Good evening, friends and family.
My amazing ability to sleep here appears to have been jinxed by mentioning it. The insomnia has returned and it is making me a little grumpy. Habibi is snoring and sleeping peacefully. I will upload the photos from today and see if the spinning loading icon lulls me to sleep.
Shayan was not able to get the day off from work, so I had a slow start to the morning that I used to write yesterday's update. Alan and Mahir went to take care of some paperwork and stopped by the post office on the way back. In my previous post, I said that the package was found. My parents mailed it on December 7th and it arrived January 3rd! Didn't they assure something like a 10-day delivery period? Amazing. I am just so happy it was found. Mom, some of the cousins mentioned to Shownim that you look very young! :) Thanks for the genes.
I think I have mentioned this in passing before, but I want to talk about Kurdish traditions a bit more. I love the respect people show towards their family members in Iraq. We always stand when an elder enters the room and do not sit until they have been seated. You always give up your chair to someone older or who is a guest. You always offer refreshments. You almost always conduct visits in a formal sitting room without distractions from TVs, computers or phones.
I am still getting to know all of these traditions. Today, I was asked to be the first one to start the feast. I was standing in a room of about 40 people, almost all were my elders that I felt should go before me. They all just waited and watched me. While I always feel special in Alan's eyes, I couldn't not understand why I was so special here. It was the napkin ring in this picture that made something click for me. The table setting looked like it could be for a wedding reception. This was like a wedding reception to make up for our wedding that they were not able to attend two and a half years ago. I think back to our small wedding that had only my side of the family and some mutual friends and realize how much more enriched the experience would have been if all of these wonderful people had been there with us. It would have been quite a party! There were only 6 chairs at the feast table. Uncle Farok took the head of the table as an honored guest. Alan and I sat on one side. Uncle Namir and Mahir sat across from us. Aunt Faryal sat at the other end. We were the only ones to get the fancy napkins with their napkin rings. It was nice to be made to feel so special. A warm zor spas to Araz for hosting such a lovely event.
The dish on the left had meatballs in a tomato sauce that was covered in layers of flat bread.
A platter of dolmas is at the top. I had an onion dolma. It was amazing.
More food at the feast! There was a turkey at this feast, too.
Tawar carved the turkey to serve to people.
This is a smoked carp that is roasted for special occasions.
There are A LOT of bones, so you have to be very careful eating it!
The Noraddin-Rashid-Agha Clan*
(*) Note: Many members of the clan are not present in the photo. A big thanks to Kosar for taking this photo of the group. I will try to photoshop you and Shayan in later.
(Some people asked for their photo not to be put online, so I blocked some faces.)
After the group photo, many people left. The 15 to 20 people left continued to visit in the main sitting room. There were bursts of conversation with long stretches of (to me, awkward) silence. I told Alan that this may be a nice time to me to try to write down the family tree again. I tried a few years ago, but gave up once I realized how many people there were. It does not fit easily of a standard sheet of paper. The whole room got involved in telling stories and trying to remember names. It was great. This is my rough draft of a portion of the family tree. I want to find a good program online to help me make this look really nice. Suggestions? I drew out my family tree on the back of this paper. It was not as intricate, to say the least. :)
Most of the family had gone home or back to work. Kosar, Shayan, Reno, Tanya, Alan and I played Uno. I won the first two hands, but lost overall. I practiced my colors and counting, again. Alan and I looked through a book in between hands called, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History. It was really interesting, for those of you who also like reading up on the Kurds.
After several games of Uno, we went out for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant that is part of a hotel. It looked so fancy that I was worried some of us were under-dressed. Luckily, it was not a problem. We had not been at our table for more than a couple minutes, when Tanya spotted uncle Sarteeb sitting at another table. What a small town. We went over to say hi and chatted for a bit.
The mood at the restaurant was set nicely. There was live music. The band had two men. One played the Dombok (bongo) and the other played the lute and sang Egyptian and Arabic songs. I thought it was perfect. We ordered a bunch of appetizers and shared a main course of grilled chicken that had been marinated in a yogurt sauce. It came with a creamy garlic sauce that I loved. We ended with tea and rice pudding. The pudding had a funny taste to it that I couldn't place at first. I kept thinking it was soap, but it wasn't bitter. It tasted floral. It is common to cook with rose water here. They use small amounts in most desserts. This one hits you over the head with roses, to the point that I thought I was eating a rose-scented bubble bath.
The loading icon has stopped spinning. I am tired, but doubt I will sleep. The alarm is set for 8 am, so we can meet up with Shayan for the Textile Museum at the Citadel. I cannot believe it will be our last full day here. It has gone by so quickly.
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