From:  Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media - Zakho, Iraq, 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, 25 October 2006.

 

  In taking just a second to reflect on my trip into Iraq, I am thinking the reality of making it to and into such a complicated country and region will no doubt hit me like a brick at some later date.  I have noticed that getting close to the exit border does not necessarily lower the stress.  In fact, it goes up for me a bit because I keep thinking, What if something goes wrong so close to getting out? 

 

  I was able to visit five cities in Northern Iraq: Zakho; Dahuk; Erbil; Sulaymaniyah; and Halabja.  I was only able to spend one day in Halabja due to what I felt were risks to my security.  The other four cities, I was able to spend two to four days in each.  I am not quite sure my level of awareness to my surroundings has ever been this intense for so long a duration. It is a fatiguing experience. And remember, the worst safety is south of where I have traveled.  I can only imagine in my wildest dreams what it must be like for an American military person to be in the Southern part of the country for a year.  What little non-gray hairs I had before I got here, are long gone now after only two weeks. 

 

   This has been a two week experience I will take with me to my last days on earth.  Almost all of the people I have met were kind and helpful.  I will not dwell on the taxi driver culture.  They no doubt are beasts un-and-to-themselves.  But the people I met in every other setting were good people as far as I could tell.  Some of their help was rough around the edges, but their intentions always seemed to be in my best interest.  I was often given many small things for free: Internet usage; cell phone numbers in case I got in trouble; lots of free snacks and food; and, what seemed like a genuine concern for my well-being as a visitor to their region.  Remember, I can walk out of here and they must stay.  This is not a well off region of the world even though some money has started to make it back here from all the people displaced over the last 20 years of wars.  And, despite their stressful world, they were the ones giving me little things to make my stay better.   

 

  My Irish mother used to say when she relayed a quiet warning, ''Let me put a bug in your ear.''  A business man I met in Erbil, Iraq quietly put a bug in my ear about my visit. 

 

  ''As an American here, you must be careful,'' he said. 

 

  I thought, ''No kidding!'' 

 

  Then he saw the look on my face and said, ''No my friend, you misunderstand me I think.  You must be careful because if someone tries to do you harm, some of us will be killed or injured as well. Those that try to protect you, as well as those that are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.'' 

 

  That was a clairvoyant moment I will never forget.  I was glad at that moment that the majority of my stay in Iraq was completed by the time I had met him.

 

End of message.

 

Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media


    - Zakho is a typical dusty, busy border town.  It is easy to start forgetting you are in Iraq
once you get to Zakho because the people seem preoccupied with people things rather than
war worries.  Yet, one must not forget the serious war looms just over the horizon only a few
miles away.  Photo by Bob Keith, October 2006 -