Marhaba!

(Welcome!) Lebanon just may be the best place on God's green Earth. Real update later- gotta go enjoy what little precious time I have in this amazing amazing country.

The Traveling Reds

(Is that the opposite of the traveling blues?)

I'm going to Lebanon tonight! Then Egypt in 5 days! Then Jordan! Then back to Iraq! OH MY! I needs must packeth! OH MY OH MY!

FREE AT LAST! Balloons, Kindergarten Hugs & the Element of Surprise

NO KIDS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. YOWWWWWW!

As an end-of-term surprise, I gave pink and purple metallic balloons and lindor chocolate truffles to all my kids. You should have seen them tossing the balloons around (and hitting each other with it) and laughing and giggling and having a grand old time. I've never seen them so happy. They grew even more excited when I showed them how they could draw stuff on them, like a small heart, and watch as it grows bigger as you blow the balloon up. Then they all baa-ed and begged for drawings on their balloons.

• I often see my KG'ers as sheep or puppies whenever they come at me en masse. It's quite unnerving to have 27 kids coming at you begging for things and crying out your name, “Miss Angie, Miss Angie!” Baaa, baaa! Oh my god,...I'm not a teacher, I'm a shepherd!

Little Hoz attacked me with the most exuberant hug while I sat around drawing on balloons. For such a little person, he gives the warmest, cuddliest hugs. That is the best thing about teaching kindergarten. Young kids aren't the least bit bashful about showing their love for you. Not being the overly huggy type, I recall my first kindergarten hugs as a truly novel experience that made my insides go 'woah!' A Kindergarten Hug is a real treasure that you won't find in the richest of treasure chests. 

• What's better than a hug from a 5-year-old? A hug from a warm 5-year-old on a cold winter's day, when you are so busy teaching, that you don't even realize you are cold until he wraps his little arms around your legs and you feel your freezing body warming up as if you were standing by a fire. Those warm hugs are much appreciated on a cold winter's day.
  

Last night we had a Christmas dinner at the “Balcony Bar” (just one of our balconies that's usually open for drinks and chats), and boy was the food amazing! My cornbread turned out even better this time, though different. This time, I topped it off with a layer of sour cream/chedder cheese/hot dog/sauteed onions/bread crumbs mix, mmm! There was a nice medium-sized tree beautifully decorated, with Secret Santa presents underneath, and we boisterously broke out into Christmas tunes, singing two different versions of “Away in a manger” at the same time. 

• Isn't it strange that the British have a different version? Same words, totally different tune.

And considering that there is nothing of value to buy around these parts, we all got pretty cool nifty gifts from our secret santas- a barking mug, an etch-n-sketch, and me, quarky costume rings that I wore to school the very next day. I love Secret Santas. Presents from family and friends, you expect, but with Secret Santas, of course, you don't know who the gift is from until they write it on the etch-n-sketch, hold it up, and wait 10 minutes for you to notice it and be utterly surprised. You should have seen my face. They actually caught it on camera. Really, you can't beat the element of surprise.

Baaaa!

Evil Shahan lurks past the camera

Sully Trip Part 2: Man on the Moon

On the way back to Erbil the following day, the passengers of the bus are a lot more subdued. It is the end of a journey, and so many are tired and fall asleep, and the few who stay awake stare, mesmerized, out the window as the enormous slabs and dimpled protrusions of the Earth roll by like infinite waves, baked solid and brown under the sun. Sometimes, small villages crop up, their brown shanties and shacks blending chameleon-like into the hills. Sometimes a cemetery crops up (I counted around a dozen), though none as colorful as the one in Sully; on the contrary, they, like the shanties and shacks, are of the simplest earth-tone, and seem almost a natural outcrop of the landscape. 


When we see people at all, they are lone men wearing the potato sack outfit and holding tesbieh (prayer) beads, which they carry around like a third arm around these parts. They look to me like men on the moon, sitting alone atop the barren brown mountains and not giving a shit, as if the only time he gives a shit, it becomes a part of the earth, and then he goes back to herding his sheep, or watching the clouds and toying with his tesbieh beads until the sun goes down. 

Sometimes, miles of mountain would pass with no sign of human life, and then at the very top of the next approaching peak, would lay a stacked pile of gray stones, and then you would know that a human had been there. Perhaps hundreds or thousands of years ago, or perhaps just last year- who knew when? In this part of the good Earth, such a time range was entirely reasonable. One could only know for sure that a human had wandered through that space at some point in time, and he had made his mark, simple, but telling.

Sully Trip in Pictures

Heading South

The beginnings of the great outdoor market of Sulaimaniyah

They hold hands in Sully

Dream City Amusement Park, Sulaimaniyah

Early morning walk: A construction worker sunrise

Construction worker stands

Bookseller

Tree Trash

Humble dwellings behind the busy bazaar; broken doors and satellite dishes

A woman rushes home in the early morn

Heart-flowers

Shadows of me, the birds, and the bread peddler

Munira

...and her daughter

Generous souls...They opened up their jewelry box and said, "Take whatever you like"

Munira and her daughters on their rooftop; the one in red likes Talabani, the one in orange likes Barzani, but they all LOVE the Korean drama Sad Love Story

Getting ready for school

We ate breakfast together: scrambled eggs, nan, and tea

Their grandmother had beautiful light blue eyes

Sully Trip Part 1: the Living & the Dead

Road trips never fail to bring out the finer facets of our selves that we often miss under the cloak of privacy. Whether that trip lasts two weeks, less than a week, or even a mere overnighter like the trip to Sulaimaniyah that I just returned from this late afternoon, you end up spending an abnormal portion of your time with the same people with little space or time to call your own. 


