Dohuk Story

 Dohuk steps out of the mountains surrounding it and settles down to rest in the cradle of a split mountain range. The east end opens to spill the edges of the city onto the flat floor reaching with man-made fingers towards the Tigris River and the southern city of Mosul. Dohuk is a pastel city with its many buildings painted an eternally fading color of light blues, pinks, oranges, greens, yellows, and browns. Man has thrust together mortar, rebar, sand, marble, and glass to house their meager positions while pushing nature further up the mountains. Those same mountains cup the falling rain that washes the city streets clean of collected livings refuse. Dohuk is growing. You can see the skeletons of buildings soon to put on covered dress rising in the sky. You can almost see the smiling families thankful to be out of the cold gazing from the windows yet to be built.

The construction in Dohuk is primitive but sturdy. Poured concrete blocks stack on top of each other. Columns of rebar backed concrete make pillars to which the blocks cling. Uniformity is not a marching order and instead chaotic layering is coupled together and flattened by mortars forgiving guise. Wires and pipes are laid prior to masons craft being complete. Thought is given to expansion so many buildings have rebar, water pipes, and coils of electrical cord stick out the flat roof to allow for vertical expansion.

Outside of town you can watch the creation of the building blocks of Dohuk. Surrounded by flatness a two story rusted metal box breaks the horizon. There is a circular track that leads up the very edge of this structure and back down to the dirt road that fingers its path. The trucks pull up and dump their mixture of sand, limestone and gravel into the large mixer. Young boys stand at the bottom of the metal mixer and open a slot to pour the mixture into a preformed box. Water is mixed in and the block is allowed to harden. The boys seem to know when the blocks harden but there is no clock to mark the passage of time. When the biggest of the boys deems the time is ready they dump the forms over, move the formed blocks to a larger pile, and start their cycle over again. These are the building blocks of Dohuk. These children are creating the things that will house thousands of people, keep them warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. These boys have a very important role, but they just know that this is what they do. They know nothing else but school and home.

School is very important to the people of Dohuk. They pride themselves on having an educated population. During the day you see thousands of young children walking to the many schools dotting Dohuk’s cityscape. Muslim boys and girls go to school with Christians and Yasidis, Kurds, Assyrians, Arabs, and Turks. The level of tolerance here is unseen elsewhere in Iraq. Some schools offer classes all in English while others teach in Kurdish. All students are required to learn English, Kurdish, and Arabic. A Kurdish education inspires great pride. Even with education being free for all citizens through college many of Dohuk’s residents are now looking for better lives.

Once you finish high-school the next step is to move on to higher education. It was very common in the early to late 90’s to set up two year teaching colleges. These schools were used to train women to be teachers in primary schools. Since 1994 the University of Dohuk has begun to offer 4-year degrees in education and English language. Having a small student body, they only needed a small space for a college. Educated men came back to teach at the University. When a new educator came and offered a new course they had to find a new building. The university has thus scattered throughout the city. Donations by wealthy local businessmen saw to the spreading of the University all over the city. In 2003 the University decided to move the entire campus outside of town. The government allocated land for this and the President of the University started building. At the current rate of building and funding the entire University should be moved to the new campus by 2010. Unlike the old campus which converted old churches, government buildings, warehouses, homes, as well as some hastily thrown together structures, the new University is being built with a well functioning campus in mind. Community student and faculty housing is built close to the campus. The government has also allocated land just past the campus for the faculty who want to build their own houses.

This push towards education in the city of Dohuk has created a separation between those who have called Dohuk home and those who have fled to its tolerant shores like a drowning victim clings to any chance at life. Many of these refugees are not educated and with the competitive job climate in Dohuk this makes it impossible for many refugees to get a good paying job. Many of the refugees are then remanded to physical labor that many Dohuk citizens consider too low-brow for a civilized person to have. This turn has ethnicized Dohuk more then anything else causing a crippling resurgence of ethnic tension that will cause problems if not properly addressed. Right now it is deemed more acceptable for an educated man to work in a government office for $100 per month then to work with his hands for $200 to $500 per month.

