Gifts from My Students

I have received so many gifts from my wonderful students---three today alone! I have learned not to compliment my female students on a piece of jewelry; when I did so last week, one young woman took off her necklace and insisted on giving it to me! I received a pair of earrings today from a professor who had been wearing a similar pair the first day I met her. She had had a friend search all over Baghdad for a similar pair. I also received a cell-phone charm from a student and a bead-necklace from the Iraqi rug salesman who has a shop near the dining hall. You have to watch out for those rug salesman!

Really, the generosity and appreciation we receive every day make any inconvenience---even risk---we experience completely worth it.

My Students are a Teacher's Dream

I cannot say enough good things about my Iraqi students. They definitely make this trip worthwhile. Of course, since the students come to class each day at the cost of great risk and personal sacrifice, I get the most dedicated and enthusiastic of all who were invited to come.

I am teaching the undergraduate students of 10 Iraqi English professors from the University of Baghdad. Most of my students are preparing to teach in Iraqi secondary schools; some hope to find work as interpreters. They are so appreciative of us for coming here, and so anxious to learn. They are so excited to have the chance to speak to native-English-speakers for the first time.

I received this e-mail from one of the professors today: "thanks for you very much lady i prsonally do thank you for ur efforts and for ur courage as well as i do thank the great sacrifices done by your army in liberating us from a tyrant dear lady i am happy to work with u hope we can exchange more ideas about our classes."

I'm glad to hear that SOMEONE was happy that our army came to Iraq! This letter is typical of the attitude of the Iraqis I have met so far. It is such a pleasure to work with them!

My Tribe

Everyone who knows me knows what a people-person I am. Ever since I began living outside the U.S. in 2005, I have talked about how isolated we are as Americans---all of us living in our individual bubbles, driving around in our individual cars. You don't see people walking on the streets, taking the bus (at least I don't), chatting in tea houses. If you go into Starbucks, everyone is staring at his or her own computer screen or talking on the phone!

Well, I've hit the jackpot here. The other eight teachers and I who are working on the English program together live in large rooms, with individual bathrooms, on the second floor of one of the old hotels here in the compound.

I don't even come close to most of the other teachers in the number and variety of places I've taught. Kathy, a woman about my age, just finished a contract in December in Kabul, Afghanistan. She said she was able to travel fairly freely throughout the city, although she did dress according to local custom (scarf and long coat, not a burqa) and knew which areas to avoid. Another teacher, Ann, lives in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where she and her husband teach at the university. Kent has taught throughout Central and South America, including five visits to Cuba, and John just spent two years in the Republic of Georgia followed by a year in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Among the nine of us, one is married to an Egyptian Jew, one to a Yemeni man and another to a man from Cape Verde, and a fourth to a woman from the Phillipines, while I, of course, am married to a Turk. I have found my people, you could say: men and women who don't think my life is weird or that I'm crazy. How wonderful!