Picnic

On our way back to town we ran across a group of older Kurdish people having a picnic. They waved for us to come over. One man spoke very little English, and our Kurdish was obviously non-existent. They gave us some really good lamb-pizza bread type stuff and some rice and salad.

One of the men had just come from Damascus in Syria, and the other had been in northern Iraq. When we told them we were from America, he claimed that he loved America. He asked if we were going to Iraq, maybe he thought we were soldiers or something. When they got up to leave, one of the men said "Welcome to Kurdistan." I thought that this was very interesting. I have heard some people refer to northern Iraq as Kurdistan. I wasn’t sure if he that’s just how he referred to the area, or if he said that because he thought Kurdistan would be a country soon. By the way he talked about America and by his demeanor I got the impression that he thought America was going to create Kurdistan. I’ve heard that recently a retired U.S. army general made some comments on the news regarding options for ending the war in Iraq. One of the options he stated was the creation of the state of Kurdistan, and he drew the boarder partially into Turkey on the map. This apparently made a lot of Kurds happy, but really pissed of Turkey. This might be why this man had hope in a future Kurdistan.