Iraq: Badge of Honor

Badge of Honor, Ministry of Defense, Ukraine

Prologue

Nohadra is the Assyrian name for Dohuk, Kurdistan, Iraq. This place has been around for thousands of years. Zawa Mountain, on one side of town, has the tombs of Assyrian kings. Ancient Nineveh from the Bible is a short drive from here. These days it's awash with people who fled violence in other parts of Iraq or Syria, foreign aid workers, and oil company scouts.

Nohadra now is just the small Christian quarter of a Kurdish city. The bars and prostitutes are here. It is the sin-city of town. For the last five years, one young man has served up draft Turkish beer and bootleg whisky to Christians, Muslims, Yazidis, and foreigners in what could only be called a dive bar. People come here to drink and forget. Bad things happened here - unspeakable things. Some were murdered by Saddam, some fought ISIS -- they even fought each other. This place has rarely known peace.

He is just the bartender. Brooding and angry, it is the only way to deal with the often rude and unruly crowd. His pain is palpable - maybe everyone's is in that place? If anyone cared to listen to his story, they would soon understand. No one does. All people here are consumed by their own lives. They tell each other tales of woe and injustice, usually without listening to an audience who does exactly the same. It is a selfish and self-indulgent place to forget about life for a few hours.

The NGO "helpers" come and go. They speak bad Kurdish to the barman even though no self-respecting Muslim Kurd would ever sell alcohol. You'd think the people coming here to "help" might know that the workers are Christian working in the Christian part of town. He wonders why these foreigners have high salaries and magic passports that let them travel everywhere. He is no one to them because they spend their days in refugee camps being martyrs having sacrificed their Western lifestyles to “help others”. Now is their time to decompress, not to care about service staff. He wonders if he will ever have such a time in his own life just to get drunk and forget about life.

His life restarted so many times that even he sometimes can't keep it straight. He missed out on most of his education and couldn't complete high school. That isn't to say he is not smart - he just doesn't have a piece of paper to prove it. He speaks four languages, three of which are not closely related. He keeps the business books for the bar.

He is also the sole wage earner for his family. His Mom and Dad, and his brother's family all rely on him. The job is every day from 4pm to 1am with no days off, except for the fasting month of Ramadan when the bar is closed and he gets no salary. He hates the job, the customers, and his life.

He is 25 years old.

This is his story as he told it to me over many coffees, teas, and beers.

Baqubah

I was born in Baqubah, Diyala Province, Iraq. I don't remember anything from when I was young. I don't know why. Maybe cuz when I was born the war had just started? Who wants to remember a war? We weren't Sunni and we weren't Shia - we were Christian. No one wanted us around, anyway. After the war got bad, we moved to Cairo in search of some safety and normalcy -- it wouldn't be the last time we suddenly moved in my life. In fact, it would become the rest of my life.

During the time of the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq's finest went off to war. There was an economy to maintain and an ocean of oil to be retrieved. This isn't the West where women stepped into a men's roles easily. What happened? Young men from "poor" countries flooded in to fill the gap. My Iraqi grandfather, Faruq, had a successful transport business. My Dad was a good-looking, hardworking guy from Egypt. He caught my Mom's eye and my grandfather let them marry. This union resulted in my extremely complicated life of not being seen as Iraqi and not being Egyptian, either. The issue dogs me to this day. If I were in America, I would just be me. In Iraq, I am the "Egyptian". In Egypt, I am the "Iraqi"

Cuz the war was going on, I had never really even started school. They took us to a church school so we knew basic math and Arabic reading and writing, but I didn't sit in a real classroom till I was ten years old.

When the American soldiers came through, they handed out chocolates to us kids. I was so excited to eat chocolate from America. I thought it tasted wonderful. Most of the Muslim kids threw theirs away because their parents told them it was not halal.

My memories as a kid from this time? Vigilance and fear. Decapitation was common. Kids were kicking around a head on my street once. You always ask me why I am this way? You think even as a kid you forget stuff like that?

