Last blog message:  June 18, 2012

 In my last message I promised a note to our readers about what the first commencement at AUIS was like.  This message is a fulfillment of that promise. 

 AUIS staged its first ever undergraduate commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 16.  It was held on the plaza outside the main administrative building.  The announced time of starting was 5:30, with an actual planned time of 6:00 p.m. The 30 minute discrepancy between stated and planned time was to accommodate the local habit of showing up late for whatever event is being planned, and the planning worked.  Had we tried to start at 5:30 many people would not have been there.  The other local wisdom is that the more important the person, the later he will arrive, and this too was played out.  No further comment.

 The weather was beastly hot – about 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  By the starting time of 6:00 p.m. it was cooling off a bit and there was a breeze, but it was mostly blowing around hot air.   With a couple of hiccups out of the way we processed into the venue to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance: stage party first, followed by faculty, followed by students.  When the faculty were led to their reserved places, they discovered that a group of faculty from a nearby university were sitting in the AUIS faculty seats.  These guests would not move as, I was told, to do so would be a sign of dishonor. So they stayed in “our” seats and the last six AUIS faculty had to find seats scattered among the other VIPs.  The unfortunate student who had been charged with getting us to the seating area and out of there at the end was completely confused.  He came to me, in the middle of the speeches, to ask what he should do.  We got things worked out.  Then another student usher, charged with responsibility of getting the stage party away from the stage, came to me with a question based on the fact that certain key members of the stage party refused to be in a line of march.  We had worked out many details, but none of us expected this turn of events.  Again, we got it worked out, even as the speeches were being delivered.  At times, we were just making up the rules as we went along, but apparently it did not appear that way to others as I had several people, even those who had attended commencement ceremonies in the States, tell me later that the ceremony went together well.

 I wish I could say the same of the speeches.   Two local dignitaries spoke, and both chose to deliver their speeches in Arabic, Kurdish and English.  While I admire that kind of facility with language, the multiple translations of speeches that would be considered long even when delivered in one language stretched out the length of the program considerably, especially considering the fact that there were also speeches by the president of AUIS, and by the invited commencement speaker from the US.   Four speeches by “adults”.  Ugh.  Whatever happened to the virtue of brevity?  Then there were two shorter speeches by graduates, one by a representative of the MBA class, and one by a representative of the baccalaureate grads.   By far the best speech of the evening was delivered by the undergraduate student named Kurdistan Fatih.   She was prepared and she was passionate about what she said.  With all the speeches, a ceremony that should have lasted no more than one hour, ended up lasting closer to two hours. 

 The highlight of the event was seeing the students receive their diplomas.  They were joyful beyond description.  They seemed to sense the moment:  the first ever AUIS baccalaureate degree recipients. 

After the reception we met the families of two students with whom we have been especially close:   Kurdistan (see above) and Peshawa. 

Kurdy already has a job in the accounting department of a local business.  Peshawa will shortly be leaving for the US to attend Syracuse University on an all expenses paid master’s program.  He comes from a family in which neither his father nor his mother is literate.  What a change in one generation!

 The last of the graduation events was a party for the grads and their family and friends on the night following graduation.  This party was in the form of a traditional Kurdish dance like those we have attended in the past:  they announce a starting time of 6, start showing up at 7 and begin in earnest around 8; start the music, do a lot of dancing, take a break while the food is served, and then continue dancing until midnight.  Carolyn and I lasted until 10 p.m., long enough to celebrate with them and to say our goodbyes.  Some students came attired in their finest Kurdish traditional clothing.  Some of the women, who chose not to dress in Kurdish clothing, wore party dresses that, in their brevity, stood in stark contrast to the idea of the modestly covered female that we associate with areas of the world where Islam is the predominant religion.  What a fascinating culture to live in!  Party photo of the graduating classes of February and June is below.

Many more pictures are available at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/110654129069574667039/AmericanUniversityOfIraqSulaimaniGraduationActivities#

We have three more days here in Sulaimani before we leave early on the morning of June 21.  In this time we will have dinner with some students and with a faculty colleague.  I have cleaned out my desk, turned in my university-issued computer, keys, and ID card, and I have picked up my last paycheck .  How could I have guessed that a commitment to two semesters of teaching  in 2009 would lead to three and then to four and that they would loom larger in my imagination than many of my previous experiences as professor and administrator?  What an experience! 

As always, thanks for reading.

