Bath house

Wow, I realized how long it has been since I wrote anything here.  I had several cultural experiences this morning so I thought it would be a good excuse to update my blog.  

This morning a couple of my friends asked by to join them at 6 AM for a run at a nearby park.  This was so refreshing for me to get out and run.  We were going to go swimming after the run but the pool was closed so we went to a old Kurdish bath house instead.  This was quite an experience.  We went into the first room where we left our belongings.  As I enter the next room I was hit by a burst of heat.  I felt like I was entering a sauna.  Here each person was given a stool to sit on and had a sink with a hot water and cold water spigot and a bowl to dump water on oneself.  They had what looked like horse brushes to wash yourself and even had someone walking around to help scrub your back.  I noticed that this wasn’t something done quickly.  It wasn’t somewhere you just went in and out.  No,  this was a social time.  You might spend an hour or more in this whole experience.  Then when we were done we went back to the first room and just let ourself air dry in the cooler air.

After this long bathing experience we walked around the market and had a typical Kurdish breakfast of plain yogurt and bread and topped it off with mastow (watered down yogurt), and of course a couple of glasses of Kurdish tea.  We also stopped by what looked like a game hall. This hall was filled with smoke and men playing traditional games like dominoes.  We also eat some Kurdish desserts and a Kurdish drink (which I simply cannot remember the name), and of course I experienced all of these things without paying a cent.  Kurdish people simply refuse to let me pay for anything.

So that was my experience today.  Some of my days have been quite busy.  I haven’t left the city much but when I’m not teaching I am often doing something with friends I have made here whether it by playing soccer, going to the gym, walking around the park, or just watching the crazy chaos on the streets at night because of the upcoming elections.  It is during these times just being with the people here that I am sad about leaving.

I now have about 4 weeks left before I leave. We have 2 weeks of teaching the students and the last 2 weeks we are free. I want to soak in as much of this culture as I can in these final days. I’m not sure what is the next step in my life and when I will be able to return to this area, if at all.  I really do hope that in 4 weeks I will not be saying, “goodbye” to Kurdistan but simply, “see you later,” and hopefully sooner rather than later.