Cairo

Cairo was the first place I came to know I didn't belong anywhere. I finally enrolled in school and my only memory is being taunted because I was "Iraqi". I felt so confused because my Dad was Egyptian and in the Middle East we follow our fathers.

Once in school a kid punched me just because I was Christian (and Iraqi). It was the first time someone hit me. Later, my Dad went to meet his dad and punched him for me. I don't know. I guess it was a kind of justice. I think it's one of the reasons I go to the gym now and keep my body fit. People are afraid of me - nobody's gonna mess with me.

In my house we used Arabic and Chaldean. (My Mom was a Chaldean speaker) Since we lived in Iraq, I learned the Iraqi dialect of Arabic even though my Dad spoke the Egyptian one. I never thought it was an issue till we moved to Cairo.

In this time, my mom was off working in Jordan as a domestic. It was just me and my Dad and brothers. We moved to Cairo twice during this period and tried to make a go of it. It just never worked out.

All my memories aren't bad. I remember visiting beautiful gardens in Cairo with my Dad. I still can see myself standing in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza which must have appeared even larger to me as a kid. I saw the Sphinx. Cairo had a huge zoo with seven gates and lots of animals. I have a child's memory of this great city of the Middle East, but my enduring memory is learning I just didn't belong. It was my introduction to bullying.

Amman

We moved to Amman from Cairo. Maybe my parents thought it would give us a better chance for a future. At least we were all together again. My Dad was driving truck and Mom was cleaning houses. My oldest brother worked in a ladies' salon styling hair. Jordan is notoriously expensive, especially Amman. We ended up in a part of the city called Jabal Hussein and lived in a shipping container. The toilet was outside. It was pretty awful, but we were living as a family again.

Amman is a beautiful place, I guess. As a kid, I don't really remember anything more than staying with my Mom and Dad and brothers. I was especially close to my middle brother in this time. When we were in Iraq and Egypt, there were some extended family members around. In Amman, it was just me, my parents, and my brothers. Most of my life was like this, actually. In Amman, however, it was extreme. Both my parents worked and we didn't go to school, so when you ask me if I remember seeing anything in Amman, like the great Roman Amphitheatre, my answer is just.... I don't know

Back to Cairo, Back to Baqubah, Off to Baghdad

My grandmother passed away in Cairo. We packed up everything and went back. My parents and my brother were working illegally in Amman anyway. Had they been caught, we all would have been deported to Iraq directly. The war was going on then. We were in Jordan staying out of the war-zone and hoping that we might get lucky and find a way out of the Middle East.

I don't remember my grandmother all that much. Maybe just the usual memories a kid would have - she was nice to us and cooked a lot of good food.

Finally, the war was over in Iraq and my uncles told my parents to come back. We were illegals in Jordan and there was no money to be made in Cairo. We headed back to Baqubah. My uncles helped the US army during this time. They all got letters from the so-called terrorists, "leave this place or die", so they left where they were living and came to us. The bad people followed and found them. They left a note for my dad, "Leave this place or we will come for your youngest son (me)". We left everything and moved to Baghdad.

My mom was a total hero during our return to Baquba. She used to go to the US army base and work in the laundry. That was a life-risk every day. If the terrorists found out, they would have shot her on the spot. The money was great for our family in Iraq's collapsed economy. Don't forget the Iraqi dinar went from 1 dinar = $3 to $1 = 1200 dinar in just a couple of years because of the war. Everyone needed cash desperately.

We moved to Baghdad to a Christian neighborhood. The hope was that Baghdad would give us another chance at a fresh start. Unfortunately, Baghdad was just as bad as Baqubah - dangerous and a bad economy.

We usually followed my Mom's brothers in what they did. They moved to Baghdad, so did we. There was nothing there for us. My parents didn't find work and it was just as unstable as Baqubah, maybe worse. My uncles decided to move north to their "home village" (which was Chaldean). After the US established the "no fly zone" over northern Iraq to protect the Kurds, that part of Iraq became a safe haven. Mosul was a thriving city. We left for my Mom's ancestral village, Tel Kayf.

