Water and community

“You always know when there is conflict in a village because there are two mosques [or churches] instead of one.”  As we stand next to a recently-constructed dam in the village of Shakha Piska, Birwa, a staff member for REACH (an Iraqi Kurdish NGO) added, “...Shakha Piska has two mosques.”

Like many small towns and villages throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, Shakha Piska has been hit hard over the past decades by a deadly combination of conflict, displacement, and water scarcity.  About 15 families live together and farm the arid land here.  Thanks to an MCC project with REACH, Shakha Piska now has a small dam that traps winter rains to help get the village through the rainless summer and enable them to increase their agricultural output so they can improve their diet and bolster their income.   

Kak Zerar and Kak Omar live in Shakha Piska and are responsible for the upkeep of the dam.

Water is drawn from a well just below the dam.  Before the dam was constructed, villages could draw about 1,500 liters every three days; now they draw about 3,000 liters every day.  On the shores of the dam, trees anchor the slopes of the hill, providing a glimpse of what this place could become and giving hope for the people of  Shakha Piska to stay on their land and remain together—a precious goal at a time of mass displacement in Iraq.     

This is the dam about halfway through the dry season in the first year (June 2015). 

Part of REACH’s development work includes helping communities to work together to address their shared needs. Rather than each family petitioning the government individually for water or electricity or a school in the village, REACH encourages communities to decide collectively on their most important shared needs and take action together.  This cultivation of grassroots democracy improves government responsiveness, fosters a sense of agency among communities that are often excluded, and helps productively transform conflict.  In Shakha Piska, the goal is for the community to share the responsibility for upkeep of the dam.  There will still be two mosques in Shakha Piska next year.  Hopefully, thanks to the work of REACH, taken over by the people of Shakha Piska, there will be new life and cooperation as well.

In the hall of the mountain king

On the road from Suleimaniya to the lakeside town of Dukkan, just after one of Saddam’s crumbling whitewashed prison fortresses, a small river flows out of a side canyon.  Turning off the main road, you climb above the valley plain, further up, and further in, until modern Iraq has passed away, except for you and the road.  The canyon-valley slopes up and narrows.  Steep sides rise from the gently slanting river bottom.  A ribbon of green laces its way down to civilization.  Here the road forks right to follow the steep walls.  This is the way to Qizqapan, tomb of King Cyaxeres.  

King Cyaxeres of the Medes led the coalition that toppled Nineveh, the capital of ancient Assyria, so despite his current obscurity he was a big deal for the ancient Near East.  And he's claimed in the Kurdish national anthem as an ancestor of the Kurds.
   

We visited Qizqapan on our way back from Suleimaniya a few days ago, climbing up the valley road until we came to a parking lot with steps along the cliffside to a white scaffold.  The scaffold sits about a meter away from the cliff face and at the top, 15 sheer meters up the side of the rock, is an inset carved gateway.  Two columns flank the door and carvings of humans, animals, and the sun decorate the entrance—along with graffiti. 

When we arrived, five men with guns—off-duty Peshmerga, we assumed—were just leaving.  I wondered why they had brought their guns, and, captivated by the historical romance and resonance of the place, I eagerly imagined they had come for a blessing at the tomb of the king who, twenty-five hundred years ago, had triumphed against the city they were now going off to fight. 

All the graffiti was in Kurdish and Arabic except for this:  “For remembrance we came here, but it was not much worthy.”  Strange that someone would want to record such tepid feeling on something so old.  I can't imagine not being impressed by the carving.  Still I resonated with the words, or at least the desire for resolution.  The whole scene was an unsettling mixture.  An empty tomb—looted God knows how many years before—a lush river valley full of life, and young men marching off to war.  

The price of peace

ISIS is a difficult topic for pacifist Christians, and rightly so. It seems impossible to argue against U.S. or Canadian airstrikes when they are arguably holding back religious cleansing....

Read the rest of this post over at the MCC Ottawa Advocacy Office blog.

Then and now: In pictures

Here are some contrasting images to show how things have changed (and stayed the same) since our arrival in July 2014 and now, nine months later.

Streamers of Kurdistan flags appeared overnight on our street in early
August after the Islamic State group pushed into Kurdish-controlled
territory and prompted mass displacement.  Nationalism and morale
were high; people thought they would be returning to their homes in 
Mosul and the surrounding towns in a few weeks or months. 