Next to last.....

Next to last blog message from Sulaimani.  June 15, 2012

It has been a little over a month since I posted a message on May 4, 2012.  Not much that was noteworthy occurred, hence no postings. 

This is the day after the last day of the spring term, and all of my grades are turned in.  I felt a great sense of relief when I clicked on the send button to submit my grades to the registrar.  Since my last posting, I have continued to be busy in preparing for my classes in US history and in the history of fine arts.  In general I have found the students more responsive to the contemporary periods than to the earlier periods in each of these courses.  In US history, the post-WWII era is of interest here because the Cold War, the US-Israeli relationship, and the world and US demand for oil have all had a direct effect on them.  This is also the period in the US when we see the culmination of several movements of freedom, especially for Blacks and women.  The role of the fiercely independent US woman runs counter to the tradition of the woman as the one who carries major responsibility for sacrificing self in order to be protector of the family and family honor that is so much a part of life here.  We had several interesting conversations about the respective roles of women here and in the West and of the changes taking place here. 

I have been impressed, as always, with the life stories that students bring to their classes.  In one class I had three young women from a town near to Sulaimani.  As I became acquainted with them, I came to understand that all of them have grown up fatherless, their fathers having been killed in conflict between Kurds and Saddam Hussein.  I was in conversation with one male student and asked him about his father’s name which is a part of the student’s name.  (A quick lesson on names in the Kurdish area:  people typically carry three names, their own given name, their father’s name and their grandfather’s name.  So my name, in this region, would be Carl David Victor.  Carolyn’s name would be Carolyn Glenn Cecil.  [Women always carry a name that unique to women, plus a second and third name that are unique to men.  Women do not change their names on marriage.] Only rarely is there a tribal or place name.  And there is no such thing as a family name, or surname, like Smith, Jones, Caldwell or Falls.  Most names are also nouns or adjectives, such as Jwan = beauty, Jwana = beautiful, Hanar = pomegranate, Dana = intelligence, etc.)  This student’s second name, his father’s name, had quite a noble quality and I asked if his father had lived up to his name.  The student’s response, “I don’t know.  He died when I was 1 year old.  He along with my grandfather and two of my grandfather’s brothers were killed by Saddam.”  Of course, I felt like a fool for probing where I should have known better.  I apologized but he assured me that no apology was necessary as they have come to live with their situation.  

His story and the stories of the three women noted above remind me of the intense respect that these fatherless students have for their mothers as they understand what it must have been like to raise children without the presence of fathers.  The idea of some sort of teenage rebellion against a mother or father is just unheard of in this culture.  Their respect for parents also serves as a painful reminder of a fact of US life, presented in the US history book and discussed in class, about the number of children growing up these days without fathers, not because of war, but because of the casual way that children are conceived and left by their fathers to grow up in a largely matriarchal culture.   Many of my students, both male and female, would prefer to hold on to local traditions about the roles of men and women rather than adopt US models and risk allowing the same destruction of family that they perceive as happening in the West.  It’s hard to present the more subtle aspects of a complex story when dealing with main points. 

In fine arts, in addition to the study of Baroque, Rococo, Classical, Romantic and Modern schools of art,  I asked students to listen to excerpts illustrating the evolution of music in the West from monophonic music of Gregorian chant to the development of polyphony.  We discussed contrapuntal music by listening to and watching Glenn Gould play Bach’s Art of the Fugue, and listened to music of the Classical, Romantic, and Impressionist eras, and to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Steven Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, a piece of late 20^th c. minimalist music.  One student admitted to me that he really did not like Western music because “it all sounds alike.”  What honesty!  Several students have commented to me as we ended the courses that they have learned a lot and enjoyed the classes.  That’s about the best that a teacher can ever expect to hear. 

Two other noteworthy events:    

1.  AUIS is holding its first ever commencement for undergraduate students on Saturday, June 16.  The undergraduates receiving degrees are the first and second cohorts of students who signed on to AUIS in 2007 as English language students, and then began baccalaureate degree work in 2008.  They are brave people, indeed.  All of them are bright; all did well enough on the exit exam from high school to qualify for high placement for free education in local universities, and yet all chose to believe the offer that a brand new university in very modest surroundings could provide more.  Once they gave up the local university option, there was no turning back.  Carolyn and I had a number of the students from the first and second cohorts in our classes in 2009-10, so this is as special a moment for us as it is for them. 