In that short span of time, you have a constant flow of interaction with them, so that they become like mirrors for your own soul. After all, what are we defined by, other than by our own actions and our reactions to other people's actions? For instance, if someone is being loud on the bus, do you react by ignoring them and slipping on a pair of headphones, or do you get so angry that you very nearly punch them in the balls (or throw them into the Dokan river if you happen to be around that area), or do you find the loudness simultaneously comical and appropriate for a road trip, or do you join in on the loud reveling? Believe me, we had all of the above reactions on the bus trip to Sully, a major Kurdish city to the southeast of Erbil.

This particular trip was a school-organized event, and nearly all the teachers that lived on campus decided to go. 19 teachers stuck in a bus for 4 hours- I don't know about the others, but I found the prospect exciting. At the very least it would be an interesting 4 hours on the road. Road trips are one of my favorite forms of travel. The excitement of loading onto the bus with everyone and knowing that we're going on the open road, settling into the cozy spot that will be yours for the rest of the trip, the random singing and chanting that breaks out along the way, the comfy silence that settles in as your travelmates drop off to sleep one by one, and staring for hours out the window and losing oneself in the vast landscape that is speeding by at god knows what speed. 


Usually I love just staring out the window for hours, but on the way to Sully, I was sandwiched between two of the Lebanese teachers, and so instead I ended up learning a good number of Arabic phrases that may or may not be safe to say at the airport. 

“It means 'how are you',” claimed the Mouth, with what little innocence he could muster. “Swear to god!” he added as I eyed him suspiciously. Of course, what it really meant was “I have a bomb”. But don't worry. By now, I've learned which of the Lebos I can trust, and which are thieves and liars. They even taught me how to say “thief” and “liar” in Arabic, which could come quite in handy in Egypt. (”50000 egyptian pounds for this? You little thief!”). 

...The 4 hours passed quickly enough. Every once in a while, I caught a glimpse through the khaki curtains of the enormous, endless chain of brown mountains that define the landscape of Kurdistan. Sometimes they were like jagged cliffs; every once in a while, the soil turned an iron-red; and at one point (right before the series of hairpin turns I think), we saw real snow covering the tops, where there had been no snow the last time we went to Sully. But mostly, the mountains were coffee-colored, smooth, and dimpled and carried on for miles and miles and...


We made a stop at Dokan River- one of the few rivers that traverse this dry, mountain-desert region-, where we chucked rocks big and small into the skimpy waters, and breathed in the unexpected smell of seawater. I was amazed when I realized how much I missed the water- standing by it, smelling it, hearing it rushing and trickling by. Like classical music and bananas, water was another thing that I experienced anew after months of its absence from my life here in Iraq. Honestly, the things we take for granted...

We managed to reach the hotel without anyone being drowned or thrown off a cliff or kicked in the balls, tossed our bags into our rather nice hotel rooms (with actual toilets!!!), and split off to go exploring. It was early afternoon, around 1 or 2 pm. I taxied it with a couple others to the bazaar but we got separated quite early on, and I ended up walking alone through the bazaar's main street with no real destination or agenda in mind besides purposefully getting lost. I've discovered through my previous travels that this is the most fun way of exploring unknown lands. Really, just chuck the guide book into the hotel room along with the bags, pick a general direction, and start walking. You'll find yourself getting immersed and absorbing, rather than “touring” and maintaining that camera lens-separation between you and the land and locals. Oh my god, I sound like a freakin' guide book! Have mercy...

Only half of the shops in the open-air market were open because this was a holiday week, but it was a beautiful day, and there were plenty of locals milling about, enjoying the sunshine. I saw them thoughtfully feeling the fabric of a horribly clashy skirt or a glitzy, shiny shirt (the clothing style of the Kurds is not subtle, needless to say); I saw them bending over a tray of silver jewelry for a closer look; I saw them grasping hands and exchanging kisses and greetings as friends recognized each other. I saw bakers kneading dough, peshmerga in their army attire having tea outside a teashop, and a group of men dressed in the old-style Kurdish outfit (a dull brown, gray, blue, or green one piece baggy potato sack jumpsuit with a cummerbund wrapped around their middle) standing around in a semi-circle in some sort of smithery, and watching as the smithy worked his machine.

I saw younger men wearing modern suits, younger women wearing jeans and skirts with fashionable knee-high boots, and I saw young couples holding hands openly and shamelessly. Sulaimaniyah was a different city altogether, heart and soul- one could see this just in the way the younger women dressed. Besides the dress, though, Sulaimaniyah is much closer to the idea of a city than either Dohuk or Erbil. There is a real urban sprawl of buildings and it feels vibrant, and the people are more natural, open, and free. Because of this relative openness and naturalness, I myself felt more free and liberated as I walked about in the open, though while in Erbil, it had never occurred to me that I was feeling trapped in any way. 

At some point, I made a turn away from the main bazaar street, and then kept walking south toward the tall red, jagged mountains that surround the city like a fortress. Eventually, the shops peetered out and the street turned residential, lined on either side with gated, fairly nice stone houses built so close together they were nearly stuck to each other. Kids played out on the street. They didn't look rich, or even “middle-class”, but from the looks of their homes, they were better off than those who lived in the residential alleys that snaked through the bazaar area. I stopped at one of the doors to try to read the sign (something doctor), started chatting with the women hanging around there, and ended up going into their home for a cup of tea- and to play with their adorable 4-month old baby. Baby Anoush, like all Kurdish babies, already had her ears pierced and ornamented with real gold earrings that reflected beautifully against her baby-smooth porcelain white skin. I lingered for about half-an-hour before I set off again, my purse laden with candy from the generous women. 

