This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: July 17, 2008 - Time is going too fast. Tuesday afternoon I visited a mosque for the first time just to see the inside. Men can wash their hands and feet before going in, but the only requirement is to take off their shoes. Inside is an ornate room with a silver dome from which hangs a huge chandelier.
Along the other walls sat quite old women, some passing out candy just to be nice, not asking for anything. They didn't mind that I took photos of them but I couldn't use the video camera. Some even complained that I didn't take their pictures, so I obliged. This room was covered in large, elaborate oriental rugs. The floor of another, larger room was covered in small prayer rugs. Men of various ages prayed, counting beads on a string, or lay down resting.
Then we walked around the bazaar. It is loud, crowded and it didn't smell like roses, sort of like the Soulard Market. But everyone was friendly and wanted their pictures taken. Women in burkas, men in traditional Kurdish clothes, guards with machine guns, children selling cold drinks, everyone mingling with me, staring at me a little bit, but not minding or surprised to see me there.
Last night was the academy’s big concert in Suleimanya. Everyone performed the same night, which made for a marathon concert lasting from 6 to about 10:30 p.m. It began with jazz, continued with dance and children's theater, and concluded with the orchestras and the cello ensemble.
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Before the concert, a bunch of American and Kurdish military and secret service personnel showed up to sweep the building and to put security all around the surrounding streets. The first lady of Iraq, Mrs. Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, wife of President Jalal Talabani, attended the concert. She is from Suleimanya and helps support this project.
People flocked into the concert hall after being frisked and having their bags searched. A number of America diplomats from Erbil showed up as well, so there was extra security all over the place. The hall only holds about 500 people; by 5:45, it was full. By 6:15, the concertgoers were standing in the aisles. The doors were locked, so no one else could push in. The temperature rose, and people were demanding to get in -- a real mob scene. It was interesting to see ushers in camouflage with machine guns by the entry doors.
The orchestra section of the program went very well, especially the performance of the youngest children who were excited and really outdid themselves. The intermediate orchestra did its best and the cello ensemble brought Missouri to Kurdistan with some ragtime music by Scott Joplin.
The Kurdish String Orchestra provided a great performance of the first part of J.S. Bach's Concerto for two violins, Bartok's Romanian Dances and part of Holst's St. Paul's Suite.
Afterward, James Nacy and I went out with a small group of string players to an outdoor park where there were a number of restaurants. We had to pay and get frisked to get into the park, but it was a beautiful area with lots of colored lights in the trees and bushes and the air was cool and fresh.
We had roasted kebab meat, chicken wings, hummus and beer, a great combination of flavors. There was also a very happy group of people, sweet and affectionate, and sad that the academy experience was over. We invited many of them to follow us to Erbil since there are some extra dorms rooms for students, so we'll see many of them in a couple of days. I've learned that Erbil is the Arabic name for the city that was imposed by Saddam. Most of the Kurdish people call it Hawler or Hewler, its Kurdish name.
Erbil, (or Irbil or Arbil), is believed to be one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back to the 23rd century B.C.E. at least. The Sumerians settled it. This morning we drove to Erbil in two small buses, one for us and one for luggage and boxes of music. The drive was hot, bumpy and dusty but the views were breathtaking: tall, rocky mountains; a river and a damned up lake; small towns, goatherds and the occasional donkey.
The driver was being an ass and wouldn't put on the air conditioning to save on gas, though he kept the awful music on the radio nice and loud. We were hot and crabby after the three-hour drive.
We were glad to check into the Hotel Chuawchwas (Four Lanterns), which is very nice, with real bathrooms, a restaurant/bar, a nice outdoor patio and so forth.
I drove out to the student dorms at the Salahaddin University with John Ferguson, who runs the American Voices program that sponsors these academies, to see the conditions. We met a group of about 12 musicians who flew up yesterday from the arts institute in Basra on the border with Kuwait.
I'm glad there are some Arabic musicians here now to blend in with the others and they couldn't have been friendlier. Some spoke English quite well. They complained that there was no electricity, so there’d been no air conditioning between midnight and 8 a.m. Apparently the university has to alternate power and plan the schedule with the city, which provides electricity to different parts of the city at different times.
Erbil residents can have only two hours of hot water a day so we're negotiating with the cultural president and the university president to see if that can be improved. Otherwise the dorms are nice looking, although out in the middle of a dust field outside of town.
The power goes out a few times every day, sometime at scheduled times when switching from national power to local generators, and sometime for unknown reasons, but it happens a lot more than last year, rarely for more than a few seconds.
It's especially “fun” while rehearsing on stage like yesterday during the dress rehearsal. It's nice to be back at the Cultural Ministry building and concert hall where we were last year. We'll each have our own room and some of the same students that I knew last year.
Here we go again.