Newroz, Part دوو
We just finished celebrating our second Kurdish New Year—or Newroz—here in Sulaymaniyah, and it was a great time!
If you were around for last year’s Newroz, you may remember that we had just arrived and some big-time protests were happening. But this year was much less political (though still hectic), and it was cool to see many friendly faces in the crowd.
Over the past 12 months God has blessed us with some incredible new friends; Arabs, Kurds, devout Muslims, local Christians, and the list goes on.
This city is a lot more eclectic than I realized, and it’s been a major blessing to be a part of it.
Sidewalks, Dead Cats and Sunsets
Our office sits midway up a hill. After work each day, I walk to the top and turn left to make the 7 minute walk home. I don’t really remember ever making this walk. I can’t tell you much about what is between my house and the office. I may as well have teleported every time. But on this evening I glanced to my right before heading home.
This is a photo of the kind of stuff I’ve been missing. After looking right one day, I noticed the sunset looking more beautiful than usual. So I took this photo.
But I’ve come to realize it’s often this beautiful, I just wasn’t paying attention. I also noticed a dead cat on the sidewalk the day before this, but I doubt many of you hate cats as much as I do so I went with the sunset.
The Langa
See how happy these guys are to be working in The Langa?!
If you walk past the big mosque, into a small produce section and then hang a sharp right before the sweetshop, you’ll find yourself in a truly magical place.
Cayla making ice cream!
It’s a perennial garage sale minus all the stuff I hate about garage sales. No crowds of psychotic people pulling hair and calling “dibbs on that whole table” at 4am. No impossible-to-find residential locations. It’s always in the same, labyrinth-like maze deep within the bazaar, which gives it an insider feel. Like a super-hip club for old ladies.
Cayla has harvested numerous goodies from The Langa: a popcorn maker, all kinds of super-nice, name-brand clothing (most things cost just a dollar or two), and loads of other stuff. But the best thing she’s found to date was an ice cream maker. My crazy, cooking genius-of-a-wife has now whipped up 5 pints of homemade ice cream, and every pint is more incredible than the last!
For the first time (ever?), I actually look forward to shopping. I run out of steam after about 10 minutes, but that’s still 10 minutes more than ever before. I can’t wait to see what we’ll find next!
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