Kurdish kindness and English language TV
Current World News Comments (0)
The first time it happened was when I arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan and checked in at a hotel in Irbil, the regional capital.
The porter who showed me to my room bounded over to a television set at the foot of my bed and scanned the channels until he found one playing an English-language, kung fu fighting movie.
He then looked over at me and smiled politely as if to say: “I hope you feel more at home now that you can hear a bit of English.â€
Well-meaning gestures and acts of kindness were something that I experienced every day while in the Kurdish north of Iraq.
From being invited to join a mountain barbeque after I interrupted the festivities by quizzing some of the guests on the risk of shelling in the area to being offered a boiled sweet from an impossibly poor family, the constant generosity made me wonder whether people in Britain would behave in the same way to a stranger.
admin @ March 6, 2008