A day in the country

This weekend I had the privilege of going on a real Iraqi picnic. When I first got here, I was surprised to see families and friends parking on the highway just outside the city, spreading blankets on the shoulder of the road and firing up their grills for a good old fashioned barbeque.

It’s so dry and hot here that any patch of grass or open land is fair game for a little mini retreat for a couple or family – I’ve seen them camped out on the grassy medians in the middle of wide boulevards, on flowery parking lot dividers at the mall, and on hillsides off busy streets.

So I was pretty excited when my student, Sahar, invited me on a field trip with her sister out to Shaqlawa, a town about an hour and a half away that is a popular vacation spot, especially for Southern Iraqis.

We checked out the other picnic spots on the way, where people park their cars after nightfall and small bonfires burn deep into the evening.







Then we entered Shaqlawa, a cozy little town that seemed a world away from the heat and dryness of Erbil. The mountains make the region noticeably cooler than Erbil and the deep red dirt is often spotted with tiny white flowers. It’s a world of soft rolling hills, trees (it’s been so long since I’ve seen lots of trees!) and a main street with dozens of candy shops, spice and fabric shops with their wares draped over the doorways and tumbling into the streets.

We planned to return after nightfall, when Sahar promised me the town would be bumping. We headed out to a graveyard and ancient church where Sahar swore she had heard voices screaming at night that stood at the front of a natural cave. We climbed up the hillside to the mouth of the cave, where people light red candles and wedge them into the rock face in the hopes that their wishes would come true.




Unfortunately we learned that the candles were available back down at the bottom of the hill so we saved our wishes for next time and headed down again for our picnic.




Finally we headed back in to Shaqlawa, and Sahar was right, the sleepy town’s main street was packed with people, sitting at neon-drenched restaurants, bouncing in huge trampoline beds, shopping for hats and trinkets and dancing in the streets with each other. Even at 11 at night, the streets were full, mostly of tourists who had come up from Baghdad and surrounding areas to escape the heat and intensity of the city.