I landed in Erbil for the first time in 2006. When you live in the diaspora, you are like a hummingbird who has migrated in early autumn and returned to realize that you may not be able to adapt to life in your original nest. 

A bird can flutter its wings across skies to anywhere it wants to venture, but it creates a nest for its offspring in a place it believes is best.

Over the years, I have explored the meaning of what the idea of ‘home’ meant to a young girl who grew up oceans and continents away.

A 17-year-old at the time, today, I am a mother of two. A lot has changed. Yet My Nest in Kurdistan has not. Still, the meaning of home is a frequent thought knocking on the doors of my mind. 

In My Nest, two birds hatched. Here they realized their wings, learning to sing, and when the season comes, they may or may not choose to soar the skies. I decided to hatch them here because values, morals, and ethics in relationships and social life still exist, because we have not lost the fundamentals of life, family, respect, and appreciation for one another, and because love is not just a word we see in books, it is felt and seen as soon as we step outside our homes.

How can I not call this place a nest when I do not need to schedule a time to meet a friend when I most need her? There is never a two-week or a three-month notice for lunch or dinner with family and friends. An average Kurdish family has something of a thanksgiving-dinner-like gathering once every week on a Friday usually at the home of the parents or grandparents. In some parts of the world, this blessing only occurs for two hours once a year after months of planning.

My Nest does not start when I am in Kurdistan. It begins at the gate of any airport with flights directly to Erbil and during the moments when strangers offer to carry my hand luggage, fold my child’s stroller, and place my bags in the overhead storage compartment (you know, that’s an issue when you’re under five feet tall).

The ring roads around the citadel ring the welcome home bells in my heart as the plane descends over My Nest. It must be the same feeling that migratory songbirds have as they flock back to the blooming spring season. 

It is the sentiment of having tea in the bazaar in the morning and a caramel latte with cream in Diamond Square when you realize there is something for everyone. It is the blend of the old and new, Empire World and the Citadel being 12 minutes apart. The rich history, culture, and heritage exist as colors and values of the past with a sprinkle of modernization and globalization. For me, it’s the perfect mixture of ingredients. 

You know a place is a nest when you stroll the streets alone under the moonlight without having to be a parrot with eyes on its sides pondering the cues of a looming predator.

Erbil is one of the only cities in the world where it never occurs to me to triple-check that my handbag is zipped, to place the shoulder strap forward instead of to the side, or to avoid wearing a piece of jewelry in a crowded public place. 

It is the feeling of sitting in a public place and hearing the mingling in Kurdish that tickles my emotions.

It is here that you can capture a mosque’s dome and a church’s spire in one photo. Here, I receive Eid greeting messages as well as calls from my Christian friends before hearing from my Muslim friends. 

I live in a nest where we offer parts of our meal to others before we take the first bite, only because they have smelled our food and maybe, just maybe, they crave what we are about to have.

They say a person forgets what you say and what you do but always remembers how you made them feel. Over the past decade and a half, how some moments made me feel is impossible to forget.

How can I forget, for instance, that day my car stopped, and strangers fixed it while I just stood on the side of the road. To this day, I still do not know what it was that malfunctioned. Or that time when strangers gathered to see if I was okay after a minor accident. How about all the times I received calls from people who had found my lost purse and phone? 

For every bird, a nest, and here is My Nest… in Kurdistan. 

Note: I acknowledge and appreciate that my work in the private sector means that I have a higher level of privilege than other members of my community.

Sazan M. Mandalawi is a consultant, pursuing her passion in youth education.