Jacob & Justin L.

Iraq 2015

In 2015, Jacob Carter and I went to Iraq to help make a video about the work an NGO called Operation Mercy was doing there. They were mainly distributing blankets and food to families who had just fled ISIS. ISIS had attacked their villages, killed their family members, kids, spouses, parents, grandparents, and stripped them of their belongings. It was heartbreaking listening to stories of people recounting what had happened, hoping with all their hearts that someone would storm in and save them. That didn’t happen. And the helplessness we felt during that trip was overwhelming. What could blankets and food really do for people who had lost everything?

Machine guns

No guns were allowed at the airport (in Iraq). When Jacob and I arrived at the airport, we grabbed a taxi and opened the trunk to put our backpacks in. Inside the trunk was already a soldier’s uniform and boots. As we drove out of the airport, we stopped at a checkpoint. Our taxi driver got out, went to the checkpoint, and walked back to the taxi with his machine gun. He popped it in the trunk on top of our backpacks. That’s when we both realized we were truly in an active warzone. Our taxi driver was a soldier who drove his taxi on his off-days. We arrived on a Tuesday. Guess he didn’t have to fight that day.

Dog heads

As we drove down the highways outside the city, we saw dog heads on the side of the road. It was a weird thing to see. At first, I thought a dog got hit so hard their head flew off, but when I asked the driver how they got there, he said it was ISIS. These were heads of dogs that had been chopped off and left along the roads, I assume to put fear in people.

American flag

We took a different taxi to go to the market. All of the taxi’s seats were covered in the American flag. The taxi driver said he loved America.

The butcher

As we were walking through the market, we saw a butcher standing in his door watching us. As soon as we made eye contact he smiled and shook his body as if dancing to the music coming out of his butcher shop. He seemed like a fun guy so we decided to see if we might be able to get an interview from him. We filmed his shop, the different meats he had, and one of his worker’s butchering the meat. He had fled ISIS earlier that year. ISIS stole $400,000 from him and he was starting over in Kurdistan.
Liquor

Alcohol is generally not sold in most Arab countries, but we were able to find alcohol in every country we went to with the exception of South Sudan. We didn’t drink in Iraq for the most part. One night, we were invited to meet some Mennonite workers living in Kurdistan. To our surprise, they served us some liquor they had after our meal. I never expected to be served liquor by Mennonites and in Iraq of all places. But Iraq was a uniquely stressful place to be stationed and I think they had it for uniquely special or stressful evenings. Jacob and I both enjoyed it with them. We were stressed and it was uniquely special.

Sheep herder

Jacob had a fondness for animals. On route to another location in Kurdistan, we spotted a shepherd on top of a hill with his sheep. We stopped the car and climbed the hill to meet the shepherd and get photos and videos of their herd. I remember Jacob sneaking up closer and closer to get a photo of the sheep. 

The interview

The most interesting thing I found while looking through all the footage from that trip was an interview Jacob and I did. Isak, our Swedish buddy who went on this trip with us, asked us to do an interview for Capenwray. There are a handful of interviews of ourselves from that year, but this one feels different. It’s clear in watching the footage that we’re not fully there. We were exhausted. More emotionally than physically. We trail off on questions, ask Isak to rephrase the questions to try to digest what we’re even meant to be talking about, snap out of “character” in-between questions. I don’t think this interview was ever used, and to be honest, we didn’t want to do it, but now I am so thankful I have it.

Banana

Generally, Jacob was always able to smile and keep a good attitude. Rarely did I see him blow up or snap. Maybe once or twice, but we all did. It was a stressful situation, living and working with three other guys. All with our own expectations of how things would or should be. Once, Jacob lost it over a banana I took from him while we were in Oman. It’s funny to think about now, but it was a big deal at the time. The Jacob I know wouldn’t think twice about me taking a banana from him now. Even a bunch of bananas.

Shoo esmak? 

I was always impressed that Jacob was able to keep a positive outlook. He wanted to help people and keep helping people, even in the smallest ways like giving them a handshake and asking their name. Shoo esmak?

