A day in Taqtaq

UPDATE TIME!!!!

It’s been two weeks now since I arrived in Kurdistan and almost a week since we arrived in the guesthouse in Taqtaq (which means knocking on iron). It is beautiful here. Mountainous area with the Zab flowing right through it. During the day it is quite hot but in the morning and the evening the temperature is just perfect at 4 in the morning after that it sucks. But for this we found a solution which I will show to you later in this update. The task division is clear and work has started in both the kitchen and on the tell.

The view from the guesthouse is amazing (see picture above). Just cannot get used to it. Every time I look out of the window it takes my breath away. The river you see is the Zab. Every afternoon after preparing lunch Tahereh and I jump into the river. SO GOOD!!!!

This is a picture of Tahereh and me swimming in the Zab. Again… so good!!!! (check out the gum in Taherah’s mouth)

A day in Taqtaq for me

My job:…it basically comes down to doing the dishes and help where I can. We have a cook from Sweden with Iranian offspring whom is preparing the most delicious meals for us every afternoon and evening. For these dishes a lot of vegetables need to be cut (never cut so many cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables of which I don’t know the name). Zargo (a local who is working at the guest house) and me are taking care of that. Next to that we are doing shopping and when these tasks are finished we can explore the beautiful surrounding and visit the Tell at Satu Qala.

Then there is the free time  🙂 : I brought my violin so I practice a little bit every day. Sometimes I go running in the morning and cycling in the afternoon. Yes indeed. I BOUGHT A BIKE and I am cycling Iraq 🙂 I went into town with 50.000 Iraqi Dinar (which is not  a lot) with the mission to buy a bike for this amount (since I don’t have more with me).  I found a bike with help of the entire village (really the people are so helpful here). Haha, the side effect of shopping with so many people is that everybody knows you. When I walk through town now people make the move of a bicycle and ask where my bike is. 🙂 I guess they think I’m the crazy foreigner cycling through town.

This picture is taken in Satu Qala. The woman were cleaning the sawar (kind of rise) sitting in a circle. Very comfortable and lots of fun:-) so I joined them for a while. If only I spoke Kurdish I am sure the conversation would have been great. They were very curious and of course I am as well. So it came down to showing pictures of my family and of previous trips.

A day in Satu Qala

The team of archeologist gets up every morning to have breakfast at 4:30 (prepared by me :-)) and leave for work at 5:10. There are three areas where they are digging at the moment. Really interesting to see. Little by little the ground is taken of and cleaned to see what the soil reveales from our past. A few inscriptions have been found and a skeleton as well… a ex human being from at least 3000 years old. I cannot reveal all the details although I wish could. They just started digging so we are expecting much more….maybe a treasure or an archive or tablets.

For me the trip here and experiencing the hospitality of the Kurdish people is the greatest treasure that I could have found. That together with the beautiful nature, the fresh food and the adventure of every day.

Erbil; pre-excavation stuff

Kurdish Wedding  (9 September) 

The last couple of days we were eating and meeting people for the organization of the excavations. One of the dinners was before a wedding of a relative of the director of antiquities in Kurdistan. Woman and man were separated, so I can only describe the female side of the story 🙂 The woman were sitting in three large rooms on the floor. At first I was sitting in the room with the elder woman.

The food was rice with meat, bread and cucumber in tomato sauce. Really nice. The ladies cooked the dinner for the entire family of at least out of 50 woman not including the children.

After showing all my pictures and introducing the older ladies to my family (I mean showing them on my phone) I went outside to play with the kids. The kids learned me how to dance Kurdish folk dance and I learned them a bit of Salsa 🙂 The girls looked very pretty!!! like little princesses. When I came back my seat was taken so I went to a room with younger woman and children.

Dinner with the Dutch

Dinner with the Dutch Ambassador of Iraq together with the Dutch of the SQ team. Two ladies joined the dinner; Annemiek and Jantine who started a trading company importing fruit and vegetables into Kurdistan.

Sleeping in the wrong Guest House 🙂 … institute of restoration (September 5th)

The flight was ok. I had three empty chairs next to each other! The plane was completely full….plus seven (babies). The babies were very sweet, and so small! During the flight they were crying (that’s when I stopped thinking they were sweet) but it was still a good flight. Some people from the Netherlands with Iraqi roots came to ask me why I was sitting in that flight, since I was the only Dutch person without any relation to Iraq. The explanation was rather amusing and unexpected. Before going into the plane we got this supersonic full body scan in some kind of futuristic device. During the flight a guy with a cast around his neck came sitting next to me because he was not feeling well. Once in Erbil we took a taxi to the centre to my hotel “Istanbul”.

