Maaike Veen

Welcome to Iraq: Please take a blood test

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:04:46 +0000

During all my visits to Kurdistan –four so far- I have always been impressed by the people’s hospitality. Their gratitude after a week’s work – I am training local journalists through the Independent Media Centre of Kurdistan – is humbling. But when you visit the Asais, the security services, to extend your tourist visa you enter the world of the infuriating Iraqi red tape. All of a sudden you feel not so welcome anymore.

I always dread these visits. A friendly student is so kind to help me navigate the office’s cool corridors. He takes my green file from door to door, a total of at least eight different offices all of which have a picture of a young president Talibani on the wall when he was the leader of the Peshmerga’s, the Kurdish freedom fighters. Without my fixer I would be completely lost as nobody speaks a word of English. As I’m no newcomer –both in Erbil and in Suleimania they have my files-, extending my visa should be straightforward albeit time consuming. But sadly it never is.

A blood test? Are you saying I need to take a blood test to extend my visa by two days? I couldn’t believe my fixer when he was telling me that I couldn’t get the visa stamp unless I took a blood test. This time there wasn’t anything wrong with my paper work –the fact that it took the government almost a year to grant the IMCK its much needed licence was playing havoc each time one of the trainers had to renew their visa.

It’s a new law and it applies to all foreign passport holders, you just have to do it otherwise it would be corruption, my fixer explained. Without the blood test no exit visa. And without the exit visa you can not leave Iraq! I knew you needed an official document proofing you are HIV / Aids free if you are seeking permanent residence or a temporary stay. I would argue that this is already quite ridiculous. Iraq however, is not the only country doing this. But to ask aid workers, business men and a few tourists on a short visit for a blood test just in case they may have Aids is just plain stupid.

My problem with this new rule is not so much that I don’t like my blood taken by a total strange doctor in a strange country – visitors to Baghdad speak of dr. HIV- that my privacy is being violated or even that the test implies discrimination of people with HIV. The tests are complete nonsense because the results arrive when you have already left the country. HIV tests are only reliable three months after unsafe sex. And then still there are a lot of initial false tests. Do all visitors to Iraq have to do an HIV test every three months? And what about travelling Iraqi’s? They don’t have to take a test each time they have been abroad.

I would think that the Iraqi and Kurdish government have far bigger worries than to test the foreigners who are visiting to help and support the country, who are coming here to do business or invest money. On my next visit I will make sure I will not stay more than ten days to avoid this pointless blood test. And I know I am not the only one.

Kurdish Picnic

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:28:04 +0000

When you’re in this part of the world, you have so many stories to tell. But where do you get the time to write them. You are never alone here. Yesterday I was really looking forward to an evening to myself, but the cleaning lady –a girl only left at 7.30 pm and then I was still stuck with the driver and a handy man who had difficulties following my instructions that the white curtains were for the guest room and the brown for another bedroom. I just put the curtains in the rooms, but nevertheless they needed to ask me three times whether this was right.

The cleaning lady is from Ethiopia who thought she would get a job in Dubai and ended up here as a maid with a rich family. You see many foreign workers here, who do the jobs the Kurds don’t want like cleaning and handling the luggage at the airport, all done by workers from Bangladesh who also thought they would go to Dubai. It’s far from easy for them to go back to their own country. With debts to the recruitment agency and low wages it takes them a long time to earn enough money to pay for the flight home out of this human slavery.

If you though the English love picnicing then you haven’t been to Kurdistan. Thursday’s and Friday’s (the Middle Eastern Sunday) are the big picnic days, come rain or shine. On Friday after the midday prayer families and friends pack their tables and chairs, little barbecue, music set and lots of foods to drive up the mountain. The women wear their best dresses made of shiny, glittery cloths in very bright reds, yellows, purples and greens.

Where I would like to find a quiet, beautiful spot with a nice view from the mountain, they just go for the side of the road. In Suleimania two files of cars in a big queue drive up the mountain past the ‘palace’ of Talabani, the Iraqi president and one of the two Kurdish leaders, and Kurdsat, the television station owned by his wife Hero. Everywhere alongside the roads families are sitting together with the men in charge roasting the kebab, some are dancing in a circle on the tunes of Kurdish music. Forgetting your drinks, not a problem. This may be a Muslim country, but little shacks sell all the booze you’re looking for.

When we unpacked our car Saturday evening finally agreeing on a spot with the best view of the city which wasn’t so windy, we discovered we’re not yet experienced picnicers. Nobody organised the table and chairs and where were the skewers? Sam (Salman) drive down to find a family who could spare a few skewers. A few bigger rocks and car mats will do as chairs, the parking light of the car light gives just enough light to check on the meat. A laptop on the hoot of the car is playing Stingm the Bee Gees, you name it thanks to the big music collection of Ahmed.

