The real Kurd'sh New Year

Here, Dec. 31st is considered Christmas and March 21 is New Year's. So this was the weekend for huge celebrations. We had no idea what we were in for but were told that everyone wears traditional Kurd'sh clothes so we dutifully went to the bazaar & bought them. Friday we got dressed up in our garb and went downtown to a certain street that was blocked from traffic and where the party would happen. When we arrived, we were shocked to see literally hundreds of thousands of people walking the street in their beautiful, colorful clothes. The party basically consisted of walking for 3 hours or more, up and down the street. At certain points we could not even move one inch because of the crowds. Surprisingly, in those mobs of people we saw quite a few that we knew. In fact, we started out with just 3 of us and by the time friends started joining our group, we were more than 10. There were random groups of people dancing all over the streets with loud music, food & drink stands,and just an incredible air of celebration everywhere. We even saw a large group of US soldiers and they greeted us warmly. I actually forgot that I was wearing high heels until after about 3 hours and then my feet started killing me. It also started raining so we were walking very fast to get somewhere out of the rain! We finally decided to go back to a friends' workplace and eat at the cafeteria there. It was a perfect end to a fun day as we sat around and relaxed, ate a delicious meal and drank tea. We arrived home exhausted but so happy. Little did we know what lay in store the following day...
Saturday morning we awoke to pouring rain and dark, cloudy skies. We had a picnic planned with lots of friends in the mountains. It seemed our plans would be ruined but we delayed an hour and decided to go for it; the internet said sunny & 68 degrees so, although we don't always believe the internet we hoped they were right. By the time we arrived at our destination, the sun was beginning to peek through and it actually became hot after a few hours. We found a gorgeous place, overlooking a lake and set up camp. The scenery was breath-taking. The hills were alive with people covering just about every square meter but we had lots of room to spread out. It was a picture-perfect day and so much fun to enjoy God's nature after a long winter. We are truly blessed with wonderful friends here and we long for them all to someday join our family. From the time we left our house until we got home at night, it was 13 hours; a pretty long day but oh so much fun. I'll include a short video here of some of us singing around the traditional New Year's fire! There was dancing going on from the first hour until the last and it got wilder as the night went on. These people know how to have fun! We look forward to lots more picnics this Spring as we've been told that every Friday we'll be heading to the mountains with our friends. Let the good times roll..