Learn more at www.ServantGroup.org/Iraq and email Hannah at hannah@servantgroup.org with questions, comments, or suggestions!

Here's a rough transcript!

Hannah: Welcome to Between Iraq and a Hard Place. I'm Hannah.

Colleen: And I'm Colleen. And we're here to tell you a little bit about life in Iraq.

Hannah: Woo hoo!

Colleen: Welcome back, Hannah.

Hannah: Thanks.

Colleen: You were gone a lot over the last few months.

Hannah: I was, not all of it relevant to this podcast, but some of it.

Colleen: But some of it was because you went to Iraq.

Hannah: I did.

Colleen: Which I will say is one of the most fun things to tell people randomly when they ask, Oh, how are your roommates? Oh, my roommate, Hannah, she's in Iraq. And they're like, What?!

Hannah: That's true. I went to a meeting of a different volunteer organization this week and people are like, We haven't seen you around. Where have you been? And I was like, Well, I was out of the country and they're like, Oh, where did you go? And I was like, I went to the Middle East. Oh, where in the Middle East? I went to Iraq, and they're all like, Oh, I have no follow up questions. Well, some of them had follow up questions, but.

Colleen: But yeah, it definitely is a little on the shocking end of things. Why, Hannah, would you ever go to such a country?

Hannah: I mean, aside from the previous, you know, 50-ish, how many episodes have we done?

Colleen: I don't remember.

Hannah: We're going to call it 50 because that feels right to me. This particular time it was to visit with our staff who are living in Iraq and, you know, some of the other folks that we work with in Iraq as well. So it wasn't just hanging out with Americans time. We also hung out with some British people and some Kurdish people.

Colleen: And some Kurdish people. Good, good.

Hannah: Yeah. And I think for both you and I, that was one of the things we really appreciated about Servant Group in our time living in Iraq was that, you know, the director at the time and someone else, at least one other person, usually came and visited us once or twice a year.

Colleen: Yeah.

Hannah: And so it's kind of fun to get to be the person who does the visiting now. It feels powerful. I mean, it actually sometimes makes me really nervous to be like, okay, I got to, I got to be as good as Lisa was. It's a lot of pressure.

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah. I think it was key having people come and be able to see the changes that had happened over time and the ways we maybe grew as teachers or the ways our classes had grown or the changes in the schools, some of the changes that were good, in ways that we couldn't see because we're on the ground and like it happens incrementally. And then also just a better understanding of what day to day life looks like and the challenges of the things that happen on a day to day life, whether that's acquiring water or, you know, using the right amount of electricity to not flip your breaker or all of the other things that we run into that don't always get communicated in a weekly phone call because they're just the detritus of life.

Hannah: Yeah. I can remember on probably one of the first trips that Dave and Lisa made feeling like, Oh, they're going to come and like sit in my classroom and watch me teach and I've never taught before, and they're going to be like super critical and like, it's going to be terrible.

Colleen: The judgment is going to come.

Hannah: Yeah. And it was 100% the opposite of that. And it was kind of interesting on this trip, our newest staff member, I think, kind of felt the same way about us coming to visit. We got a lot of text messages and emails ahead of time of like, So what are you expecting to do? Like…

Colleen: What do you need from me?

Hannah: Me? And then I told him I was going to come sit in on one of one of his classes and he was like, Okay, like, are you going to, like, give like report me to the administration? Like, is this just? And I was like, No, it's just me coming to sit in on your class to see what you're like as a teacher, what the students are like. If there's some way I can help you and give you advice, I'm happy to do that. But really, I just want to I just want to observe this is part of your life and I want to observe it. And he was like, Okay.

Colleen: But hopefully by the end, you had communicated that like you guys are there to be a blessing and an encouragement and to be a witness like that phrase, observe, like I think a big part of what we need as as people is that there are witnesses to our lives.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's definitely a big part of it. I think it also really helps establish trust between them and us. Because while John and I have both lived there in the past and it is known to the team, I think seeing us be there and be part of their lives and not and not be critical or not be demanding really helps them feel like they can trust us because we're not just saying, hey, we care about you. It's like, hey, I showed up here in your life today and, you know, we took you out to dinner or we took you on a little adventure or whatever.

