And yesterday I was in Jordan (Petra), and the day before that I was in Suli.
Vacations are the best.
I might have forgotten to mention that my winter break started on Friday and that I was travelling to Israel.
But I’m here, and enjoying myself IMMENSELY, and realizing all the things I’ve missed while living in Kurdistan, like:
- women treated as equals
- good men*
- short sleeves
- hiking
- milk
- juice
- good men*
- jeans
- women treated as equals
- laid-back people
- good men*
Yeah. One of my bosses is leaving for NZ, but before she left she told me to get out of Kurdistan.
“You’re young,” she said. “And there’s nothing to do here. It’s too conservative.”
I might take her advice – finish the year and try to get good at Kurdish before I leave, then leave for another teaching job. Somewhere more liberal, where I can learn Arabic or a romance language, where people go out and exercise and DO things. My (now ex-) boss told me that if I want a job in Cairo, I have it. But I’m not a fan of this school’s mentality, and I know nothing yet about Cairo. I told her I’d think about it.
I’m feeling conflicted, because putting myself out of my comfort zone was the whole point of this job. But if I’m not happy, and I genuinely don’t fit into Kurdish culture, then am I just staying to prove a point? If so, to whom?
And I ought to be happy where I live and work. So maybe it’s about finding a place that I fit. Because no, I don’t fit into Kurdish culture. I feel like I’m constantly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, then getting mad when it doesn’t conform.
*men who treat women as equals
In Mutual Weirdness 