You know, as a post script, my mom - she had a letter that she worked for the US military. It was our golden ticket for a visa to the US. My uncles are all already there or Canada. We opted to stay cuz my father remembered the heyday of Saddam's Iraq. This place had oil. He said, "let's stay". I am sure he regrets that decision to this day. I love my Dad, but I don't know if I can ever really forgive him for that.

Tel Keyf l

Tel Keyf means "hill of stones" in Assyrian. It was the ancestral village of my Mom's family. In more recent times, it was a multi-ethnic town with Assyrian, Chaldean, Yazidi, Turkmen and Arab residents. It is located just a few kilometres out of Mosul on the east side of the Tigris.

"The local Assyrian inhabitants of this ancient Assyrian town were driven out by ISIS on the 6th of August 2014, when the terrorist group took over the town. The Assyrian Christian homes were immediately looted, their churches and cemeteries destroyed, erasing any trace of their existence." (restoreninevehnow.org)

Tel Keyf was the place I lived longest before ending up in Duhok. It should have been better that we finally settled down in a relatively safe town, but really little changed for me.

My Dad sold used shoes and was quite successful. All those charities that people donate clothes and shoes to, they don't really go to poor people. They end up in the hands of wholesalers who resell them cheaply to locals who again resell them in small markets and shops. Some guy in Tel Keyf got lots of shoes from rich countries, reconditioned them, and sold them to shoe stores. My Dad and my oldest brother had their own shop. The money was ok. We had a nice rented house and our own furniture.

My middle brother and I went back to school. I was teased mercilessly. It didn't seem to bother either of my brothers as much as it bothered me. Why did I have to be "the Egyptian"? They said my Dad was Muslim because they were too stupid to know about Coptic Christians in Egypt.

Sometimes people said to my Mom, "Wasn't there any good Iraqi guy for you? Why did you have to marry an Egyptian?" During this time my Mom continued housekeeping work. I don't know if she was happy, but Tel Keyf was safe, our house was nice enough, and we were together.

Like I said, it should have been a good time. Mom and Dad were working, my brother was helping my Dad, and me and my other brother were in school. I just remember everybody hated everybody in that town. Even the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians fought constantly. For me, yet again, there are no happy memories,

Jaramana, Syria

It was said if you went to Lebanon or Syria as a displaced person, the United Nations would facilitate immigrating to the West. In hopes of going to the US and in spite of Dad's objection (who wanted to try Lebanon), we moved to Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus. We lived there for two and a half years waiting for our application to be processed.

I went back to school. It really wasn't any better than Tel Keyf. I was the "Iraqi" again. There also was a completely different educational system, so it took me a long time to adjust. At least I was learning something.

One of my friends spoke badly of President Asad. After school, a gang came and nearly beat him to death. I had to run and find help. I am sure if I hadn't, they would have killed him. So yeah, I don't have fond memories of Syria. I just stayed home and spent time with my family.

My Dad was working in a casino in a variety of positions - card dealer, cook, janitor. I just remember he came home from work exhausted and the pay was no good. My older brother was married with one kid by that time. He worked in a mobile phone shop. In fact, he went to Syria first and influenced our Mom to come there.

Syria was so old for me. I do remember seeing some old stuff in Damascus like Bab Touma, one of the old city gates. We went shopping once in Al Hamadiya Souq, one of the oldest markets in Damascus. I noticed the distinct shape of the buildings of the old city. I was too young to think it was beautiful - I just remember thinking everything looked different.

Finally someone told us because of my Mom's work for the US military in Iraq, we probably would never get any kind of help from the UN. I don't know if that was true or not, but we waited a long time and never got any indication we had a chance. They said if you ever worked for an "occupying force", you would not be accepted. No one knew anything and we were losing money in Syria.

We went back to Tel Keyf.

