Iraq Part 6 - Dohuk

We had to go the long way around to our next city because the direct route would've taken us through Kirkuk, outside of the Kurdish controlled region, and subjected us to possible deportation for not having Iraq-proper visas.

Kirkuk started experiencing regular bombings shortly after we left and at one point, the Peshmerga - the Kurdish Army - lined up against Iraqi forces there as well. Thankfully things have calmed down again a bit but, yikes...

We drove through rain and mud and it cleared just in time for us to have the picnic that some of our friends had spent all morning preparing.

So good.

After we arrived in Dohuk, we learned we were very close to a large refugee camp for fleeing Syrians (Kurdistan now has over 100,000 refugees that they are taking care of.) Our host inquired about us taking supplies to the camp and we were finally told that the reason we weren't being allowed in is because there had been an "incident" with Americans there recently. The crowd was just too large and too desperate to risk us being overwhelmed by people. And this camp was one of the better organized and well run ones around. It's untelling what kind of conditions Syrians are facing in other camps and in other countries who don't have the resources available that Kstan does.

Then we learned a few of us would be visiting a local family of "orphans" (there, if you have lost the male head of the house, you are considered orphans even if you still live with your mother. Women just don't have much opportunity in society without a male so your lot in life feels very limiting if you lose your husband - which so many did under Saddam.) We would be riding out to a village with friends of our hosts.

Which meant we technically left our hosts. Which was fine, I knew our hosts would never send us off with anyone unless they completely trusted those people and we had hung out with these other people already, they were awesome. However, I have yet to mention our group included --

a 16 year old boy.

Which is funny because - who takes a 16 year old to Iraq for vacation? Even a man we all know who had just entered Syria -- illegally -- on his own the week before showed shock when we told him we brought a kid with us. "You brought a sixteen year old ...to Iraq???"

Eh, he had a relative on the trip.

Yet even that relative wasn't in the car with us as we were whisked out to a village. So as I looked behind me at The Boy who was riding in the back of the car, I'll never forget his huge eyes peering at me and the other two people from our team and him softly informing us that he was "memorizing the route we were taking just in case something went down and we needed to find our way back..."

ha! Can't blame him.

We were fine, of course. And the experience was amazing. The kids we hung out with ranged in ages from a few months old to late teens and they talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up, what they did for fun, etc. At one point we were all asked what we did and one of the girls on my team was about to join the Navy as a pilot. Not wanting to mention the U.S. military, she simply replied that she was going to work with planes.

To which our hosts asked "Oh, and will you be bombing Iraq soon?"

Us: "ha!...ha...heh heh..um....."  nervous laughter, embarrassed sideway glances at each other like "well -? I guess you never knooooow....."

And our hosts roared with laughter. Oh good! Phew! They are in on the joke!

Another funny moment came at a dinner days later when someone on my team asked a question like, "where are the drums?" and another host replied "Oh, I thought you said 'where are the drones' ...and I was going to say -- shouldn't you guys know that?...." Ha! Iraq has a good sense of humor....good thing....

Below are some pics of the village. I love how the girl's room we saw was complete with celebrity posters on the wall, just like we do in the U.S.

We walked around with them and had coffee and kissed their cheeks multiple times (I could never decode the kissing regimen in that country. Sometimes it was 4 kisses, sometimes 3, sometimes twice on each cheek, sometimes once on each-- it got embarrassing to the point where I just kind of let my face hang out there for as long as the other person continued to look like they were going in....)

Then we headed back to our group. We did other things in Dohuk, like visit a Christian-run Daycare who actually received funding from the government (proving how progressive that area seems to be getting with regards to different religions) and walked through the ruins of a village bombed by Saddam that was just now starting to be rebuilt. And then we headed back to Erbil to end our trip (and I experienced one of my most exciting car rides on that journey back, which I'll describe next post).

Adorable kid at Daycare

Family we visited in the village

Family's donkey who a girl on our trip tried to give medical advice for....don't ask...

sunset at village

remains of a bombed village

So many options....

just sittin' alongside the road, having a picnic...in Iraq....

pic I took on the sly in the Minister of Tourism's office....right before he ordered an official photo with us anyway. I felt crafty for one minute anyway....

