23rd Blog

April 18, 2010

Since we last wrote, we have had two very different experiences. We saw our first Iraqi sporting event when AUI-S’ women’s basketball team played a team from a school from Karbala in southern Iraq, and the second was a visit to the town of Halabja last week-end. These two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

First, let me tell you a bit about the basketball game. One of the more important facts to remember is that almost all of these girls had never held a basketball or played the game until two years ago. Another important fact to remember is the team they were playing comes from a university that trains physical education teachers. But I cannot tell this short story without reminding you that we come from Indiana, the basketball state of the US. That all being said, let me say this game was the most entertaining game we have ever watched. There were times when it appeared to be more of a comedy than a sporting event because none of the players was particularly skilled at the basics of basketball. The score at half time was 10 to 8, with the opposing team on top, and most of the points earned from the foul line. The women from the other team were extremely physical and the officials didn’t always call blatant fouls. The stands held some extremely exuberant and loud fans who provided lots of cheers. Our women persevered and won the game in the end and there was great celebration including a fan party held for the women back on our campus. But the game had great symbolic value: in a part of the world that still struggles with according women full participation in society, here were 10 women on a basketball floor, playing their hearts out in front of cheering fans, fully valued for who they are. See picture below of our team in the huddle.



Where the basketball game was just good fun, the visit to Halabja was a very sobering experience. This is the city on which Saddam’s air force dropped hundreds of poison gas bombs on March 16, 1988, killing over 5,000 people and leaving many more with life-time injuries. At the time of the gas attacks the city of Halabja was actually in the control of the Iranians (this being in the time of the eight year Iran-Iraq war), so the first persons on the scene were Iranian soldiers. The number of dead was so large that the soldiers could do no more than to put the bodies into hastily dug mass graves in the city’s cemetery. See two photos below. The first is of one of the monuments on top of a mass grave containing 1,500 bodies. The second of a series of tombstones on which are inscribed family names. The stones are in place only to memorialize the families; no one knows in which mass grave the bodies are now buried.






This gas attack has always been a tragedy to us, but it is so much more real knowing some of our students’ families actually lived through this event. Events on the ground on that fateful day were so arbitrary. In the photo below this paragraph you will see three students standing with us; all are from Halabja. The family of one of the students fled in one direction and were saved because of the wind carried the gas away from them. The family of another of the students also fled, but in the wrong direction. The wind blew the gas toward them and they died.



One more Halabja story: in the museum dedicated to the victims of the gassing of Halabja, the names of all of the victims are etched in the glass walls of the museum. One name is Zmnako, noted in the photo below with green tape around it. Zmnako was an infant at the time of the attack, and in the chaos that followed, was separated from his mother. All had thought that he had been killed and his body put into a mass grave, so his name was placed on the wall. Unbeknownst to people in Halabja, he had been rescued by people who assumed his family was dead. He was placed into the home of an Iranian Kurdish family who adopted him. He grew up there and after the death of his adoptive mother, learned something of his background in Halabja. The good end of this story: after doing some research, he discovered that his birth mother is still living and as of a few months ago he has been reunited with her. The green tape around his name says he is alive, not dead. We can only imagine the disbelief and joy of his family in Halabja on being re-united with him. He is now a student at AUI-S.



Perhaps we are reading our students incorrectly, but our sense is that where they could be so bitter, there appears to be a willingness to move on and be part of a constructive future. We can only hope that their aspirations bear fruit in the future. The privilege of knowing them has certainly enriched our lives.

As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to send comments to our AUI-S email accounts: carl.caldwell@auis.org; carolyn.caldwell@auis.org.

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010

22nd Blog.

After a fairly routine week of classes, on Friday, April 2, we joined four other faculty members in a day-trip to a mountainous area south of town called Qaradagh. Near this village, high on the side of a sheer face of rock, is an Assyrian era (7th c. BC) carving of a victorious king with hammer in hand and two vanquished foes at this feet. The climb to this area is a challenge, and in lawsuit-happy America would probably be declared off-limits for fear of someone falling and filing a liability suit. But the climb was worth it. The carving is imposing, if somewhat difficult to make out.



