Dismantling stigma through experience.
ADAPTABLE AT 111 DEGREES
EUGENE / JULY 31, 2020 – Meghan McCrone’s voice is the first to welcome me to work in the morning and the last to bid me adieu for the day. Truly, I can’t think of a better person to start and end each shift with. Like many, Meghan lost her job in March 2020 to COVID-19 shutdowns. We came to DLX under similar circumstances: suddenly jobless and looking for a silver lining in what felt like the beginning of the end-of-the-world. Once I learned Meghan’s backstory, I understood how she could hit the ground running at record speed as Deployed Logix’s Administrative Coordinator.
“You can’t live in fear.”
Meghan grew up in Eugene, Oregon and earned a business degree from Southern Oregon University in Ashland – just a few hours south. Meghan’s first move may have been close to home, but her next would take her across the globe and into a country known as an epicenter of unrest.
A TURNING POINT
In August of 2014 Meghan lost her best friend Trevor in an accident. At the time of his passing Meghan worked with his mom, who subsequently left her job after Trevor’s death. Meghan quickly followed suit and spent the following months trying to navigate grief and a new life without her person. She connected with friends who also knew Trevor, one of whom had just got an impressive new job across the country. Meghan asked how he landed the position – unknowingly starting a conversation that would be a turning point in her own story. Her friend said that after Trevor died, he realized a chance not taken is an opportunity missed and that sometimes something horrible happening can be a necessary catalyst for change. He encouraged Meghan to reach for the stars. To go places. To branch out and try new things. Little did he know she would be on a 19-hour flight to Iraq, by herself, just six months later to do exactly that.
KURDI-WHERE?
Meghan accepted a job offer from a friend’s family to teach English to a government official in Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region of Northern Iraq. She had never taught English before, nor traveled anywhere near the Middle East.
Kurdistan became globally recognized in 1988 when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a chemical weapon attack on a Kurdish town, killing thousands. The genocide, combined with more recent violence at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS), has given the Kurdish narrative an element of turmoil. Despite this tumultuous history, “a close examination of Iraq’s modern history points out a striking difference between the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) that has maintained stability and relative security, and the rest of Iraq ruled by Baghdad, which continues to exhibit instability” (Layton, 2015, p. 48). Kurdistan declared independence from Iraq in 2017 to address economic inequities and long-standing sociopolitical tension; however, the Iraqi federal government rapidly rejected the claim. The region maintains a level of self-governance, but pushback from Iraq and other neighboring countries have manifested in disputes over oil fields and civil unrest. To date, the Kurdish are one of the largest ethnic and linguistic groups without a declared nation.
EUGENE TO ERBIL
“I’m sure I could work anywhere in the world now because I’ve shown myself that I can adapt to new surroundings in a short amount of time.”
From the average Westerner’s perspective, willingly going to a war-torn country like Iraq just seems out of the question…especially if you don’t speak the language. But not for Meghan. Our humble hustler educated herself and talked to people who had spent time in Kurdistan to better understand the society she’d be stepping into. Meghan would be living in Erbil, the capital of the region and a historical epicenter thought to be home to one of the world’s earliest civilizations. Meghan’s research revealed that Erbil offers a level of safety and security much higher than what many would associate with Iraq. She realized that if she were to experience the place firsthand, she could do her part to disrupt misperceptions that plague the Middle East’s reputation. Despite some serious skepticism from loved ones, Meghan knew she owed it to herself and to people suffering from stereotypes to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As Meghan’s dad prepared to see her off, he armed her with a piece of advice she’d hold close to heart throughout this adventure: “You can’t live in fear.” Thus, Meghan made the decision to start each day unafraid. If that courage persisted throughout the day, that was reason enough to stay and experience something new. If she woke up every morning with a sense of impending doom – she’d come home. In the weeks leading up to her departure in February 2015, Meghan was flooded with nerves and excitement. Sure, she was a little scared in the face of the unknown, but that did not outweigh her eagerness to explore a new culture and career. On one of her first mornings in Erbil, Meghan stared out her window at a magnificent sunrise. It seemed to be saying, “You made the right choice.”
Five years and five trips to Kurdistan later, it’s safe to say Meghan found a special place in her heart for the least likely of places.
A CRASH COURSE IN KURDISH CUSTOMS
Kurdistan is largely Islamic, but the region prides itself on being home to multiple religions including some of the oldest associated with the area like Zoroastrianism, and others such as Yezidis, Shabak, Judaism, and various forms of Christianity. This religious tolerance was evident from the beginning of Meghan’s stay as she recounts: “The family I worked for was very open. They always said, ‘the Kurdish people are accepting to all,’ and wanted me to believe whatever I believe.
They made it very clear that I would be accepted because I was a foreigner from the United States.” On the converse, Meghan experienced moments during her stay where that didn’t feel like the case: “There were definitely times where my presence made heads turn. Maybe because my skin was showing, maybe because my tattoo or hair wasn’t covered. Sometimes it was just my Westernized wardrobe. Depending on who I was interacting with and where, the reactions changed. A business lunch came with a different set of expectations [for appearance] than a birthday party.”
Another facet of Kurdish culture is a gender dynamic that typically grants men more freedom and leverage in their day-to-day lives than women. “I think it’s hard for women to be there. You have to look and play that part if you want people to listen to you or to have any kind of authority,” Meghan said. She went on to explain how clothes and makeup play an important role in how women are received in Kurdistan: “I’m not a dress-up kind of person but I wore suits every day, in temperatures north of 100 degrees, and put on more makeup than I have in my entire life so I would look the part.”
