Holy Hill… an Assyrian weekend
I remember going there as a kid and enjoying every minute of it. We would leave on Friday morning, excused absence from school always being a welcomed honor. Get there and immediately set up camp with fire and all. The men in the family would always try to spark up a flame to light the fire. Telling stories about how they would never use a match in their days back home. This would last a couple of hours until one of the women would tell them off and "light the fire already". Out came the matches.
Lunch would consist of hot dogs on the grill for the kiddies and a pot of some home cooked meal on the fire for the adults. At first it was hard to eat the hot dogs without all the toppings and side of greasy fries. We would always make do by using Taboola as the topping and Humus as the side.
Exercise after the meal meant running up and down the stairs leading to the church. At times taking a break from the stairs to explore the woods surrounding this beautiful location. All the while telling horror stories of Assyrian ghosts that still roam the woods. My favorite was the one that had all Assyrians of past visiting this location every year as a break from the other world. Funny how even as a child it was easy to see that we Assyrians are the epitome of conditioning.
Dinner, ahh yes, the nights spent at Holy Hill were the greatest nights an Assyrian child could have. Mind you that camping with your family was never really an Assyrian norm. Just as playing catch with your father or having THAT talk before you lose your virginity. Nope. Our substitution for camping was hanging out in a relatives backyard all night as the adults drank their qawa and whiskey over a nice game of kon kan. "That" talk for us would come from the so-called "experienced" friends who told you where to stick it. The same friends that always had a girlfriend that lived in another state/country.
It was these nights that the kids crowded around the fire until one was dared to explore the dark woods. The adults watched the teapot boil over the fire with cries of "chi al noora is da best" and "hal habania, la?" sang like a lullaby. There was entertainment all around. Be it that one singer in a group a couple of fires down with a nice enough voice to attract a crowd. People that were strangers to him before that day making requests of what his next song should be. Someone who brought along his dawoola joining in to create the proper beat. Or the families who brought a battery operated radio. Sounds of Sargon Gabriel covered the West end while Ashur Bet Sargis lit up the East. Holy Hill was an excuse to live the way we did back home if only for a couple of days. A reason to show the children what life as an Assyrian on Assyrian land was like. This was the schedule for Friday and Saturday.
It was Sunday morning that the entire troop made their way to Church. I mean EVERYONE on the campgrounds went to church. The long walk up the million flights of stairs seemed to go by quicker on Sunday morning. The crowd of smiling faces made it go by so quick. So this is what it feels like when ALL Assyrians work together. This is what it's like to be Assyrian… together… as one.
These were the times spent at Holy Hill back in the day. Hell, I never thought I would use those words to describe something that happened twenty years ago. Isn't "back in the day" reserved for a minimum of fifty years? Not with this new generation. No, they have their own reason for going to Holy Hill. Grant it our reasons weren't very religious either. Although it served a unique purpose of bringing families together. It was a way of having Assyrians unite and celebrate a belief together. Key words here are Assyrians, and together.
The new generation of Assyrians has taken all our memories and burned them in a cloud of hashish. In the last couple of years Holy Hill has gone from a "bring your own weed/beer" weekend to a very profitable event. I kid you not. Take a nice walk around Holy Hill when the sun goes down and meet the new children of Night/Assyria. There are drug dealers all around. Each one very proud and unashamed to pitch their product to whoever passes them by. Little kid got some money? Little kid gets his dime-bag! Little kid only got a couple of bucks? Little kid gets a rolled up joint.
Take a walk with your lovely lady friend and hear the booze hounds go to work. "Zee deeza/qoota" is the more common comment made. The famous "hey baby what's yo name" is always followed by a "stuck up bitch" or flat out "gahba" when the young lady ignores them. Every now and then you have an Assyrian that chooses not to ignore but instead defend his lady's honor. A true warrior that would rather die then let anyone disrespect his Assyrian Goddess. He is always met with a dozen or so fists and legs. These bastards make their comments under the protection of a minimum five other friends/bastards.
Walking in the woods was at a time an adventure. A young Assyrian's version of a Charles Dickens novel. Now it is a voyeuristic dream come true. Make your way deep into the woods to find where the kids go with their newly purchased joints. Pass by the eleven-year-olds that are enjoying the Budweisers kindly donated to them by the boozing bastards beating on the warrior with the "fine ass gahba". For the feast al a resistance, go a little deeper to see a stoned fifteen-year-old being hit on by two boozing bastards. Isn't it still illegal for a grown man to be seducing a fifteen-year-old in Wisconsin? Yes, but not on their turf.
I hear they even had Karaoke this year. Sex Drugs and Karaoke was the theme.
Sunday morning comes and the walk up the stairs seems longer. The crowd is now a small group of folks that actually came here to go to church. People are moving slower, stopping to rest every so often. Where are the rest? Where are all the smiles I grew up with? Are they all at the campsite too tired to wake up? No, that's all the boozing bastards and potheads passed out after a night of hard partying. Where are they then? They're exactly where I've been for years. At home… away from this place. Away from all the binge drinking, crackheads that have taken my childhood and wiped their asses with it. They walked into my tree house and pissed all over it then burned it down.
The new Holy Hill weekend has become another addition to the horror stories we would tell each other in the woods. Only this time I can add the words "true story" and actually mean it. What happened to these kids? Our kids. Where are their parents? Oh yeah, they're busy trying to build Assyria. Only thing is, you can't build Assyria by fighting each other. The foundation is and always will be the children. As you are too busy trying to figure out who you're going to hate tomorrow, the kids play. Just remember this Assyria, the games these kids play are far from the horror stories in the woods game. You know, the ones we played back in the day.