As interesting as the sculpture is, even more interesting is how on pleasant weekend days, Kurdish folks head to the hills with automobile trunks and truck beds full of all of the equipment necessary to fix whole meals. Wherever the land levels to a plateau, folks drive off the road, spread out blankets, and spend the day. Sometimes large groups gather, bring a small generator and sound system, and have a picnic accompanied by the dance music that everyone seems to enjoy. It was not unusual to see groups of people lined up to dance, and of course the beautiful Kurdish clothing was everywhere.

On two occasions we stopped to take in the sights, and on both occasions were asked by nearby families if we would like some tea – the very strong, heavily sweetened, variety that is popular here. On the second of these occasions we were asked to sit with an extended family, perhaps 15 people over at least three generations. Fortunately one member of the family spoke good English and so there could be some genuine conversation. It turns out that the patriarch of the family is in his late 60s, is from the nearby village, and has been involved since the late 1950s with the peshmerga – the freedom fighters who were such a thorn in the side of Saddam Hussein. The old man said two things: we thank you Americans for helping us to be free of Saddam; if you support Israel to be a state, why can’t you support a state for Kurds? Somehow we moved beyond the tension implied in the question and simply enjoyed the children. As the sole female of AUIS faculty, Carolyn was approached by the women in the group who wanted pictures taken with her. One of the grandmothers entrusted me with a 5 month old baby. See pictures below.







During the time we talked and drank tea with the family we could look down the hill to a large lake called Darbandikhan, the east side of which, we were told, is Iran. That’s how close we were to Iran.





As we made our way from Qaradagh to the lake we went past a new village that was built on top of an older village that had been gassed and destroyed by Saddam. A truly sad grave yard alongside the road contained the remains of whole families that died from the results of poison gas. Our driver indicated that 122 people in the village died. See next photo.



I (Carl) had thought that after returning to the US and getting reacquainted with our family, I might organize a tour of this area for some hardy and adventurous Americans. But I tell you that all-day travel around here continues to be a challenge. There simply are no public toilets anywhere, and restaurants as we know them are few outside of the larger towns. In spite of the lack of facilities, northern Iraq continues to be a fascinating place to live, and we continue to learn from new experiences each day.

Even as we write this blog, we have learned of the death of Robert Schleiger, one of Carolyn’s favorite uncles who lived in Loveland, CO. He battled cancer valiantly for the past year or so. Fortunately Carolyn was able to talk with him last week, before he slipped into a coma, and she could say her good-bye to him. This is the second of our beloved relatives to die this year while we are away from home. My Aunt Mary Sneed died earlier this year in Charleston, WV. Like Carolyn and her uncle, I was able to talk with her while she was still conscious, about a week before she passed away. We have had to grieve from afar.

On this Easter Sunday, we wish for all of you a meaningful day of rest and reflection on the meaning of resurrection.

21st Blog

The celebration of Nawroz has come to an end, the visit with my dad, Glenn, and his wife, Berny, is complete and was very good (see above picture of them standing in front of our apartment building,) our spring vacation is almost over, and we are heading into the final stretch of classes before we come home. We have eleven more weeks and it hardly seems possible we are so close to the end of our stay here.

Dad and Berny arrived safely but two days late after much trouble along the way. Berny’s luggage was lost and never found but she was a real trooper making do with things I loaned her along with an outfit that she bought in the bazaar. She said she still had a wonderful time and they both especially enjoyed the Nawroz celebration and the trips to the bazaar. (See picture of us having tea at the bazaar)


We couldn’t have picked a better time for Dad and Berny to visit.


The weather was sunny and we were able to take them to the mountains twice. The second of the mountain trips was very special because one of our students, Zryan, joined us and was able to talk with Dad and Berny in English and answer any question they had about the culture or his personal plans when he gets out of the University. His mother had made a wonderful picnic lunch of dolma (stew of lamb and stuffed vegetables) for us. You can see it in this picture.


It was delicious and I will take the recipe back home to fix for our family. See picture of our picnic as we ate in a pull-off area along one of the mountain roads.


At the street celebration of Nawroz, Berny said she felt as if she were walking with royalty because the locals kept asking us to have their picture made with them. We can only assume it impressed them greatly that we Americans had chosen to dress in local Kurdish dress for the occasion.




The evening was cool so the large bonfires along the street were a natural gathering place for people to stop and warm the hands. See picture of my dad watching me warm my hands by the fire.