Tel Keyf ll

We came back to Iraq and we heard Duhok, where I live now, was a good place.

Duhok lies in a V-shaped valley behind one of the ridges that marks the start of the Zagros Mountains. In recent times, it grew to become a resort town for Iraqis escaping the scorching summer temperatures of Mosul and Baghdad. Before the flood of refugees from the Syrian civil war and ISIS, it was a smallish city where rich people had second homes. When we arrived in Duhok the first time we quickly realized we couldn't afford it, so with our remaining money we went to Tel Keyf yet again.

Back in Tel Kayf it was another start from zero. Dad was back selling shoes and Mom was cleaning houses. My older brothers worked for a Turkish construction company in their headquarters where they did laundry and cleaning for the Turkish guys who lived on site. I got a job as well. I worked in a liquor factory where we made arak, whisky, and vodka. It was all low quality stuff for the Iraqi market. There were about 40 of us working there and the conditions were really hard.

I didn’t go back to school because we all had to work hard just to get money to start again in Tel Kayf. So really I only ever made it to the 7th grade officially. With one more year in the Iraqi system I could have had a kind of school certificate. My brothers luckily both graduated high school back in Cairo. I am the only in my family that never finished school.

I hated my job there really. I wrote this myself about my experience:

So I worked with decadent people They treated me badly was come to hitting sometimes But I have been very patient to make myself I worked 3 years with people and I was the only Christian in this business and you know what racism might happen The day came, I was five minutes late The boss came at this time and told me why you late it was raining at this time I told him I had missed the bus then he told me you lying And he slapped me and when he slapped me I cannot describe my feelings at this moment Then I took the stick and then I hit him severely Then I lost my job, but I did not lose my dignity Then my hard life began to work. I worked in restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, bars, worked on everything that comes to mind.

We lived for five more years in Tel Kayf. I cannot say I liked my life that much, but were were living as a family at least. We had an apartment. We had decent furniture. We all were working, and we had money. My middle brother decided to immigrate illegally to Germany. We went to a loan shark who didn’t even want to give us the money as he thought we were a bad risk. I remember going to him and shouting at him until he agreed to loan us the money. It was about $8,000. It took him three months. Illegally into Turkey, boat to Greece, then overland via Bulgaria up to the Czech Republic into Austria and finally to Germany. He still lives there. At least one of the family got out. I spent the next few years paying back the loan shark at a very high rate of interest.

None of this was particularly good, but none of us could imagine what was coming next.

Flight to Duhok

As is famously known, Mosul fell to DAESH (ISIS) in just a couple of days. Their reputation for brutality preceded them and the Iraqi Army threw down their weapons and ran. If you talk to people in the area, it wasn’t really that simple. The army was poorly trained, poorly equipped, and rarely paid. Why were they going to risk their lives against these increasingly famous madmen?

For two months Tel Kayf was nervous. People were leaving except for the Sunni Arabs, they stayed. They knew life under DAESH was difficult but at least they had the right belief. Slowly I watched the city empty out. My Dad steadfastly refused to go. Tel Kayf was protected by the Peshmerga (the Kurdish Army). They started shoot mortars at the outskirts of town, just to scare us I think. Then one day in the afternoon the Athan (call to prayer) came at a really unusual time. Even though I am not Muslim, I knew when the prayer times should be. Something was weird. I went home and pleaded with my Mom and Dad to leave. My oldest brother had already gone to Duhok. Finally, we took our important papers and some clothes and we headed for Duhok, too.

Shazi Refugee Camp

After two years of just plain old surviving in the college dorms in Duhok, we were “moved” to a proper refugee camp in Shazi Village outside of Duhok. We were allocated a tent with a toilet that was inside (that was the only positive thing). It was as big as a medium sized room for me and my Mom and Dad. My brother and his family had their own tent as well. It really was a life-defining moment for me. I just said “no, we are NOT living like this!”. I told my Mom and Dad we would get us out of there as soon as possible. I started to work two jobs in order to save as much money as possible.