When I asked why some Muslim women can wear makeup or show their skin and others cover from head to toe, she pointed to varying degrees of religious adherence and the patriarchal hierarchy that exists within many Islamic societies. In Kurdistan specifically, makeup has become the standard and signifies a contemporary, respectable woman. At the end of the day, however, family values and personal religious preference will inform how a Kurdish woman presents herself.
CULTURAL LITERACY AT WORK AND HOME
During her initial stay, Meghan worked within the Department of Protocol for the Kurdistan Regional Government. It was her job to help her boss become more confident with English expressions and to assist with business correspondence. “I was basically the go-to Googler. Let’s say an oil-drilling company was to request a consultation or try to do business in Kurdistan. It was my job to review their portfolio and do research to see if their professional claims were legitimate. A lot of contracts over there are done with a handshake or verbally, so it’s really important to know who you’re doing business with beforehand,” she explained. Meghan’s position required her to fully immerse in Kurdish culture and politics to better fulfill her duties. She spoke of the benefit of international work, saying she never exactly fit in at her job as an English teacher, which taught her how to care less about being the odd-man-out and more about how she can increase her own cultural sensitivity.
“It definitely gave me a strong backbone. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb the whole time I was there, but I learned how to gauge my audience and make adjustments to avoid offending anyone. I’m sure I could work anywhere in the world now because I’ve shown myself that I can adapt to new surroundings in a short amount of time.”
“I think it’s hard for women to be there. You have to look and play that part if you want people to listen to you or to have any kind of authority.”
Meghan was surrounded by a Kurdish way of living and thinking both at work and at home. She noticed an entrepreneurial mindset to be common, especially among the family who looked after her. They acknowledged the economic prospects available in Kurdistan and were constantly coming up with new inventions and business ventures to peruse these opportunities. This drive, combined with the father’s secure government job, allotted the family a comfortable (somewhat privileged) way of life. It’s not uncommon for Kurds to hire help to assist in cooking and caring for their large families. During weekends spent at her boss’s home, Meghan faced the unfamiliar scenario of letting others clean up after her and cater to her every need.
“It was a lifestyle I was not at all used to and honestly it was kind of uncomfortable, but I was always grateful when someone brought me tea in the afternoon or a sweet treat on a tray.” In describing the women who served as live-in helpers, Meghan recalled, “The ladies who worked there, Daro and Nati, are from Georgia: a neighboring country to the north. They were like my best friends while I was there because they always fed me and took care of me. Calling them housekeepers doesn’t feel right because they were so much more than that. They did everything. They were part of the family.”
Meghan creatively communicated with the Georgian natives using Google Translate, learning phrases in both Georgian and Russian. “Their faces would just light up when I thanked them in Georgian.” Following our interview, Meghan pulled out her phone to share a photo of a cup of Georgian coffee sent to her the previous night by Nati. A Kurdish proverb says: “A cup of coffee commits one to forty years of friendship,” which seems to ring true in the case of Meghan, Daro, and Nati.
On the weekends, Meghan often traveled to the village where her boss’s extended family lives along the Great Zab River, three hours north of Erbil. She got to see mountainous landscapes and lush scenery not typically associated with the Middle East. During the long, winding drive Meghan observed the famous narcissus wildflowers that symbolize the New Year, called “newroz” within Kurdish culture. It was not uncommon to see families along the roadside picnicking and barbequing over wood coal fires. Going to the village was an important part of Meghan’s adventure because she got to experience the traditional Kurdish lifestyle compared to the modernized way of living in Erbil. The mountain-dwellers showed Meghan firsthand that you really don’t need much to be happy and fulfilled.
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU MAY THINK
When I asked Meghan what the biggest takeaway from her time in Kurdistan was, I knew it was a ridiculously loaded question, but one that might evoke some interesting answers. In response, she brought up the fact that Kurdish people are one of the world’s largest ethnic and linguistic groups – spanning across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran and other countries that provide a safe haven to refugees. As many as 45 million Kurdish people exist, yet they have no nation to call their own. The repercussions of being a stateless nation are far reaching – a topic deserving of more space than this post allows. The most important point to convey here is that by being stateless, the Kurdish are trapped in a cyclical fight for independence that exacerbates tension with neighboring countries and creates division amongst their people. Yearning for a homeland is central to the Kurdish experience, but it paints their portrait with a tone of unfulfilled longing. Nonetheless, the citizens of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq refuse to be stagnant in an ever-evolving world. The region continues to modernize alongside other developing countries and has everything in place (government, infrastructure, and economy) to be fully autonomous when that day comes.
Meghan went on to say, “There is so much you can learn [about Kurdish culture], and some things you can’t even explain until you experience it. Sometimes I wish I wrote a list of takeaways, but I also don’t know if I’d really be able to put all those feelings and thoughts on paper. What I can say is – is it’s not what you may think.”
We can all use Meghan’s experience as motivation to disrupt harmful associations that cause places like Kurdistan to be so globally misunderstood and unheard. The “it’s not what you think” notion that Meghan described should challenge us all to explore places for ourselves instead of relying on partial media representations and political half-truths. After all, your preemptive judgement of something, someone, or someplace does not define them… but it does define you.
RESOURCES CITED:
https://thekurdishproject.org
https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poems/the-fruit-sellers-philosophy
Layton, Douglas. Kurdistan Tour Guide: 2015-2016. Kurdistan Iraq Tours, 2015.
