A village in the Iraqi desert 1979 or thereabouts and when I lived in a mud brick house and there was a blood feud.

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I have lived in a house made of mud. I really have and it was in the desert with views of the Iranian mountains. The village of Keshkuul no longer exists as the area became a dam and I was there on an Oarchaelogical dig to save anything from 4,000 BC that could be saved. I drew pots. The Jebel Hamrin was desert and the closest village was Kirkuk. A mud brick house can have mud brick shelves. Most villagers aimed to earn enough for a tape recorder but one house had a lone T.V ariel. Half the village was empty. Someone had killed someone and half the villagers had moved out and build another Keshuul nearby. Only when crops came, they needed each other. Otherwise two men from different sides of the argument could bring the whole dig to a standstill by refusing to work with each other. The murderer was in prison. You could not walk anywhere for dogs following you and it wasn't done for a woman to walk or even visit alone. Our friends were villagers. But the dig had a "party representative" with us. He was deaf so we could have plotted Saddam Husseins downfall under his nose. Adnan and Sela were two boys who became our special friends and on the last day Sela told us he was the village party representative. I spun wool and made him a tickly scarf and Adnan told me his sister (who was bright,) was a woman so she could not play draughts. He said she would not understand. She gave me a pink dress with sparkly braid. I wore it in the ex embassy house in Baghdad on Christmas day. We spent as much time there as in the mud brick house, waiting for I never knew quite what. One day we sang at Sela's house and he was worried the party rep from Baghdad would find out. We had to keep it a secret. We lived on chicken and rice and beans and our shower was primitive and the toilet a hole in the ground. I wish I could remember how to draw pots. ? The Jackals,or was it hyeneas? in the desert never got me but Adnan and Sela joked they would. In the desert it can snow. I know. I have seen it.