2. PEOPLE FROM KURDISTAN

In February or March 2007 I took the map of Middle East to check where exactly from is that boy with whom I had mobile contact that time. He wrote to me in one message: I am from Hewler in Kurdistan.  Coz I always liked geography, I had a lot of different maps in my house. I took one of them to see where is Hewler. I found the city, but later when I looked at the other maps, I couldnt find it - there was no Hewler there and that time I didnt know that Arbil or Irbil is the arabic name for city of Hewler.

After that i took encyclopedia and I found the key word "Kurdistan" to read what they wrote about that country. To be honest the text wasnt very interesting and the only one thing that I could imagine about Kurdistan after I read it - was that Kurds are sheapards, who are looking for their animals, living in tents or strange houses, dressing with egzotic, ethinc, national clothes.

Thats why I was so suprised when this hewleri boy sent me his pic, where he was standing next to his car. I asked my cousin, who used to work with him in UK before: "Is it his car? Does he have driving licence?" Coz that time I didnt connect Kurd with such things as car. When 9 months later I went to UK, when I got to know other Kurdish people, I realized that this text which I read was completly out of subject. I saw Kurds - ordinary, normal people, having good cars, modern mobiles, laptops... And people who used to talk to each other with so big respect, that I have never seen in my life before.

On kurdish tv channels I also saw how kurdish cities look like, how people live there. Those people from Hewler, Duhok, Suleymanyi, Kerkuk... People who took part in such tv shows like "Studio Asteran" or "Min Jiawazim" - which are similiar to "X-factor" and many others that we know from any tv channels all over the world.

I had the opportunity to visite some kurdish houses and I have never seen mess or dirt there, specially in the kitchens, coz dirty kitchen is something that kurdish people dont accept. I used to live with Kurds for 7 months and I have never seen dirty plates in the kitchen, everything was washed straight away after use. Thats why the most funny thing for me is when people says : "dirty Kurd" - usually those who says that, have never seen any Kurd, even on a picture. I feel sorry for those people and the only one thing I can say is that I wish they have more proper knowledge of the things that they are talking about.

The article first published on 11 march 2007.