By this time, I knew where I wanted to go. As I was walking through the residential street which rose steadily higher and higher the closer I got to the mountains, I had noticed in the distance a plot of what appeared to be tombstones cropping out by the dozens out of a plot of land that rose high (around 6 feet, I would hazard a guess) above the level of the street. This was where I headed next, though god knows why. Why did a cemetery draw my fancy? I dunno...why not explore the scenes of the dead as much as the scenes of the living? Later, when I told the others about my destination of choice, they were baffled. A cemetery? How is that cool? They didn't get it...Wasn't it obvious? Yet, I couldn't give them an exact reason. It was no tomb of King Tut, no majestic pyramids here, no famous legends or myths associated with the dead of Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. 

No stash of jewels or mysterious hieroglyphs. Only beautiful Arabic script painted in calligraphic black ink onto the arched headstones that capped either end of the humble rectangular-shaped coffins. I crossed the busy street, finally arriving at the odd destination, and climbed the stone stairs that led up to the dead. By now, the light was beginning to fade into that golden late-afternoon look, but it was still plenty light outside, and cars and people still bustled about. Yet as I weaved slowly through the dying grass, studying the colorful stone tombs, each infused with shards of pastel colored glass and topped with a little grassy plot of its own, I felt a slight chill anyway. Dozens and dozens of decaying corpses were lying just six feet under my plodding feet, and the idea was just every so slightly creepy. I was alone, but if I had seen a single living person then, standing in the cemetery with me, I think I might have screamed. I began walking off the grass, westwardly, along the edge of the raised cemetery plot, placing one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker, and I passed through the rest of the cemetery in this manner, until I reached the end and jumped down onto street level. 

Lo and behold, another cemetery plot stood before me, and another after that one. Lordy, there sure were a lot of dead people in Sully. I opted for the streets this time rather than wandering around above dead people, and soon I reached the next street crossing, and beyond that, I could see the top half of the golden sun setting sleepily behind the mountain tops. I crossed the street and ran up the wide dirt path, chasing after the setting sun. Guess what this dirt path led to? MORE TOMBSTONES. Lord, you just never think about how much space the dead take up. I climbed up a pile of rocks and checked out the view. To my left, the dirt path sloped downward, leading eventually to a space for the living this time. The sun set amazingly quickly behind the shadowy mountains that towered majestically over this space for the living, while to my right was the full moonrise, the lavender sky, and the jagged red mountains towering majestically over eastern Sully. In front of me lay the tombstones, and behind me lay acres of junk. It was the biggest junkyard I had ever seen, with piles of car skeletons and other unidentified rusting objects just...rusting. 

In a week, I'll be in Lebanon, and a week after that, I'll be in Egypt visiting a much more famous set of tombs. All I could think of though, as I stood there between sunset and moonrise and surrounded by dead people and rusting junk, was how glad I was to be here in Kurdistan before its transition from “developing” to “developed”, before the rest of the world got a chance to lay eyes on it. But even once the region opens its gates to tourists, will they be able to see the things I've seen? How much of its hidden beauties will be forever buried under the influx of modernism? How much of the mountainous landscape will be littered with incongruously built houses and “malls”? How much of the seamless transition from field to sun-splashed sky will be abruptly interrupted by a colony of suburban American-styled houses like the one just behind the school? How many of the old bazaars will be torn down and replaced by modern shopping malls filled with franchised stores? 

Don't get me wrong- the bazaars are filled with cultureless crap, imported goods, cheap jewelry, tacky trinkets, and ugly clothes. But the form and function of the bazaar- its labyrinth-like structure with old walkways, the lack of doors, the dirtiness, the noise, the shouts of “yek hazar, yek hazar!”, the smell of baking dough and shwarma spices wafting right onto the streets, the sight of turbaned men in potato sack outfits rolling huge carts of fruits and vegetables through the crowd, the shoe-shiners shining away right on the streets- these images are worth preserving. Currently, rumors flow about that the bazaar at the citadel in Erbil will be replaced by a huge shopping mall. I hope it is nothing more than a rumor, or a mangled half-truth. Perhaps the old and the new can co-exist? For the sake of the Kurds and what little of their old culture they seem to have left, I hope developers work just as hard to preserve as they do to develop. 

For now, though, the old world and its ways and rituals still remain. By the time I returned to the bazaar, night had fallen and of course, even here in “liberal” Sulaimaniyah, all the women had disappeared into their homes and so some of the men stared a bit more leerily as I walked by. The bazaar at night is like another world, romantically lit with streetlamps, lights from the stands, and the occasional bonfire, and still bustling with energy and people. The only shops that are still open at night are the groceries and food stands. Along Sabun Keran Street, I passed by cart after cart selling shwarmas and kabobs and tea, with the men standing around in their potato sack outfits and checkered headscarves, eating the food right there at the carts and chatting with each other and the owner as he dug his hands into the large pile of raw ground meat and stuck it onto the stick for the next kabob. I passed by a fruit cart where a group of workers stood around a roaring fire in order to keep warm in the chilly night. I stopped for a minute and joined the small ring around the fire to warm up my freezing hands before moving on. It was nearly time for the group dinner that the school was providing for us that evening. 

The Lebos & Ping Pong

The Lebos (what we call the Lebanese teachers here) are very serious about ping pong. One of them keeps saying that I must have the talent, and that we must look for it because it must be there. This is because I'm Korean.

"We must search for your talent!" he says in his abrasive, staccato way of talking. Then he starts turning me around and looking inside my pockets, saying, "it must be here somewhere! We must search for it!" (He has a tendency to repeat himself.) 

