees. With entertainment limited to the UN club, dinner parties were a popular social occasion amongst the international community. At one such party I met a Mongolian woman who said that she had experienced minus fifty degrees in her homeland. Here she was subjected to plus fifty degrees. I marvelled at human adaptation and resourcefulness allowing survival through a hundred degree temperature range, the difference between water freezing and boiling.

But the true delight and joy, I discovered, of being in the region (and it was certainly not the food) was the Kurdish people themselves. My experience found them to be gentle, kind and welcoming with an extraordinary sense of humour. They would find the lighter side of any taxing situation. And to me at least they were a constant source of entertainment and amusement.

Ankawa

The hot summer evenings would find them sitting in front of their homes, on the pavement with their backs to the high concrete fence, panting in the heat hosing their concrete driveways with copious amounts of water. Why they did this I was never able to determine but I imagined it was to cool the concrete and possibly the air above it.

Ankawa

On one occasion after a long hot day of travelling I returned to Ankawa and we pulled in, expectantly, beside a group of children standing on the footpath. My window was wound down by my driver and a rapid loud exchange of words took place between him and the children with me sitting in the crossfire. I was hot, stressed and exhausted and finally my nerves snapped and I urged the driver to tell these @#*!%$ kids to #$@*&! off. Without a change in emotion or tone he switched to English and said, “Mr Peter, I would like you to meet my children.” I could only slide down in my seat with embarrassment.

Ankawa

On the way to the UN club one balmy evening I saw a man sitting on a chair in the middle of a vacant building block getting his hair cut complete with barbers shawl. 

A church in the Distance - Ankawa

Another time I came across a man standing on top of a fuel transporter inspecting the portals, smoking.

Boy catching a lift atop an oil Tanker

One day when I was walking back to my office from the club after lunch I came across a sight which I just could not comprehend. A man was at the top of an aluminium ladder tampering with the electrical wiring above the street. The ladder was in the middle of the road and was being held upright by several of his friends below. I could not see this ending at all well. Either the man would touch a live wire and the current running down the ladder would throw his friends away and the ladder with man atop would come crashing to the ground or a car would come around the corner startling the helpers who would scatter, again leaving the ladder and man to come crashing down. I did not wish to be involved in any of this so I continued on to my office without ever knowing the outcome.

Then there were the simple joys of sitting on the roof of a colleague’s home drinking beer and watching the sun set below the horizon in magnificent reddish splendour (made all the more brilliant following a dust storm) or just lounging beside the pool on a Friday.

But what was most surprising of all was that it was with this bizarre, surreal, quirky world with its enchanting people that I was unknowingly falling hopelessly in love.