Iraq part 5

Before we left Sulay, there was one other thing that sticks out in my mind. One of the churches there all came together to hang out with us

We saw this all over the country. People creating events just because we were in town. People spending hours preparing special meals for us so we could all have picnics together and be honored. The Minister of Tourism in one of the cities invited our entire group into his office because he was so excited that such a “large” (10 of us) group of Americans were touring his country. And even the Arab youth we spent time with came out in their Jli Kurdi -traditional kurdish dress for special occasions - (some having to fight with their parents to do so because it was technically a day of mourning for the Halabja attack anniversary) to show us honor and to spend time with us.

Anyway, it was at one of these impromptu gatherings in our honor that we got to spend time with more Christian believers. We sat on someone’s floor (because that’s how most living areas are there – no furniture. You sit on cushions on the floor and eat on plastic on the floor as well. Which, I might actually adopt given the table then becomes the garbage can at the end of the meal and the only “clean up” you have is folding everything up and tossing the entire thing out!) and we all broke into smaller circles to pray together and get to know each other.

There were people there from all over. Americans who had married Kurds, a UK missionary, a political refugee from Iran, etc. It was so incredibly beautiful to see everyone translating for everyone else (people there may speak Arabic, Kurdish, Farsi, tribal dialects… it gets ridiculous to watch communication) and to see an Iraqi with his arm slung around an Iranian, praying with him. Or to have an Irish man translate the Kurdish prayer requests into English for us and vice versa. And to hear a lot of the Iraqis pray not for themselves, but for their country. Such a sense of community there versus the individualistic sense we Americans grow up with.

We were told to say one thing we were thankful for and one thing that was bothering us. Mine blended into each other and I couldn’t finish saying what I was thankful for before I was bawling about what was bothering me. I explained that I was thankful just to be there with them and see their faith because I needed a boost in my own faith because I was still mad at God over something that happened a while ago.

Anyway, I pulled it together and we all prayed and moved on to the next person (and I distinctly remember one of them saying they were thankful they still had both parents. Once again, a reminder how many people there lost parents to Saddam’s campaign against the Kurds.) And when the prayer time ended and we all stood up to go eat, one of the Iraqi men in my circle pointed to me and said “You – Psalm 23 is for you.”

I was struck by that. A man in a country that my country fought in recently, a man who undoubtedly has seen so much horror, and I’ve seen so much blessing and protection, and he is smiling, boldly giving me encouragement. 

And when something like that happens, it also feels like affirmation that God sees me. That even though I so don’t “agree” with the way He’s doing things in my life sometimes, that at least I have reminders that He’s present, that he sees me. 

I got an even bigger confirmation of that, that night when my group came together to discuss the day. As I was walking back to my hotel room, one of our group leaders – we’ll call him john -  pulled me aside and said he had something to share with me. Being a kid who was sent to the principal’s office more than once in my childhood, this always makes me think I’m in trouble…

Thankfully, that wasn’t it. He starts to tell me that a group of people at our church back in DC had said a prayer over him before we left the states. And he asks me if I know this one girl, and I don’t because our church is spread over 7 different locations and has thousands of members so there are many people I never lay eyes on. Anyway, this girl started crying while everyone was praying and she just tells ‘john’ “I see one of the girls on your team sitting on the floor, crying, broken…”

And that’s it. Nothing else, no explanation. She’d never seen me before either and of course ‘John’ had no idea what she was referring to. But he told me that the first night we were in Iraq, he saw me tear up as I was talking with the group about why I wanted to come on the trip (clearly, I can’t explain that without crying apparently) so he thought about that vision that the girl told him but he said I was sitting in a chair, so it wasn’t totally the same. But then that morning, he said he looked over and there I was, sitting on the floor, crying, broken.

Do I know what it all means? No. And trust me, I asked if there was anything else to that vision – aka Hello! Was there a point where I was no longer broken? Cuz that’d be nice to hear! – but God is frustratingly funny that way and typically doesn’t give away the whole picture at once. What it did do, however, was give me more affirmation that God sees me. He made a girl who doesn’t know me, see me. And see me on a trip I hadn’t taken yet. And that was moving in itself. I don’t think I’ve ever been in someone’s vision before.... (except maybe in the nightmares of the people who report to me at work....but I digress.)

Anyway, there’s more to my own ‘broken’ situation than I’ll go into here, and more than most people even on my trip know. And in weird ways Iraq has been woven into my life for the last decade so this whole experience is one trippy, intricate thing of different parts of my life that I definitely don’t fully understand, but again, it helped just to get a sign at all. That God sees me, that he isn’t absent. Just hiding temporarily perhaps.

