A summer picnic

Hello everyone!

Last Friday all the PLC staff and interns went to a picnic in the Iraq countryside near Iran and I want you to experience what we did. So without further ado, a typical Kurdish holy day!

You leave your home early in the morning and take a bus out to the country. The ride is full of anticipation, laughter, and excitement. After two hours of winding up and down mountains on single lane dirt roads, you arrive at the house you will be at for the afternoon. The first thing you notice as you enter the house is the lack of furniture, so you find a place on the large carpets spread throughout the room and recline on some pillows. You spend the entire morning talking and chatting with friends, lazily spending the day in no particular rush.

Lunch is absolutely amazing! It is a traditional Iraqi dish called sara and there is a whole lot of food for such a short name. First, you are handed a steaming bowl of rice which is considered your "home base". Then lots of different bowls full of all kinds of food are brought out. All the dishes have a tomato based broth, but that's about the extent of their similarities. There are beans, ocra, tomatoes, apricots, and all kinds of awesome foods. You're sitting on the ground in whatever style you can manage with a long plastic sheet that acts like a table cloth for all the guests (this is important later), looking at all the good food in front of you when suddenly a heavenly aroma wafts through the air like a thousand baby angels singing in your nostrils. THE NAN BREAD HAS ARRIVED! It's a flatbread like tortillas, but it's warm, slightly doughy, the size of a pizza. Then you  begin spooning out your portion of all the other dishes in to your “home base” of rice, tear off bits of nan bread, and take bites of delicious food intermingled with stimulating conversation from the around the floor. This is where the plastic sheet comes in. You dump all the uneaten food left in the bowls (except for untouched food) onto the sheet and roll it up. Volia, instant clean up!

After you’ve eaten your fill, the men head out to go swimming while the women enjoy a relaxing afternoon alone. You walk a short distance to a small river nearby that appears in the desert like a true oasis. The scene before you is wonderful. The river has cut away bedrock so canyon walls surround you as you swim. You fulfill your childhood desires by climbing up a huge rock in the center. Once you are back in the water you feel the odd sensation of small fish nibbling on your toes. You float along the current and find just around the bend caves of all shapes and sizes littered with old bomb casings from the Iran/Iraq war. This brings into your mind the warning of your local friend, "Don't go too far into those mountains because there are still active landmines even though 16,000 have been removed."

Swimming makes you deadbeat tired, so you are relieved when you return and are handed a large slice of watermelon and a hot glass of Kurdish tea.. The sound of stirring tea and slurps of juicy watermelon fill the room as you doze for a while and then play some games with everyone. After a long day of food and fun, you clean the house, lock up, and head back home. The bus ride is quiet since a lot of people are dozing, listening to music, or simply pondering the happenings of late. You get back to your house and wearily get ready for bed, ready to dream about the pleasant memories formed during your summer picnic.


I hope you enjoyed sharing out recent experience! If you have any questions or any topics you'd like to hear about, let us know in the comments section down below!

Until next time,
Craig