I have put to use my knowledge of planning commencement ceremonies in assisting in the planning of this one.  Anyone familiar with an AU commencement will find similarities between it and what will happen here tomorrow. I borrowed ideas in the creation of the program booklet and in the writing of the script that will be used by the AUIS president and other campus speakers during the ceremony.  I borrowed with the full knowledge of both institutions.  What I was reminded of as we decided on how to do commencement here, is that it’s great to have a tradition of dignified commencements, the various pieces of which are managed by people who have done their parts for a long time.  Here, in contrast, we are just beginning, and making up the rules as we go along.  I am just hoping that it goes smoothly, but I know that at a certain point, I will have to take my place in the line of march and give up on any further effort to make the parts fit together. 

2.  Carolyn has re- joined me here in Sulaimani.  Her arrival just prior to commencement was planned, so she too could participate in this ceremony.  She arrived here in the wee hours of Tuesday, June 12 after spending somewhere in the range of 30 hours in planes and in the departure lounges of airports in Indianapolis, Chicago and Istanbul.  The Chicago to Istanbul leg of the flight was the longest at around 11 hours; the Istanbul airport wait was the longest at just over 7 hours.  There is no easy way to get here.

When she arrived on campus later on Tuesday she met former students and talked with a number of staff people that she had worked with in 2009-10.  The university is still using the Quickbooks accounting system that she helped to bring online here during her year of residence.  As rewarding as this knowledge is, it is more rewarding to know that the people she worked in business office have on their own expanded their knowledge of the use of the software to a larger number of functions. 

On Wednesday evening, we invited all of her former students to come to our apartment for a time to meet and talk with her.  A majority of them came, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy talking with her and with each other.  Virtually all business majors who will graduate on Saturday were in her accounting classes.  To say that I am proud of what she accomplished here is an understatement.  See attached photos. 

We leave here on June 21, go to Istanbul for four days of site-seeing, and then fly on to our home on June 25.  It will be good to be home. 

I will post a last message from Sulaimani next week after commencement so you can get a sense of what this event looks like. 

As always, thanks for reading. 

Fifth Blog.  May 4, 2012.

Friday, May 4, 2012.  I send this message on a clear day that follows a day that was cloudy, then thundery, and then rainy.  It was not pleasant to be outside.  May 3 was a holiday for the university, so I spent the day here at the apartment.  Given the weather, I was grateful not be to trying to travel, but the region seriously needs rain.  So I am glad for those who will benefit from the rain long after I am gone.

In this blog message, I will attempt to give you a sense of some of the changes that I have experienced in my 2 ½ years of being in Sulaimani.  (I know that I have not been here continuously, but you know what I mean:  what changes have I experienced since first seeing this place in September of 2009?)  Coming from a part of the US where growth is slow to non-existent, I find these changes are quite remarkable.  I do not exaggerate when I say that billions of dollars are being invested here in infrastructure and buildings.  In virtually all aspects of life, it seems to me that improvements are everywhere.  This is true except in one area:  there are more cars on the road, thus causing significant traffic jams on the main street through the city and on the ring road around the city (called the 60 Meter Road because it is 60 meters wide).  Truly, traffic is a problem.  Not only is the population growing from within, but also more Arabs from Baghdad are moving north for the greater security and safety of this region.  With more people coming, traffic will only get worse.  The part of the city I live in used to be open countryside.  Now it is full and the expansion to the west continues.
 
But traffic not withstanding, here are some areas of improvement.  I will let words describe the changes in some cases, and I will let photos do it in other cases.  (A reminder:  if you click on a photo you can enlarge it and see much better detail.)  

Before:  the power would go down multiple times every evening.  Lots of people had generators to power their houses or in some cases, there were large generators that provided power to whole neighborhoods.  In our walking about the city, Carolyn and I would frequently pass one or more generators pouring diesel fumes and soot into the atmosphere.  As bad, it was not uncommon that the area around the generator was saturated with diesel fuel that had been allowed to spill.  My first photo is of one such very smoky generator.  Now:  the electrical grid provides power more or less continuously.  I think that power here in my apartment has been down only 3 or 4 times since February.  This seems to be true in lots of the city, as I rarely hear generators in operation any more.   I’m not sure how to insert a picture of the power grid; I just know that it works. 

