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.
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.