Colleen: Yeah, the visits from Dave and Lisa or Kay or any of the others that we've had over the years were always times where the people visiting, like, were there to treat us well and like to… Yeah, we always would go out to dinner, we'd do fun, special things and spend time just talking or visiting some site or like it was not just, Oh, now we have to take care of these American people. It was never that it was. They've actually come to step into our lives and take care of us.

Hannah: Yeah, I remember on probably Dave and Lisa's first visit to me while I was in the country. Dave wanted to take Andy. He wanted to take one of the other staff members and and me to a music store so that we could get guitars because we both played. And he was like, Oh, it's really important for you to have a guitar like SGI will provide it for you. And I was like, Oh great, I know this music shop nearby. I have been living in the country for maybe, maybe three months at that point, but I was like, yes, 100%. I am confident I can get you there. I've been there once. And so we got in taxis and I told them where to go because I knew the nearest landmark to it. But the taxi took us in like a totally different way and like, instead of dropping us off on the side that I was used to of this landmark, he dropped us off on a different side and I was like, I have no idea where we are. I don't know where we are. I don't know how to get to the place that I know. None of us spoke any Kurdish because it was Dave and Andy and I and Andy and I had been in the country for two months, three months. And so we ended up walking around in probably 100 degree heat, wandering around looking for this music store and like occasionally stopping and asking like, do you know, dukan with like and the play the guitar, air guitar, guitar thing happening. And I think we finally found someone who called a friend who spoke English, and we were able to ask the question through the translator. They were like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're going to go down the street that you're on and then you're going to turn left. And it was like, But where, where do we turn left? And it was just like, Well, it's just you'll see, you'll see it, you'll see it. And it was like, okay, I guess off we go to try to find this music store. And they were right. It was like we went down the road, we took the first left and as soon as you take that left, you saw the music store and it was like, Oh, thank goodness. We were really close. And I think Dave gave me a hard time about that. For the rest of that trip, he would be like, Well, don't ask Hannah where to go. I think I finally redeemed myself eventually, after I had lived there and I was like, No, I do actually know how to get places now. But yeah, but it was like that was one of those bonding times of like, you're here lost in this country with me and we are both experiencing this. Like, I don't know where to get where I'm going. I don't know how to ask for help. I don't know where I am. But you're helping me figure this out.

Colleen: Yeah. And as much as Dave gave you a hard time for it, it was all in good fun.

Hannah: It was good fun.

Colleen: Not in actual frustration or judgement.

Hannah: No, no, not at all. I think he even stopped at one of the shops and was like, here, water for everyone. We're all super dehydrated. And we got our guitars. So, you know, happy, happy.

Colleen: We like to take good care of our our, our team members.

Hannah: So another one of the things that we do is we bring stuff to them. So I filled my suitcase this time with about 20 lbs. of brown sugar. Which was the only thing that really got asked for, which is fine. It's fine. I'm happy to bring brown sugar. I think maybe someone who did a security check on my bag was like, What in the world? And all of my clothes smelled like brown sugar the rest of the trip. It was awesome.

Colleen: That doesn't sound awesome to me.

Hannah: It was so great. Brown. Sure smells so good.

Colleen: It does. But I don't think I would want my clothes to smell like it.

Hannah: Yeah, but one of the weird things was when you and I lived there, there were specific things that we were like, We cannot find this anywhere. This does not exist here. And we went into one of the shops with our team and it was like, You can buy brown sugar here. Oh, it costs like $10 for half a pound. So it's not cost effective.

Colleen: It's a little expensive.

Hannah: But you couldn't get it at all. No. And they had like all kinds of weird like keto stuff and sugar substitutes. And I mean, it was not a cheap store.

Colleen: But when I first went people were asking people to bring in peanut butter because you couldn't get peanut butter.

Hannah: You could get peanut butter.

Colleen: I mean, by the end of my time there, I could get peanut butter.

Hannah: I think they even had Fruity Pebbles, which I feel like you can't get in every grocery store in America. Not that I look for them, really, often. I think that that was kind of a a fun aspect of it for me was like, what are things that I know that they can get? That I don't have to think about bringing them or things that they could get here. But it's too expensive that I can be like, Well, let me just let me just buy it for you. Yeah, this will make your life more convenient and easy. How can we problem solve this for you? And I think John got wrangled into actually fixing a couple of things in the women's apartment. Yeah. That they were Sure. Hey, you're an engineer. Can you fix this? And he did happily.

