‘You can get people killed,’ and other advice.

This travelogue is just one part of my dispatches from Erbil. You can read them all on the project’s landing page here.

Friday — Sept. 13, 2024

I had enjoyed my trip to the Qaysari Bazaar immensely, but I wanted to go back with someone who knew their way around. So when Suha Kamel, the journalist I’d met just a few nights ago, invited me to join her and a friend on an evening trip to the bazaar, I leapt at the chance.

When we arrived, the sun had just set and the day had finally begun to cool off. The market glowed in the deepening twilight.

Suha’s friend, Hanna, is a photographer from Rojhalat, the Kurdish part of Iran. A petite woman with long black hair and bright fuschia lipstick, she led us deep into the market until we arrived at a kebab restaurant.

They were starting to close for the night and had already shut down their upstairs seating section. Or, at least that’s what they tried to tell Hanna, who immediately started cajoling them and gesturing at me.

Rose Gilbert WPLN News

The view from the kebab restaurant, into the bazaar below.

The young waiter, knowing he was beat, led us upstairs and began setting up a table for us.

“I told him you came all the way from America for the view,” Hanna told me triumphantly.

The view was lovely: arched windows looking down onto the halls of the bazaar below; a handful of late-night shoppers picking through stalls selling lace doilies, dresses, soap and ground spices.

We ate our kebabs quickly, under the gaze of the put-upon waiters. I’ve never been big on lamb; but here, it is everywhere and it is delicious.

The bazaar may have been shutting down, but the streets outside had come alive. The sun had set, the air was finally cool, and it seemed the whole city had come out to enjoy it.

We went to Machko Chai Khana, a tea house built into the walls of the citadel back in 1940. I followed Suha and Hanna up a narrow set of stairs and . . . the only word for what I saw is magical.

We walked onto a terrace, sparkling with twinkle lights and brightly-colored glass lamps. The roof was woven with fake vines and flowers and fastened with misting fans to cool the customers below. It was packed and glowing with people clustered around little tables, chatting, sipping tea and smoking shisha from intricately engraved hookahs.

We ordered tea and got to chatting about our work.

Rose Gilbert WPLN News

I went back to visit Machko Chai Khana during the day.

Suha and Hanna have both reported extensively on Iraqi Kurdistan’s refugee camps, on their own and as fixers. They had a great deal of advice on how to report within these camps: how to act, what to say, what information to censor to protect the people who lived there.

Hanna was quite stern on that last point, clearly used to a revolving door of Western journalists parachuting in and out of these camps with varying degrees of care.

“You can get people killed,” she said.

She warned me that a foreign journalist showing up was often an exciting event for the children at the camp, but that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to them; it would be cruel to form a bond when you know you’re going to leave soon.

Don’t eat or drink anything you’re offered — you’ll get sick. Bottled water and tea are OK. Talk to people a great deal before you pull out a microphone, hours even. Befriend them. Remind people they don’t have to talk to you, and that they can take breaks at any time. Even if they don’t ask for a break, take one every 15 minutes or so anyway. Be prepared for people to behave strangely during the interview, or to get angry at you.

Hanna told me about a time she was interviewing refugees for an NGO. They were recounting the story of how they’d fled their homes, and then, all of a sudden, they started cursing at her.

“Trauma,” she said, “They went back there, in their minds.”

I listened closely. I have reported on refugee resettlement before, but not from a refugee camp. I wanted to do this right. And I wanted Hanna and Suha to know that I want to do this right.

Suha and I shared a taxi back to Ankawa. She wished me a good night and smiled, and I knew we were friends.