BAKHERBEN BO KURDISTAN

I am back.

I left my job in the Czech republic.
Survived a truly intense month-long CPT training in January in Chicago.
Got accepted as a full-time CPT Corps member for the Kurdistani team: 3 years for the start> 9 months in the field and 3 months "at home", out of which a half should be spent on speaking, CPT promotion and fundraising.

I was supposed to fly from Vienna to Diyarbakir (through Istanbul) and then travel overground like last year. But the big protests in Suleimani started on the 16th of February. Five people were shot by the armed guards/military and over a 100 people injured. Because of security and time reasons, I flew straight to Suleimani from Munchen and arrived here already on the 1st of March.

This is my new home now. This house, this city, this country, these people, this organization, this work, this team and this life.
A home, but still so far from that, compared to people I meet daily in the streest, in the newly named Azadi (Freedom) square, to our friends and partners.
Some of them face death sentence if they ever wanted to come back to their homes, to rejoin their families. Some of them have been threatened with abductions, torture, beating, prison sentences. And some of them have already experienced these.
The privilege of me being able to freely leave the country in the direction of Europe, to take "vacation" whenever I feel like to, and re-join my family, is something that will never fully make me a part of these people of this society of the land.

So Bakherben bo Kurdistan / Welcome to Kurdistan.

Feel warmly welcomed to, even though from afar, partake on this journey with me.