Anyway, the fact that I was in a country where visions are so prevalent when I was told that I myself was part of a vision beforehand back in my own country was really crazy to me.

Moving on! I know these posts are heavier than my norm so never fear, there were funny parts too. Next up – we head to the city of Dohuk.

Iraq part...4? Still Sulay

I'm finding it hard again to even start explaining more about our trip because I feel like we saw so much, so this will all come tumbling out, stream-of-conscience style per usual or else I'll never get done with these posts. 

Things I remember from Sulymaniyah...(or "Sulay" for short):

Being within an hour away from Halabja on the 25th Anniversary of the horrific gas bomb attacks that killed thousands there. You can read a little of that day HERE. Saddam sent shells in to break windows so that later that day, the gas he ordered to be dropped there would fill the houses even more.

It smelled like apples so kids breathed it in deeply. 

It covered the city and the escape routes so there was little way of salvation. 

It melted people’s eyes....

We saw photographs of the aftermath in the basement of the Red House, the former headquarters of Saddam's Ba'athist party. (I couldn't find a good wiki page for the Red House but did find this blog,  which included a lot of the details we were told while we toured there, so I'm including it if you want to learn more) The Red House was a torture center/ prison that was preserved fairly untouched and is now a museum. 

The buildings were riddled with bullet holes and soviet era tanks filled the grounds

Everything was left as it was back when Saddam ruled, including the pillows and blankets on the cell floors

We were able to tour this place with a man who had himself been in a similar torture center and could tell us exactly what takes place at these things. He had been taken by Saddam’s soldiers in the middle of the night because they thought he was someone else. They kept him in solitary confinement – only being let out to be put through various means of torture – for 6 months before finally he was basically told “woops, guess you aren’t who we thought you were. You can go back but if you mention this to anyone, we’ll kill you.”

That was one thing that struck me. You couldn’t talk about anything back then. People in Sulay told us that even after they realized what was happening in Halabja, they couldn’t talk about it. You just had to live with this knowledge of such severe suffering, and fear of it coming to you, but you couldn’t act like anything was wrong. Because if you looked the wrong way, you’d be captured and tortured too. Or shot. 

While we were in the Red House compound, we were shown barbed wire on the top of the fence around it. Our guide told us Iraqi soldiers used to stand watch and if people across the street even looked at the compound, they could be shot.

(I just can’t imagine living under such fear all the time. It’s no wonder people describe that region as a whole people group suffering from PTSD.)

walking into one of the confinement rooms

The solitary confinement cells that we saw in the Red House were tiny holes with one tiny window at the top. We saw scribbling on the walls where prisoners tried to combat insanity by drawing or writing. Me and Caleb, another guy from my group, ended up lingering to stare longer into one of the cells when we saw an Iraqi man showing his friend specific markings on one of the walls. He saw us and excitedly said “I was here! I was in here years ago! I wrote on this wall!”

My stomach felt ill. We were looking right at one of the men who – likely for no reason – had spent time in this very terrible place.

Caleb and I rushed back to locate our group that had already moved on, both fighting back tears as we each stared into space trying to imagine that man’s experience here.

We passed under barbed wire, next to walls made specifically to be rough so that when prisoners were thrown against them, their skin would be scratched to pieces.

And we were taken into various torture chambers where our tour guide would explain exactly what would happen – because he’d been through it. The one that stood out the most to me was this room:

Where our guide proceeded to tell us that’s exactly how he was suspended in his own chamber – while they electrictuted his genitals so he couldn’t reproduce.

This is a man who was later told “oh yeah, guess you weren’t the guy we thought. Sorry!”

Unfathomable.

(But praise the Lord, he ended up having three sons anyway J I love that so much....)

And you might be thinking “yeah right, how do you know this stuff really happened?” And I felt skeptical at times myself. But between me asking one of our American friends who has lived in Kurdistan for a decade, and hearing story after story after story from people who don’t know each other who all have similar experiences, I can tell you I’m convinced. And astounded. And like I said, these people are happy. They have hope. They talk about their own future plans and the bright future of the Kurdistan and Iraq they believe in.

And I guess that’s new there. Our host told us just a few years ago when she would ask those kids at the English learning center we hung out with what they hoped for in the future, they’d say “nothing. This place will never get better. I don’t have plans.”