Before:   many of the median strips on multi-lane roads were empty or they had trash in them.  Now:  this city has cleaned them up, planted literally thousands of trees, and they have installed drip irrigation systems to keep them alive.  The effort has transformed the major highway into the city from the airport.  It looks like a world class highway, with attractive lighting and planted medians.  Likewise, streets in this neighborhood have changed.  Photos 2 and 3 illustrate that change.
  

Before:  it seemed that many of the un-built areas of city were just left to gather trash.  Now, some of them have been turned into small city parks where you can see children playing.  Photos 3 and 4 illustrate one such area that I walk along as I go to the center of the city.  When Carolyn and I walked along the street in ‘09-10, the land was just trashy.  In the fall/winter  of ’10-‘11 it was being graded.  By the spring of ’12, a proper park was there. 

Before:  getting across Salim Street, the major east-west street in the city was a challenge.  There were a couple of places where speed bumps had been installed and it was easier to cross in those areas because cars would have to slow to a near stop at the bumps.  Now:  they have built some very nice elevated pedestrian walkways.  See photo 5.  (If only the escalators worked, though.)  The speed bumps have been removed so traffic moves more efficiently.  To control speed, police are now using radar.  Is this progress? 

Since the fall of 2009 several large new buildings have gone in.  In some cases, these buildings  represent new retail stores and indoor recreation areas for children.  Others include places to sell high end automobiles.  I have no idea what goes on in the office towers.   Someone has money, lots of it.   See photos 6 and 7. 

The apartment complex where I live, called Pac City, is a work in progress. When we lived here in 2009, there were only 5 apartment towers.  Now there are 11 and more are in the process of being put up.  The entry way into the complex was simple:  a two lane road with a small armed guard shack at the top of the hill.  Along the way in, we passed a junky looking dry cleaner and an equally junky small store.  The junky stuff has now all been torn down to make way for an attractive, if somewhat over decorated, double archway, double driveway and enlarged guard house.  See photo 8 for photo of the installation of the paving bricks and 9 and 10 for after-shots of the driveway in.

House under construction:  the next four photos I present to you were taken over the period from ’09-10 to the spring of this year.  Something like this kind of building is taking place in dozens of places in town as people build new houses.  What attracted my eye the first time I saw this house was how the cement contractors had built an elaborate set of molds to pour a single piece circular concrete staircase on the outside of the house. It was just ingenious.  During the construction process, it is almost impossible envision what a house will look like once it is finished, but in this case I could track the progress over a couple of years since I walked by the house on my walks into the center of the city.  The first photo is of the circular stair case after it had been poured but was still being supported by the molds; then the next three show the house to completion.  It is very attractive, much more so than I could have imagined when it first started up.  I can only hope that the occupants are enjoying their new home.  (These slides also show the extent to which buildings are made of poured concrete and concrete blocks; no wood is used in the structure of a house.  I can only imagine what a Sulaimani builder would think of the houses in our area that are made almost entirely of 2 by 4 and 2 by 6 boards.  I suspect they do not have to worry about termites.)  See photos 13, 14, 15, and 16. 

In our first year here, I made a comment in class one time about my frustration over the number of times that power went down the evening before the day of class.  One of the students commented, in a most kindly way, to the effect that electrical power was much better at that time than it had been only a few years before when they had power only 4 to 5 hours per day.  For them, having power for 23 ½ hours per day was just great.  Another student said something like, “you have to understand that we have been through the Anfal campaign (Saddam’s effort to wipe out Kurds), and a civil war.”  It was a humbling moment, as I understood the value judgment I brought to my comment.  I cite this example as I conclude these observations.  I have to be pleased for local people that these material comforts are coming to this region after years of deprivation.  Any deeper philosophical questions about whether people here will be happier when this is done will have to wait until they have enjoyed what we in the US have enjoyed for many years. 

Thanks for reading this longer-than-normal post.  If you have any questions feel free to write to me at carl.caldwell@auis.edu.iq.

April 21, 2012

Fourth Blog Report, Saturday, April 21, 2012

I write this blog message at the close of an absolutely brilliant day here in Sulaimani.  The skies have been cloudless all day long.  The temperature has been in the mid-70s, and there has been a slight breeze throughout the day.  It was a wonderful day to be outside and had my wife and family been here with me, it would have been a perfect day.  

