WHERE THE LAND FOLDS INTO THE SKY
Northern Iraq, April 23 - May 22, 2018
It is in mid-April of 2018, and the Iraqi air is beginning to shed what little chill of winter it could muster. The evenings are still cool, but the midday sun is already fierce enough to burn my foreign skin. There is nowhere I go in which I am unnoticed in this densely packed city. I feel like one apart, among the almost one million; a stranger, blue-eyed and white-haired. The cramped population is diminished by the stark beautiful landscape, as the distant, unfamiliar mountains rise like a wall, opposing the slow flatness of the fields of Kurdistan. Rising as the land folds into the sky like hands begging for mercy.
Fields of long grass shimmer in the piercing sunlight , as the hot days melt into nights. Many evenings are spent eating sunflower seeds and drinking chai as the bee-eaters dance through the sky around me. Nights of fresh watermelons and rooftop fires weave my heart into this nation as I feel stories sink into me. This beauty is not what I expected. It is a rugged beauty and yet, delicate in its simplicity.
An evening fire on a rooftop with two friends, one Dutch, one American.
Erbil, Iraq. 2018
The effects of war can be seen in pockmarked walls and collapsed buildings of the towns and villages not far from this city, but the spirit of it can be felt in the hushed breath and in the eyes of those who have seen too much. Although Daesh (the Arabic word for The Islamic State) never officially made it to this city of Erbil, the name haunts the faces and bodies of far too many to count. Families are scattered like shrapnel from their former cities and homes. Now apocalyptic-like scenes are what remain. I am told that the city of Mosul, which was once fully under the control of the Islamic State, will take a quarter of a century to rebuild. Erbil and the surrounding region have become a haven for countless IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples) and Syrian Refugees, during the height of The Islamic State in Iraq.
Death and life wrestle for dominance in the alleyways and abandoned hallways of cities and towns all over this nation. They make their way into the streets and find footing in the clenched fists of the widowed mothers, the fatherless sons, in the quiet tears of motherless daughters, and in the half-sized bodies that disconsolate parents lower into the earth. Death has touched everyone.
And yet, there is a whisper that tells a different story. There is a song that says death is swallowed up in victory. I hear it when it is quiet and I remember to listen. I echo it back as often as I can recall it, trusting that my small part joins a chorus that only grows louder.
My time here is too short; I know it from the beginning. One month to entirely plow my heart edge to edge. I visit tent after tent and am welcomed with wide open arms, and seemingly wider smiles. The Iraqi people wield hospitality with force and poise that is rarely seen in my western culture. As I sip the half-chai, half-sugar cup in sweltering tents of family after family, I am undone by the weight of their words. Stories unfold and I see the resilience in the eyes that share them. Within each tent, families share about those they have lost. There is not one family with whom loss and grief have not touched. Tears are shed, theirs and mine, and I cannot help wondering how such incredible pain can hold hands with such joy. We stretch out hands and offer prayers, trusting the one to come and bring what we cannot.
A Iraqi family from Mosul, Iraq. They now live in a refugee camp after ISIS invaded Mosul in 2014.
Northern Iraq. 2018
One evening, as we are served dark cardamom-spiced coffee, we meet a man with no arms. He crutches his way to a mat across from me and drops down. His smile is big and his laugh is bigger. I ask him to share his story, but he mostly just tells us jokes. He is bursting with joy as he is propped against the makeshift tarp with that boast "UNHCR" printed across it. He eventually begins to share his story with us.
He was a shop owner on a busy street in a town up in the mountains when Daesh came through. Like many shop owners in his community, he was out in the street in front of his shop. All of his fellow merchants were out front with him. As he briefly went back into his shop to retrieve something, American airstrikes fell. He lost both arms, as well as the use of his left foot. He lost every single one of his friends with whom he spent every day. His community was obliterated by the bombs of liberation.
Yet he smiles, he laughs, he jokes with us late into the night. We are far from home and the light is fading but we stay late. We stay to be with him, and in our laughter and listening, our hearts begin to change. Hope begins to take root in us as he shares his life with us. He models resilience, despite living through truly horrendous events. He displays forgiveness to those who have caused him and his community tremendous pain. I feel privileged to share a cup of coffee with this man, and to learn from his wisdom.
Two sisters in a refugee camp set up by The UN Refugee Agency.
Northern Iraq. 2018
The US-led coalition has admitted to almost five hundred civilian deaths throughout its campaign against the Islamic state.
To grow up as a child in this war-ravaged nation - I can't even imagine - it is not a childhood. It is a robbery to be thrust into horrors of war, beyond imagination, before one can even understand what war is.
I, along with the team I am here with, spend many afternoons with a group of children in one of the refugee camps near our house. We play games and sing songs and we hope and pray that as they join us in these activities, they can find the freedom to be children. There are many who laugh easily, and many who still have joy somehow hidden deep within their beautiful little souls.
