Arriving in Suliemaniya
I haven’t had reliable internet access so I am going to start at the beginning and insert the pieces I have written:
About 6 AM, I arrived at the airport hotel in Amman, where the cafe provided a cup of cappucino made with instant Nescafe, and settled in to wait for a decent hour to awaken my traveling companion. Amman was more run down than I expected, given that their dinar is worth $1.40 American, while even 1000 UAE Dhiram only amount to $.27, just over a quarter. Broken sidewalks crumble into dusty streets. Facades are generally colorless and drab. Cars zip along, often ignoring the rare signals at intersections. Traffic moves with an organic flow, like the currents in a creek. Even the hotel at the airport, recently sold to a chain, has construction all around the grounds. The pools are closed for renovation, and the gardens are in disrepair. Queen Alia Hotel is now the Golden Tulip. According to the gardener, who showed us the Jasmine and a few other ornamentals remaining in the garden, the Golden Tulip is an international chain of more than 1000 hotels. The name sounds Chinese to me, but the facade is all English and Arabic.
So, here I am, at the Queen Alia Airport, outside of Amman, with Micca, a woman from Minneapolis who will be teaching with me at the school in Suleimaniya. Read the rest of this entry »