He's so convinced that I must have the talent, and I think this is why he keeps throwing me those awful fastballs. He thinks if he throws me enough fastballs, the talent will just pop out at some point or another. Naturally. Because I'm Korean. I hate fastballs. I play to hit the ball, not to win or lose.

I've concluded from watching the fierce competition between the Lebos that in fact, the Lebanese are more Korean than me. Or else, the Lebanese are genetically closer to the Koreans than we realize.

Nerd Alert: Analyzing Harry Potter

In the middle of rereading Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, I am struck by two thoughts: 

First, of all the individual characters whose lives were ruined by Voldemort, there is none whose tale is more tragic than Sirius Black's. Imagine how he was feeling, and all the thoughts going through his head, as he begged Hagrid to hand Harry over to him. And then consider what happened to him afterward. The fate of the 4 best friends, the Marauders, is tragic, and Sirius' the most seriously tragic. 

Second, all of this trouble between Voldemort and Harry could have been avoided if Voldemort had just used a plain old knife and slashed baby Harry's head off, instead of using a fancy magic wand. Oh right, but he was against all things Muggle. Ultimately, Voldemort's pride was the source- the very root and cause- of his own demise.

The Evolution of Magic

How far storybook magic has come since our childhood days! Cinderella's fairy godmother would be laughed out of the magical realm if she tried to pull off that bibbidee-bobbidee-boo silliness at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, where Latin is the language of choice for spells and incantations.

Screaming Souls

No no, kids are not naturally clean and quiet. They are germy and loud and egocentric and whiny. Of course, some are better than others, and some are way worse...the natural state of a human soul is a spectrum; it is neither purely good nor purely bad. Its nature is not rigid like a stone, but fluid, having tendencies to swing this way and that, like a pendulum, its direction influenced by singular events as well as millions of little prods and jabs in the form of stickers, smiles, and scalding stares, of images, words and deeds...

Erbil during September and Erbil during December are two very different places. The last time we had gone to Tarin, it was so warm outside and bats flew around above our heads as we ate outside at long tables, our dinner plates lit by the dozens of lamps that lined the walkways. By now, it was too cold to eat outside, so all the long tables had been whisked away, the lamps remained unlit, the gazebo-bar stood dark and lifeless, and the fountains with their neon lights no longer ran with water. Still, despite the cold weather and lack of life, we hit the playground afterward, flying on the seesaws and kiddy swings (where I had to keep my knees unbent so my feet wouldn't hit the ground), and climbing the rocky fountain and screaming our heads off at the stars.

Well, it might have been just me screaming. Screaming can be very cathartic. Like during Roadtrip 2006, when Sarah and I would roll down our windows, stick our heads out and scream as the wind swept past our faces at 90 miles an hour. Like some of my 2nd graders after any given math lesson, when they just randomly start screaming at extremely high pitches for no goddamn reason.

Here Comes Barzani! Strike Up the Band and Make the Fireflies Dance!

Tomorrow is a big day for the school. The Prime Minister of Kurdistan is visiting along with 600 other "important" people/family members of important people. Real flowers sprayed with perfume have gone up around the school, and I watched today as the children held up giant Kurdistan flags and practiced their presentation of the national anthem. The funniest part of this whole charade is that they will be pulling out 15 or so kids from their regularly scheduled classes in order to stick them in the pool for when the PM walks by the sports arena. I suggested they throw some dolphins in there too, but dolphins are rather hard to come by here in Iraq.

Not Your Average Granny Smith Apple

Kid's drawings are such a treasure. I watched, trying desperately to hold in my laughter, as Ahmed laboriously drew apples that looked exactly like the ass of an elephant (the stem was the trunk).

“Look Miss Angie,” said Liya, who was watching from the other side of Ahmed, “upside-down hearts!” 

“Yes, Liya, that's exactly what it looks like- upside-down hearts.”

One of Those Nights

We spent the evening in Ainkawa (the Christian neighborhood), first to catch dinner at Beirut Bar, then to check out a hookah bar in the area which turned out to be really nice. It was decorated with locally woven shepherd bags, and felt like a cozy deer hunter lodge. Under the influence of screwdrivers made with fresh-squeezed OJ (with pulp!), we ended up, how shall I say, being really honest with each other. One of those nights. 


It was nothing disastrous- quite the opposite. I feel closer than ever to them now. You can spend all the time in the world thinking about a person, but you'll never really know him or her until you spend time together, in each other's presence. Over drinks, to speed up the process. It was one of those nights where you come up with random, t-shirt worthy catch phrases like “I'm not dirty, I'm inquisitive.” One of those nights where you regress to your college days and play flip cup and discuss orgies and 5th dimensions in a half-serious manner. One of those nights.

She's Outta Control!

Sorry about the loooooooong posts lately. They just seem to grow uncontrollably sometimes.

Liya: The 5-Year-Old Who Stole My Heart

November 27, 2008

Have you ever felt that all your friends are pairing off left and right, leaving you feeling like maybe you should start making a more serious effort to find someone too instead of just letting the river run its course? Nowhere has this feeling been more pronounced than in the tiny, isolated community of teachers here at the school. Not that I fancy anyone in particular here, but just the fact that even in this tiny group, people have been pairing off left and right- it makes me feel like I must be mad not to be jumping on the couples wagon with everyone else. What'd I say about love and the law of gravity back in September or October? It seems to be playing out just the way I predicted, though the particular couples that have formed have been a great surprise. Who would've thunk? 