Timelapse

Things were tense because there was a civil war going on. One of the nights we were in Nimule, South Sudan and Jacob and I decided to take a timelapse of the night sky. The guest house was one-story in the shape of a U with a courtyard in the middle. As I was setting up my tripod in the courtyard, a man watching us made a call. Moments later, 4 government soldiers decked out in gear entered the courtyard and began questioning us about what we were doing. I’m sure it looked weird. Two white guys with a camera pointed up at the sky. I tried to explain we were shooting a timelapse of the stars, but they thought we were spies or something. I reached for the camera to show them the stars, but they yelled at me not to touch the camera. In the end, the South Sudanese people we were with were able to clarify what was going on. All that over a handful of pictures of stars.

A mouse

For the majority of our time in Lebanon, Josiah and Jacob were roommates and Andrew and I shared a room. Juba was one of the trips that Jacob and I bunked together. We stayed in a church compound that had a satellite with really spotty internet. One night, Jacob and I heard rustling in the corner of the room. When we shone our flashlight to the corner, we saw a mouse pop out of Jacob’s digestive cookies and scurry to the opposite corner. Even the mice were hungry, but we had a good laugh about it.

Hearts

We were meant to get an early start to the Nimule reserve on the border of South Sudan and Uganda. We weren’t supposed to drive once the sun went down, but the morning started off a little late because one of the tires on our van needed to be patched before we left. About an hour and a half into the drive back, the same tire from the morning started to go flat, so we had to pull over on the side of the road to swap it out. The spare tire started to go flat as we kept driving and the sun had already started to set. As we were trying to figure out how to get another tire or get picked up, all the South Sudanese people including the policeman with us started getting phone calls and the air felt nervously tense. They hurriedly told us to get back in the car and we started driving on a flat tire. We asked what was going on, but they told us everything was fine. I assume they didn’t want us to freak out. We pulled over at the first guest house we came across on the side of the road. There was a huge party going on when we pulled in, but as soon as we arrived, they turned off all the music and lights that were on. Jacob, Josiah, Andrew and I were put in a guest room with all our gear and the money from the team. We found out the next morning that opposing forces had ambushed the government forces about a kilometer away and fighting had broken out. Jacob, Josiah, Andrew and I stayed up most of the night playing hearts.

Cold beer in Cairo

South Sudan was the poorest country we went to. The capital city, Juba, only had one or two paved roads. The internet was so bad in South Sudan that when we left Juba, they gave us handwritten boarding passes. I remember never being so ready to leave a city. When we got to the airport in Cairo, the first thing we did was go to the bar and get a cold beer.

Dirty raw Fish

When we were in Oman we booked a ride on a boat to go to the fish bazaar. As we were in the speed boat the driver cut up some small fish on one of the seats and then picked up a piece and gave it to Jacob. The driver looked at Jacob and gave a small upward motion with his hand. And without a second thought Jacob put the cut up fish in his mouth and ate it. The driver looked shocked and then took another piece of the fish and threw it in the air and the birds flying around us swooped down and caught it.

Still there

Some of the locations we were sent to that year we saw humanity at its worst. We were all 23 or 24, babies, really. Making decisions by ourselves in countries that we had never been to, where we knew no one, and barely spoke the language. Iraq and South Sudan were the hardest. I remember being so ready to leave at the end of every trip, oftentimes even in the middle. And the thing is, we could leave. The people we were working with, the people whose stories we tried to tell, they also wanted to leave. And would have if they could have. But they couldn’t. And a lot of them are still there.

Jacob

It’s funny the things we remember or the stories we tell. Sometimes we minimize things to make it seem like they weren’t a big deal. And other times, we overdramatize them for the purpose of storytelling. Ten years later, our year in Lebanon just feels like a series of these stories and I’m sure even our collective mind has forgotten a lot. I’m sure talking with Josiah and Andrew will bring up more memories about that year that we have forgotten about and it’s sad to think that the specific things Jacob might have remembered might never be remembered again.

But this is what I remember about Jacob.

Jacob was fun, kind, humble, and artistic. He always had an idea or was ready to help make someone else’s idea come to life. On our off days we took public buses and explored the Mediterranean coast to go swimming. We hiked the mountains of Lebanon, made fires and smoked hookah. We bar-hopped the bar streets in Achrafieh. We danced and went to parties when we could. On the slow days we played Catan or made meals together. We bought a rabbit together and named him Taxi and at one point almost bought a van to make a portable camera obscura. 

The relationship Jacob, Josiah, Andrew and I made during that time is hard to explain, but I know it will always hold a special spot in my heart.

Jacob with Josiah, Justin, and Andrew.