Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Hannah and Colleen share their experiences of the roles and rules around what it means to be a man or a woman (or boy or girl) in Kurdish culture. Expectatio…

Hannah and Colleen explore the difficult and sometimes humorous world of social media in Iraq. If you've never had a new Facebook friend go through all ten y…

Colleen and Hannah talk about how the idea of cleanliness has some interesting cultural rules and expectations in Northern Iraq that make people mop their pa…

Hannah and Colleen talk about the beautiful extravagance of Kurdish hospitality and walk you through what it's like to go on a visit to a Kurdish or Middle …

Hannah and Colleen talk about how Kurdish people respond to different kinds of crisis. Some big, some small, some medical, and some military -- the Kurds hav…

In the US we're pretty used to using our credit cards to pay for things and we're adding all sorts of new electronic payment methods. But in Northern Iraq, n…

Hannah and Colleen chat about several key terms in Kurdish language and culture: sherma, aiba, and haram. All have meanings that connect to honor, shame, and…

Hannah and Colleen interview Robin, who (with her husband, Dave) took her two kids to live in Iraq. What did this do to her kids? Her family and their relati…

Hannah and Colleen chat about the various steps to the ever changing process of getting residency in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. This isn't the nuts…

Hannah and Colleen talk about the blessings and challenges of living on support and what that is. How do we deal with fear, trust, and other people's percept…

Hannah and Colleen bemoan their grey hairs but also wish they'd had some more of them while living in Iraq. They discuss the pros and cons of being younger o…

In this episode of our podcast, Between Iraq and a Hard Place, Hannah and Colleen tell the stories of how they told their parents that they were applying to go…

Hannah and Colleen just got back from a wedding, and it's June! So they chat about their various wedding experiences in Northern Iraq, complete with firewor…

Hannah interviews our director, John, and his wife, Mary, about how they became parents while living in Iraq and what it was like raising their family there.…

For a full transcript of this episode, go to www.ServantGroup.org/be-prepared-how-to-get-ready-for-living-overseas.

Here's a list of videos and links to help…

Hannah and our Director, John, recently took a trip to Iraq to visit our teams there and to meet up with old friends. So we asked Hannah about the food, the …

Part two on re-entry! Did you know it supposedly takes as long as you lived in the foreign culture to readjust back to your home culture? And even then, you …

Re-entry is the evil cousin of culture shock and because it isn't talked about as much, often catches people by surprise. In this episode, Hannah and Colleen…

So now that you know all about what culture shock is (see part 1!) now it's time to learn how we responded to it and what are ways to cope and come through.

I…

Culture shock is a bit of misnomer, but we're jumping in and using it to help everyone understand what they or their friends go through when living in a foreig…