My own heart has been stolen by a 5-year-old named Liya. I've mentioned her before on this blog- she's the one in my kindergarten class with the great imagination, the whimsical personality. From day 1, she never cried. For the first month or two, she came to school every day wearing 11 little bracelets on her left wrist and silver sandals with a heart embossed on each. Every time we counted hearts that I drew on the whiteboard during math warm-up, she took great pleasure in lifting up her stockinged foot and showing me the silver hearts on her sandals. “Miss Angie, I have heart!” she would say with the excitement and the shining eyes of one who has just made a great new discovery. In the same way, she would tug at my arm and show me her newest discovery- skipping, for instance, from one leg to the other, arms swinging to and fro. She took a great liking to twirling after the time I played “Aquarium” from the Carnival of the Animals Suite for the class and picked out students one by one and waltzed with them around the room to the beautiful tune. I did this in order to show them the connection between music and dancing, and music and counting. Liya took to it like a duck on water. 

Liya has a heart indeed, a great one full of wonder- the heart of an explorer. She also has a great love of treasures, always eyeing my stickers and other prizes with a treasure-seeker's glint in her dark eyes. “Miss Angie,” she'd say tugging at my arm, and whispering loudly with her hand cupped to my ear, “I want 2 cranes! I want 3, no 4 cranes!” and nodding with shining eyes, as if she was letting me in on the greatest idea in the world. This is one of the things I love most about Liya, the way she says everything as if it were a delicious secret, or a great discovery. Last week, she came to school with a new pen. “Miss Angie, look! I have magic pencil!” “Wow, why is it magic?” I asked. I thought it might be a led pencil- the children here only use regular pencils and sharpeners for some reason. But nope, it turned out to be a pen- the kind you click on and off. “I like magic,” said Liya with whole-hearted belief in its existence. Me too Liya! 

I find myself wondering how in the world a child like this was brought into existence and raised. How amazing her parents must be to nurture such an extraordinary kid! It's hard to find out the background of these kids- where they are from, who they live with, etc.- because they are only 4 and 5. They get confused when I ask them what their father does for work. One kid said “computer”. Another kid said “computer games”. “Your father plays games for work?” I asked, laughing inside. The kid nodded uncertainly. He's probably the Minister of Education, or something equally as posh, but his kid just told me he plays computer games all day. One day, though, the first day it rained here in Erbil, I taught them how to say “it's raining”, and told them to go home and tell their father “it rained today!” “Miss Angie!” cried Liya, “I no have father!” “You don't? Where is he? Where's your baba?” She didn't know. She said she had a mother, though, and that she would tell her it rained today. “Okay, Liya,” I replied with some concern. I wondered where her father was, whether he was even alive.

This past week, I brought in my guitar and played and sang for the first time for my KG class. It was a huge hit in general, but no one was more entranced by it than Liya. While other kids around her stood up and tried to touch the guitar and giggled and looked at each other as if it were a huge game, Liya sat in her little chair with an absolute stillness that belied her age. Her eyes were cast in the direction of the guitar, but the look in them made me think her mind was elsewhere. Where, in what sort of fantasy land she was now lost in, I could only wish to know. What her mind was making of the music, I could only guess at, knowing only that it had to be wonderful and amazing because it was all happening in Liya's mind. 

Recently I started rewarding my KG'ers for independent work (finishing their work by themselves), and it's become a source of frustration because now all the kids just copy off the paper of the smart kid next to them and hold up their page expecting a sticker and the usual exaggerated praise. It drives me crazy because I'm busy trying to teach the class, and have to interrupt the flow to praise and reward them, and weed out the ones who just copied off their smart neighbor. “Wait for Miss Angie!” I have started to say to these cheaters. “You must wait for Miss Angie!” My frustration must have shown because one day, when I said “Wait for Miss Angie!” for the millionth time, a little voice piped up and said earnestly,  “I am waiting for you.” It was Liya. My heart melted right then and there for the girl. I wanted to hug her. Instead, I only said “thank you Liya” from the bottom of my heart. And maybe I gave her a sticker, I don't remember.

At the end of the day, I went down to the bus shed for the second time to see my kids off. I saw Shene and Hoz again (and stopped by to give the little midget another lift onto the bus), and some of my 2nd graders, as well as some of the 7th graders whose exam I had proctored earlier that day. Then I looked for bus no. 11, which I knew was Liya and Mohammed #1's bus. “Hi Liya! Hi Mohammed!” I said as I peeped my head into the tent-like darkness. It was the most joyful reunion you could ever imagine! We hugged like long-lost friends, and in a voice bubbling over with excitement, she started introducing every single person on the bus to me, as if I were her father coming back after a long absence, and she wanted to show me every aspect of her life that I had missed while I'd been away. In fact, somewhere in between all the introductions, she told me that her father was coming home today. So he was alive after all! I was so happy for her. And her father. As the last person got on the bus, and it was about to leave, she opened up her arms for a last hug goodbye. “I love you, Miss Angie,” she said. “I love you too, Liya,” I murmured as I held her dark head against my waist, my heart once again melting like ice cream on a hot summer's day. 

The Bus Shed

November 26, 2008

The bell rang. End of school! I wandered through the hallway heading back to my KG classroom, but on the way, I ran into some of my 2nd graders. “Miss Angie!” They cried out, waving furiously. I yelled out their name and waved goodbye with equal vigor. These days, whenever they see me, they demand “where is my crayon?” By which they mean “crane”. Sometimes, if I'm in a classroom, I tease them by grabbing the box of crayons and saying “you want a crayon? here it is!” Other times I tell them that my cranes are special, and that they must earn them. I tell this to Mahmoud now, who has had trouble learning his times tables and so has been unable to earn the coveted origami bird. “Hrmph!” he grumbled in mock anger, his large eyes glowering darkly under knitted brows. As we continued to chat, I followed him down the stairs that I knew led to the bus shed, a set of stairs that I had never descended since my arrival at the school. Curious now, I rounded the corner and followed him all the way down. 