We’re missing Jaya’s singing, a photographer and stringer for Associated Press. He is covering the appalling attack in Zana Town just outside Kirkuk, where a truck exploded in front of a mosque, just when people walked out after their midday prayer. Fifteen mud houses in the immediate surroundings were completely flattened, just like the mosque, killing more than sixty people. We heard the ambulances rushing to the hospitals Suleimania, where many of the wounded women and children were brought in.

Just before nine we make sure we’re standing at the edge of mountain top with a clear view of the city. At nine we watch how the city’s power supply is cut off –they have ten hours of electricity a day. It’s like looking at a map of Risk where the different countries are lit which switch off one after the other. Slowly the lights come back when the generators kick in. In the richer areas you just see a flickering. They have generators which switch on automatic. We cheer when we see another neighbourhood go ‘black’. For people here the lack of a steady power supply is one of their biggest frustrations. “We shouldn’t make fun of other people’s misery”, Sam shouts. We all know that, but sometimes you just need to laugh about it.

Traditional Iraqi Pictures

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:25:35 +0000

One of the journalists had a gift for me: the group photo of last year’s training. Nabaz Rostam from Kirkuk kindly wrote all the participants’ names on the back of the bad print of off, but the Arabic characters of the Kurdish language are all Chinese to me. Most of the men in the photo are in my course again, although reading their news stories you wouldn’t think they have had tonnes of training, not just from me. Working here is taking two steps forward and one back.

It’s the last day of the course, so it’s high time for the traditional Iraqi picture: group photo’s with serious looking faces in various combinations. I have an entire collection by now. They just love taking group photos and they all insist on having their own double portrait with me. At some point I have to say no as they can’t get enough of it. Would the Japanese do the same, I wonder.

The Iraqi’s, Arabs and Kurds alike, love their photo’s being taken. Kurdish couples often go to the photo shop on their wedding anniversary for a glamorous picture. Whether we walk into a bakery to look at how the sweet honey dripped pastries are being made, admire the colourful clothes in the bazaar, each time we’d like to take a photo just of the shop and its typical goods, the owners signals us we have to take his photo. Back straight, a little tug to straighten their shirt, a serious face and ready!

I don’t want to be locked into their group for too long, their body perfume is no Chanel. While I’m writing this in between courses my translator walks in and I’m relieved to see that after four days he has finally changed his red t-shirt for a clean shirt.

What would they do with all these extremely dull pics? Foreigners are warmly welcomed and anything coming from abroad is deemed good. It’s nice to be respected, but I’d wish modelling wasn’t part of the job!

Collateral Clouds

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:05:52 +0000

The grey London skies can get to you, but the sandy clouds dusting Erbil in a yellowish shade can be far worse. If the wind picks up and blows from the south the sand storms can be so bad that you can’t see a thing and can’t drive, my friend Ahmed tells me when we’re driving to a restaurant. He assures me I haven’t seen anything yet, when I’m asking him about the overcast sky.

In recent years, since the American-led invasion of Iraq, the sand in the North has become worse. People blame the war. The heavy American artillery, tanks and trucks, conquering the country from Kuwait didn’t take the motor way. They made their way through the dessert, rustling up the sand in their tracks. The thick, hard layer of sand was more or less ploughed over and disturbed the fine eco balance. The seeds in the ground spread and won’t sprout. The sand has free rule. The storms are a recent phenomenon, courtesy of the Americans, hailed by the Kurds as their liberators. The Kurds have in effect a semi –autonomous state since the Americans installed a no-fly zone above North Iraq after the Gulf War in 1991.

First thing you do when you wake up

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:55:45 +0000

With my eyes half-closed I tried to find the aircon remote control on my bedside table. Two days ago I woke up in a hotel room in Rotterdam not knowing where I was, but this morning I knew exactly where I was. It was six o’clock and my room was hot because the aircon had timed out following a power cut. I’m in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in North Iraq. Power cuts are here a daily fact of life, especially at night. And as it’s getting hotter and hotter –at the moment it’s not too bad at a temperature of 40 degrees Celcius, but in August it get’s over 50 degrees on this plain surrounded by mountains- the power cuts will increase as the grid’s capacity will be stretched beyond its limits.

I’m in Iraq to teach local journalists, Kurds, how to write independent, fair and accurate news stories, how to think and live as an independent journalist and to write stories about the concerns of the people instead of just writing stories about what some political figure head has been saying, in other words citizen journalism to use a media buzz word, while I’m telling my journalists to avoid any jargon. Teaching journalism makes me very self-conscious about my own writing.

I’m working at AK News (if you’re interested, the website www.aknews.com offers a selection of stories in English), the first news wire focussing entirely on this part of the world. In a region where independent news is a rarity, everything is political and where people haven’t enjoyed a solid education, building a news wire according international news standards is quite an enterprise. The Independent Media Centre Kurdistan (www.imck.blogspot.com) is organizing regularly training courses, supporting AK News wherever it can. And that’s why I’m here again after earlier trips in August and November of last year in the run up to the agency’s launch.