Shoemakers and Brain Soup-deleted

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Fun times in Park Azida

Fun story from tonight:

There's a huge park here called "Park Azida" which means "Park Freedom". They called it that because its on the same grounds that Saddam Hussein used as his headquarters 30 years ago! Land that used to hold offices, prisons, barracks, mass graves...is now a park where Kurdish folks walk, picnic, and socialize.

To clarify--MEN socialize with MEN and women socialize with women. Its completely common to see same-gender hand holding, arm linking, etc. Men and women can be arrested for being alone together if they're not married. Seriously. So both genders are very affectionate to each other.

Tonight, me, Preston, and Alex decided to go hang out in Park Azida. Which is great fun if you ignore the stares, glaring looks, and stink-eyes from pretty much everyone we pass. To clarify, its very strange for Westerners to be there as it is. Its especially strange for a girl to be alone with two guys. Not only is it strange, but its also offensive. Kurdish women perceive my presence as "showing off" in front of their husbands and families. Bottom line: people notice us.

Now the story:

We're sitting at a table and this girl (about my age) walks up and stands nervous/excitedly in front of me. We make it through a broken English conversation about if I'm from America (or Britain) and where I got my earrings because they looks Kurdish. She pauses, still smiling and nodding. Then she goes, "I think you are so nice!" and asks, "Can I take you?" then grabs my hand and leads me over to her friend. At this point Alex and Preston are both laughing and we have no idea whats going on. So I take a picture with her and her friend, before the guys come over and take this picture on our camera. Now there's a mini-crowd around us and they're writing down their names and phone numbers. (All the while holding my hand, remember). As we're walking away from our new friends, the first girl runs after us and gives me a rose!

So, fun evening in Park Azida! Lots of time spent at the bazaar today too, maybe photos from that later.

Lydia

Our Happy Home

I thought you all might want to see some photos from where I'm living in Iraq! Basically, we (myself and the 8 other interns, plus 1 intern leader) invaded the home of Jessica and Jeremy Courtney (and their two children) who are the wonderful co-founders of the Preemptive Love Coalition. Plus they have Josh Gigs (their photo intern from last summer) living with them at the moment. So all in all, there are 15 of us living in 4 bedrooms (more like 3 and a half plus the roof), sharing 2 bathrooms. Here goes!

This is our home. Welcomeee :)

The kitchen is right when you first walk in.

Huge kitchen is great for getting dinner together for 15 people. We were paired up and each night a different two people make dinner, another pair cleans up, and another pair makes breakfast the next day.

This is the living room where we all kind of hang out. Scrabble, blogging, reading, movie-watching, extravaganza.

This is where the 5 of us girl interns sleep/live. Mine's the yellow one that no one's sleeping in!

There are no shower heads here. Which sounded like an absurd impossibility when I first heard it, but now I'm convinced shower heads are totally unnecessary. I haven't exactly taken a shower yet, but I've washed my hair twice. Its way faster to just wash hair than it is to wash your whole body. Especially because no one can tell you haven't taken a shower. Except that I just wrote it in my blog.

There's a quick tour. I'll try to post more photos later and some of the interns too! Right now the internet is being a bit spotty. For now, check out PLC's Facebook page for some other photos I've taken!

Happy Friday from Kurdistan!

Love,

Lydia

Kurdish Police? 0 for 2

I had my camera taken by men with automatic weapons for the second time today. Fortunately, Awara (our Kurdish PLC leader) has really, really great family connections to the government. He called his uncle, who called the head of police (or someone) and they gave it back. AFTER deleting the photos I'd snuck at the checkpoint. Which was actually a huge blessing because apparently its not uncommon for them to just smash a camera on the ground to delete the photos. Yikes.

Anyhow. Got to do a little shooting in a Kurdish hospital today! We were checking out their respirators. So nothing too crazy, but it was good to get the atmosphere.

This is a respirator. It saves kids' lives.

Little blue shoe guards we had to wear in the ICU.

More later!

Welcome to Iraq!

Day One, exploring the Bazaar....

but first, the rules:

1. Don't look men in the eye

2. Don't talk to men, don't talk too loudly

3. If you need to address a man, get one of the guys to talk for you.

4. Don't take pictures of "important" buildings. (...)

So that was yesterday. Walking around the city, ending with a picnic in the park! Iraq is awesome. And a lot safer than I expected, I had my 5D out and shooting the entire time.

Today we've been in the PLC office, brainstorming for what the rest of the summer will look like. We have short term things (daily blog/photos) and long term (getting ready for PLC's fall tour!) projects to plan as well as visiting families in surrounding villages 4 days a week. The great part is I pretty much get to do everything! Or at least be along for the ride. I'll also be doing a "big picture" weekly photo blog and a series for the new Remedy campaign. 30 kids, 30 days.

Enough writing from me for now, but look into Remedy! Its an amazing opportunity to make your money count for something a little more.

Lovelovelove

Lydia

Ramblin'

So I left Cinci for Detroit Sunday evening, from there hopped on a plane and got into Amsterdam around noon on Monday!

This is Amsterdam. They have lots and lots of bikes. Also, I think we mistranslated the word "coffee" somewhere down the line...it means something totalllllyy different in Dutch.

From there I flew to Istanbul, got in around 1am. Caught a cab to the hotel where I met Lauren (one of the other interns) and we left Istanbul around noon for Iraq. That's the fast-forward version of my travels :)

Tomorrow will include lots of cool pictures. The internet here is having a hard time handling the uploads, so I think I'm giving up. Later!

Big Time in the Jungle

So I know its not exactly to scale...but you get the picture. Ohio to Iraq, starting today! Prayers for my travel there would be great, I won't be in Kurdistan until Tuesday afternoon. Which means that there is an awful lot of time and opportunity for things to go wrong :)

Goodbye midwest, hello middle East!

Hello all!

In 5 days I'll be standing in an airport in Istanbul, 36 hours into my travels to the middle east. Soon after, I'll be on a flight into Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 9 weeks later, I'll be back in Turkey and 1 week away from home/Cinci.

How/what/why/etc? I'll be interning with the Preemptive Love Coalition, a fantastic group of people working to eradicate the waiting list of Kurdish children in need of heart surgery. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is rampant in northern Iraq as a repercussion of Saddam Hussein's chemical genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s. These children are testimonies to the blind power of hatred, greed and nerve gas to stretch into generations. My generation. PLC exists to get kids into operating rooms to heal their unhealthy hearts. They participate in peace-making discussions among enemies, praying and working toward a more unified Iraq. Love wins.

I'm sure the time will fly by but hopefully this blog'll keep you up to date on my adventures until I'm back!

Lovelovelove

Lydia O'Neil Bullock