When you’re in this part of the world, you have so many stories to tell. But where do you get the time to write them. You are never alone here. Yesterday I was really looking forward to an evening to myself, but the cleaning lady –a girl only left at 7.30 pm and then I was still stuck with the driver and a handy man who had difficulties following my instructions that the white curtains were for the guest room and the brown for another bedroom. I just put the curtains in the rooms, but nevertheless they needed to ask me three times whether this was right.
 
The cleaning lady is from Ethiopia who thought she would get a job in Dubai and ended up here as a maid with a rich family. You see many foreign workers here, who do the jobs the Kurds don’t want like cleaning and handling the luggage at the airport, all done by workers from Bangladesh who also thought they would go to Dubai. It’s far from easy for them to go back to their own country. With debts to the recruitment agency and low wages it takes them a long time to earn enough money to pay for the flight home out of this human slavery.
 
If you though the English love picnicing then you haven’t been to Kurdistan. Thursday’s and Friday’s (the Middle Eastern Sunday) are the big picnic days, come rain or shine. On Friday after the midday prayer families and friends pack their tables and chairs, little barbecue, music set and lots of foods to drive up the mountain. The women wear their best dresses made of shiny, glittery cloths in very bright reds, yellows, purples and greens.
 
Where I would like to find a quiet, beautiful spot with a nice view from the mountain, they just go for the side of the road.  In Suleimania two files of cars in a big queue drive up the mountain past the ‘palace’ of Talabani, the Iraqi president and one of the two Kurdish leaders, and Kurdsat, the television station owned by his wife Hero. Everywhere alongside the roads families are sitting together with the men in charge roasting the kebab, some are dancing in a circle on the tunes of Kurdish music. Forgetting your drinks, not a problem. This may be a Muslim country, but little shacks sell all the booze you’re looking for.
 
When we unpacked our car Saturday evening finally agreeing on a spot with the best view of the city which wasn’t so windy, we discovered we’re not yet experienced picnicers. Nobody organised the table and chairs and where were the skewers? Sam (Salman) drive down to find a family who could spare a few skewers. A few bigger rocks and car mats will do as chairs, the parking light of the car light gives just enough light to check on the meat. A laptop on the hoot of the car is playing Stingm the Bee Gees, you name it thanks to the big music collection of Ahmed.
 
We’re missing Jaya’s singing, a photographer and stringer for Associated Press. He is covering the appalling attack in Zana Town just outside Kirkuk, where a truck exploded in front of a mosque, just when people walked out after their midday prayer. Fifteen mud houses in the immediate surroundings were completely flattened, just like the mosque, killing more than sixty people. We heard the ambulances rushing to the hospitals Suleimania, where many of the wounded women and children were brought in.
 
Just before nine we make sure we’re standing at the edge of mountain top with a clear view of the city. At nine we watch how the city’s power supply is cut off –they have ten hours of electricity a day. It’s like looking at a map of Risk where the different countries are lit which switch off one after the other. Slowly the lights come back when the generators kick in. In the richer areas you just see a flickering. They have generators which switch on automatic. We cheer when we see another neighbourhood go ‘black’. For people here the lack of a steady power supply is one of their biggest frustrations. “We shouldn’t make fun of other people’s misery”, Sam shouts. We all know that, but sometimes you just need to laugh about it.