One of my jobs was as the waiter in an entertainment complex with a swimming pool. I was the sole waiter for a huge establishment. I hustled all day. Then when that finished I went to a liquor warehouse and helped unload trucks. I literally didn’t sleep. I started to feel like a zombie. I used to hit my head against a wall to clear the fog from my head. However, I DID save money and in a few months I had enough for us to move to a proper place in Duhok.

I found a small apartment for my parents in Nohadra, Duhok. I said I would stay behind at the camp and keep working to support them. My brother also moved out of the camp and into a small house in Shazi village. He didn’t find much work and I found myself helping him out pretty often too. I really was almost at my breaking point.

Then my Dad was at a tea shop that he frequented and met a guy who owned a bar. He asked if there was any work and he said “no”. There was, however, an Egyptian guy working there who said he was going to go back home in a short time. After he left, he promised the job to me. The bar owner asked about my qualifications and my Dad lied and said I had a lot of experience bartending (I had none). Better yet, my Dad didn’t tell me anything about any of it.

One afternoon I got a call at work from my Dad. He said, “I got you a good job. You have to come NOW!!” I told him I was working, but he insisted. He said, “leave it all, just come now or you will lose this chance”. Once more time I upended my life, I quit the two jobs that were killing me anyway and started on the track that you see me in now.

Efes Beer Café l - Duhok

I started working at Efes Bar that very night my Dad called me. For the first month, I was just the waiter bringing beer, ouzo, and whisky to the customers. There was a chef in the back and a bartender, the brother of the owner. I worked long hours, but I didn’t mind. It was a decent paying job compared to what I had been doing and I could move out of the camp. My parents and I got a better apartment and we were staying together comfortably. For the first time in a long time, life was improving.

The owner then sent his brother packing for embezzling and we tried to run the place without a bartender, but that really just didn’t work. How can you have a bar without a bartender? The owner really started to like me and he trusted me a lot. I was named the bartender and I took on the job seriously. I watched YouTube all the time to learn about bartending and making cocktails. I slowly pushed out the old clientele and focused on the increasing number of NGO workers who were coming to Duhok.

Before I knew it, the bar became a huge hit with the expat community. It stayed open until the wee hours and it was making a lot of money. The owner just let me take care of everything. I learned accounting. I learned how to manage everything. I was really popular with the NGO crowd and I started to improve my English. It really was the first time I had met so many foreigners. I liked their open and frank style. I admired their lifestyle. They started to invite me to their parties. I was young, good-looking (I started the gym), and popular. I was the bartender/manager at the most happening bar in the city!

I was only 22 years old.

Efes Beer Café ll - Duhok

Things were booming at the bar, but nothing good lasts forever (especially in my life). When I talked about the “owner” before, he was really just the investor/manager. The REAL owner of the place was a really rich guy who had the sole license to important the Turkish beer, Efes, into Iraq. One day, he showed up at the bar and asked me where the manager was and I said, “In Turkey on vacation.” That didn’t end well.

The owner was furious that the manager (who left all the management to me) was absentee. He shouted at me, “I own the bar and I don’t have enough time to vacation in Turkey!” Shortly after, he sold the bar cheap to another local guy who owned a bunch of hotels and bars. He brought in his own manager and as with everything, the bar changed. The new manager was the usual double whammy of someone with no experience AND a relative of the new owner.

At first the bar was booming as before, but I noticed some small changes. One night there was a huge expat party in the bar. We netted about 1500 usd that night. When the group were leaving they wanted to buy a case of beer from us and the new manager wanted to charge them more than double the usual price. I protested because they were good customers who just gave us a lot of money. The new manager however put me in my place and said “I am the manager here”. The guys got really offended and just left. They never came back. This was repeated in a multitude of ways over the next year until finally almost no expats came to the bar and the former less-than-savoury customers returned. The bar started to close earlier and earlier. The fun times of working at the bar were finished and it just went back to being “another bar” again in Duhok.