I had an excellent breakfast this morning with a family of one of the AUIS professors who live in the same apartment block that I live in.  She had prepared scrambled eggs with onion and green pepper, and also offered bread, cheese, honey, and a sweet bread the name of which I have forgotten.   He is Turkish, she is Afghan/Lebanese by birth, and they met at the University of South Carolina when he was in school there.  They have two lovely children, a son age six and a daughter age 2 ½ years old.   It seems to me that they represent what Richard Rodriguez was talking about in his book called Brown:  The Last Discovery America,  a most meaningful discussion about how in this new world we need to adjust our language and understanding of race and ethnicity.   It was great to be around children even for a short time, even with the little girl’s runny nose.  They kept apologizing for her, and I kept saying, “It’s O.K.  I miss being around my granddaughters.” 

Following breakfast the father of the family and I took the university minibus to the bazaar, and on the ride we met a fellow teacher at AUIS, a man from Germany who teaches in the MBA program.  The three of us walked the bazaar, looking at rugs, DVDs, and fresh vegetables.  We sat for a time and had rich, sugary Kurdish tea and sweet bread.  Walking back to Pak City from the bazaar, about a one hour walk, we talked about politics, trade, Kurds, Turks and a variety of other subjects.  I found that my having been in Sulaimani longer than either of them allowed me to talk about the changes I have seen since the fall of 2009.  Really, the city has changed in many ways.  I will try to say more in a later blog.  My  interaction here at AUIS with people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences continues to enrich my life. 

The university is now at mid-term.  We have in this spring term seven more weeks of classes plus final exams.  At times, it feels that things are moving quickly; at times, time seems to drag.  My appreciation for and frustration with 19th c. US presidents and politics has grown as I teach US history.  I have only disgust for Andrew Jackson’s caving to the demand of Georgians and South Carolinians to remove the Indians to the so-called Indian Territories.  The Trail of Tears is justly named.  I have renewed appreciation for the difficulties that Abraham Lincoln experienced in trying to keep the Union together.  There’s much as a nation that we can and should be ashamed of and much that we can and should be proud of. 

Since I last wrote, I have gotten, and gotten rid of, a very destructive virus on my computer.  I have had to have the operating system replaced with the help of both the IT staff of the university and one of my former students.  I keep telling my former student that he needs to open up a business here in Sulaimani of repairing computers.  He is quite good, but the problem he faces is that no one is willing to pay for the service.  Once I get iTunes working properly, I will be back to where I was before the virus that I picked up on, of all days, April 1.  Nice April Fool’s joke; stupid me.
 
Yesterday, I paid a driver to take me to the city of Rawanduz, Iraq, a historically important city for Kurds, as it represented the center for Kurdish resistance to both Turkish and British rule in this area.  It lies about 3 hours north of Sulaimani, and near to the border with Iran.  My hope was that when I got to the city there would be a picturesque city center where I could walk around with my camera taking pictures.  The city isn’t very picturesque, at least not the part that I could see, and as far as I could see has no center, but it lies in an area of great natural beauty:   deep gorges, fast moving rivers, broad valleys, snow capped mountains even in late April.  Pictures below.

 

I must close this blog message.  It is now getting into the evening hours of a Saturday, the day before classes resume on Sunday after the weekend break.  I am thinking of all that I must do yet this evening, sort of like what I felt in the US on Sunday evening before the work week resumed on Monday morning.  Teaching two new courses feels a little bit like what I felt in my first year of teaching at Manchester College in 1971-1972:  no time to relax; always getting ready for the next day.  May I remember this feeling the next time I am tempted to take on a long-term employment commitment.

I offer below two pictures of a city park that I can see clearly from my apartment.  The first was taken in February when I first arrived; the second, this afternoon.  You can see the effects of winter rain and warmer temperatures on the grass in the park.  In the first the grass is brown; in the second, quite green.  The mountains around here are like that:  all very green from winter rains.  The trip to Rawanduz was worth it, if for no other reason than seeing the greenery.  By June, things will be brown again.  It’s little wonder that folks in this part of the world relish the spring months.  

If you wonder what it looks like in my den/office here in the apartment, the last pictures may help.

 
As always, thanks for reading.   If you have any questions, feel free to write to me at this address:  carl.caldwell@auis.edu.iq. 




 

Third blog report, March 26, 2012

I write this message from my apartment in Iraq.  To state the obvious:  I have managed to return to Sulaimani uneventfully.  Walking into this apartment felt like being home after being in a hotel in Cairo for a week. While I intended to post more from Cairo, it was just too difficult to try to manage the Arab language version of Blogsite, even though I had more time then than I have now.  If you look closely at the last message, the periods of the sentences at the ends of paragraphs are all in the wrong place.  That’s because I tried to justify the paragraphs to the left side of the page, not the right side as the default was set up for Arabic.  I was unable to put the periods in the right place and  I could not read the tabs at the top of the page.  This is better.   

