First day back at school

Actually, the government apparently declared the Eid holiday would extend for a few more days... meaning that today was "officially" (?) a holiday... but not for us at the institution. I met my first class of students who looked stunned as I explained to them that I would be teaching not English, but modern literature (or were they just confused by my rambling?)

Anyway, I find the above cartoon funny not only because I am starting my year off with Children's Lit (Lewis Carroll), but because it reflects some of the atmosphere at work. Every year a lot of policies change and students, not really being familiar with appropriate means to voice concerns, picket or otherwise create chaos over issues both big (and possibly deserving) and small... VERY small. This year, they have been told they MUST FOLLOW POLICY... Let's not forget that it seems a distinct possibility that some of us might actually have been hired to be some of seven maids with seven mops to clear the quantities of sand.

sex segregation

It is strange how things which might ordinarily appear normal to me in Canada have become something to write about here in Hawler. I took this photo in our school parking lot as I was struck by both the casual attitudes and attires of both students.

Just a few days ago, I was chatting with chatting one of the 2 new sociology professors at our university cafeteria and he commented on how strange he found it that the male and female students don't seem to really mix. This struck me as quite odd as I now find it such a relief to come to the university cafeteria because there are certain students who do not feel obliged to sit with only the same sex at a table. This togetherness has now become the welcomed exception rather than the norm that I expect outside of the campus... although perhaps some of the 'mixing' is due to the fact that some of those comfortable enough to sit with the opposite sex have lived abroad.

Brokeback...

Kurdistan? I originally wanted to label this post Kurdish Cowboys when I realized that only one of the handsome guys in this line-up is Kurdish; there is also an Arab and a Turcoman cowboy! It is simple things that would be so ordinary back home, like the friendship between guys of different ethnicities, that make me feel more hopeful/less cynical regarding the future of this institution and the region.... especially as the students here are cherry-picked to eventually take their places as ministers, policy-makers and other governmental big wigs.

These three were in my office two days ago to discuss/hand-in final research projects. I hope the cowboy hats (believe it or not, I have heard it is a burgeoning fashion here) are NOT indicative of sentiments that favor cowboy diplomacy as a method of conflict resolution. I know that at least one of these guys is a risk-taker, but I am hoping none of their essays demonstrate the overly-simple, dichotomous world view favored by other cowboys active in the political arena here...

with students...

...at the university...
Tiziana (in red shirt) enjoyed meeting the students and engaging them on topics including Kurdish independence, their trust of the media and other primarily political topics.

Beer with Bahman Gohbadi

Photo by Corinne

On Wednesday last week, Bahman Ghobadi appeared in the auditorium of our university to show both a clip showing the making of his film Half Moon and the film itself. In between the two he talked about the film. The portion of the program preceding the film, which is not available yet in Kurdistan (only a lousy pirated copy of Turtles Can Fly can be purchased in the bazaar), took about one and a half hours during which hardly a word of English was spoken. Holding this event in Kurdistan in Kurdish, where the speaking of Kurdish is NOT forbidden, is clearly an event to be celebrated! However, there were Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arabs (and Kurds returning for Arabic-speaking regions) and a whole host of foreigners, almost none of whom speak Kurdish fluently.... and barely a word of English was spoken. Again, you may wonder why this is upsetting? The university where the event was held is an ENGLISH-medium university... and hence all those non-Kurdish-speaking people in the audience (and dare I say, those most familiar with Bahman Ghobadi's work?) were denied from hearing his message.

I asked one of the students sitting near me, a lovely girl (but one whose whisper is louder than the microphone-amplified voices of those speaking on the stage), to translate the first of the audience questions. The question was, "Why are all your films shot in Iran and not Dohuk or Sulemania?" I wanted to die. What a waste of time. The one film which is available here, Turtles Can Fly, is entirely filmed in and near Hawler - which (as we know) is NOT in Iran. During all of this, a member of the student council, and one with excellent English, sat smugly on stage... doing nothing but arrange his Kurdish clothes and smile at the TV cameras. I questioned him afterwards as to why he made no real effort to translate, but he merely said, "What? Did you expect me to translate into 4 languages? Everyone here speaks Kurdish." Although the languages of the students at the university indeed do total 4 or more languages, the unifying one is English. If not, why would they elect to come to an English-medium university? Our nationalistic friend who likely should be studying at a Kurdish-medium university (what does one so total inward-looking a person need with a degree accredited from the outside anyway?) further added, "Anyway, Bahman Ghobadi doesn't speak English and there was no time for translation."

