In Turkey having lunch before the flight to Istanbul. Cizre Hamaloğlu, Cizre August 2020
[from FB post: August 21, 2020]
Headed across the border into Turkey. Hope the border isn't crowded cuz I am flying to Istanbul. Wish me luck, everyone... travel in these times is really nerve-wracking.
The COVID pandemic hit while I lived in Duhok, Iraq. Judging from how things played out in the rest of the world, I think we mostly dodged a bullet. A few short lockdowns and travel restrictions were put in place, but day to day life (except for restaurants and cafes) was largely unaffected. University classes had gone online. Mostly, it was just flat out boring.
I might have stayed and seen it through had it not been that Mom was fading. My brother's emails from home were increasingly dire. I needed to get back to Pennsylvania. The crux of the problem was that we were not permitted to travel between provinces in Kurdistan and the airport was in Erbil and I was in Duhok. I even requested help from the US Embassy to send me a letter granting passage to the airport and I WAS DECLINED (sorry State Department friends, my experiences with US Consulates and Embassies over the years and over the continents has just been awful). I felt stuck and I felt frustrated.
Enter SP, my Ukrainian-Australian colleague who was head of the English Language Institute at the university. She seemingly knew everyone and everything! I had never met another person who could assess a situation and come up with a plan as quickly as she could. SP had tried in vain as well to get to Erbil and even lost money on an expensive plane ticket in one failed attempt to make it to that airport. Her problems were confounded by Australia limiting the number of people who could return each day (even its own citizens!). We both just wanted OUT.
Another of our colleagues, Omed - a super gregarious, handsome, and personable guy whom everyone LOVED - told us he could get us over the border to Turkey. That border had been opened and closed several times during the pandemic and I initially didn't take that avenue too seriously. SP looked into everything and said she could get us out. I needed to go - Mom was going downhill. I trusted SP implicitly. She arranged for the taxi (with Omed's help and connections) and for help getting us through immigration (Omed also knew someone who knew someone). We bought plane tickets from Şırnak Airport (near Cizre, just over the border) to Istanbul. I found us a hotel in Sultanahmet, Istanbul. I emptied my bank accounts and told WMF (my bestie in Duhok) that I was finally leaving. He was happy because, dear friend that he was, he worried I might not see my mom again before she passed.
The taxi driver picked us up on a Friday morning and we zoomed to the border. Although I don't recommend trying to accomplish much of anything on Fridays in Muslim countries (a holy, rest day), I DO recommend traveling. The border was dead on Friday morning and we wound our way through the many waiting container trucks to the private vehicle crossing. We were a little nervous at immigration, but it was painless. Omed's connections smoothed the way. We drove across a river and saw the Turkish flag. We made it!
Turkish immigration was a little more of a pain simply because it was unclear what we were to do. Our bags all got checked (and SP was traveling HEAVY, so getting her bags through the scanner at customs in Turkey was not fun). We did it though - and soon we were cruising along an empty four-lane highway toward Cizre. We noted the container truck queue waiting to enter Iraq stretched along that highway for MILES. Iraq survived on imports from Turkey and Iran - its local industries destroyed during all the years of conflict. I instantly came to appreciate all those imported Turkish goods I took for granted in Duhok that made life possible there. That string of trucks was literally Duhok's lifeline.
Because we had no idea how long the border crossing would take, we were extremely early for the flight. The kind taxi driver first took us to his main office where we sat briefly in a cramped room. SP and I had no clue what was going on and hoped that our friend Omed had entrusted us to someone reliable. Keep in mind we were still in "Kurdistan" and everyone just over the border was also Kurdish and was probably related to half the people in Duhok! Actually, they were trying to figure out what to do with us. Eventually, we got back in the car and had a mini-tour of Cizre (a very ancient city) in search of an open restaurant on Friday late morning. We finally found the nice cafe pictured above where we could sit in AC (it was punishingly hot!), have some food and drink, and wait for the flight.
The cafe staff spoke English and were lovely to us. They were interested to find out we lived in Kurdish Iraq. Even downbeat little Cizre in southeastern Turkey was more developed in some ways than Duhok. I am not sure I would want to return, but it made a nice rest stop on the way to Şırnak Airport.
The taxi driver returned to pick us up and dropped us at the airport. I was nervous the whole time as flights were being cancelled left and right those days. What would we do if we got stuck in "middle-of-nowhere" Şırnak Airport? The airport was packed, however, for the one and only flight to Istanbul and I couldn't imagine they would just tell all those people "oops sorry, no plane today". SP dealt with paying extra fees for all her bags - that woman was never going back to Duhok! Of course, my bag was big, too, but I had only half the stuff she had. I was over the limit by just a few kilos thank God.
The incoming plane landed and we got onboard. From the air, I looked out at the barren mountains below and saw a few of the dams on the Tigris River appear as brilliant blue lakes ringed with green in the dry, treeless mountains. I started to breathe again - we had done it!
The land slowly greened up; we were approaching Europe - they announced our descent. After 30+ years I was back in Istanbul. I wasn't starting a trip this time, I was ending a chapter of life.
Note: SP had to wait nearly a MONTH in Istanbul to finally get on a flight and get permission to enter Australia. She is safely home now, enjoying retirement at her lovely house on the beach...
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