In this message I will say something about some of the sites I saw in Cairo.  As I mentioned in my last message, I employed a guide who stayed with me throughout the week.  [Note correction from my message of last week:  his name is Mina (pronounced Meena).]  On my first day, we traveled to Saqqara, the site of some of the earliest funerary monuments, called step pyramids, that date back to around 3,000 BCE.  There is an indoor museum containing hundreds of artifacts, but no photography is allowed, so you’ll have to trust me that I saw them.  The outdoor parts do not look like what I, in my ignorance, associated with these monuments.  The scale is much smaller than the huge pyramids at Giza, and what I am told exist at Luxor.  But they are “the first” in many ways:  first use of architectural arches, first use of post and lintel construction, etc.  It was a real learning experience since photos of Saqqara are rarely included in photos of Egyptian art and architecture.   

From there we went to Giza which now sits at the edge of greater Cairo.  At that site are three pyramids, one quite large, and two smaller ones.  Near the smaller pyramids sits the sphinx.  By paying $18.00 beyond the price of entrance to the pyramid complex, you can enter the largest of the pyramids and climb up into the inside of it, as long as you don’t have claustrophobia.  The passage ways are narrow and low in height.  Having spent a fair amount of time climbing around the interiors of large castles in England, I can say that there’s nothing that begins to equal this experience.  You just have to marvel at the ability of humans to engineer something when they put their minds to the task.   

On my second day, Mina and I walked through the Cairo downtown to the National Museum.  If you watched any of the video feeds coming from Egypt during the revolution last year, you would have seen this museum as it sits at the edge of Tahrir Square where the revolution began.  It is a large building built around 1900 of a distinctively salmon-colored stone.  It really stands out from the beige buildings around it.  The museum contains Egyptian artifacts that date from as early as 3,500 BCE to the time of Roman occupation – around 100 CE.  There is so much to see, but the crown jewels of this museum are the artifacts from the tomb of King Tutankhamen.  For many years I had in my library a book on the discovery and opening of the tomb by a British archeologist named Howard Carter.  In spite of the book’s wonderful color photos, they paled by comparison to the real things.  The golden mask of King Tut is truly guarded like the crown jewels in the Tower of London.  But the other materials including chariots, sarcophagi, and items from everyday life made the trip truly worthwhile.  Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the museum, so you will just have to come here some time to see it.   

On my third and subsequent days in Cairo, I asked Mina to take me to the most important sites for the early Christian and Islamic periods.  These included everything from the Coptic Church of the Virgin Mary, also called the Hanging Church because it is suspended over two foundations dating to Roman times, to the 19^th c. mosque and mausoleum for Muhammad Ali, the first modern leader in Egypt who broke from Ottoman rule and established a line of rulers that ended with King Faruk in the 1950s.  In between these two buildings chronologically were a number of mosques and schools (madrasas) that figure prominently in Egyptian and Islamic history.  Along the way on one of the days, we went to one of the first streets built in Cairo when it was established in the 10^th c.  Called al Mu’izz Street, it is in a larger shopping precinct called Khan al-Khalili, one of the largest bazaars in the Middle East.  In Khan al-Khalili is a famous tea shop on Al-Fishawy Street.  In this shop, the Nobel laureate winning Egyptian writer named Naguib Mahfouz sat, drank tea and wrote about life in old Cairo.  For many years I required students in my Middle East history course to purchase and read one of Mahfouz’s novels called Midaq Alley, so it was of great significance to me to be able to sit in the room where he wrote.  Unfortunately the shop owners of Khan al-Khalili are so in-your-face about trying to get you into their shops to buy things, it is almost impossible to stroll through the narrow streets and enjoying just looking at all of the products for sale.  They don’t easily take no for an answer. 

Cairo is a crowded, at times dusty, at times trashy, at all times noisy, but endearing city.  The spread of wealth from very, very poor to very rich is quite evident.  On one of my several unguided walks, I met a fellow who had lived for many years in New York until the events of 9/11 killed his business.  He moved back to Cairo to be close to his family.  He has great admiration for Egyptian people, who, as he says, can get by on next to nothing.  After observing life in Cairo, I can understand his admiration. 

