When do days...? Continued

Hastiar and I boarded the bus, he in a black polo and matching black capris and (according to Matt Willingham) I looked like a regular Baylor frat guy. Apparently Baylor frat guys where cream-colored linen pants and blue polos from Target. We boarded the old city bus. Dust and dirt painted the plastic covered seats. The windows were open and letting the welcome hot breeze inside. We both sat on the crowded two-person seat with our bags in our laps and our knees to the back of the seat in front of us. I learned fairly quickly that Hastiar had never been to this church and that we were both in for a new experience.

The neighborhood we were headed toward was called Saboon Karan. Soap Makers. Later I was told that it was once the Jewish/Christian quarter. I had been down this road to the bazaar many times during the past month and a half, but never beyond the bazaar. I would totally be in the hands of this humble teenager, younger than my little brother, who just graduated from high school. We walked through the bustling street that runs through the middle of the bazaar. Malawi street. It is the most crowded, but fluid sidewalk and street I think I have ever seen. At the end of Malawi street the crowds began to thin and the shops began to change from a hodgepodge of fruit and western clothing stores into more shops of traditionally Kurdish character.

Hastiar asked a shop owner about the old church in Saboon Karan and he directed us down what looked more like an alleyway than a road. The roads became very narrow and the stone covered walls, with smaller metal gates, were higher than in other parts of the city. I felt like I was wandering down the side streets deep in the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, only the cobblestones polished by centuries of shoes were missing.

Hastiar continued asking everyone we saw directions to the really old church in the area. He kept calling it Kaneesa Ghour. I recognized kaneesa, Arabic for church, but couldn’t figure out the adjective. I couldn’t figure out what kind of church I might get lost trying to find. After a little while of walking and talking and getting to know each other better, we asked a skinny but spunky old woman the direction of Kaneesa Gour. She led us immediately around the corner and pointed up to a group of soldiers lounging on the second floor of an abandoned building that looked as if it was only halfway through construction.

As Hastiar called up to them in Kurdish, I began to laugh to myself. A man with an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder as casually as a camera shouted down in English, “why do you want to take pictures?”

I yelled back, “I like old things!”

I didn’t really know what to say, and apparently, Hastiar told them I had a camera in my satchel. I had heard of soldiers dashing cameras to the ground and hoped I wouldn’t have to decide between running or telling Kendelyn her Nikon had multiplied into a lotta different pieces.

As luck would have it, the soldiers were just curious. The one with his rifle slung across his back pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

A gate decorated with an iron cross opened on the other side of the street and an Arab looking man in silk pajamas ushered us inside. The gate opened on a small square garden, the size of a modest living room. Around the garden were buildings and a sidewalk that emphasized the squareness of the garden. The man called to one of the buildings bordering the garden and an older white man shuffled out to welcome us. He was tall and wide at the waist, but not overweight. He looked like he had enjoyed many a hearty meal, but had the height to handle the weight.  Immediately he led us to their chapel, introducing his modest place of worship as the Church of the Virgin Mary. Yens from Sweden willingly offered the short history of Kaneesa Gour, which he dated to the mid 1800s. He called it short because his last home was in Syria where he claimed churches had met since the time of Christ.

Hastiar and I spent a good half hour taking pictures of the small white chapel. The walls were stone and three arches hung over the altar at the front of the church.

Yens left the chapel. He said that his superior needed him to help pack in order to leave Sulaimaniyah.

Hastiar and I sat on a bench. It was the first church he had ever been inside. I told him I was honored to join him. Nothing special happened. We didn’t have an in depth theological conversation. There was no hallelujah moment. Just me and Hastiar on a dusty, ragged wooden excuse for a pew, in a quiet room where we sat in silence along side each other, both experiencing something new.

We heard Yens yell something our direction from across the garden. Bending our heads out of the chapel door, we saw a pitcher of water, two glasses and a basket of biscuits sitting on a plastic table outside an open door.

We split ways as we walked out the door. I went for the water, while a statue of the Virgin and Child caught Hastiar’s developing photographic eye.

As I was gulping through the first glass of water I had seen in hours, a new voice called me into the open door near the biscuits. A thickly accented voice called out in English, “Come in, come in! Yens was trying to kill you.” As I walked in, a big man, dark skinned, but of european complexion, in loose fitting dark slacks and a dress shirt ushered me to a couch while attempting to turn on the A/C unit. Frustrated he gave up walked by to his computer on the far side of the room, and said that I could invite my friend inside out of the heat.