“Wow, this is so cool!” I cried as I entered the bus zone. It felt like entering another world. A hidden, underground cave lined with cement floors and walls, and dimly lit by fluorescent lights, the bus shed was lined with 3 rows of sea green-and-white shuttle vans (no yellow school buses here!), and teeming with the voices and shouts of excited school children, some who, like the drivers, waited patiently inside their bus, others who ran around, expending their cooped up energy before loading, or else having last minute chats with their friends who were on different buses. This was a side of the school I had never seen before, a side of the kids I have only had glimpses of as I ran into them in the hallways or played with them during the short breaks and lunches and right before the start of school. Kids outside of the classroom environment and in this strange cave-like one full of cute little buses with rounded corners. I felt a bit like Harry discovering Diagon Alley for the first time, or like the kid in the Christmas movie discovering Santa's workshop with all the elves.

“Angie!” I heard a familiar voice call out my name. There was Farhad, our first shuttle driver who I hadn't seen in 2 months! He'd been transferred to this new post because of his habit of showing up late all the time. “Ca va?” he greeted me in French. I nearly responded in Kurdish- that's how natural it's become. He took something out of his pocket- it was a pink crane. “Did you make this?” he asked. I sure did, but how did it end up in his hands? Turns out, one of my 2nd grader's father- the school accountant- had given it to him. And how did it manage to leave the care of his daughter in the first place? Hm...I would have to ask Shano in class tomorrow if she meant to give it away. 

“You've got to teach me how to make this,” said Farhad. “Will you teach me?” “I don't know,” I replied with a Mona Lisa smile, “I can't be giving away all my secrets.” I told him I'd think about it, then turned as I heard my name being called, this time by a shriller, squeakier female voice. There was cartoony Shene standing with two of her busmates! Her dark brown pigtails sticking out like mini fountains from either side of her head, her dark eyes were wide with excitement at spotting her teacher in this other teacherless world. A tentative smile spread across her pale face as she waved, and it grew wider as I waved back with equal surprise and enthusiasm.

Normally, when I interact with my KG'ers, I admit that some (sometimes a lot) of my enthusiasm is feigned. There are only so many times you can react with true enthusiasm at the spiderman backpack that the kid is showing off to you for the 60th time. But they do this every day! Every day at the end of the school day, they come up to my desk proudly holding up their backpack for me to see. At first, I was like “did they get a new backpack?” But nope, it's the same damn backpack- Spiderman, the princess cat one, Barbie, Batman, or the Disney princesses one- the same goddamn backpack every time! The only somewhat interesting ones are Mohammed #1's (a WALL-E backpack!) and Muhammed #2's (Ninja Turtles).* My enthusiasm for the backpack routine waned quickly, but I continue to oblige them with a “Wow! Cool backpack!” because I realize that the recognition from the teacher, in the form of Wows, high-fives, stickers and smiles, means a lot to them. 

This exaggerated enthusiasm- as well as exaggeration of all manners of expression from happiness to sadness to anger and shock, and so on- is essential to teaching KG. As soon as I realized the importance of exaggeration, and also, when I began to accept their goldfish attention spans and bribery as a method of getting them to behave, my teaching began to go a lot smoother. I'm beginning to have fun in the classroom again, and actually after a short time, that feigned enthusiasm has begun to translate into some genuine enthusiasm, strangely enough. The connections between the mental and physical expression is more intimate than I previously realized. Just by smiling outwardly a few times, you begin to feel happier inside. And just by saying “Wwwooowww!” and widening your eyes, you begin to actually feel truly amazed inwardly. 

Because I spend so much time with my 5-year-olds, sometimes I catch myself doing the same exaggerated expression of enthusiasm with my own peers, which was a little embarrassing at first. But then I think, maybe dealing with 25- and 35-year-olds should not be so different from dealing with 5-year-olds? Who knows...I just know now that physical expression has a serious effect on one's mental state. It makes me think that maybe a person is not defined by either his mind or his body, but by both. Brain shapes the body, and the body shapes the brain, and one's self could not be whole, nor defined completely while either is amiss. 

Here in the underground bus shed, however, my surprise and enthusiasm were 100% genuine. I was just as excited to see my kids as they were to see me, their teacher. I waved as some of my 2nd graders ran by. I heard my name being called yet again and saw little Hoz, whose spiderman backpack is nearly as big as he is, running from his bus as fast as his short little legs could carry him. “Hi Hoz!” I cried, giving him a big smile. He was so tiny! I resisted the temptation to scoop up the mischievous little midget in my arms, and instead put my arm around his head and followed him back to his bus. At the door, I peered inside. Ooh, it was so dark! But in a comforting way, like those blanket forts that we used to build when we were kids. I thought how exciting it must be for a 5-year-old to be traveling on this bus with seats taller than them and a cozy, enveloping darkness, and busmates to sit next to. Only remnants- bits and pieces of this bus and daily bus ride home would be remembered years later, vaguely floating about in their memories like drifting clouds, perhaps inserting themselves like stray picture slides into their dreams. 

