From:  Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media - Dahuk, Iraq, 12:30 p.m., Sunday 22 October 2006.

 

  This is an experience I have been sitting on for a couple of days.  But I feel comfortable relaying it now.  I have been changing hotels each night to make my travel more unpredictable to anyone who might wish me harm.  But here like in Viet Nam the hotel people are suppose to write down your passport number on check-in.  I was woken up the other night after midnight by the travel police.  These guys go around and check hotel occupants for bad guys.  Well, it seems the hotel never wrote down my passport number immediately setting off all kinds of bad signals to the ever-vigilant hotel police. Anyway, by two in the morning we had all determined I was indeed an American.

  But, in the process of determining I was not Osama, the travel police discovered that the absent minded stamp guy at the border two weeks ago, had stamped my entry visa 2005 instead of 2006. It took another hour and a call to the border to find the absent minded border guy (thank god for cell phones) to determine I was indeed actually here in 2006 and not just a figment of their imaginations.  Apparently, he stamped the wrong date all that day.  Not my problem, I think.  That your problem!  By three in the morning we have it all sorted out. In the end we are all friends again; I have not damaged U.S. and Kurdistan of Iraq good will; and, I am offered a cigarette and the hotel night clerk is dispatched to make tea for us all at 3:30 in the morning. Jeese!

 

  But here is the amazing thing. I had just traveled 500 mountain miles east across one of the most dangerous places on earth and went through 100 thorough machine gun toting check points; then, I made the journey 500 miles back across west again, and nobody noticed the wrong date on the stamp.  Go figure. 

 

 On top of that it is the end of Ramadan month and all the government offices are closed off and on for a week. I was originally issued a travel visa with permission to stay about two weeks.  I went to the passport office here in Dahuk to get an extension, but of course it was closed.  This could cause some complications in my exit of this country.  However, the people I have talked to so far assure me no body wants to keep me around because of a bureaucratic snafu. I have been assured the office is open today (for some strange reason). 

 

  Fridays are always days off for official offices in this part of the world I think. Some things also seem to be closed on Saturdays.  Their work week starts on Sunday mornings I guess. I guess the government offices are working today to fit in one day of work before the long holiday.

 

  No matter how hard you plan, stuff like this always happens in places like this. I also have a bag of winter gear that so far I have only needed to use just a bit. The warm weather is lingering in this part of the world.  That is another thing you can read about forever but you just don't know until you get there.  Several sources I read, said be prepared for cold weather in October. Today it is 75 Degrees.

 

End of message.

 

Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media 


    - A typical street in Dahuk, Iraq.  Some people in Northern Iraq look European. 
Northern Iraq has always been a cross roads between Europe and Asia.  The eclectic collection
of residents, and travelers passing through, keep the "hotel police" busy trying to keep tabs
on everyone in their region as the war grinds on.  Photo by Bob Keith, October 2006 -