Kurdish National Day - New Year Celebrations

We had the most interesting day yesterday - we were invited to the Kurdish National Day. The Kurds don't actually have a recognised homeland - they were orginally part of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. You can read about Kurdistan here.
A social studies teacher at one of the schools I go to, who is Kurdish, invited the Cognition team that work at that school along for the day. The event was held in a 'zoo park' which actually was a very sad place - the animals were being kept in terrible small cages and the zoo itself was in disrepair. The park area was a large grassed area with trees for much needed shade.
They played music and we all eventually joined in dancing - Brian even got up and danced! There must have been over 500 people there - mainly men. They come to Doha without thier wives to earn the money. There were other nationalities there as well but we were the only westerners. We felt so wamrly welcomed that Joy, got up on stage and sang Pokarekareana. We joined her in song! They loved it.