The streamers are still there, less jaunty now and more bedraggled. [Insert war metaphor here.] 

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Short hair.

Long hair.

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Late July: dry, dusty, and hazy, post-wheat harvest.

Early March: green, clear(er) skies.

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In the initial days and weeks following the Islamic State push, displaced people were everywhere -- along roadsides, in construction sites, in spare lots, in church yards and mosques.  Even though almost half of the IDPs fleeing to the Kurdistan region of Iraq immediately moved into houses, there was a huge visible presence of IDPs in every square meter of space.

As the conflict wore on, IDPs were increasingly concentrated into (less visible) camps and informal settlements, especially with "caravans" (pre-fab trailers).  This is Mar Elia IDP center at Christmas; now they have caravans instead of tents.

While there are camps, unfinished buildings are one of the most common places where IDPs have settled.  This is the inside of Ankawa Mall, which housed about 400 families.  Last week, they were moved into caravans on the outskirts of town.

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Accidental matching shirts with Jim Fine, my predecessor as MCC Iraq program coordinator.

Intentional matching shirts with Nathan (and all forty choir members) for Easter.  

 

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MCC office arrangement, July 2014.

MCC office arrangement, April 2015.

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Traditional Kurdish pillow.

I cut off all the tassels in a fit of cultural insensitivity.
(For those of you who are planning a visit, make sure you keep room in your suitcase to take home a Kurdish rug, which are available in the Erbil bazaar.)

       

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During our MCC Iran/Iraq/Jordan retreat in Jerash, Jordan (August).

On the roof of our house in Ankawa (February 2015).

Daily bread

One of the big projects that MCC started this year in response to the ongoing crisis in Iraq is working with an Iraqi organization, ZSVP,  to provide six months of food (from March to August) for almost 700 families who fled from the Islamic State group last year and are living in two small towns in northern Ninewa governorate.

Photo credit: Abid Hassan, March 2015.

While I was collaborating with ZSVP and MCC staff in February to get the proposal off the ground and running, I learned that another international organization with funding from the World Food Programme (WFP) did a distribution in early February for the two towns that we were planning on targeting, with plans to continue with monthly distributions for as long as they had funding from WFP.

I pushed strongly to keep these two towns for ZSVP distributions instead of having them be absorbed into the broader WFP system.  I succeeded: these two towns were recognized by the coordination system as MCC/ZSVP's responsibility for March-August 2015.  I felt great; I took on the big system and got what I wanted, I advocated on behalf of our local partner, who would provide higher-quality food baskets than what WFP provides, and I avoided going back to the drawing board with the project design.  Win, win, win.

And then our implementation was delayed and didn't begin until March 30, instead of March 1.

As a result of my success, the regular supply of food for these families was delayed.  Instead of waiting four or five weeks between distributions, three thousand, nine hundred, and forty-eight people had to wait seven weeks, with only the assurance that it was coming to sustain them.  No one starved because of my actions---there are resources and safety nets beyond these food distributions that covered the gap---but people probably did go to bed hungry because of me.

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I know that "if only"s have limited use.  I also don't know what other factors beside my personal decision to fight back contributed to this existing situation, or what other factors could have intervened in an alternate reality to delay the food distribution regardless.  However, I also know that I have sinned against thousands of people who I do not know, over whose food security I have arbitrary and extensive power.

Having a regular and predictable source of food is one of the main keys to not just surviving but thriving.  This is true not only for people in large-scale disasters like what's happening in Iraq and Syria now, but also for people in the United States and everywhere who are in the slow-motion crisis of poverty.  With this on my mind, I was struck by how receiving food is built right into Jesus' model of prayer, right after proclaiming the kingdom of God and before asking forgiveness for sins:  Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive our sins.  Help us forgive others.

Our intentions are good, but that does not lessen the pain that we cause others. We see, think, and love imperfectly, and we are lucky if our best attempts come out even.  Nevertheless, we keep praying: give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Photo credit: Chris Ewert, November 2014.

Agriculture in the shadow of Daesh

The problems facing Iraq aren't all about the Islamic State group (known here as Daesh, the Arabic acronym).  The needs for improved agriculture, education, rule of law, and other systemic problems that existed before the crisis -- both natural and human-made -- are still here.  Similarly, although MCC's work has expanded to respond to the crisis, the long-term and ongoing work that it was doing before is still happening, and will continue into the future.

