Redwan Adalat - Humans of Kurdistan

Aug 03 2020

August 3, 2020

“I have studied Geography and graduated 6 years ago. I have been a lecturer for 4 years in the towns across the Penjwen border. Due to the bad roads, our towns are not accessible to constant movement so I have no choice but to stay. It is true that these towns are not easily available and lack some services and I, too, am away from my family, but when the people of the towns treat me with respect and see me as one of their own, I no longer feel my family’s absence. We have guests over or visit others most of the nights. Our time is spent really well in towns, life is simple and away from the crowds. I usually go to the mountains and go far from my house. I do not miss the chance that I have in the towns and enjoy the beauty and calmness of it all”. “Everyone says my field of study is not good and doesn’t get me jobs, but I always say that I am one of those who studied the field they wanted, so I am very pleased with my field of study and even more pleased that I am a teacher, although I am not employed and only a lecturer. When I think of the love and respect that my students have for me and how they expect me to teach them something new, it makes me completely happy. When I teach and educate my students, I always tell them that what they have excess of should be love and to perceive everything with love”. ...

Aug 02 2020

August 2, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of North

“I am the shepherd in this village, I do all that I am capable of. With the start of spring, the storks migrate to our village and set up their nests and stay till the summer. They build the nests in higher places, that is why they aim for the electrical towers, which can be dangerous.It has been almost 23 years since I started building stone-walls. When I first built a couple of stone-walls, I realized that some of the storks built nests on it. So I have been building the stone-walls for them ever since. I have built more than 20 stone-walls around our village. After I built them, the number of storks increased. Their numbers increase every year when they return to the village. I have taught my children how to build stone-walls, so that they can continue doing this after I am gone”. ...

Aug 01 2020

August 1, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of West

“I started doing street photography when I was 15. It has been almost 50 years since I started taking photos of the people of Qamislo. I do this because I enjoy it and also as my source of income. I have taken photos of all the people in this city, including Jews, Armenians, Syrians, and Kurds...

Aug 01 2020

August 1, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of South

“During the civil war in the 90s, I worked as an apprentice in a bakery, we would make bread for a Peshmerga base. Because I was the dough maker, I had to go and prepare the dough under a lamp while it was still dark, as there was no electricity then. So, one day the master came in and started making the bread in the daylight, he furiously called me and said: What is that? I looked at the bread only to see it was filled with match sticks, sunflower seeds, and dirt. It turned out that just before I had gone in, a Peshmerga had gathered the flour on the floor and had put it in a bag in the corner so he could take it back for his own cattle. And I had used that bag of flour for the dough. If it wasn’t for the Peshmergas’ sake, my master would have beaten me up and fired me from my job”. ...

Jul 31 2020

July 31, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of East

“I take a handful of soil and think, what is in this soil and what am I supposed to make out of it? There is a kind of love between us. Before I create a work of clay, I go pick the soil for it, because I cannot make something whose soil I don’t know or recognize. Soil is made of broken down remains, the soil that I bring may be what was once the body of a human, of which a handful made it to me. I am responsible for finding out what this soil wants to become? Does the person whose remains are here approve of what I want to create, without my knowledge?” “I often take a handful of soil without thinking and let it spontaneously build in the palm of my hands. If it melts, I won’t prevent it. I just watch and see what shape it wants to take. It is strange when you take dead soil, water it and bring it back to life. This is my style of work and I depend on spontaneity. Whenever I sell a work, I tell the customer please bring it back to me whenever it breaks. That is why my factory has a lot of broken pieces. It makes me glad that it travels around with a customer, but in the end comes back to me” ...

Jul 30 2020

July 30, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of East

“We always think that food is tasty only if it is oily and salty. This has become a must for us and has made us not want to try new ways of cookingWe do not know many of the spices and barely use them, like badian, oregano, cloves, wild marza, and many others that give food a unique taste and flavor. Use some black cumin in soups, or some cinnamon in minced meat soup and see what tasty flavor it will have. I mostly use sumac because it is healthy and tastes good as well. Anyone who tries my food instantly recognizes that I made it because of the spices.” ...

Jul 29 2020

July 29, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of North

"Life and conditions here are very critical. After January’s hardships, we come to the mountainous regions in the summer. We stay here for two months because of our cattle as long as there is grass. The time we spend in the mountains is a very difficult time. We wake up early in the morning and start working, then we prepare our horses. Because the mountains are high, we use horses to go around. The village is one hour from the village. Later we milk the animals, all the shepherdesses know their own animals. We then put the milk in bottles and load them onto the horses and return to the village. We are busy until the evening with housework, we make yogurt, cheese, and oil butter. After we are done with those, I start preparing for my exams. I have graduated from lecturing, if I pass my exams, then I can start teaching as a lecturer." ...

Jul 28 2020

July 28, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of South

“Tourists visit this area every year around 2 seasons, spring and summer, although the number of tourists has decreased in the past few years and especially now due to the Coronavirus, people travel less for fear of the virus.We are a group of boatmen here, I have personally been doing this for 2 years. There are beautiful locations in the lake that people cannot see unless with a boat, so peope request a lot of those locations, among them: the Dukan dam, Buk u Zawa, and among the mountains. We have turbo jets which we use to take tourists around. Sometimes when we take people there for the first time, it shows on their faces how happy they are. That has its own delight, at those moments, I feel like I own the locations.” ...

Jul 27 2020

July 27, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of East

“To understand the true meaning of life, I had to face countless births and deaths. I have understood the fact that each person is the bearer of his own message and duty and that he has a specific purpose in life. I believe that my duty in this life is kindness. I have made a promise always try and help the people around me and bring a smile to their faces, so that I can give them hope. This promise has made my duty more difficult. The world looks beautiful to me when children live in peace and parents have confidence and a calm life and everyone is happy.” ...

Jul 26 2020

July 26, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of South

“There is one thing, if you live in this country, you have to not mind a lot of things so that you don’t spend all your life distressed. Everything does not happen the way you want it. Just live your life with what you have and thank God for it. Who knows of another’s heart? It has been a while that I have stayed busy in this area, doing a small work just to make enough to live.” ...

Jul 25 2020

July 25, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of North

"I studied design in college and lived in Istanbul for a while. We had a project dedicated to painting across the walls of the city. It was my dream to take that project to Amed as well. When I returned to Amed, I asked myself: why don’t I start painting on the city walls? Once we got a permit for the project, we immediately started working. Because the Sur district in Amed has been through a lot and the children were feeling dismal, I decided to work in Sur. I wanted to see how delighted the children and people of the district would be when they see the colorful walls. Artistic education is not very widespread I'm Turkey, that is why there are many children here who have no studied a painting class till now. So we decided this was the best place. I want to reform all the ruined walls here into colorful pictures of women and historical events." ...

Jul 24 2020

July 24, 2020

by Redwan Adalat

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in Humans of West

“60 years ago, I was distributing Khabat newspapers that was published by the Kurdistan Democratic Party at the time. I would walk a distance of 132 kilometres among the cities and towns of Western Kurdistan.I have met many Kurdish cultural figures, among them Osman Sabri, Jgar Khwen, and many others who were my contemporaries. Due to political organizational work, I was captured by the Syrian forces at the time and lost my hearing under extreme torture, but that did not stop me from political work in any way.Although I am more than 90 years old now, I still remember most of Jgar Khwen and Osman Sabri’s poems.People need to be passionate about the things they do in life, and I am proud of my nationalistic pathway in life”. ...

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