Colleen: I think the other thing is that often we end up bringing over our packages from family members or sometimes mail, letters and cards, birthday cards sometimes, or Christmas cards. And I know when my family came to visit me, my mom and my sister came. They brought me Christmas decorations. Nice. That was super fun and books. We would do a lot of books because the the whole digital reading was a less common solution to the lack of, you know, your local public library.

Hannah: Yeah, I think it changes maybe not year to year, but it changes frequently enough that it's like, oh, this thing that like in my mind I will say the one thing that has not changed is chocolate chips. You still cannot get chocolate chips there.

Colleen: How odd.

Hannah: I mean, you can buy a chocolate and chop it.

Colleen: Chop it up, I mean which it does work.

Hannah: But yeah, I think they melt. I think that's the problem when they get shipped.

Colleen: Because they don't plan to ship them in the refrigerated units the way they do the chocolate bars from Europe.

Hannah: Yeah. And maybe chocolate chips are like a surprisingly American thing.

Colleen: Maybe.

Hannah: I don't know.

Colleen: I've never tried to make chocolate chip cookies in Europe.

Hannah: No, Me neither. Never lived in Europe.

Colleen: Me either.

Hannah: Well, I'll have to find out. If you live in Europe, let us know. Can you get chocolate chips? Semi-Sweet ones. Semi-Sweet chocolate chips?

Hannah: So the number one way that we get new people in Iraq is by other people telling them about Iraq. So maybe you're not interested in going, but maybe you know someone who is. Tell them about this podcast. Tell them about Servant Group International. It would be a big help!

Hannah: One of the other things we did on our trip was we, well we did a lot of things, but we took the team out with our Kurdish friend to his farm for the day. And so for a news team member, it was his first time outside of the city that he's been living in, into the countryside. And we went with our our good this guy who's been working with Servant Group for like 20 years, I think. He is hilarious and really fun and his family is lovely and they're like used to Americans in our weird quirkiness. Yeah. And so he took us out to his farm about a 45 minute drive outside of town, and we had a very Kurdish sort of day, which I think was a little… I think our team was a little worn out. They'd had a really busy week, but I think they also enjoyed like we wandered through his fruit orchards and looked at his new building projects and he talked to us about like the villages and it was really close to like an oil refinery. And so he told us all about that. I felt like I learned a lot. It was also on like a small river, the the Zab,

Colleen: the little Zab, the greater Zab?

Hannah: Little Zab. And so that was kind of cool. I never really been aside from like picnic bus tours. I never really been that close to a river in Iraq. Um, and so I felt like it was a good chance for our, our new team members especially. But even the, the older ones to be like, this is very Kurdish and it's beautiful in spite of the fact that it's 102 degrees outside.

Colleen: There you go. And it's very different from the city, which is where our team members live is in the city. And a lot of those resources and a lot of those amenities don't exist the same way out in the villages is the way they do in the city.

Hannah: Right. Like his house didn't have air conditioning in the rooms that we were in, at least. I don't think there was even splits, the air conditioning and heating units. But he cleverly made almost like central air by creating vents, like when they built the house, putting vents in and then he has swamp coolers.

Colleen: Yeah. Swamp coolers work great.

Hannah: Blow into the vents and throughout the whole house. So if the swamp coolers are on, it cools the whole house. And I had never seen that in a Kurdish house before. And I was like, This is brilliant!

Colleen: One of the houses I lived in in Iraq had had a swamp cooler.

Hannah: I mean, I've seen the swamp coolers, but not like hooked up to a central air system like that.

Colleen: Definitely connected to things. Yeah, But yeah, it's amazing how well swamp coolers work in a really, really dry environment.

Hannah: Yeah, it was impressive. And you could tell when they were, like, out or when the power was out, it was like, Oh, it is uncomfortable. Not awful, but uncomfortable. It was a lot of fun hanging out with him and his family. They also did a very Kurdish… we did a barbecue. Uh huh. With lamb and chicken skewers, tikka.

Colleen: There you go. Did it have the the little grill pan with the the fan that you spin and you turn really fast?

