Yesterday short visit to the Ministry of Extra-Regional Affairs (Kirkuk, Singar, Khanaqin and Mosul) of which we claim the reintegration in our Region (though Arabs could keep Mosul, thanks…). Lovely people, cute, blushing with a big smile when they hear me speaking Kurdish… They are installed in very new offices, for the ministry is just created.
The guardian for the Safety is a peshmerga, a tall and solid guy, very kind with laughing eyes, the genuine Kurdish fighter, as I adore them. Here peshmergas are very respected, whatever their function for without them, the country would not exist.
But not even 1 h after being arrived in the Ministry, we had to come back to the Sheratonfor a lunch with Saywan Barzani, the representative of KRG in France, who waited for us. Ok, we ran. He was with the manager of a bank in Silêmanî which has the particularity to respect the Sharia so practising free loan. It is a very old trick invented since the first centuries of islam, for allowing that any financial opoeration could be interesting. Authomatic cash desk are still there (but don’t still work) and are not compatible for VISA cards…. So we gave to the director 2 advices : I exige VISA system and Saywan encouraged him to support and invest in buildind of houses, for the crisis of lodging is terrible, worse than in Paris.
Then Ozlem told her wonderful installation in Dim DIm Hotel, considered like a very nice palace because of its beautiful reception room and its bar, (but guest-room in hotels are always nice, if rooms are often not so comfortable). Saywan took his more serious air, as he ever does when he jokes :
“Aaah the Dim Dim … Its beautiful building, its saloon… its rats…” And he explained that Bush’ adviser had been installed there also for many Kurds believed that it is a nice place but had never got the odea to test it). So after few days, the guy call the KRG and kindly exposed the situation :
“Well. When 2 rats turn around my chicken, OK. The fact that 14 000 cockroached are in my bathroom, no matter. But when my shower make this and that (disorded gestures up and down, on a quantic rythm) No !”
The afternoon, we returned to the ministry, which is desert because people stop to work à3hpm. So funny to organize and manage here an international conference…