Well, my anger at this has now dissipated as I received my chance to hear Bahman Ghobadi speak after all. I ran into him at the Deutscher Hof in Ainkawa this past Wednesday night (after a full week of ranting). He was accompanied by a female Kurdish singer from Turkey, a Kurdish director from Kurdistan (Iraqi) and a man who produced and distributes some of Hiner Saleem's movies- movies which he will try to bring me this June when he returns to Kurdistan. Bahman Ghobadi was surprisingly friendly and down-to-earth and best of all, we were able to chat without the aid of a translator since he spoke marvelous English!

Please watch for follow-ups to this story as we exchanged email addresses and I am hoping for answers to some of the questions I wish were asked at the filming at the University.

Midnight Call to Protest

Early this month in a familiar institution, something happened which was quite extraordinary. A particular event was to happen that had been scheduled since mid-way through last year. However, the night before- or rather in the wee hours the morning of- people were called up and told that the event would not be happening. The reason for calling off this event (without notifying the event organizers) was that the participants were being called to take action against something not related to the event itself.

After the fact, it was discovered that those called to take action did not have the opportunity to discuss this demonstration or decide whether it was in their best interests... In fact, it seemed to be entirely orchestrated by a body outside the group that was organizing itself to take action. Politics here confuse me.

Welcome New Lovely Geese?

ON the first few days of the University, a few of the staff started to notice signs posted everywhere. "WELCOME NEW LOVELY GEESE!" they shouted in capital letters. I wondered if this was a prank by one of the staff members and how the students would react to being called geese.
Today (October 29) I discovered that I was wrong and am returning to edit and post. It seems this is a sort of local joke. Students in upper years call the first year students geese as they are supposedly equally clueless about university life. One new student said that this makes some of the first year students shy, but judging from my class, clearly not all of them!

Turkish School No. 2

So there are some problems with switching schools... for example, paying to learn the same thing twice as there is bound to be some overlap. In this case, perhaps the repetition is exactly what was needed. My first program was only 2 weeks long and then (as mentioned) many of my classmates had to leave. In truth, although introduced to lots of patterns, I think I could only grasp the concepts, but not apply them at all. So repeating was NOT a problem. As an added bonus, the new school is less than a 10 minute walk from my hotel. Anyway, although I still don't know most of my classmates (I went from a class size of 5 to one of about 15), I have made some friends here too. Yesterday a few of us met up twice at the same restaurant to chat. Tiziana (I figure it is OK to use her real name since she is a public figure on Sky TV Italia anyway) has requested thatI stay longer. I wish I could.

The last 2 weeks in İstanbul

This post is to let all of you know that I am still in İstanbul, but just not posting as I have been busy, busy, BUSY! Basically I came here thinking I would be able to enjoy city life and do everything I can't do in Hawler: shop, eat seafood (and maybe even bacon!- Oh the horror...), go to the gym, dance salsa, read books in cafes, etc. Well, to be honest, I have done NO reading so far as there just hasn't been time. After saying goodbye to W (who usually posts comments on this blog from Tokyo), the first two weeks were taken up with language classes and going ut with my classmates (especially the last week). After the dinner in Beyoğlu (last post), we went out a few more times: I visited Mei Mei at her apart-hotel for watermelon and Chinese tea, and went to Topkapi Palace and dinner in an Indian restaurant in Sultan Ahmet, Polonozköy (Little Poland), a flashy nightclub (Reina) near Ortaköy...

To be even more honest, I also didn't read my Turkish textbook and hence haven't really learned to say much although I have memorized a list of adjectives and can conjugate verbs into the simple present. Since classes ended, there hasn't been too much motivation to review the lessons and try them out. The weekend after classes, Mu (who has been working in İzmir) came to visit, then I have been dividing my time between sightseeing with Trish (also in the last post), going to the gym and atternding salsa classes (I joined a local salsa school in Taksim) so that I could meet local people and practice Turkish (ha ha)... but all we do is dance and use a weird kind of broken English/Turkish baby language. But I am going away with them this weekend, so I will let you know how that goes! Stay tuned for the pictures from the last 2 weeks.

Turkish School

And I thought I was going to come and coast through a couple of easy weeks of Introductory Turkish... just for fun. Ha ha ha! Classes are taught Audio-lingual style, military pace. There are only 5 of us in the class; Peter (a Polish American - not named Peter, but as I called him Peter for the first 3 days of class, leet me continue), Matt (American), "Warrior Princess" from Russia, "Hans" a music teacher intern from Germany and me. The teacher gives us LONG lists of words which we take turns reading and conjugating and then she drills us. The next day we are tested on this. Even more amazing is that we all seem to study at the same pace! Then, the night we went drinking together, I found out why!