Among these ongoing projects, MCC currently partners with two Iraqi organizations (REACH and ZSVP) to improve the viability of small farmers and rural households by both increasing their production of vegetables, crops, and livestock and improving their access to reliable water resources.  REACH is working in Erbil and Suleimaniya governorates, while ZSVP is working in Dohuk and northern Ninewa governorates.  Some of these locations are very close to the front lines, while others are relatively isolated.  In the words of one project participant, "whether Daesh is near or far away, we are still just farmers with no money."

Shireen, a 56-year-old widow and head of a 10-person household, is from a village in Sinjar, very near the region that is controlled by the Islamic State group.  She received five beehives from ZSVP in February 2014.  "I harvested thirty kilos of honey in the end of July 2014.  I sold ten kilos for $25 each.  On 9 August, the terrorist groups controlled Sinjar and surrounded our village for about two months.  During this time we did not receive any support or help. So we benefited from the remaining honey production (twenty kilos) to feed our kids at that crucial stay, and I also helped my neighbors in the village.  So the project production was really a good income and supported the kids to survive."
Of the 25 beekeeping project participants in the Sinjar region, ZSVP has not been able to contact 14 since the Islamic State group advanced in August 2014.  (Photo credit: Dr Abid Hasan).

Joanna, a widowed mother of four girls and four boys, has doubled the size of her kitchen garden since ZSVP helped her establish it in early 2014, and she used the information from a training to create a makeshift greenhouse (at her feet) to start tomato and pepper seedlings.  She lives in a Yezidi village in the Kurdish-controlled region of Ninewa governorate, about 30 kilometers from territory controlled by the Islamic State group. 

The types of activities that take place through these projects are varied.  Direct agricultural activities include family kitchen gardens, community nurseries and greenhouses, beekeeping, backyard poultry, and tomato cultivation.  Water source protection and improvements include constructing irrigation channels and rainwater weirs, installing drip irrigation systems, and renovating water sources (like springs and shallow wells) and household plumbing systems.  Projects also include trainings for the participants on everything from how to divide and establish new bee swarms to particular regional pests that damage tomatoes.  ZSVP and REACH also work with the local communities to increase their collective organization and access to resources in general.  For example, the community-based organization (CBO) in Aly Zangan village (with the rainwater weir below) successfully advocated to the government to provide national electricity in their rural village.

The MCC learning tour visit in October 2014 observed the rainwater weir in Aly Zangana village soon after its construction was completed just before the onset of the rainy season.  Although the villagers were not sure how much water the weir would reserve, one said, "we will share the water until the last drop."  (Photo credit: Ruth Keidel Clemens).

We visited again in February 2015; the weir is 2 meters from its full capacity, and the villagers have installed the fence around its perimeter that they had mentioned wanting in October to protect children and animals from danger.

There has been over a decade of drought in northern Iraq, which has exacerbated the hot and dry summers, lowered the water table, and reduced the productive capacity of crops.  This is compounded by problems caused by the disputes between the Iraq and Kurdistan governments, which has resulted in a reduction of subsidies for farmers and, in 2014, a complete lack of payment by the government for any of the crops that it collected from farmers.  After being denied an entire year's income, it is not surprising that most farmers are skeptical about footing the start-up costs for the 2015 season.  The Kurdish military forces (known as the Peshmerga) also recruit among rural farmers: in one 14-family village, there are 16 men enlisted in the Peshmerga.  This both decimates the available labor market and hamstrings the viability of village life, resulting in mass migration from rural to urban settings. 

A repaired irrigation canal in rural Suleimaniya governorate enabled 25 farmers to plant rice instead of wheat in their collective fields.  With rice selling for ten times as much as wheat on the local market, this water resource provided a substantial improvement in their income generation.  

This picture, taken in August 2014 at the height of the dry season, contrasts irrigated fields with the surrounding landscape.

As Westerners, we often romanticize the rural agrarian life and gloss over the fact that this life is unimaginably difficult in many ways.  Daesh is never very far from the consciousness of these Iraqis, but dry wells, salty soil, dwindling villages, lack of schools, cheap imported vegetables, and government neglect is a direct threat to their livelihoods.  "We want a green economy, not an oil economy," says one participant, "but the government will not help us."

