Christmas in Kurdistan

Nathan was a bit worried that showing Home Alone to his students at St Peter's Seminary wouldn't be appropriate for the religious context.  Santa and his reindeer in the seminary lounge did a great deal to allay his fears.

The IDP center at Mar Elia Shrine has this life-sized nativity in one of the tents left over from the early days of displacement.  The writing says khema yesooa (Jesus' tent).

The surroundings of Jesus' tent.

Our Advent wreath on a quiet Christmas eve, pre-service.

Post-service, choir members greeted each other in the newly-renovated sanctuary at Umm al-Maouna church.

Christmas dinner (garlic lamb chops and mashed potatoes!) by the warmth of the Syrian stove.

Nathan divided the pieces in half so that I wouldn't compulsively do it all by myself.

His Christmastime tradition of re-reading The Lord of the Rings continues for another year.
(Not pictured: we also re-watched.)

Christmas crafting.

Christmas goodie-making.

Surprise deliveries from our parents' homes supplemented our array of cookies and sweets with a taste of home. 

Post-Christmas, the remnants of my Advent wreath spiraled out of control.

The time I met the Patriarch

One of the things I enjoy most in English teaching is the opportunity to introduce my favorite bits of English-speaking culture to a captive audience.  Last Friday afternoon I was sitting in the entrance hall of St. Peter’s Seminary giving a student some ideas for Christmas reading when two men in clerical garb walked into the seminary and sat down on some couches across the room.  I could tell they were important by the hush that preceded them, so I tried to restrain the eagerness in my voice as I discussed the respective merits of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and “A Wrinkle in Time.”

When the student finally managed to disentangle himself from my childhood reminiscences, one of the two men who had entered the room asked me what I was doing in Iraq.  I explained that I was the English teacher at the seminary and also worked at Mar Qardakh, a church school.  When I told him I was American, he mentioned that he had spent a year living in New York finishing his theological training.  “Americans are warm and generous and sincere,” he said.  I agreed, and then said the thing that liberal American do-gooders abroad are supposed to say, “Yes, but they are ignorant about the world.”  He nodded and replied, “America is all economy and no philosophy.”

Before I left I went over to where he was sitting, shook his hand, and asked his name.  “Louis,” he said.  “I am the head of this Institute.”  When I told him my name, he replied “Oh, the prophet!  And who is your David?”  Not wanting to implicate anyone in murder and adultery, I demurred.  “I don’t know yet.  Maybe I don’t have one.”  As I walked home, I thought, “What a pleasant man.  I wonder what he meant about being the head of the institute?”  

The beautiful grounds of St. Peter's Seminary, just outside Ankawa.  The Seminary relocated from Baghdad to Ankawa in 2007 and 2008 because of instability in Baghdad and targeted violence against Christians.   

The next Monday, I was hanging around the seminary after classes ended early thanks to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (or “The Feast of Getting Pregnant,” as one of my students put it).   Father Fadi, the rector of the seminary, waved me over to sit by him on a sofa. “This is the Patriarch’s secretary,” he said, pointing to the man beside me, "and in a few minutes, the Patriarch will join us as well."  I tried to act the way I imagine you’re supposed to act around a Patriarch’s secretary.  (Mostly this meant quietly drinking my tea.)  After a few minutes—to my surprise, but probably not yours—the man I had met on Friday walked over and sat down with us.  “Ah, the professor!” Patriarch Louis Sakho said with a wink and a smile as he shook my hand.  

I’m not sure if he was being coy in our earlier conversation, or if he thought I wouldn’t know what a Patriarch was, or if he assumed I would piece together his hints.  At any rate, the Chaldean Patriarch is a warm and generous person, and not lacking in philosophy.  Centralized leadership works well as long as you have the right people in the right places, and it seems like in this case, the Chaldean church does.    

Routine

Life in Iraq is settling into a fairly regular routine.

As you can see, the work week is generally Sunday-Thursday.  This is complicated by the seminary, which runs Monday-Friday.  To compensate for working on Friday afternoon, we try to take it a bit easy on Sunday afternoon.

Most days Nathan wakes up around 7 and I wake up... later.  We study Arabic together three mornings a week with a book and CD of drills.  (Sometimes this is fun, and sometimes it's frustrating.  Our language skills are improving and we can communicate a surprising amount, but when we don't have a native-speaking teacher correcting us and providing new input, and when most people are just as likely to speak Kurdish, Sureth, or English as Arabic, there aren't a lot of sink-or-swim language learning opportunities.  So we stagnate, and flounder, and make silly mistakes, and gradually internalize verb conjugations.)

DIY Iraqi hipster Christmas tree star.

After Arabic I eat breakfast, shower, check up on the internet world, and usually accidentally start working before 10 am because there are emails in my inbox and I must read them now.  This is okay, because I take breaks during the day to make Christmas decorations (or write blog posts).  I love working at home.

Two days a week, Nathan bikes to Mar Qardakh school, where he tutors students in English in the morning and then collaborates with teachers on writing assignments and grading in the afternoon.

On two afternoons a week, Nathan teaches English to students at St Peter's Seminary.  In one three-hour block he teaches 28 seminarians in three 45-minute classes, with a half-hour break for tea before the last class.

We have choir practice two evenings a week, and we usually have an additional hour of practice prior to mass on Sunday evenings.  Three nights a week is a big time commitment.  So far it's been absolutely worth it, although the list of upcoming choir responsibilities for Christmas is a bit daunting.

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Lots of things are not included in the schedule above.  There are always meetings, and drop-ins, and sometimes social events.  Nathan has started doing some one-on-one tutoring in addition to his class prep.

Also not included in the formal schedule are the little things that have nonetheless become routine.  At least once a day (or night), we stop whatever we're doing (e.g. sleep), put on shoes, and walk outside because the electricity supply has switched from the neighborhood generator to the national grid, and the surge of power threw the circuit breaker.  Nathan also flips a switch on every day or so to make sure that water is getting pumped from the line up into our roof-top tank, and turns it off once it's full.  (Thanks, dear.)

Once or twice a week, we walk 10 minutes to one of the nearby grocer stands to get fresh vegetables and fruit.  Most of our non-produce groceries come from nearby stores that sell basically everything (coconut milk? check!).  Once or twice a month, we take a taxi to one of the supermarkets in Erbil to get fancy things like cheddar and Parmesan cheese, Kalamata olives, and bulk honey.

The Syrian heater is the Middle Eastern equivalent of a woodstove.  It's cozy.

Every weekend we clean, make granola, and listen to wait wait don't tell me on podcast.  We cook or eat leftovers, and we eat later: lunch at 1 or 2, dinner at 7 or 8.

During or after dinner on quiet evenings, we often watch an episode or movie from our inherited collection of pirated and legitimate DVDs.  Now that it's getting chilly, this routine also includes lighting candles, firing up the kerosene-burning Syrian heater, and sometimes roasting chestnuts or popping popcorn on its cast iron top.

We're usually in bed by 10.