When the kurdish Peshmerga retook the Mosul dam I was sitting barely 40 km away in Dohuk having a cold beer. Strange, I thought. You are in the middle of a part of the world which is mostly muslim, close to the IS terrorists and everything seems quite normal. And everybody behaves normal. Second thought: why not. People try to ignore the war as long as it’s possible. Before I came here I was afraid that I will end up in a kind of a war zone with people talking all politics, being stressed, radical. But this was what I learned out of the newspapers.
Reality differs from that.
So what is Kurdistan about? Kurdistan is proudness. Replacing Iraq-number plates with Kurdistan-stickers. Everybody wants to become a Peshmerga and fight for independency. 45°C all day. Desert. Nothing green higher than your hip. Barzanis face is everywhere. Mosques. Christian districts. Tea with PKK members. Shisha with the Assayish. Peshmerga-motivational music on the radio (including gun sounds). Meeting gas smugglers in the mountains. Hearing the noise of machine guns in the mountains. Can’t walk a block without getting invited for a tea. Rappers in Dohuk drop punchlines against the IS. Listening to stories from the front line. Refugees in every abandoned building. Talking to a syrian guy working in Kassel/Germany in a refugee camp in Domez. 5 People live in a 8qm tent since 2 years. Getting the feeling that people in refugee camps know how to pose (of course you get used to it). Visiting an old Saddam castle/missile base. Hiking through the countryside. Drinking from springs like it is the last thing you do. Bullshit talking at a roof at night. Having fun.
Seeing street signs saying Mosul/Baghdad X km and realizing where you actually are.