Reading Jonah in Ninewa

“Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

One of the most fascinating things about the ancient Christian communities of Iraq—in my mind, at least—is that they mostly identify not as Kurds or Arabs, but as Assyrians.  This seems curious because ancient Assyria was, by most historical and biblical accounts, the original Evil Empire of the ancient Middle East. From their capital in Nineveh (present-day Mosul, capital of Iraq’s Ninewa governorate and current ISIS stronghold), the Assyrians pillaged and murdered from the Tigris to the Nile.  Other empires did the same, but the Assyrian kings recorded their feats of torture with remarkable thoroughness and glee.  The Babylonians are famous for the Hanging Gardens; the Assyrians are known for mass deportation.   

The Assyrian flag, adopted in 1971.

This way of putting it is a bit hypocritical and condescending –after all, no people group is innocent, so who am I, an American, to question someone else’s far distant ancestors?  My question, I suppose, is a bit more specific.  What is it like to be both Assyrian and Christian, given that being a Christian means reading the stories of ancient Israel? Assyria destroyed the ten northern tribes of Israel and decimated or displaced dozens of other nations.  The Aramaic language came to be widely used across the Middle East in part because the Assyrians forced the Aramean people to scatter in pockets across the Assyrian Empire.  You could say that Jesus spoke Aramaic, and many Christians in Iraq still speak a dialect of Aramaic, because of the state-sponsored terrorism of the ancient Assyrian Empire.  So what is it like for Assyrian Christians to seem themselves portrayed as the bad guys in the Bible? 

I got one very direct answer this week.  Three weeks before the start of Lent, all the traditional Iraqi churches celebrate “The Intercessions of Nineveh,” a 3-day fast and nightly mass to remember not only the story of Jonah but also the prayers of the people of Nineveh to be spared from God’s wrath.  When I read the story, I usually identify with Jonah.  When they read it, they are the Ninevites.   Assyrian identity gets enacted in church as the memory of rescue from their ancestors' ways of murder and domination.  Reading Jonah is a reminder that they were, by the grace of God, saved from being Assyrian—or at least, rescued from what was wrong with being Assyrian. 

This year, the story of Jonah took on a special urgency.  The center of the fight against the Islamic State group is Ninewa governorate and its capital, Mosul.  Just like in the story, it looks like all hell is going to break loose against that city in about six months, as Kurdish Peshmerga forces narrow in, coalition airstrikes intensify, and the Iraqi army completes its training of special brigades to take back the city.  “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” says Jonah.  ISIS is undoubtedly preparing to make its defense of the city as costly as possible.  Praying an ancient story about the delivery of Nineveh could hardly be more fitting, and more hopeless.  The world’s judgment hangs over Mosul, and this time there is no Jonah.  In any case, it is hard to imagine IS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in sackcloth and ashes.  But, “who knows? God may relent and change his mind...so that we do not perish.” 

St. Joseph's church in Ankawa, like many Iraqi churches and Assyrian cultural buildings, is modeled after ancient Babylonian and Assyrian architecture.

But still, the analogy is all wrong here.  Mosul is not Nineveh.  In three thousand years, the barbarity of ISIS won’t be remembered; the American empire will.  I hope our reputation is better than the Assyrians, but either way, a present-day Jonah preaching divine destruction would be heading to Washington, not Mosul.  This wouldn’t be a bad way for American Christians to read Jonah. Who we are in the story makes all the difference, and in this story, I am an Assyrian.

      

These are the things I like to think about.  For the most part, though, I have no idea what real Assyrians think when they hear this story now.  On Wednesday evenings I teach English to high-school students who fled from Mosul and Qaraqosh, a large Christian town just outside Mosul.  Last Wednesday we did an activity with the story of Jonah.  At the end I asked them why Jonah was so angry that God didn’t destroy Nineveh.  “Because of the fish,” said one.  “Because of the plant,” said another.  Wrapped up the in geo-political reading of the story, it had never occurred to me before that Jonah was just tired of being pushed around and manipulated.  Whichever part in the story the people of Mosul have—whether Christians forced from their homes, or Muslims now trapped in them—none of them got to choose.  It is going to be a tough spring.