Kurdish jalli hugs Arab hashmi over Kurdistan mountains in Nawroz 2009

ARBIL, SULAIMANIYA, DUHUK / IraqiNews.com: Non-stop rain since Friday was not reason enough to convince the Kurds to stay indoors and ignore celebrating the Nawroz. The Kurds, who ventured out along with Arabs and Christians, even considered rainfall as a good omen to bring good after years of political drought and deprivation. Kurds’ garish and flashy colored garments mingled with the colors of the fields and prairies at the foot of the mountain and the valleys of the areas surrounding the Kurdish cities of Sulaimaniya, Arbil and Duhuk as well as Kirkuk, forming a paining that even hundred Picassos, Dalis and Cézannes would fail to depict on their sketches. The scene was emphasized by the sounds of music and traditional Kurdish dabaka stomp dancing with a merry atmosphere of celebrations and faces full of grins of freedom and optimism for a better tomorrow. In Arbil, 349 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, several families and young people went out of town on Saturday as there were thousands of vehicles bound for the northern part of the cit, namely Kuwaysanjaq, where women are clad in their traditional jalli and men in their traditional colored attire to celebrate the spring season. “Nawroz is a national day for us. We have been preparing for it for a few days now as we go out with our folks and friends,” Raffan Ahmed, a Kurd, told IraqiNews.com news agency. Kurds celebrate the Nawroz, which marks the beginning of the new Kurdish year, on March 21. Kurds all over the world deem Nawroz as a national day. In the evening of March 20 every year, Kurds in the Iraqi Kurdistan region rush to mountain and hill tops to set fire to celebrate the Nawroz and the advent of spring season. According to the old Kurdish legends, Kurds, thousands of years ago, used to suffer under the tyrant Dahak, who killed two young people each day and used their heads to treat some malicious disease on his shoulders. One day a Kurdish young man of the name Kawa the Blacksmith challenged the tyrant and killed him. Kawa then told his friends to set fire over mountaintops to express their won freedom and joy over the end of an unjust era. Saleem Ali, a Kurd who was accompanying an Arab family, told IraqiNews.com that his friends came from Mosul “to share us our joys and celebrations for Nawroz”. In Duhuk, 460 km north of Baghdad, Kurdish, Arab and Christian families were all celebrating together. “I feel so great enjoying this occasion with my relatives and friends as well as numerous citizens others after several years deprivation,” said Dilshad Saeed Sadeq, 38, as he was preparing a lunch meal with many others. “We used to avoid celebrating the Nawroz or even think about lighting a single candle during Saddam’s reign of terror,” Sadeq recollected. In the resort of Ducan, 60 km northwest of the city of Sulaimaniya, Kurdish dabakas and music were coming out of the hundreds of tents pitched everywhere. “I have decided to celebrate my engagement during the spring festivities,” Shadi Halkut, a young woman, told IraqiNews.com. She did not talk too much, only drawing away her fiancée saying, “Kakajian, let’s go celebrate; no more talking”.   AmR (I)/SR 1