July 2019
I was travelling back to Iraq after summer vacation and Perry Place in DC was not available for an easy stopover that summer, so my brother suggested that we book a hotel near Dulles Airport and make a relaxed day out of my departure. Since getting to the airport for an international flight is something I hate (too many variables to worry about), I quickly agreed. The area around Reston, Virginia appeared to be unending urban sprawl and our hotel was in the midst of it. We made a trip to the "other" Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (amazing) nearby, but still had time to spare. A regional park was close by on the Potomac. Once again.... a point on a map called out to me.
The park itself was clean and organized - a lot of parking, a lot of activities for weekenders. In short, it was a pleasant place for anyone from the DC metro area to spend a lazy afternoon strolling waterside or maybe even canoeing on the flat Potomac River. For me it provided such strong counterpoint to where I was traveling. Although I loved Duhok, it was the polar opposite of this small regional park. If Algonkian Regional Park were transferred to Iraq it would look as follows: no parking, many concessions with food, no places for garbage disposal so it ended up on the ground, and many, many people because places with trees and wide expanses of water were few. Yes, the Zagros mountains and the natural streams and rivers of Kurdish Iraq were gorgeous, but it was mostly a barren, treeless place (they were all cut down centuries before). Scenic parks in Iraq were mostly over-loved by the residents and filled with garbage. I felt sad every single time I saw the state of sites of natural beauty there.
The irony of this small park in Virginia, largely unnoticed except by locals on the weekend, was its antiseptic beauty compared to where I was returning. I often told Saudi friends when we traveled to Mt Souda, the highest point on the Hejaz Escarpment, that the place was one big garbage heap. For those who had been to the West, they understood what I said and felt saddened. The rest? They didn't really care. As a child growing up in the 60s, I experienced all the clean up and litter campaigns in America. Everyone of my age remembers the old native American looking at a garbage heap and that single tear running down his face. That meme-of-its-time made an impact and we actually cleaned up soon after. That is not to say garbage is always properly thrown out in the USA, but compared to places in the Middle East where people simply do not give a shit - especially in places of great beauty - all of the USA looks squeaky clean like Disney.
We left the park and headed for the airport. I would soon greet the ancient Zagros mountains and be awed at their beauty and saddened at their ever growing mounds of refuse.
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