This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: July 5, 2008 - I'm very happy to be writing to you from the Hotel Shahram in Suleimanya in northeast Iraq, very near the Iranian border.
After repacking 27 boxes of donated music and books in Chicago into 16 larger boxes, I met Carole McCann at O'Hare Airport and delivered the boxes to Austrian Airlines, which sponsored our travel to Erbil. Carol is a theater coach from Houston who will be working with the children's groups. She was here last year as well.
We arrived in Vienna on Thursday and met James Nacy, cellist, and Andrew Karr, horn player and conductor. While checking into the gate for the flight to Erbil, which is the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region and seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government, James and Andrew talked to a Kurdish man who told them that all Americans are heroes and thanked them for what we're doing in Iraq.
This same man sat next to me on the plane so we talked at length. Dana (sounds like Donna) and his sisters escaped from Erbil in 1992 by paying $7,000 in U.S. currency to a Turkish gang that sneaked them across the border. They lived in Istanbul for two years as illegal refugees and finally made their way to Denmark.
The Danish government has been very open to refugees, accepting many times more the number of Iraqi refugees than the U.S. has accepted in the past five years. Dana finished college in Copenhagen and now is a public defender, saying that law and democracy are his religion and he thinks the U.S. is the most incredible democracy anywhere with freedoms that others can't imagine.
He thanked me again for America's sacrifices and said that this is a very necessary war and very important to the entire region. He was very emotional. This was his first time back to Erbil to see his parents since he left. He is 33 and plans to return to Erbil to help in the independence process for all of Kurdistan.
Dana was a big help in the airport as we were collecting our luggage and getting the boxes of supplies through security. Special thanks to St. Louis stores Shattinger's Music and Clemens Violins, as well as many members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, who donated many items and music books for use here this summer, all of which arrived safely.
Michael Masterson, a dance instructor who was also here last year, was at the airport to meet us. The Kurdish government is the largest sponsor of this year's academy and their Ministry of Culture was on hand at the airport to meet us and help with customs.
The president of Iraq, Jalal Talibani, is Kurdish, originally from Suleimanya. He and his wife, Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, have been involved in the organization of this year's Unity Academy. The academy is part of a program called American Voices, which provides musical coaching and lessons for performers in conflict-affected parts of the world.
Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed provided her convoy of five Toyota SUVs to pick us up and take us from the Erbil airport to Suleimanya. The four of us with Michal, another dancer named Rick from Houston, and two journalists were in the two armored vehicles in the middle and the outer cars were full of armed guards in gray suits. Very dramatic. Nothing like drawing attention to ourselves.
The two-hour drive was through mountain passes and valleys was breathtakingly beautiful. The soil was red or dark brown, and we could see mountains and canyons for many miles in the distance.
The landscape resembled southern California or Spain. It is hot and dry, with some olive trees, herds of goats and little towns here and there, but there are good paved roads many of which are being expanded or improved. After one long winding crawl over a mountain range, we saw a lake on the other side created by a dam, like a welcome mirage. The terrain continued to become greener as we followed the river down another valley into Suleimanya. After a dark orange sunset, the temperature dropped to a dry, comfortable level.
Upon arriving at the hotel, I met up with Alan Salih, a violinist whom I taught last year. He is coming to St. Louis this coming year, thanks to a scholarship at St. Louis University. Another violinist, Zana Jalil, is coming as well. Both will study at SLU and will play in the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra. They will live with me.
We met up with John Ferguson, head of American Voices, and other Iraqi friends, for pizza and some wonderful bakhlava to celebrate Andrew's birthday, the 4th of July, a meaningful date for our arrival in free Kurdish Iraq.