Created by: zainabalchemy on Jun 5, 2025, 3:58 AM
My last dawn in Baghdad smelled like diesel and jasmine. The generator across the alley coughed to life, competing with a night-blooming vine climbing our balcony. It was 2010, and Iâd spent the previous week shuffling through visa papers while packing cocktail shakers between my clothesâbecause even fugitives of circumstance deserve stainless-steel style.
Weâd survived the worst spikes of sectarian violence (2006-2008) by mapping alternate routes to school and rehearsing which uncleâs name to drop at each checkpoint. My kid brother turned it into a game: âCheckpoint Bingoâcollect all five factions and win.â Humor is a last-ditch lifejacket; you cling to it when mortar whines replace lullabies.
People ask why I left. Officially: scholarship in Istanbul. Unofficially: I couldnât stand seeing my favorite date-palm grove shrink behind blast walls. Creativity wilts when daily life is triage. I wanted fresh air for my ideasâand a bar scene that didnât close at 9 p.m. because sirens said so. But I never stopped folding Iraq into every recipe.
In Istanbul I met Syrian, Yemeni, and Palestinian bartendersâeach with their own exit-wound stories. We formed a chosen family called The Spice Route Syndicate and traded refugee hacks: how to stretch a paycheck, how to navigate embassy phone mazes, how to smuggle saffron in luggage without TSA confetti. Those hacks taught me agilityâperfect practice for flipping drinks mid-air.
Yet Baghdad never left me. I carry its dialect in the way I elongate habibi, its architecture in how I stack glassware like mini-ziggurats, its history in my tattoos: three reeds of the Euphrates bending but unbroken. Whenever I present my âSuitcase of Saffronâ workshop, I tell newcomers that exile is a verbâongoingâyet so is return. Return happens every time we cook masgouf or argue about who invented the first battery (hint: ancient Iraqis, Babylon, 250 BCE).
If youâve only known Iraq through headlines, let me remix the song. Think of the oud strings echoing through Mutanabbi Street book stalls, the scent of cardamom coffee dripping at sunrise, and the comeback spirit of a city that keeps reinventing itself like a DJ looping a classic track. I left to survive, yes, but I write so youâll stayâmentallyâlong enough to fall in love. Pack light, bring curiosity; Baghdad supplies the rest.