Fireworks would erupt periodically and Kurdish dancing was available all along the way. At one point, we were standing there watching the women in one circle dance and the men in another circle dance when a Kurdish man came up to me and pulled me into the men’s circle. Carl joined me and we laughed and danced along with our local friends. I love the traditional dance. It is very rhythmic and anyone can join in the circle at anytime. (Even Carl can manage the simple two-step dance.) The leader always carries a scarf or beads and spins them in the air as the participants hold hands, step in unison and lift their shoulders up and down to the music. I felt very honored that I was invited to join the men’s circle.

Tonight we celebrated the end of the spring break with a party held by some students for faculty. As you can see below, almost everyone was dressed in beautiful Kurdish party dress and there was much dancing again. Carl and I are especially grateful to Shad and Kurdistan (first picture below,) the young people who took us to the bazaar and helped us negotiate the purchase of cloth and fitting by a tailor to have our outfits made. We continue to be so grateful for all we are experiencing and learning about this wonderful culture.

20th Blog

20th blog. March 17, 2010

As we posted our last blog, the citizens of Iraq were about to go to the polls in the second parliamentary election since the creation of the post-Saddam constitution. When we wrote, we did not have clue as how the polling process would take place. Would it be safe? Would it be violent?

As it turned out, the election was safe in most parts of the country. Unfortunately there were around 25 deaths in Baghdad, and while any death is one too many, the country was for the most part quiet. We understand from the press that about 65% of eligible Iraqis voted overall, and that about 75% of persons in the Kurdistan Regional Government area (where we live) voted.

On election day, we walked to a nearby hotel to pick up a guest of the university and in the process walked by a school that had been converted into a polling station. Large concrete barriers had been set up on either end of the street that passed in front of the school, so as to keep auto and truck traffic away from pedestrians walking to the school. Although there were soldiers guarding the street, they said nothing to us about passing in front of the polling station even though we clearly were not local and would not be voting.

We were amazed to see that whole families turned out, often three generations, with children in tow. Many were dressed in their finest Kurdish clothing, as if they were dressed to go to a party. One particularly touching scene was of a boy too young to vote, perhaps 12 or 13, helping an elderly relative up the steps that led to the school. The scene was one more reminder of the power of family, and of urgency that even, maybe particularly, the elder folks felt to exercise this right, given all the deprivations they have been through in their lives.

As we polled our students, they too voted in large numbers. For all but the oldest students, this was their first election. By our unscientific sampling, we would estimate that 75% of our students voted. All seemed to be proud of their deeply stained fingers, made that way by dipping a finger into stain after voting, thus discouraging people from going to a nearby place to vote a second time. I don’t know what the stain is, but even now, 9 days after the election, it is still in evidence on people’s fingers.

We do not yet know the outcome of the election, and even if we did, we suspect that it would take more than one blog message to explain the complexities of just the Kurdish part of the electoral process, much less the rest of Iraq.

We took no pictures that day, but we include below four excellent photos taken by one of the AUIS English language instructors who has a phenomenal eye for what the camera can do. (About the time I think I am getting half way decent with a camera, I see his photos and know I have a long way to go.) This young man is Chris de Bruyn, and you can see more of his work at this website:
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/brownbearphotography/. He submitted some of them to BBC news that included the photos on their website. Not a shabby place to have your photos made available, eh?

The only disconcerting part of election day occurred in the evening, after the polls closed, when groups of people anticipating victory for their candidates fired their guns into the air. I’m not talking about a casual shot or two. Rather, there was an extended period of maybe 30 minutes when we heard the frequent rat-tat-tat of machine guns and automatic rifles. The shooters were not aiming at anyone, just shooting into the air. But bullets have to return to earth and we were told that around 15 people were admitted to emergency rooms with wounds. No one, thankfully, was killed. One errant AK-47 bullet returned to the earth in the middle of the university where it passed through the sheet metal roof of one of the faculty offices. It hit the tile floor with enough force to actually break the tile and penetrate into the floor. Fortunately the school was closed, and no one was hurt. See photo below of the bullet.