Hannah: So I had the little grill pan, which is like maybe a foot and a half long and seven, eight inches wide. And then they put, like, charcoal, wood, charcoal on the bottom. But instead of having the little fan that you like crank the handle and it blows the he updated his methodology.

Colleen: Oh, really?

Hannah: And he has a tiny little blower that maybe it was like child like a child sized leaf blower. He plugged into his house and he just stood there with his leaf blower and blew on the coals with the leaf blower until they got red hot. It was like much more energy efficient.

Colleen: I mean, because I have seen people without the little crank fan ones just do it with paper or their lungs. And it always seems like a lot of work.

Hannah: This was very, very efficient. And he made John stand and heat up the coals. That was John's job. I've never been more thankful to be a woman than that day when I was like, I don't have to touch the meat. I don't have to deal with the coals. I can just sit here and drink my cold water and watch the men sweat over this.

Colleen: Do the barbecue.

Hannah: Delightful. I had a new thing for a Kurdish barbecue, at least. I've done this in the US, but a grilled onion, which was exciting. So they took a bunch of onions and put them on the skewer like they do with the meat and just cooked them over the coals like that. So you have to, like, peel the outer. They leave the outer papery skin on.

Colleen: Wait, you've never seen that before?

Hannah: I've never seen it with a whole onion. I've seen it with, like, pieces of onion or like the quarter the onion and skewer the quarter. But this was like an entire onion. And, like, I've done it in the US where we wrap them in aluminum foil and put them in the coals of a charcoal grill. But yeah, I'd never seen it there.

Colleen: Wonder if that's just more of a eastern Kurdistan thing.

Hannah: I think it must be a Suly thing because they're from Suly originally, but his mom I think was like. I want an onion. Put an onion on the grill for me. And then he was like, Does anyone else want an onion? And I was like, Oh, me, I want an onion. And so he just did a whole skewer of them.

Colleen: A whole skewer of onions.

Hannah: And I think it made his mother happy that I was like, Yeah, grill me an onion too, man. Yeah, it was really fun. And I mean, we did other things besides just team check in. We use those visits as reconnection in person with the school administration. There were some new administrators that I had never met before, so it was really good to meet them. While we were there, they asked us to do some teacher evaluations. So just sitting in a classroom watching non-American teachers teach. And that was really fun for me because a year ago I did teacher training, so I got to sit in for some of the teachers that I had trained and so I could be like, Hey, they listened or maybe there are more things we need to go over like next time. But yeah, even just like you said, to see the changes in the school and the improvements in the school and it's definitely very improved since we were there. I feel like the quality, at least of the teachers that I saw, has gotten a lot better. too. And I think it made our staff feel better too, because I did sit in on three of their classes, one class for each of our staff members. And so I think they felt like, Oh, you're not just sitting in on our classes, you're also sitting in on like normal classes.

Colleen: Kurdish taught classes.

Hannah: I did sit in on a Kurdish class and I was like, I don't know how to evaluate this. I don't know what they're saying. But then I realized I was in the wrong place and I was like, Oh, he's he ran over his time. It's not my fault.

Colleen: Ah ha! Like, so I'd like to evaluate this teacher on his usage of time.

Hannah: Yes. Yes, I did. I did note that on my evaluation paper.

Colleen: Evaluation paper.

Hannah: I only got to observe this teacher for like 5 minutes because the previous teacher ran over and we also went and visited / met for the first time. Well, I met for the first time some some new folks that were partnering with in Suly. Yeah. And so that's kind of an aspect that I think when I lived in Iraq, I didn't really realize that maybe Dave and Lisa were doing was like connecting with other people who were not part of the schools or any of that and and making those connections. Um, so again, it was kind of like getting a peek behind the curtain except like, I'm already on the other side of the curtain.

Colleen: You are the other side of the curtain.

Hannah: I know, it's so weird. Yeah. And then we also got to go to church with our team, which was new for John. I. I'd been when I was there a year ago.

Colleen: Right.

Hannah: But our team, really, like, in all of the talks that we had with them up to that point. Were really like, We really want you to come to church. We really want you to see what it's like and have this experience. Yeah, so we did. And I think it was, again, one of those things that's like encouraging to them. Gives us a better picture of like just what church life is like for them.