But when we talked to them, we heard “I want to be an engineer” or a “lawyer” or “doctor.” We also saw pride in their eyes for their country as they eagerly asked us what we thought about it. I just saw a quote about the Red House that helps sum up so much of what we experienced in Iraq, "...loathing at what humans can do to each other and pride at how humans can persevere and fight back..."
(quote, and additional reading, from here)

We would continue to feel that juxtaposition on the rest of trip. More in the next post. 

Memorial inside the Red House. Each piece of glass representing one of the hundreds of thousands of victims under Saddam. Each light bulb representing one of the 5,400 Kurdish villages destroyed.

Iraq Continued - Sulaymaniyah

It's hard for me to describe what all we experienced in Iraqi Kurdistan because so much of the Kurds' experience is so foreign to our experience as Americans. There, it's very common for someone to be mid-conversation and casually mention "yeah, so then I was in the 3rd grade...and that's when my father was buried alive by Saddam...and then we went to fourth grade..." They don't miss a beat, it's so common of an experience there to have lost one or both parents, or to have been imprisoned or been tortured. Just in our short time there, we had the following occur (along with many other similar encounters):

1. While we were in mid-conversation with a Christian pastor in his living room, our host stopped him and said "well, *Pastor X [I'm not using actual names in these posts because many people there could be in danger, either for their beliefs or because they fled another country, etc.] weren't you put in prison as well?" And he laughs and says "oh yes! It was a wonderful time in my ministry because so many people in Iraq end up in prison at some point so I had a captive audience!" 

The fact that he was in prison didn't even cross his mind though. That's how normal it is.

2. While we were hanging out with Arab youth studying English in a park at the site of one of Saddam's old torture centers, we found out that the most gregarious kid of them all, one who happily told us of his plans to go to America and be in the creative arts, had had a brother shot and killed inside the torture center we toured a couple days beforehand.

3. The owners of the English learning center where these kids attended, casually mentioned that they give discounts to families in need and "martyrs." I later asked our host what they considered a martyr and she said it meant they helped anyone whose parents had been murdered by Saddam. They had a discount for that, it was so prevalent.

4. During a church service, where you'd normally hear prayer requests like "oh, I'm thinking of switching jobs so pray for wisdom" or "oh I'm having car problems, pray for that," we literally heard requests (translated for us) for things like "pray for church member X whose father was just kidnapped and held for ransom," "pray for all those across Iraq who are in prison with no justifiable cause." Such an eye-opener....

But the resiliency of the people there. 

Wow.

Part of the reason I was so excited to come on this trip was because I've struggled with my own faith the last few years and I really wanted to hear from people who would inspire me again. 

And I know a lot of people who read this blog do not subscribe to faith in Jesus, but ya'll know I do and I was visiting with fellow "believers" most of the time I was in Iraq so a lot of my stories will be about them. Deal with it. :) No, in all seriousness, I hope you keep reading anyway. If not, I'll come find you....  

Anyway, I actually think the U.S. might be a more difficult place at times than other countries to have a true, meaningful Christian faith because we are so spoiled, and Christianity is so well-known and played off as simple-minded and so many people feel like it's enough to just go to church once a year or say you "believe in a higher power" and that's it. I think true belief in God/Jesus/The Bible requires discipline and some sacrifice and permeates your whole life, not just enters it every now and then on Christmas when it's convenient. It's tough to find a ton of other people who also feel that way though (sadly, it's even tougher to find people who believe that way and still remain people I'd really like to hang out with socially). But in some African, Latin American, Middle Eastern, etc. cultures, I've seen such an intense awe of God, such a raw belief that I start craving that again and end up travelling again every few years to find it. I was searching for that when I headed to Iraq and I definitely found it.


We heard many stories of people from all backgrounds explaining that they'd had visions or recurring dreams or experiences that for whatever reason made them know Jesus is real and that they needed to believe in His sovereignty. Stuff that you can't just chalk up to coincidence or influence from someone else. Things that happened to them that they just couldn't deny.