Hoz was standing in front of the bus steps that must seem like mountains at his height. “Do you need a lift, Hoz? Here, raise your arms way up! Ready? One, two, three, up we go!” I lifted up little Hoz and his big backpack into the bus- a little too high. The older kids laughed as his feet dangled loosely in the air, trying to reach for solid ground. “Woops, there we go! Bye Hoz, see you tomorrow!” He grinned, very Shene-like. I wondered if they were related. The same smooth, dark hair and eyes, the same pale complexion, and the same smile. This school is full of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and cousins of cousins, so it was possible they were related. But with the KG'ers, it is hard to figure out who is related to who. They all say “so-and-so is my brother,” even if they look nothing alike. It took me a few weeks to realize that by “brother”, they meant “friend” because the Kurdish word for “friend” is brader, which sounds a lot like brother. 

*There are a lot of Mohammeds at this school. One of the first grade classes has 7 Mohammeds in a class of 25!

Farther From Home, Closer to Turkey

Thanksgiving evening in Iraq. As the last bit of cornbread batter sizzles and crackles in the frying pan, the homey aroma of cooking oil wafts through the apartment, and Julie Andrews' voice sings enchantingly, clear and sweet, from my mac. A feeling of tranquility falls over me, despite the fact that it is a lonelier Thanksgiving than most. I'm cooking alone in my little kitchen, whereas in the past few Turkey Days, cooking had been a team effort. Jess holding down the 20-lb turkey, Sarah wielding the needle and injecting the bird with oil like a crazed medic, and me stuffing it with garlic chunks. 

This year, at the school, the main course (the turkey) will be provided by the school cafeteria along with some side dishes, and the Americans will provide the rest, potluck-style. What could be easier than cornbread? I had thought as I glanced through the recipe online yesterday. Today though, as I stand in front of the elevator door holding the baking pan with both hands, the pale liquid batter sloshing precariously along the sides, I can't help being slightly worried about its outcome. I'd been unable to find the main ingredient that makes cornbread “cornbread”- the cornmeal- and had to settle for corn flour. According to the others, the two products, though similarly named, are totally different, and a cake made of corn flour was a recipe for disaster, not for Grandma's Famous Buttermilk Cornbread. 

But given no alternatives, I had decided to go ahead with the corn flour, and so there I stood waiting for the elevator that would take me upstairs to the 3rd floor restaurant, listening to the voices of my co-workers echoing through the hallways above, and wondering if burnt milk had a terribly overpowering taste. It had frothed over my pan like a rabid dog when I left it unattended in order to prepare my corn flour. A couple minutes later, my bowl of homemade buttermilk likewise frothed over as I added the baking soda, spilling foul-smelling acidified milk all over my kitchen floor. 

Before I could ponder these near-disasters any further, though, my reflection split in two and I stepped carefully into the elevator, trying not to slosh the batter. As the elevator crawled upwards, I studied my reflection in the mirror and noted that the redness of my eyes had returned with a vengeance. The New Yorker keeps saying that I look high as a kite, though I've smoked nothing more than some shisha since I've gotten here. Once again, I'd like to express my wish that our eyes, like our teeth, came in sets of two. Wouldn't it be cool if our “baby eyes” fell out when we reached say our mid-20's, and were naturally replaced by a brand new set of adult eyeballs? Our teeth are weird that way.

My teeth in particular grew out in fairly decent shape- not too big, not too ragged. But I've discovered that my teeth are rather big, by Middle Eastern standards. My friend here calls them “rabbit teeth” (with affection, I assume!). He himself, like many Middle Easterners, has very small, badly cared-for teeth. The importance of dental hygiene has yet to reach this corner of the world. 

Anyway, dental tangent aside, upstairs, I stuck the baking pan in the only oven we have in the apartment complex, beneath two delicious-looking pumpkin pies made by the lady with the cats. (One of them died- one of her cats, not her pies- and its feline corpse lies buried in the small garden plot in front of her balcony.) Later, when I came up for the dinner a little late, everyone was already gathered around in a circle holding hands and doing the cheesy Thanksgiving thang- what are you thankful for? When it came around to my turn, I said the first things that popped into my mind- first, my co-workers, then Little Liya, and then the edible appearance of my cornbread- which ended up dec, and even drew some compliments! Despite being quite starchy/chewy in the middle.

Here's to giving things a go, even when disaster looms hairily close! We must trust in that quantum possibility that things will turn out ok. This is my faith- aha! Finally I have an answer to that question! Do you believe in God? No, but I do believe in quantum mechanics! But really it's just a projection of my faith in myself onto some external theory. I wonder if all faith is just a projection of faith in oneself onto a separate entity to make the task at hand seem momentarily less daunting? It's a temporary shifting of burden.

The rest of the dinner was great! Unfortunately, the one Iraqi who could understand English failed to understand the meaning of Thanksgiving (”I don't get it, I just don't get it! Isn't this the holiday where your forefathers murdered a bunch of innocent people and stole their land and...why would you celebrate such a thing???”). Only a couple of the Lebanese staff came, but all the Brits came, just as we attended their Guy Fawkes Night festivities a few weeks ago, and so did the Canadians, and one of the Pakistanis even came bearing her famous rice dish. 

All in all, Turkey Day 2008 was a very international affair, and I was impressed that we were able to find the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving feast here in Erbil: we had the turkey, mashed potatoes, starchy cornbread with chili and mac&cheese, corn with white sauce, and 2 absolutely fabulous homemade pumpkin pies made from real pumpkin! And besides that, we had the non-traditional fares: pasta salad, poppyseed loaf, a scrumptious chocolate cake, roasted chestnuts, and Pakistani rice. What we missed: cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and the all-important stuffing! Too bad they don't sell Stovetop around here- I love Stovetop! And last but not least, what I missed: my green-capped bottle of cock sauce. Oh Sriracha! It's all about you, isn't it?

