Why the name "Suli Street Kat"?

So, why did I name this blog "Suli Street Kat"?
The simplest answer...I dig cats.
Like the real-live Suli street cat who posed for the cover photo with me!
I call her "Pisa" but more about that later...

I guess you can say that I have found inspiration in what I see as a "Street Kat"kind of spirit. Yes..."Cat" really must be spelled with a "K".
But, more on discerning trendy logography later...

It has been my experience in the Middle East that not many people have dogs and cats as pets. At the same time, there are often many, many dogs and cats trying to survive in the streets of every Middle Eastern city I've ever been too. Their lives are not easy and in some cases, quite brutal.
Still, they persist.
I love and respect that...and them.

Travel and work in the Middle East for me has always been exciting and interesting, but often brutal.
Still, I keep coming back.
In some cases, just day by day putting one foot in front of the other.

Pisa and I having a little dinner out front of our apartment.

I've met street cats in Egypt, Lebanon, Oman and in the U.A.E.
The situations are often the same.
Some times they run and hide and other times they steal chicken straight off your table.
Still, in other moments, they are the only ones to acknowledge you that day and offer you a warm greeting.

In the case of the cats of Sulaimani...well they seem to be a particularly spunky breed.
In fact, I didn't see them at all until one night I happened to be sitting on my mother-in-law's roof one night about 3 o'clock in the morning 'cause that is a thing that we do here.
Well, truth be told...it was both the time and place my hubby and I could enjoy a beer and some alone time...and that too is another story for later.

Then, there they appeared. They came from behind walls and out of garbage cans, down the streets in twos and threes. Seriously, imagine the opening scene from the musical "Cats" are there you have it!

Image taken from http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/cats-the-musical-review/

So I started feeding them, clandestinely, at night. Then one night, one followed me home and straight up to my mother-in-law's kitchen door!
Later, when we moved into the apartment we are in now, I met a particularly chatty kitty who now calls loudly to me when she spots me walking home from school.
"Pisa" will run down the street to meet me and often accompanies me on the walk to the local grocery and back again to our apartment.
The thing is, more often than not  people shoo the cat away. In fact, every time I even looked at a street cat, much less tried to throw it some food, people would tell me "Na, bash neya! Pisa! Zor pisa!". In other words, "No, that's not good. Dirty! Very dirty!".
Well, you've probably now guessed how Pisa got her name.

So, in creating my blog where I will share my shenanigans and my inner thoughts about traveling and working abroad, it seemed appropriate to appreciate and honor the hospitality of my enigmatic hosts.

Welcome to Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan!

Hello and welcome to Sulaimani, Northern Iraq!

"Suli" is one of the major cities of Iraqi Kurdistan and often called the "capital of Kurdish culture".
Surrounded by the Azmer, Goyija, Qaiwan and Baranan mountain ranges, the city sits nestled, like a little bird in the palm of giant rock hands.

The city of Sulaimani by day (above) and by night (below).

It is lovely, but very different from where I come from.

Originally from the lakes, rivers and beaches of South Carolina, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1998 to pursue my career as a dancer and later my Master's degree in Anthropology. It was also  in Atlanta a number of years later that I met my handsome Kurdish husband. By that point, I had been working and traveling in the Middle East for a number of years both as a dancer but also as an anthropologist. But it was my because of my husband that I became more interested in the Kurds and Kurdistan. 
In 2013, a year after we married, he and I "returned" to Iraqi Kurdistan. Since then we have been back and forth between here and the US.
In September of 2016, we came here to stay for about a year so that I could pursue research for my dissertation. So far, it has been a beautiful, interesting, challenging, heartbreaking and eye-opening six months.
I wouldn't trade my time here with my husband, doing this work for anything!

But...a little more about "Suli"...

The choice of Sulaimani as  my primary field site is in fact connected to our family connections here but also to the city’s long history as a unique center of culture. Kurdish ties to family and friends are not to be discounted. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING,  happens or doesn't happen here by virtue of who you are connected to. This includes who you socialize with; how you get a job; how you get a husband or wife...it even includes your financial and physical security.

When we were newly dating, my husband, an artist himself, would tell me stories about his home town. Sulaimani is uniquely suited for research in the Arts. One of the major cities in both the Kurdistan region and in Iraq, "Suli" has nurtured the writers, actors, poets, painters and musicians of Kurdistan since its founding. Today, the city has a vibrant cultural scene with an active media, multiple museums and universities. It is not at all uncommon to walk down the street and see famous singers, writers and actors out buying their groceries or having a cup of strong Kurdish tea. The city is big but not too big and everyone seems to know everyone else. It makes direct access to these amazing artists a bit easier.

Painted stones from Kurdish visual artist and icon, Ismail Khayat

But...a little bit more about what I'm doing here...

In an effort to unravel the mystery that is the "Kurdish Question", I turned to what I know best and what I've know all of my life...THE ARTS!
As a professional dancer and the daughter of a theatre teacher, ART is the world I live in and always have. Arts folk innately see the world a little different and through training in the Arts we are encouraged to find creative solutions and build in spaces where others finding nothing.
So, when pursuing my PhD in International Conflict Management, I naturally turned to the Arts for perspective and inspiration. Through my husband's own lived experiences I was connected with the Art world here...my people on the other side of the World! So my project was born. In as simple terms as I can put it, I am using the Arts to more deeply consider conflict here in Iraqi Kurdistan. My research places the practices of Kurdish painters currently working here within the historical context of the Iraqi state and traces the linkages between contemporary Iraqi Kurdish visual art, as a historically particular phenomenon, and its linkages to the performance of power and identity.

'Sounds like fun?

Well, that's all for now...More from the streets a little later...