I decided to start with Turkey and get myself to Iraq and then Jordan where the Women’s Refugee Commission had staff and programs for Iraqi Refugees.



I had been a refugee as a child from Iran in the early 1980s. There was the Revolution but then there was the war that had been going on over my family’s head for years until we had no choice but to leave. I wanted to go back as an adult who had been committed to the plight of families in emergency zones throughout my studies and career and walk along the refugees who were fleeing Iraq as my family had fled Iran when I was a child. Literally. Through the desert. Camels. Caravans. It happened. It was hot. I hate camels.

Turkey is a great starting point because I got to see Europe



change after a short boat ride



into Asia.

Do not walk outside this area

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Where was I? We will get there on a train that begins in Milan and goes to Italian Alps near Mezzo Corona.



Years had passed drifting from one project to another at the UN. Most of the people I worked with journalists of some sort in the Department of Public Information. If they were lucky they were on a short contract and would be moving on to “field work”. If they were unlucky like me they spent short days at their desk writing emails to the UN staff in the field and reading about the world outside on long coffee breaks or on the TV monitors in the halls.

At one point one particular journalist really got under my skin. He had a passport with stamps from countries I had to Google to believe. When time came to renew my contract, I decided to venture outside the secretariat building and see what would happen if I gave myself year. Of course, in hindsight, it turned out to be a bad year to decide to un-employ myself, but such is life.

I went around to some colleagues at human rights groups and commissions and asked if they would have any use for photos if I brought back some from different countries (my plans were still vague). One particularly kind former colleague and warrior of the good fight, Jenny Perlman Robinson at the Women’s Refugee Commission, sat down with me and generously offered me guidance for my plans. She couldn't have any idea how far her little boost would take me.

The Crossing

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In the late part of last summer I crossed Europe by land (train, bus, car) to get myself to Iraq for a reporting assignment.
I stopped here in Turkey for some rest and took this photo on a boat crossing to the Asia side of Istanbul. This man is pulling up a fishing line, I can't remember what he caught.

I stayed in a little hotel that a friend had directed me to. It was a bad tip as they only had some space for me on the roof, and I would have to displace a family of cats to settle there for the night. It was also a bad tip as my friend failed to mention to me that the reason that particular hotel stood out for him was that the previous year an acquaintance of his had run off with the owner's wife. He doesn't think so, but I am certain that is why I got the roof.



I hardly got to see Istanbul, I was trying to get myself south to Turkish Kurdistan, or simply the southeast as Turks will refer to it, to cross into Iraq.

In the end, it turned out to be a good tip, the hotel. The cook of the guest house restaurant was a Kurdish man, whom everyone referred to as George Clooney, the resemblance was unnerving. When he learned I was a journalist headed south he asked me to stop in Moosh on my way, his home town, and meet with the Egitim Sen, the local teachers union. I couldn't imagine how this could be interesting and he wouldn't tell me why, he just insisted.

So I went downstairs and checked out early. At the reception desk, the young and gregarious attendant looked upset and asked why I was leaving so soon. George Clooney told him I was headed to Moosh, and the attendant looked at me all smiles. He reached into the drawer and gave me back my fare for the rooftop and a hug. They waved me off and I headed to the boats to cross to the Asia side that night with only their approval and confidence for assurance.



In the coming days I will tell you the story of the crossing from Milan to Baghdad. It's a good story. You'll get to see the Italian Alps, a wedding in Diyarbakir and a bumpy mortar-riddled road connecting Mosul to Baghdad. Mostly, it's a story about watching the earth change over distance, time, and borders (the human kind not the state kind). Oh yes, I get sentimental and then I get all existential, and then it always gets political. You'll get used to it and you will like it.

Shall I continue?
It starts at a desk at the United Nations, 32nd floor of the secretariat building in New York City in the spring.

The first

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To me it seemed fitting that my first post on a blog of my photographs be of a photo I didn't take. It was taken by a friend who bought me my first camera, a complicated professional thing that still is way out of my league. The funny thing is that despite never having owned a similar camera caliber (he doesn’t even possess a point and shoot himself) he upon giving it to me, turned it over a few times, pushed all its buttons, scrolled through its menu and then begin to take amazing photos like this one.

I, on the other hand, went to three Barnes and Nobles, checked out on-line reviews of manuals for the thing, finally settled on a 350 page tome, read it over a period of a few weeks, then put it down, picked up the phone and called aforementioned friend to ask him, how do I x? How do I y? how do I z? I still do.

I figure there is really only one thing you need to know about me at this point that is important: I have really good people in my life. It's inexplicable. Amazing family, incredible friends. This photo, taken by one such person, is so fitting because I often think, I learned to fly from them. Oh, yes, I went there. Enough sentimental stickiness? Oh, you'll get used to it.

More about me? Later…