This morning a lady knocked on my door and told me that dr. Abdullah was expecting me and was waiting downstairs. I dressed up and packed my bags and met Dr. Abdullah. Everybody seems to know him. He is a very respected, kind and hospitable man with a friendly aura. The lady is one of the four staff members that are governing the institute of restoration. She used to work in Baghdad but is now here.  Guys…. really, I know that it is this standard thing to say…. they are so kind and hospitable etc…. but seriously….. they are and that x 1000. Everybody first welcomes you, is inviting you to stay at their house, offers any help you need and do anything to make you feel at home. Life at the streets reminds me a bit of the streets in Egypt or in Ethiopia. The shops are structured in “topic”streets… you can find a computer street, a barber street, a fridge street, a photographer street. Really nice and very hand to compare the prices. Yeah… I believe bargaining is part of the game once again. Today, I spent time with a team from Italy who is reconstructing pieces made of ivory. One lady and two man. All three very kind. One of the man is an Assyriologist (that means he knows everything about Assyria). He thought it was cool that I just jumped into this….and I once again (as I do at the start of every adventure) felt stupid…. so now I’m reading about Assyria again. At the moment I am in this 50 (thats an estimation I don’t know how many rooms there really are) room building… with the guards. I am sure it sounds more exiting then it is (though it is cool since I got used to small rooms in Amsterdam).

In the evening Wilfred called me and we found out that we were both in a different guest house… they were in the guest house of the university and I was in the guest house of the institute. We decided to meet the day after and that I would spend the night in my huge flat.

Arrival in Erbil (September 4th )

After saying goodbye to my family and friends and explaining my nephew that I will come back with a treasure ….I’m leaving for Iraq. Woahh……At 15:00 I take my flight to Erbil in Kurdistan to join a team of archaeologist for the excavations in Satu Qala. I still don’t believe the flight exists, (only paid 500 euro’s for a return ticket and I had to e-mail the travel company 5 times before they replied and I actually booked my ticket). I’ll arrive in Erbil at 21:00 this evening and will have to call a number for further instructions how to arrive at the guest house where I will wait for the rest of the team. Just very brief, because I know we are all busy people….. what am I going to do.. IRAQ? EXCAVATIONS???? Let me explain….(as far as I can)

Excavations in Satu Qala

During five weeks time I will join the previous started search for a palace of “King Abbi-zeri of the City of Idu”. The tell Satu Qala dates from the Early through Late Bronze Age (Assyria). The SQ Team has chosen for Satu Qala because of a brick with the name of the king and the town that was found nearby the site. In 2010 the first excavation took place on during 25 days. Every week local students were trained and helped the team. Two remarkable founds have been done last time. You can see some pictures if you’d like under this link:. If you are interested in more information on the excavations last year you should definitely go to this website.

So…there I go….

A whole new country and a completely new experience. As a lawyer I have not too much knowledge on archaeology nor Assyria. Luckily I have bought and partially read two books recommended to me; one “The History of the Ancient Near East” from Mark Mierhoop and the other “Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia”. With help of these two books and some Wikipedia I have done my best to get some knowledge on Assyria. FASCINATING!!! And much more to learn!!!
During my bachelor European and International Law, I wrote about the “Political rights of Woman in Iraq”. Not pretty…. the testimonies I read for my research and the descriptions of Iraq and Kurdistan which are ugly. Many people suffered and died during one of these many wars. My view of Iraq was mainly based on my knowledge brought
through the messages that the news showed me. Again…not a pretty picture.

Maybe, these excavations will enable me to learn (maybe) about Iraq today through searching for its past 🙂 Some think that civilization goes through the same cycles time after time … If a situations get to complicated I always try to go back to its source…try to simplify a situation as much as possible. Might as well do it with “civilization” it has become so complicated…. so why not go back to its roots…to the cradle of life as many have called it before…Mesopotamia (Assyria)… Iraq. I will learn more about our roots and maybe more about us today as well. And if I won’t…. I’m sure it will be an amazing experience in any case.