And if to add insult to injury, the manager came to know me and I was back to being “the Egyptian again”. I was older now. I had been successful for a short time. Now, I was back to just feeling like a “loser” again. I wondered how and when life would ever cut me a break.

Beirut

It was Ramadan and I was so restless. You finally convinced me to come with you to Lebanon. I had my uncle there as well and another close friend I could visit. I was really dubious of the whole thing, but my life certainly wasn’t going anywhere in Duhok. For the first time in my life, I was going on vacation.

At the airport when it came time to check in I had my first bad surprise. At the check-in counter they asked me how much money I had. I told them “a few hundred dollars, I am only going for a few days”. They did not want to allow me on the flight because Lebanese immigration required all Iraqis to be in possession of 2,000 USD to board the flight. I was ready to give up when, in a departure from the norm for me, I got lucky. A guy behind me in the line heard what was going on and gave me $2,000 to carry with me till we arrived in Beirut. I was astonished at my luck and at the generosity of a complete stranger! I got on the flight and when we arrived in Beirut, immigration didn’t even ASK me about money! In fact, they didn’t ask me anything. I found the guy in the arrivals hall and I returned the money (I am sure he was relieved!). Outside, the taxi was waiting to take me to the city and soon I was at “The Grand Hotel Meshmosh”

It was the first time in my life I was in a place in the Middle East during Ramadan where things were open as per normal all day. We were staying in Gemayze, a Christian neighborhood of shops, restaurants, and bars. The hotel was on the St Nicholas Stairs, famous for its cafes and “art walk”. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to work. I just had to relax a few days and enjoy myself. It was so overwhelming, I think I actually felt uncomfortable.

My impressions of Beirut? Not that different in appearance than any other place I had seen in the Middle East. It was not “wow, amazing” although there were some interesting old churches and Roman ruins. It was just being in a place that had a self-ruling Christian community where I felt finally “at home”. I could eat pork. I could drink alcohol if I wanted. It was Ramadan and no one cared. Feeling “normal” for once was my overwhelming feeling in Beirut.

We walked down to the Corniche and I looked out over the Mediterranean. It was my first glimpse of the sea in my life. We saw McDonalds. There was Starbucks. Men and women jogged along the Corniche in short pants. There were muscle guys working out. People walked holding hands. It was all new and even if I had never experienced it before, it felt normal - it was something I knew I had always wanted.

I took some of my precious limited time to meet my uncle there. He was in the last stages of immigrating to Australia after having lived in Lebanon as a refugee since the war. He came and met me in a taxi and we went to his cramped home. I met my auntie and cousins. They complained about everything. They hated living in Lebanon because it was so expensive and they all had low-paying jobs. Honestly, I knew what they said was true, but I had just walked along the sea on a sunny day and I wondered how anyone could be that unhappy in such a place. He made me pay for the taxi when it arrived at his apartment. He asked me for money because if I had enough money to travel to Beirut, I must certainly have some extra for him and his family. They all spoke of getting to Australia to restart their lives. I just wanted to get back to the hotel and be on vacation again – I didn’t come all the way to Beirut to listen to someone else’s problems.

Another day I met a friend who also escaped Iraq to live in Lebanon. He worked as the handyman/manager of a condominium in Jounieh, north of Beirut (that whole area is called “The Christian Coast”). This job gave him a free, small apartment in exchange for taking care of the building and helping out the residents. He had a second job to earn cash, so basically he worked all the time. He also complained that life in Lebanon was really difficult and everything was just very expensive. However, he did admit at least life was “good” living in the Christian community there. When I left him, he promised to find a job for me similar to his in a nearby building so I could escape Duhok. Nothing ever came of that – I never expected it would. Again, I left him rather heavy-hearted and just wanted to be on vacation again.