One evening after class, we all decided to head off to Balik (fish) Pazari off of Istiklal Caddesi (the 2nd time in these side streets) for a mezze and fish dinner (and raki)... and conversation in a multitude of languages - not a single person in the group was limited to one! In this first picture, you can see Peter (far left) telling a story not in English, Polish or Turkish, but in cartoon-like Spanish to Ella from Peru and Echo (half Thai, half Turkish). Trish (Dutch) lights a cigarette and listens.
The next picture is a quieter one. Y-chan and I smile for Meimei who has been helping us demonstrate the differences between Korean, Japanese and Chinese languages. And the next picture is Meimei being "picked up"? by Peter who hasn't understood a word of the German she was chatting with Matt in! And this is Matt and Trish. Trish is quiet, but not too quiet, she has promised to come along to a salsa club with me and a few others, and a few of us have promised to accompany Peter on a foray into the outskirts of Istanbul to find the Polish community.This last picture is a shot of Echo with all the women. After this picture, we headed off to another little alleyway to drink more raki. I have no idea where or why, but we al had heaps of fun and another such night is planned soon. Tomorrow night I hope to meet Meimei and Warrior Princess...

Detained...

I am afraid that MY version of today's story is not the most interesting angle (not being the detainee), but I shall share it nonetheless. B and I arrived back at the gates to Naz City early today as it was the last day of work... and as we were getting out of the taxi, the security guard rushed up to us and asked if we spoke Kurdish, Kurdi dazani? I replied that we didn't, but he continued talking rapidly anyway. All I was able to catch were the odd words: mamosta (teacher), Sallahadin (name of an area), asaish (police station) being the main ones.... oh yes, and the name of our University. We explained that we didn't teach at Sallahadin and went back to our block where we ran into Tf. After hearing our story, he told us that at 3:40-something AM, he had missed a phone call from another teacher with whom we had all been out at the Edge with earlier in the evening... and whom none of us had seen since the time when we left the bar.

2+2=___.

Anyway, we all went back to the front gate and had the guard talk to a Kurdish university administrator over my mobile. After hanging up, he apologized and attempted explaining the situation again. This time, armed with new information and assisted by the guard's emphatic guesturing, we were able to understand that the teacher had come back late. And rather than walk around the huge complex to the entrance, he climbed over the wall, was seized by guards and taken to the Police Station. The police took away all his things (including his phone) and so he sat there from 3:40-something AM until approximately 2:00 PM today when admin went to rescue him. I guess it is good to know that security is stricter with people climbing into the complex than people climbing from apartment to apartment over balconies (Scroll down to July 13th).

High School in Kurdistan

What were your experiences of high school? Maybe, like me, your experiences of high school are from both sides - as student and teacher... and maybe neither experience was particularly brilliant. Although I rather enjoyed teaching high school in Japan and Korea, it's hard to imagine teaching high school here.

Like NE Asia, the learning is teacher-centered and students memorize everything from their textbooks (which are left over from the 70s - This is NOT an exaggeration). There is no library, there are no supplemetary materials, no photocopiers for teachers, no... Well, I think you get the point. The building itself it old, run down, decorated with graffitti, the halls and calssrooms lined with trash. But on a more positive note, the classrooms were unexpectedly energetic! Every time the teacher asked (or didn't ask) a question, the students hands all shot up and they squirmed in their seats anxious for a nod from the teacher - an invitation to stand up and speak. Soemtimes if the answer was incorrect, the teacher would nod at another student and they would start speaking overtop of the first one. All in all, it was quite intersting to watch. I viewed two lessons; English and Arabic before a bell rang signalling the end of school - or at least the first school. All the girls (schools are segregated) packed up and filed out of the school and the school's office was closed and locked. Then the office across the hall was opened and the boys filed in. The out-of-focus picture below is from the girl's school.

The school was in Sallahadin. The picture below this are all of the area:

Khanzad...

Sallahadin...

My host K and I.

Ala: difficulties of Western thought

Being smart isn't always enough, and being outspoken may be too much. Getting accepted into a UK university wasn't so hard for Ala. Although purportedly not truly understanding what IELTS was all about, she traveled to Jordan to sit the test as there is no IELTS center in Iraq. She received a 6 point average. This followed a 98% score on her final English exam in high school. Ala was noticeably proud of her acheivement, but clearly felt the need to explain the sting she felt at not being able to gain any recognition in her hometown of Kirkuk. Although top of her class, awards are not given to Kurdish students, especially ones whose fathers have been executed by the Iraqi government.

Now as an assistant lecturer in political science at Sulemaniyah University, Aya still hasn't managed to find acceptance or satisfaction. She descibes education there as a continuation of the Baathist rote-learning received in school. And for those who don't excell at recitation but still wish to pass, money or letters from high-ranking government officials are given to professors. She feels isolated on campus from all but a couple of American professors who encourage her although others have suggested that ideas from abroad are not applicable in the Middle East.

As for me, I am curious what those Western ideas were, but she says she thinks the University of Kurdistan offers a way forward; awarding for merit, critical thinking and problem solving. I hope this is true, but so far the methods for planning and developing this huge project are far from Western.