 Photos attached this time:  1, the step pyramid at Saqqara; 2, the large pyramid at Giza; 3, the Sphinx;  4, the National Museum;  5, the Hanging Church; 6, the Nilometer, a device used to measure theheight of the Nile when it flooded;  7, the mosque of Al-Hakkim;  8, the mosque of Ibn Tulun; 9, the madrasa of Barquq; 10, mosque of Sultan Qalawun; 11, the Muhammad Ali mosque; 12, night scene on al-Mu’izz Street; 13, the tea shop on El Fishawy.  (If you click on a photograph it will be enlarged for better detail.) 

I deliberately choose to write less than more about my travels, as not everyone wants to read a travelogue.  If you have questions, please feel free to respond and I will address questions.  As always, thanks for reading. 

Second Blog Message.  March 18, 2012

As I write this second message I am sitting in the dining room of the Windsor Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.  This hotel was built in the 1890s, and was used by the British staff who were stationed in Cairo.  You can almost imagine these fellows sitting around in the evening drinking gin and tonic and saying “Good job, old chap…” and things like that,  that Monty Python’s Flying Circus has so much fun parodying.  I arrived on March 16, and assuming that Iraqi Airways continues to operate I will leave on the morning of the 23^rd.  For a person who needs a hotel that new and nicely finished in all of the corners, this would probably not work.  It’s just too old for that.  But if a person can appreciate how well it functions in the 21^st. century, then it’s a great place.  The bathroom has recently been refurbished with new tile, toilet, and lavatory, and is really nice.  The knotty pine floor looks original, but is clean and wonderfully buffed from years of use.  The ceiling is probably 15 feet from the floor.  I could shoot basketballs in there if there were a hoop on the wall.  Overlooking the streets below is a small balcony accessed through two narrow wooden doors that are almost as tall as the room.  The sheets are clean, and the bed comfortable.  The hotel has an elevator that looks to be original.  No joke.  A 100+ year old elevator.  It belongs in an elevator museum.  The only problem I have with the room itself is that the lighting is poor.  The only other problem has nothing to do with the room, but rather with the fact that it is near a mosque on which a very loud loudspeaker is mounted. The muzzein’s call to prayer, offered five times per day, is amplified well;  I never have to wonder when, by Muslim tradition, it’s time to pray.  Overall, the place has a lot of charm.  I have stayed in far worse motels in the US that are 1/10^th the age of this place. 

I have attached below a few photos of the hotel. 

 

The only problem for the hotel is that there so few of us tourists staying here or elsewhere in Egypt.   I am dismayed at the effect of the revolution of last year on the tourist enterprise here in Egypt.  This morning, I sat alone in a breakfast room that could seat 30 or 40 people.  I came into the dining room at 8 a.m., when one other person was just finishing.  In the almost one hour that I sat there, no one else came in. This evening, as I write this message, I have been in the dining room lounge since 5:00 p.m. , taking advantage of the free internet service.  As I write, it’s now 8:30 p.m.  and during this time only two other patrons have come in to a large room which by now, should be full of patrons having a drink and ordering supper.  The fellow tending the bar has been at his business for 20 years, and he seems almost philosophic about the situation.  He says things have turned around in the past and he is hoping they will in the future.  I think I am only one of maybe three occupants in the hotel with 40 rooms. 

For the past two days, I have contracted with a guide, a young man named Ahmeen who does guiding for a living.  He has a degree from university in historic guiding.  He knows Egyptian history thoroughly, and can even read hieroglyphs.  His pay is about $40 per day for an eight hour day.  I paid a total of $60 for a driver and guide yesterday, all day and I was alone in the van.  I had my own personal guide, in essence.  And, until being asked to help me yesterday, he had no business at all for this week or last week.  At the first pyramid complex we went to, at Saqqara, there was one other tour company minibus in the parking lot built to hold many more buses and cars.  Today, Ahmeen and I walked to the large National Museum by the Nile River.  This place is big – think British Museum size.  Again, the number in attendance was small compared to what it could receive. 