To illustrate this point let me tell you a story of a young man in Dohuk. He grew up with four brothers and five sisters. His mother stayed at home and his father was a cab driver. When this boy was 14 years old his youngest sister developed a muscular issue that needed to be taken care of. Rather then watch his sister’s discomfort he left school and started to work at some local shops. By the age of 19 he had paid for his sisters trips to Sweden for treatment and saved enough money to open his own fabric store. Now he makes enough money to support his mother and his younger sisters. Two of his brothers work for him and he has employed one of his mother’s brothers to work in the shop. This young man would be considered a success in America. Many people would be happy with him as a son-in-law. Yet this young man talks of going to California with one of his sisters because he is a disgrace to his family. He does not have a government job so he is not considered good enough to court the attention of the girls from important families. Sitting in his shop, surrounded by Turkish goods he sells to many in Dohuk, his head swims with thoughts of America and how he can go there.

This is a reoccurring scene in Dohuk and Kurdistan. The young industrious men without political ties are yearning to leave. They do not see a real future for themselves in a society that is dominated by political and tribal views. You must align yourself with a family to have any real respect or importance in Dohuk. Foreigners are listed in a different class, mostly between how much they can offer the community as a whole, what their title and rank is in their originating country, and what their job or title is in Dohuk.

Even with these kinds of unwritten rules governing society, the people of Dohuk are a largely happy and peaceful people. It is hard to walk down the street without some cheerful faced urchin running up to you and saying “hello mister” drawing out the mister so it sounds more like ‘meester’. Shop-owners will lean out of their stalls to wave hello. School boys will try to practice their English with you as young girls caste shy glances your way before clutching each other and running away giggling. Mustering the small amount of Kurdish we have learned we reply to them. I am sure our accents are as absurd to them as theirs are to us, but we try. Those who we do assail with our weak linguist abilities always are overjoyed to hear our tongues assault their native language with a gracelessness that unfamiliarity breeds.

Walking through the streets one is shocked at how they can be straight and crooked all at the same time. Chaos and order cohabitate in a concoction of massed businesses broken apart by people who blossom amongst them.

Venders selling belts, sweaters, cell-phone holsters, gloves, hats, lighters, and jewelry are packed in next to restaurants plying their offerings of shaved lamb meat that has been hanging in the window for everyone to see. Turning a corner you find yourself in the shoe market where stands show the offerings of tradesmen.

The shoes remind me of a jesters wear; the long slender shoes come to a long narrow point and turn up slightly at the end. The men in Dohuk love these shoes and wear them with pride no matter what their trade.

Passing the vendors you wade through natives that come only to the shoulder of my 6 foot 2 inch frame. Children scream for your attention to their various consumables and trade items. Selling anything from simple candy to pots and pans they jostle each other exclaiming how their product is better then the competing urchins’.

The confusion quiets as you turn down a blue painted cool side street. Here you find the men selling tools and gas products. Their approach is silent and simple. If you venture there you come with a purpose there is no need to call your attention to goods. The merchants nod and smile to you as you pass by often offering you chewing gum or tea to help them pass their time.
You emerge from the crisscrossed allies packed with people walking in no particular direction all at the same time to a large traffic congested street. Here you find the young men selling cigarettes and the shops that sell real-estate with maps of the area and simple pictures of nice homes on their shop doors. Even here you will find the occasional food shop and vendor of phone cards, candies, and simple commodities.

Every part of town is broken up into its district. If you need to rent an apartment you go to one area. If you want to buy a house you go to another. If you want a satellite dish you go to a different part of town and if you want to find a tradesman you go to still another part of town. Breaking apart this apparent segregation are the furniture and appliance stores. They know that their success is based on having shops located all over town for ease of delivery.
In the center of town near to the police station you will find the money changers. These shops are located above and below ground. The young impetuous men are located in the lower regions. Here you will find better rates for smaller amounts of money, but upstairs is where the businessmen go for larger exchanges. The basement is noisy and the hawkers will call out to you for your attention and business. Upstairs the atmosphere is subdued. If you venture upstairs it is because you know exactly where you are going. As din and calm separates the hawkers from the businessmen, so does night and darkness. Being in the downstairs the hawkers are constantly plagued by power failures pulling the darkness deeper into their lair. The opposite is true for the money exchangers on the upper floor. Their offices seem always to be bathed in light. Open hallways and large windows looking into the central garden give those upstairs an air of legitimacy that is lacking in the bowels.

As a whole, Dohuk is a peaceful city whose greatest strength is its tolerance of diversity and separation from extremism. Living in a society where these attributes are considered less then the norm Dohuk stands out as an example for the rest of Iraq. I am quickly growing to love this city and am amazed at how quickly it has started to seem like home.