Colleen: Was it what you expected? Like in the sense of it felt like an American church service? Or was it different than your… I don't know that saying a standard American church service seems a little bit silly, because there is not a standard. But..

Hannah: I think it very much… And it's a Baptist church. And so I was like, yep, this is a Baptist church. It seems very much like a Baptist church.

Colleen: No major surprises.

Hannah: No major surprises, except there were. Uh, a group of I think they were Pakistani guys in the back who were having the sermon translated for them, which I don't really see in American churches.

Colleen: No, really?

Hannah: Yeah. And it took me a minute to be like, What is going on? Because there was one guy with, like, the sheaf of papers that he was flipping through and talking, like whispering quietly with the other guys. And I was like, are they doing like some kind of paperwork in church? And I was like, Oh, no, he has all the sermon notes. And so he is like translating the sermon while it's being given to these guys. Ok, cool!

Colleen: I love it. I love, I love international church.

Hannah: It was really cool. They they also have a QR code that you can scan and choose your language to have the sermon translated to on your phone so you can listen on your phone with your headphones to a live translation.

Colleen: Wow!

Hannah: And I think it's only in like Arabic and Spanish and maybe Kurdish.

Colleen: Yeah.

Hannah: Which is why the Pakistani guys had their own personal translator. But yeah, I was like, What a cool thing! Not a thing that existed when I lived there.

Colleen: I ran into that when I spent a couple of summers in Japan. The church there did did that. But yeah, never in Iraq. The joys of technology. It sounds like you had a good time.

Hannah: Yeah, it was a good time. It was short. It was shorter than our trips usually are. But we also usually, if we're going that far, go to like several different places. And so this trip, we really only went to Kurdistan and we were primarily in Hawler, except for the day trip that we did down to Suly. So it felt nice to just kind of be able to be in one place most of the time. Yeah, not, you know, Greece and a different place in Greece and then Iraq and then a different place in Iraq and then a different place in Iraq.

Colleen: And then Turkey.

Hannah: And then Turkey. Yeah, I feel like it wasn't it was intense in that it was short, but it wasn't intense in that I was like, I have been traveling for three weeks and haven't slept in the same bed for two nights in a row for 80% of this trip.

Colleen: You didn't seem to have too much trouble with the the jet lag coming back and seemed to recover okay.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah, it was good. The worst part of the trip was Chicago, but we're not going to talk about that.

Colleen: Okay. I think we all have our favorite and least favorite airports at this point.

Hannah: Yeah, it's one of those things that it's like, I know better. I know better than to fly through Chicago. And yet, I keep doing it.

Colleen: It's the cheap way to go.

Hannah: It is the cheap way or the shortest like travel time.

Colleen: Yeah.

Hannah: Yeah. So are you going to go with me in the spring?

Colleen: I'd love to. I'm working really hard on getting enough volunteers lined up for my English classes that I can leave them.

Hannah: That would be awesome.

Colleen: That's my hope and my plan.

Hannah: And then we'll do a podcast from Iraq.

Colleen: That would be so much fun. We should totally do that!

Hannah: Yeah. All right. So you got to get the time off. Or the volunteers to fill in? And I got to remember to bring the microphone. So, you know, my job is the harder of the two for sure.

Colleen: Oh, yeah, for sure.

Hannah: For sure.

Colleen: But more suitcases to bring more gifts to our Iraq staff is also more fun.

Hannah: It is more fun. All right. You heard it here first, folks. Next podcast from Iraq…

Colleen: No, no. We're going to record one before then. That's going to be the spring.

Hannah: A future podcast, not live streamed, from Iraq.

Colleen: We could do a live stream.

Hannah: No, we can't. I don't want to.

Colleen: It could be fun.

Hannah: No, the filter is very important for me because sometimes I say things that should not be on the podcast and I can edit them.

Colleen: Okay.

Hannah: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us at Servant Group International on Facebook or Instagram, and you should check out our blog and complete transcripts over at servantgroup.org.

Colleen: And it's really helpful for us if you share our podcast or leave a review on whatever platform you listen to this podcast on. It helps us know that people are listening and you can let us know what you want to hear next.

Both: Thanks for listening.

Hannah: Just Chicago. Something always goes wrong.