The Wanderlust Chronicles: Crossing the Border from Iraq to Syria

Border crossings are always the things that get people anxious- it’s also the point at which trouble often happens. So even though we had several detailed security briefings, all of which said this would be no big deal, I still wondered what it would be like when we got there. The driver picked us up promptly at 9, and it ended up just being Hanna and myself. We were originally going to be 4 of us, with two people coming from the regional office in Amman, to join us for the training. They were delayed because of overbooking on their flight and had to postpone to travel Friday instead. So we set out with the Mercy Corps driver, Ashti, in a regular agency vehicle 4x4 (think white Toyota land cruiser like you see on TV, though I think this one was a Kia actually). The drive was about 4 hours, via Duhok (not via Mosul, in case you wondered, though at the moment there aren’t really major security concerns with Mosul).

The countryside was pretty rural, green and rolling hills. A few times we passed small towns (other than Duhok which is a pretty major city) and also several huge refugee camps. The road was mostly really great, so other than some bad american music CD (like a falsetto lady Raffi singing bad lullaby tunes), it was an easy ride. They even have this cool portable wifi router in the vehicles so you can log on to wifi while traveling. Of course it wasn’t working when we were in the car - go figure - but really, do we have to be working and connected every minute of every day?

Duhok from the car window

Yes that's a roller coaster near Duhok, at some sort of mall/entertainment complex

Syrian refugee camp - we passed a number of them

When we got to the border, the driver basically handled everything. He took our passports and Mercy Corps IDs to this office just for foreigners and then we just had to wait, sitting in a little waiting room, kind of like in a doctor’s office. We waited maybe 45 minutes and then they told us our paperwork was ready, where we got a slip of paper, which was our visa- they do not put it in our passports or else we may not be admitted to other countries, such as Turkey, later. We got our luggage from the car, took it into a shed where it was inspected, much like at the airport but much less organized, and then a guy put a piece of duct tape on each one and markered “545” on each bag, and gave us a plastic laminated ticket that said 545 on it. We then got on a little mini bus and waved goodbye to our luggage being loaded into a big truck- see ya on the other side!

Ashti and Hanna

The border crossing itself was something else. Not a big deal, yet kind of crazy at the same time. The border is the Tigris River, so they used to load you in a boat for the crossing. But I guess there was an accident last year, so now they have floating pontoon things tied together as a bridge, reinforced by cables drilled into the rocks on shore. I mean, for everyone who’s worried for my safety from the conflict in Iraq and Syria, forget it. Crappy infrastructure integrity of floating pontoon bridges that huge trucks drive over is the real risk here. They closed the crossing a few days before because of high, rough water from all the rain. Anyway, Hanna, myself and a few Syrian moms with a whole bunch of little kids made it across in our mini bus no problem- the river is pretty narrow so the whole thing took maybe 5-10 minutes. On the other side, the Mercy Corps Syria driver was waiting for us and took our paperwork to the various offices to get approved, which we happened quite quickly, and we got our bags and were on our way. I have to say that Mercy Corps’ team is very organized and efficient.

The drive from the border to Derik, also known as Al-Malikiya, was about an hour, mainly because the road was so muddy and covered in potholes from all the rain they’d had. We got to the Mercy Corps guest house and dropped our stuff in our rooms, and got a little tour and lay of the land from the housekeeper. She cooks a big lunch every day for the staff and so she had held leftovers for us, and insisted we eat, since it was around 3pm and we hadn’t had lunch. It was delicious tomato cucumber salad, baba ganoush (eggplant), fava bean salad, and rice with grilled chicken. Then we headed to the office for an operations and security briefing- also super thorough- and picked up the supplies for the training so that we could prep them Friday and Saturday at the guest house. Weekends here are Friday and Saturday so we’d be working on the large dining room table at the guest house. Again, props to the ops and security team here. The security briefing was super thorough- with detailed maps, and they gave us a local cell phone and taught Hanna how to use a sat phone. I peppered the guy with a million questions, mainly because I used to be partially responsible for security in a conflict zone in Sri Lanka, and I was curious about their protocols and preparations. This Syrian guy who is the lead security officer here (the head of security for Syria for us is based in Amman) really had it together, I was impressed. Then we headed back to the guest house to figure out the lay of the land, and settle in for the weekend- and the entire week we’d be here in Syria.