As I write and post this blog message, we are awaiting the arrival of Carolyn’s father, Glenn Falls, and his wife, Berny Berquist Falls. They are supposed to arrive on the 18th and will be with us for a week. This weekend is the beginning of a major celebration in this part of the world, namely Kurdish Iraq and Turkey, and most of Iran. The holiday, called Nawroz, predates the coming of Islam to this part of the world in the 7th and 8th centuries, and probably is a tradition that came from Zoroastrianism, the predominant religion in this area before Islam. Nawroz falls on the vernal equinox signaling the beginning of spring. School is dismissed for all of next week, and we intend to use our time to show Glenn and Berny around this part of the world that we have made our home since last September. It should be great fun. In our next blog we can post some pictures of their time with us.

We thank you for reading this blog and wish all of you the very best as you too celebrate the coming of spring.

Nineteenth Blog

Nineteenth Blog, March 7, 2010
In our last blog we told you about the dust storm that had blown through this area a couple of days before we wrote. We made the ill-advised statement that what we need now is a good rain storm to wash away the dirt that settled on every horizontal surface. What we had in mind was an Indiana thunderstorm that would come in, rain hard for an hour or so, and then move on. What we got, instead, was about five days of unrelenting rain, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, but always present. Sure enough, this rain washed down the dirt deposited in the storm, but it also made getting about the campus a wet mess by turning the sidewalks that link our offices and classrooms in to small lakes and the roads that lead up to our apartment complex into muddy pathways. The rain finally stopped on Thursday, March 4, and for the past two days, we have had lots of sun. As we talked with students about the weather, expressing frustration with the rain, we learned that all were grateful for the rain as it fills the reservoirs that provide water to this region in the hot and mostly rainless summer months.

The temperatures are warming, and when the warm temperatures are combined with the moisture the net effect is green. We see the hillsides that were golden brown when we arrived in September are beginning to turn green. Today as we walked the two miles to the bazaar, we observed some flowering trees beginning to form buds. We even saw a person in the bazaar who was selling daffodils. So spring is on its way. We’ll tell you more as we know more.

Based on observing CNN and BBC television, it would appear that few Western media have carried stories about the upcoming parliamentary election in Iraq. This election will take place later today, Sunday, March 7. Given our plans for posting this blog, we will not know outcomes by the time of the posting but we want to give you some impressions.

Unlike the campaigning process in the US, in which campaigns seem to go on forever, the campaign process in Iraq is short and tightly managed. No one was allowed to campaign openly until about three weeks ago, at which time this place burst forth in a kind of avid grass-roots campaigning process that we never see in the U.S. Various political parties put up flags across roadways and on buildings, people plastered campaign posters on their cars and trucks, and groups of supporters of one party or another conducted traffic-slowing parades on the main roads. Drivers of cars honked their horns in a short-long-short-short-long cadence of horn blasts pattern hour after hour. People sat on hoods of cars, or hung out of car windows waving flags. Children and adults alike rode standing upright in the backs of pickup trucks, waving flags and shouting. The climax of the campaign came late Friday evening when there were massive parades, including lighted floats, and fireworks displays. After Friday’s climax, the campaigning ended as suddenly as it began. On Saturday, the day before the election, they declared a moratorium on campaigning, so aside from the ubiquitous flags and posters stuck on every vertical surface and hung on ropes across all major streets, it was all very quiet. Shortly the polls will open and the voting will take place.

Regardless of the party one wants to see win in this area, the campaign process says a great deal about how the folks of this region have taken to the electoral process. A few of the more cynical of our students say that elections do no good, i.e., they keep returning the same politicians to power, but most disagree. But anyone who has lived through this campaign season can only conclude that there is a great deal of grassroots involvement in who wins and who loses. Their exuberance is a joy to behold, and a kind of living proof that in an important way people enjoy the most elemental aspect of democracy: having a say in who will lead. This is, after all, only the second parliamentary election since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and there continue to be many difficult issues to sort out both nationally and regionally. But our experience here and what we learn from the several reports from other parts of the country suggest that Iraqis have rejected various outside influences in charting the course for their own future, and they very much want an Iraqi solution to Iraqi problems. With you, we look forward to reading the outcome of the elections in a few days.

We have placed below several photos of the election campaign activity, and apologize that we may not have photos of every political party in the race. The photos we took were the result not of design, but of the vagaries of when we happened to be out, and whether we had the camera at a given moment. We intend no favoritism in the selection of photos.

We continue to be healthy and to be able to get around town safely – except for dodging the occasional car or bus driver who appears to be playing the game of “let’s see how close we can get to the pedestrian without actually hitting him.” We will begin the fourth week of the spring term this week and are a little over three months from the end of our time here. We thank you for your continuing reading of our blog.

