It was winter 2012 when I arrived in the Kurdistan Region. I had been invited to be a lecturer in English at Soran University, a newly established, state-funded university.
I was driven from the airport in Erbil to the Pank resort in Soran in the middle of the night. I awoke the next morning to mountains covered in clouds and a thick gray rain that looked just like what I’d left back in Manchester, except that the air smelled so fresh and clean. I was hooked already.
Nothing could have prepared me for living and working in Soran – it was completely different to anything I had experienced before. Settling down in the city I never got bored of looking at the mountains. Wherever I wandered there was a mountain ahead of me, each one unique in its formation. Walking up Zozg on a Sunday afternoon, taking the cable car up to Korek, wading through the snow, exploring the caves in Bradost, there was wonder in each landscape.
There were also countless precious moments from the classroom. The students were so willing and eager to learn. Even when I introduced new ways of thinking and understanding that gave them tools to think independently and find their creativity, they rose to the occasion, seizing the opportunity to use critical and analytical thinking.
As I introduced creative writing, poetry, and short stories, the students wrote as though they’d been long waiting for the opportunity to express their lives in color and metaphor. They took the realities of their worlds and turned them into something beautiful on the page. They explored the pain and trauma that had shaped their young lives and made sense of what they had seen and lived through. I was humbled by their honesty and creativity. They taught me as much as I taught them.
Kurdistan is full and overflowing with stories. From the atrocities that have been faced over the generations to the triumphs and resilience of a people who have been let down time and time again.
Taking part in a project where we collected women’s stories brought into focus the lives of the women and children and indeed the men in their families. The stories of heartbreak and loss, fleeing and staying, farming and selling, marriage and family stay with me. Even the students who were interviewing women in their families discovered a new way of seeing their mothers and grandmothers, of understanding more deeply the sacrifices made and the obstacles overcome, rather than glossing over these stories and dismissing because they had become so familiar. They truly listened to the details that they may have previously disregarded, grasping the profound strength of their mothers. (To read more, please visit Many Women, Many Words www.kurdishwomenswords.world).
In 2013, as the world stood by and watched ISIS (Daesh) attempt to take this area, I bought a car in Manchester and decided to drive back to Kurdistan. Nine days through France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, eight days of stress and anxiety, and then one day of relief, as I reached the Kurdish areas and was greeted with the familiar words: چۆنی باشی؟ (Choni/Bashi?). I had arrived home.
Crossing the border, I drove past Duhok, unfamiliar with the new road system that had yet to put up signs to guide drivers. Still, I made it through and felt lighter as each mile passed. The roads were quiet. The British government had issued warnings not to go near Akre, to avoid the area entirely. I stopped and took pictures of the peaceful surroundings to share with friends back home.
Driving into Soran I couldn’t help but smile with relief. I’d made it back to my adopted home. It’s hard to explain to anyone outside how protected and safe I felt during the upheaval wrought by ISIS. I was with a people who had withstood far more and worse, who understood what it meant to flee for your life and who fought valiantly for all the ethnic groups within its semi-autonomous borders. Without the Kurds and the peshmerga, there could have been a very different outcome, and the world needs to acknowledge that.
Recently, a colleague asked me about Kurdistan and as I answered he said my whole face lit up and he could tell I loved it there. When I think of Kurdistan now, it’s the lifelong friends I made; the waterfalls and picnics; the shopping in the bazaar; buying cloth for clothes; the fresh vegetables, juices, and colorful flavors of ice cream. Going to the nut man’s stall and coming out with bags of pistachios and walnuts. Women sashaying across roads, holding up traffic without a care in the world as the Kurdish proverb نە بای دیووە، نە باران goes. It is vibrant and full of life. It is safety and security.
I also think of the time that we transformed the bazaar into our festival of arts and the students performed poetry in the streets. Music, drama, and dancing rang out as schools, as the university and local community came together to celebrate life and creativity. These are the memories of Kurdistan that stay with me. And why a piece of my heart will always remain with the Kurds and their beautiful land.
Muli Amaye is a writer who teaches creative writing at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and is coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She has taught in Kurdistan, Iraq, and Lancaster UK. Her debut novel, A House With No Angels is published by Crocus Press (2019).