We also heard stories about visions people had about life decisions that they believed were from God. One couple told me that they had a dream about what house they were to buy for their family. Long story short:

The couple was struggling to find a house big enough, within their budget, that would be ready to move in quickly (It's common there for people to sell their house but then continue to live there for up to 6 more months). The wife in the couple had a vivid dream about how all the houses on this block were a certain finished siding but there was one house that was painted a different color. A young man dressed in traditional Kurdish attire was there with them.  In real life, she and her husband were talking to a Realtor who ended up showing them this one painted house that was different from the rest of the houses on its block. But the man showing the house was older and wearing Western clothes. So the wife felt like it sort of fit the vision, but not entirely...
 Later, when they decided to look at the house again, the original man couldn't get away to show it but he sent his nephew instead. Sure enough, the nephew ended up being a young man - dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes. The house ended up being bigger than they even needed, for less money than it should've been, and it was available within weeks.  They were even able to give the bottom portion of it to a lady they work with who also needed housing.

There were stories after stories like that and even more poignant was the raw faith in God and sense of hope these people had after going through so many horrific things. There’s no indication of bitterness or loss of faith in a “good God” because of what they’ve experienced. I find that remarkable and feel like that’s a supernaturally-given strength and peace that I could use myself sometimes. Even though my situations where I question God pale so much in comparison to theirs.

In that same city, we heard a first-hand account of someone’s torture experience in one of Saddam’s old prison/torture centers. I’ll tell you about that next post.

Running For Boston

I’m putting off my Iraq posts yet again to talk about running.

Because after what happened in Boston last week, the running community that I’ve loved has become even closer. I’ve ran with three different groups in the last week, all who were running “for Boston” and I had to share about last night’s run because it’s such a perfect example of why I love runners.

A marathoner here in D.C. decided to put together a Memorial Run for 4.09 miles, the time on the race clock in Boston when the first bomb went off. This event went viral and spread through both social and traditional media until over 300 people had RSVP’d on the event Facebook page.

I didn’t see the event until the day of and couldn’t find anyone to join me, so I went alone. Which you can do with runner groups because runners are typically happy to see other runners, no matter how slow I am you are, and you make friends by jogging together and chatting. Kinda like how I made friends with Roscoe during my marathon here.

The run was actually really well organized. They had a staging area with signs for different pace groups, veterans groups, etc. We had a group moment of silence for the attacks. They gave everyone a piece of paper with the route on it and had some “race” bibs as well.

They got the Renaissance Hotel to donate 10% of food and drink purchases to The One Fund and they had a boombox full of Boston hits like Sweet Caroline and Boston You’re My Home.

People all started talking to each other before the race and in the end, the organizer (a Bostonian and marathoner) and another man who just ran Boston in 3 hours 30 minutes joined our little 11:00 min pace group. I suppose they were trying to take it really easy. But having them with us gained us some extra t.v. exposure (a lot of journalist/bloggers covered the event) and one video was turned on us right as someone was announcing our pace. Awesome. We may now be famous for being turtle-slow.

We weren't the absolutely slowest though. There was a 12 min pace and a Walkers group as well. And we ended up catching up to the pace group ahead of ours at a stoplight later, to which someone in our group yelled “we’re comin’ for ya, 10:30!” Ah, healthy competition….

Tourists snapped photos of us along our route and other runners started cheering. One of the pace groups stopped by the Massachusetts column at the WWII memorial to take a photo. I met a nice lady named Adrienne who matched my pace and we kept each other going the whole time. As we sprinted towards the finish line, we’d pass runners who’d already finished yelling “Go Boston!” and the group at the finish were all gathered in a circle chanting and singing Sweet Caroline. They started clapping for us as we came towards them and then shortly after us, the 12 min pace group all came in in a huddle and everyone at the finish exploded into cheers for them as well.

That’s runners for you. Encouraging each other, whether you’re an 8 minute pace or a 12. Whether you’re a marathoner or a 5Ker. Whether we know each other or not.

I took photos and exchanged sweaty hugs with Adrienne, even though that may be the only time I ever see her. For that evening, we encouraged each other, and that was enough. That’s why I love running. Because it’s bigger than running. When you encourage someone at the finish line, you are encouraging them at life in general. When you push through more miles than ever before, you reach a deeper conviction about your own capableness. I remember when I was going through a horrible heartbreak a while ago, my friend Tiffani said, “You’re going to get through this…you ran a MARATHON for pete’s sake!” :) And it helped. And while there’s nothing I can do to take away what happened last week, I can show solidarity with the people at that event. And it helps.

This video was taken right before I ran in. At the end, you can hear one of the guys say "we got about 50 more people out there, let's bring 'em in!" So good, so good, so good. :)

4.09.

most of the photos here came from posts on the Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/events/119996198196708/

Moment of Silence

Me and my new friend made it into On Tap online magazine
http://www.ontaponline.com/galleries/?album=1&gallery=627

In support of my running community.