There are three things that made the vacation a real vacation - food, the Starbucks at Pigeon Rocks, and Byblos. First of all, we ate so much new and different food. It was a lot more expensive than Iraq, but it was different. The shwarma was better; the falafel was amazing; we ate at Chili’s and at Paul; we drank craft beer. If this was vacation, then yes… I loved it. Then there was the Starbucks at Pigeon Rocks. Pigeon Rocks are actually a set of huge stone monoliths in the sea which are viewed from sheer cliffs that form one edge of the city. There is a Starbucks there right on the cliff edge. I was drinking an iced coffee watching the sun sink into the sea with an incredible view. All of this was amazing, but really the best thing for me was Byblos.

North of Beirut by about an hour is Byblos. It is an ancient Phoenician city famous for one important thing – the alphabet. Latin, Greek, and Arabic writing all derived from Phoenician. These days the old city is just a beautiful little harbor with restaurants and a market. There is a ruined crusader castle overlooking the sea as well. When I stood on that castle hill in that ancient place looking up and down the coast I felt happy and at peace. For a guy who has had very little happiness nor peace in his life, it was a moment I will always treasure.

Pandemic

Work was going nowhere. I had tentative offers of employment elsewhere but they never worked out. People had grand ideas for new bars in Duhok, but when the reality of the cost hit them, they always backed away. I had resigned myself to working at Efes Beer Cafe. Then the pandemic hit and the bar closed for several months. That meant no salary. Luckily, the landlord of the building cut me a break and told me that while I wasn't working I didn't have to pay rent. That agreement was month to month and made me very nervous. You made sure Mom and I had food. As I told you many times, no one was ever kind to me before in life. I always told you "you have done more than enough for us".

There was nothing to do except entertain you on your frequent visits. I went out shopping sometimes, but during the curfews and lockdowns it was hard to move about freely in the old part of the city. You always talked about escaping from Duhok and going home because your mother was old and sick. I wanted you to go, but I was so afraid you really would go and never return. No one ever stays in my life. You finally did leave and I wished you well. My lot in life is to be alone I think.

The pandemic waned and things reopened. I went back to work at the bar. It changed owners and I had that nervous moment when I wondered if they would retain me as an employee. Luckily they did, but business was way off. The new owners weren't happy, but it wasn't like they didn't know what they were buying into. I couldn't make customers come back to the bar during a pandemic and during uncertain financial times. My salary was reduced, but at least I was working again.

Then the Ministry of Health required all food service employees to be vaccinated. I had avoided being vaccinated for the whole pandemic because I read and heard too much conflicting information. On top of that, if you remember at the start of the whole shutdown, I told you to stay away for about two weeks. I was really sick at that time and locked myself in my room. I never got tested, but I was sure I got COVID. I didn't need a vaccination. Whatever the case, the edict came out get vaccinated or find another job. Maybe it was what I needed to push me out the door. I had been working there for 6 years - it was enough.

I was unemployed.

Erbil

I sometimes think my life is destined only to get worse all the time. Dad fell ill and was put in hospital in Erbil. I took a room there so I could visit him every day. Mom stayed in Duhok. Dad's diabetes had flared up and his blood sugar was through the roof. Between borrowing from friends, Catholic charities, and my brother sending some money from Germany, we could cover the expenses. Unfortunately Dad had necrotic tissue on his foot that they kept removing. It took a long time for it to stabilize and I was afraid at one point they were going to amputate his foot. After several months (and a lot of money), he was discharged and went back home to Tel Kaif.

During that time I scoured Erbil for jobs but there was nothing to be had that paid anything near what I needed to pay hospital bills. I was better off borrowing from people and depending on charity than working a very low-paid job for long hours each week. Had I taken one of those jobs, I wouldn't have had any time to take care of Dad. In Iraqi hospitals it is expected that a family member takes care of the patient. My frustration increased as did my hopelessness.

After Dad finally left, I realized that there was nothing for me in Erbil and I went back to Duhok where at least I had some kind of network. I started drinking Ouzo because it was cheap and it let me forget things for a while. Another couple years once again slipped through my fingers. Was life ever going to get better?