Gobble Gobble to All,

Archimedes

The Lazarus Project

Really interesting article in the Science Times discussing the possibility of resurrecting animals that have been extinct for zillions of years! Or so. Including wooly mammoths and even Neanderthals, an early human species! I've always wondered what barriers were stopping scientists from carrying out such experiments, besides the ethical ones. It seemed so simple- if you have the DNA, then surely you can clone the animal that it represents. But no, it is not that easy! The DNA must be in "good shape" (which it usually isn't), decoded, not invaded by bacteria, and technology does not yet exist to synthesize a whole genome.

The article linked above discusses an alternative way of resurrecting these extinct species- not by synthesizing the genome, but by taking the DNA of a living relative and successively modifying this live DNA at all the places where it differs from the DNA of its ancient relative. For example, scientists can take the DNA of an elephant and modify it little by little (generation by generation) at the 400,000 sites where it differs from the DNA of the wooly mammoth, and then bring it to term at the last stage of modification inside a surrogate elephant mother. 

If this method works with the wooly mammoth, it would technically work for the Neanderthal. Can you imagine if yours was the DNA that was cloned in this manner hundreds of thousands of years into the future? 

Another thought: wouldn't it be cool if we found the remains of Jesus and resurrected him? (I mean Him.)

And hey!  Neanderthal specimen were discovered right here in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdistan! Inside the Shanidar cave site, 10 Neanderthal remains were found, two of which may indicate that Neanderthals ritually buried their dead, and one of which may indicate that they took care of their sick and injured. 

We Are Family! (I got all my sistas with me!)

I love Blogspot. I love opening up to my Eureka homepage and checking up on my "fellow babblers" to see what's going on in their lives lately. For me, Blogspot is like my intimate home away from home, and my fellow babblers are like a family that I can take with me wherever I go. Thanks Blogspot, and thanks for blogging! 

Hoot hoot!

Archimedes

Rollercoaster Movie

Wanted: an awesome movie! The one with Angelina Jolie and pasty white James McAvoy? Awesome awesome awesome! The action is incredible, and so are the Alias-like twists and turns like a crazy rollercoaster!

System of Tens

If God had 11 fingers, would he have given 11, not 10 commandments? But then again, God doesn't have any fingers. Only man has 10 fingers. I'm tempted to see this as evidence that humans created the 10 commandments. That Moses, what a cunning fellow! People sure were gullible back then- the 10 commandments from “God”, a virgin birth,...

Paper Crane Magic

Recycling is far down the list of priorities for developing countries like Iraq. Since my first teaching day, though, I've been amassing a stack of scrap paper in my black storage box- photocopies, old lesson plans, and so on- and the stack is growing cancerously. Useless though it may be, it pains me to have to throw all this paper away. What to do with all this paper?

An idea has been smoldering in the back of my mind for a few days now, and today, I finally put my saving scrap paper plan to action: I dug out the cheap set of watercolors I'd found at one of the “malls” here, and set to work cutting the papers into perfect squares and painting them beautiful shades of  purple, blue and pink bleeding into each other. After waiting a few minutes for the paint to dry, I started folding and soon, a tiny, graceful paper crane sat in the palm of my hand.

I had learned how to make origami cranes one summer in Korea. It was one of the 3 skills I picked up specifically during my summers in Korea in the days of yore, along with hula hooping and Korean jacks. My aunt showed me and my siblings how to make them, telling us the related myth: if you make a 1000 cranes, and then make a wish, it will come true. I never made it past 500 or so, but I still have those cranes I folded so long ago out of cool fractal-ish origami paper you could buy at the local toy shop. 

Who knew such a random skill would come so in handy more than a decade later? My 2nd graders are currently learning their times tables, and I had to think of a way to get them to practice practice practice! And so I offered them a prize: If they could memorize all the tables from 1's to 12's, then I would give them extra stars and a paper crane. I held one up so they could see what they were in for, and the kids grew breathless with excitement. Just as, more than a decade ago, my aunt told me the myth of a 1000 cranes, I related the myth to my kids in an enticing, mysterious voice, and the effect was amazing. Now, my cranes are all the rage among my 2nd graders as well as my KG's, whom I'd also brought into the origami fold. 

Not gonna exaggerate- for some kids, the excitement was ephemeral, and as soon as they went home, their motivation to practice multiplication tables was lost despite the unique prize. But for others, the crane incentive has had a radical effect. One kid memorized all the way up to 12's plus some squares (13*13, etc.), and the most brilliant one in the class memorized all the tables and all the squares up to 21*21. That was magical, the day I tested him in front of the entire class. Others have tried, and though they still make mistakes and hesitate, I can tell they are working hard for that crane. Paper cranes must hold some sort of magical property. 

Lately, I've been having a really tough time controlling my KG class. I don't know what happened, but they just don't shut the hell up anymore for more than a minute. Frustration mounted to a dangerous level, very dangerous, but now it's cooling down again, and I'm starting (again) to accept the fact that 5-year-olds have the attention span of a goldfish, and there is little I can do about it besides continuously bribing them with stickers, and now, cranes. For a long time, I detested the idea of having to teach them by bribing- it seemed an unhealthy way of developing a child's morale: “be good, only because you want that sticker!” Like holding a carrot in front of a donkey's nose. Wasn't it unhealthy to play on a child's greed? 

But the way one of the teachers here explained it made sense: at that age, they only understand external rewards, and they've yet to internalize it. Or something. It made sense at the time. The idea is that you're training them to be good, at first with tangible rewards, and slowly they will get used to acting “good” and you will no longer need those external rewards. Shoot, even my 2nd graders need external rewards like stars and cranes. I guess it takes a while.