Iraq Continued

We left off a couple posts ago with me heading out on my flight to Iraqi Kurdistan. The flight alone was adventurous, and included:

- us having to postpone take off because a lady who couldn't speak English -- or Turkish (which is what the flight crew spoke) -- was apparently having some sort of mysterious health issue.

-she finally got off the plane altogether, causing suspicion which created another delay while the flight crew looked in every overhead compartment during a "security check"

-during the flight - a man was caught smoking in the bathroom (seriously didn't know people actually tried to do that...)

-later, that same man YELLED across two sets of aisles -- in the middle of the flight, when everything was dark and everyone was sleeping -- because he wanted water from the flight attendant.

However, we did get to fly over "Batman," which just makes the 13 year old in my head giggle.

Our in-flight map showing us totally taking out Batman, but apparently missing a Van....

In any case, by the time we got to our layover in Turkey, the last thing we needed to hear was "oh just wait until the next flight"- but that's basically what I did hear from one of our trip leaders who had been to Kurdistan before. She wouldn't tell me what she meant, and instead said "I'll tell you once we land in Erbil."

Awesome! I'll just sit here and relax then, that doesn't sound ominous at all!

My fears of seeing some decrepit prop plane were allayed as we boarded the next flight and it seemed nice and safe. Turns out, her story had to do with weather she encountered - specifically: a sand storm.

And thus began one of the worst flight stories I've ever heard a first-hand account of. The only reason it's not the worse is because I know someone who was actually in a plane crash....

She began telling us about how there was a giant sandstorm sweeping across the middle east and all the flights had been grounded for hours. Then, in what seemed to be a tiny break -- her flight decides to be the Brave Little Toaster and takes off.

She describes the next two hours as the worst turbulence she's ever been in and said people were bawling and expecting to die. THEN! The plane tries to land not once, but twice! to no avail!! No one could see anything, apparenlty including the runway, and each time the plane dove to try to land, the pilots realized they missed!! and would jerk the plane back up last minute and head back into the sky.

Right?!? Right?? I don't know if I could ever fly after that. She said she absolutey believed that's how she was going to be taken out of this world, but then - third time's a charm! - they finally landed.

Good. Grief.

Thankfully we had already safely arrived in Kurdistan when I heard this and we never experienced a sandstorm while we were there (although one swept through just a few days after we left).

Anyway, we get to Erbil (or "Irbil," the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq), meet some of our hosts, get a couple hours of sleep (we'd been travelling for two days straight, with both flights leaving around 1 a.m. - needless to say, I was glad this country has instant coffee everywhere) and then jump in a shuttle bus and ride 5 hours away to Sulaimaniya (or  Slemani or Sulaimaniyah or any number of other spellings. One thing we found - spelling is not the most consistent thing in Kurdistan.)

It was in the hotel there that I began my comical train of varying degrees of infrastructure failure that would continue through the trip. At different points:

-My electrical adapter would not physically fit into the outlet by my bed.

-someone else's adapter would fit near their bed... but then it shut the entire electricity off in the room

-I finally got my adapter to work in the living room, but then my phone/camera cord kept falling out of the adapter, leaving me to finally redneck-rig a strange contraption of my neck pillow on top of my backpack with tape holding all the plugs together. Even then, sometimes my phone still wouldn't charge.

-the handle was broken off the hot water side of the shower, leaving us to use the end of a spoon as a makeshift screwdriver to turn it with (which I needed help with and that help came into the shower not realizing I was standing there sans clothes. Given all my naked public bath situations, I was fine with this but they were not....sorry!)

And you remember all the glasses problems I had leaving for Japan HERE? Well, wouldn't you know, after all the shower and cord debaucles, I finally exited the shower and stepped direclty on --

you guessed it! My glasses. Which I had foolishly laid on the floor.

Un. believable.

Thank goodness they didn't break, but they did get bent out of shape a bit...as did I.

We continued to have random little issues with each new place -- electricity deciding just to shut off, various shower surprises -- which is all a part of travel adventures, but all this coupled with a horrendous cough/head cold situation I had through the entire trip made for an even train-wrecky-er Dana than usual, but it didn't matter. We were about to have some incredible experiences - that I'll launch into next post.