Everyone I talk to says something to the effect, "go home and tell people it's safe to travel in Egypt."  The warnings in the US and elsewhere are apparently keeping people away, but for the life of me, I can't see the problem.   I know that I can be naive and thus might miss the warning signs, but I don't see the problem.  There were hundreds of US and European tourists in the National Museum (a place big enough to hold thousands) and they went about without apparent concern.  In front, there were tour buses unloading dozens of oriental tourists (Korean?  Chinese?   I can't tell the difference).  Somehow there is a disconnect between what their governments have been telling them and what the US and Australian governments are telling their citizens.   I walked to and from the museum through the busy streets of downtown Cairo, and hardly drew a glance from people.   You can tell that the government must be somewhat on edge when you see an armored personnel carrier parked prominently in a busy square, but other than that, nothing.  Of course, I still have more four more days here.  Perhaps I will change my attitude later.  Hopefully, I won’t.    

In my next message I’ll say more about what I have been seeing, but I’ll close for now. I have no idea how this will look. The directions and tabs are all in Arabic, and I am guessing.   Thanks for reading. 

First message, March 10, 2012

March 10, 2012.  First blog message.  Third time in Sulaimani, Iraq.  Yes, I came back to The American University of Iraq Sulaimani to teach.  I am here this time only because of the misfortune of a friend named Randall who was supposed to teach here this spring term.   About three weeks before the beginning of the term on February 26, he was told by his doctor that he needed to stay home and to have surgery to correct problems in his lower back.  So he resigned, and they invited me to come in his place.  I come with Carolyn’s understanding but not necessarily with her desire to see me out of the house.  One of these days, I will need to figure out what retirement is supposed to be about.  In the mean time, I am back here and, for the most part, enjoying my work.  I wish Randall and his surgeons every success in his making a full recovery. 

This term started on February 26 and will end on June 13.  I am teaching three sections of US history and one section of the history of fine arts.  The books for both courses were chosen by others and I am adapting to them, once again.  The same thing, that is using books chosen by others, happened in my first and third terms here.  Only once have I been in a position to choose the books I want to use in class.  Perhaps if I weren’t always pinch-hitting for others I could choose my books as other faculty do.  But that would require long-term commitment, something I have not been very good at. 

We finished the second week of courses yesterday and have one more week of classes before a week off for Nawroz, the major Kurdish festival that centers around the coming of spring equinox on March 21.  Once we return to classes on March 25, it’s a long straight march to mid-June with no more breaks except for Iraqi Labor Day on May 1.  Ideally, it would be good to have the week of spring break in the middle of the term, but that seems not to be possible here with the late start date of the beginning of the academic year in October.  It’s a bit early to know fully what my classes will be like.  I can see that I have some bright students who are able to summarize and discuss long text passages.  Others are working hard at copying into their notebooks sentences they barely understand.  

I will not be staying in town for the week of the Nawroz break as I will be traveling to Cairo, Egypt to do the tourist thing.  I have never been to Cairo and very much want to see what I can see in one week.  I am only 2 ½ hours from Cairo by air and do not know if I will ever be back in this part of the world again. Compared to the US and Europe, the relatively short flight is expensive -- $610 round trip – but the room in Cairo is cheap – less than $50 per night, including breakfast.   In Cairo, I know that I will be going to the Islamic quarter that contains some very historic mosques and markets.  (Cairo was one of the first cities established by the Muslims during their expansion in the 7^th century, so is quite historic in that regard.)  I expect also to go to the big National Museum that contains so many artifacts from pharonic Egypt, e.g., artifacts from King Tut’s tomb, lots of mummies, and more; and I hope to get out to some of the big pyramids near Cairo.  Beyond that I really haven’t planned a lot.  I have promised myself and my wife that I will avoid getting anywhere near political demonstrations.  Otherwise, I have been assured, the city is open and welcoming to tourists. 

My living arrangements this year are the same as last year.  I live in a 12 story apartment building that is owned by the university.  It is one of many similar apartment towers all built in close proximity to each other, and together they comprise what is called Pak City.  We AUIS faculty and staff who live here are transported by university buses that leave every thirty minutes in the morning, beginning at 7:00 a.m. to take us to the university.  Then in the afternoon, there are buses that bring us from the university back to Pak City.  It is conveniently located for stores and restaurants. 

I have attached a few photos to illustrate what Pak City looks like, what my living arrangements are like, and what I see from my balcony.  I will in future blogs report on the new campus of AUIS.  It is quite something to see and to work in. First photo is exterior of building I live in; second photo is of kitchen; third photo is of desk and study; fourth photo is of other towers in Pak City complex; fifth is of the large mountain to southwest of Sulaimani that dominates skyline.