As the weeks past, and trust between us and the children grows, many feel safe enough to share their stories with us. We want to hear about the lives they have lived, but even more, we hope they are able to put words to what they feel. Healing comes when we are able to put a voice to our pain. We tell them that their stories matter and that they matter. They each write out their own story and we listen to each one. The weight of their losses sink deep into me. It feels like a ship being launched and my chest is a bathtub. These children exemplify courage and strength. As they share their stories, beautiful things happen. Tears fall, but through their vulnerability they are united. A boy who lost his best friend meets another boy who suffered the same. Siblings who have lost their father find that they are not alone. We knew that what we brought was not the ability to relate to their specific pain, but a desire to create an environment where they could relate to each other. The tiny room in which we gathered rang with the unsaid words "you are not alone in your suffering and together you will rise stronger because I am with you, we are together." I will never forget these days.
One of the girls in our group is in a wheelchair. We can call her Saleen. Her personality rolls out before her like a river in a dry land. She is bold and cheeky with me before I even know her name. Three years in a refugee camp has not fenced in her spirit or her spunk. Yet I wonder about the story behind her paralysis. When it comes time for her to share her story, I am dismantled. She tells of the day her younger brother was born and of the car bomb that killed her uncle and stole her legs, all on the way to his birth. New life emerges out of the splinters of death. She tells of her father's murder by Daesh, while he went to the city to renew her disability papers. She reveals the guilt she feels over his death. She must be only twelve or thirteen years old. Her story is one that I will carry with me for as long as I can.
I find family in many places, but nowhere as much as with the Yazidis. Afternoons often stretch into evenings as my team and I sit outside a strip of humble apartments on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by grassy fields and unfinished buildings. It is a very different dynamic when compared with visiting the Muslim families. Within the Yazidis, gender separation is much less rigid, making it easier to build relationships with the whole family. They love hearing stories and playing games. Almost every visit includes a soccer match on gravel pitches, amidst the ducks and chickens. The players come in every size, both boys and girls.
Soon after I first meet these families, I start taxiing over to their community an extra day each week to help two of the older boys with their English homework. The lessons consist mostly of talk about vegetables and animals, or modes of transportation. Our conversations, though like molasses, feel as though so much is being shared. A language does not prohibit connection, it only slows it down slightly. They quickly feel like little brothers.
A Yazidi boy carrying a new mattress into his home.
Northern Iraq. 2018
The Yazidi people are a closed monotheistic religion. They worship an angel of light named Melek Taus. They have been perpetually persecuted throughout their long history, a continual minority through the Arab, Mongol, and Ottoman periods. Yet they have survived through it all by the shelter of their Sinjar mountains. As the Islamic state stormed their mountain of refuge, it is estimated that between 2,100 to 4,400 were murdered in what has been called the Sinjar Massacre. These numbers do not take into account the abduction and sexual exploitation of 10,000 mostly Yazidi women and children.
A group of Yazidi boys displaced by the invasion of ISIS.
Northern Iraq. 2018
Saturdays are my favourite days. I spend the afternoons eating and sharing with four Muslim men who came to Iraq as refugees from Syria. We meet in a small concrete room in a house, hidden away down winding streets on the opposite side of the city. Even after weeks of visits, I still do not know the way. We sit on mats around the edges of the room. Beautiful caged birds chirp occasionally, suspended high on the wall. The inception of these meetings we are having is something beyond explanation. The eldest of the four among our group had a vision of a man in white - a miraculous encounter with the man who has called me to follow as well. These afternoons feel like I'm wading neck-deep through the destiny of families for generations to come. I can't believe I get to be in the room. We eat and discuss faith. We spend hours talking about the man in white. We sing and pray and the birds sing louder in recognition the glory of these moments.
I am astounded at the beauty and weight of each experience, of every new neighbour and of every story of tragedy that they have shared with me. There is a strength that grows through suffering, like a flower in the desert, and I am enraptured by it. I am holding this within me, a seed that I want to nurture. I hope it grows into something of a giving strength. But there are still so many unanswered questions. I hear them continually being asked of myself.
“What do you do with the pain you see. Many sorrows beat against your hollow chest. How do you answer the door of suffering? How do you answer with a hope coming out of you stronger than the sorrow coming in? How do you tell someone that their war is over when it has ravaged and divided most everything they see?”
Maybe all we can do is hold the hands of our neighbour, close or far. Maybe the act of "being with" is more powerful than any program or strategy. Maybe to love your neighbour, you have to first become a neighbour. The mystery of The Father who chooses to be met, more often than not, through the presence of his broken children, will always confound me. A simple thing is asked of us: to love. It is simple and yet it often seems so far beyond our capacity, but what other way exists than the way of love? How else will we be made whole and how else will we be made one? We must be together, united in love, our arms spread wide in a posture of acceptance. Beyond all borders and ethnic divides, we are one family. We are sisters and brothers standing in solidarity with one another, embracing the truth that we are equally human and fully loved. This is an expression of our faith lived out, whether, in joy or sorrow, we stand together.
So let the tears roll down and the laughter bubble up, laments and celebrations until the peace comes, inside and out. Let us grow into each other through the cracks of walls that hate has put up between us. Let us grow into life despite death, because of death, and beyond death. Truly, the last enemy to be defeated is death and I think I am beginning to see it. I can hear the song growing louder as if the chorus is just over those familiar mountains, where the land folds into the sky like hands giving thanks.