18th Blog, February 23, 2010

This past week was a week of celebrations. I turned 67 years old and Carl and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. Neither of us can believe we have been together so long, but we both agree that we really made a good choice and love our life together.

But the real story this week is for the past 24 hours, we have been experiencing a dust storm, our first since arriving in Iraq. As Carl and I came out of the faculty meeting yesterday at 4:30, the air was yellow—a little bit like what the weather looks like in Indiana when a tornado is blowing in. By the time we walked from the Administration Bldg. to the area where we pick up our nightly ride, my eyes were killing me with dirt caught under my contacts. We realized that at some point in the afternoon it actually rained blobs of mud. When we got to the car taking us home, we could see a massive collection of dirt on its surface and the driver had to turn on the washer fluid and wipers before he could see out the front window to drive us to our apartment. I have placed two pictures here to compare our view from our apartment on a nice crisp winter day vs. yesterday afternoon when we arrived home. You may not be able to see this, but the view is the very same soccer field and mountains.



We chose to stay in last night to avoid breathing any more dirt than necessary but awoke this morning to the same condition. (It will take a major rain to wash the skies clear again.) As we arrived at the University, I noticed many students and staff wearing masks and those of us who had not done this were practically breathing and swallowing dirt. Even indoors, one cannot really avoid breathing the stuff because it filters through the cracks around the windows and doors. Everything in our offices and our apartment is covered with a layer of fine dirt and will require a major cleaning when this condition clears. It really is dreadful!

I have included a few pictures of items to show how the dirt has collected on what are hopefully recognizable surfaces. Any place you see yellow indicates a collection of dirt rather than indicating the actual color of the item: white/gray sidewalk by buildings, blue trash container, black automobile.





When something strange, like this, happens we ask about it: how often does this occur. Some have said that this happens a lot in the spring and it is dirt/fine sand blowing up from southern Iraq; others have indicated that this rarely happens. Take your pick. Should it happen often, we can imagine that eventually the measurement of feet above sea level will actually increase in Kurdistan while the measurement of feet above sea level in Baghdad will decrease.

Do not worry. We are fine. This, too, will pass.

17th blog

[Carolyn writing] As some of you may know, I was hired to teach accounting 2/3 time and work on special projects for the Finance Department 1/3 time. The second assignment was not specific until I arrived in Sulaimani, but after arriving, it became clear what they needed from me was two things: some basic accounting training sessions for the finance staff, and the selection and set-up of an electronic accounting system. See picture of Director of Finance Carey and me discussing the plan.



The ingenuity of the AUI-S Finance Department staff is so impressive. Without any real experience with double-entry accounting and no electronic program made available to him, Pasha, the second employee of the University, set up a system on Excel spreadsheets that has worked extremely well. The only real deficiency was there was no easy way to gather data to prepare financial statements. As those of you readers who understand business know, the value of financial statements is essential and critical to budgeting—one of the key aspects of running any productive business. Although AUI-S is not a business run to make a profit, it still needs to be able to plan fiscally for the future. See picture of Pasha, Nigar, and Zinya working together.



The plan was that I would work as a trainer of accounting principles for four weeks in November/December. Then upon our return from winter break, we would begin in earnest putting a program called QuickBooks Enterprise into place. There are six members of the Finance Department staff and all six appeared to enjoy the training. I had a great time because it is always fun to work with people who can immediately see how they can apply their knowledge. I won’t bore you with my lesson plans, but I did start out explaining the accounting equation and tried to avoid too much emphasis on debits/credits. What I quickly learned was that all six staff members had more experience with similar concepts and were very bright students. They would bring daily financial happenings to the training session and we would talk about how these events would be booked in an accrual based system. One very important note here—most of Kurdish business events are cash basis and the concept of buy now-pay later (accrual) is foreign to them.

When we returned to work from winter break, all the staff members kept saying, “When are we going to have more training?” They were so anxious to get started. But our next problem was that it is often difficult to get products shipped to Iraq. Intuit who makes QuickBooks does not deal with Iraq so we had to work with them to get special arrangements made for our purchase.

With the assistance of a very knowledgeable IT department, we were able to install QuickBooks the last week of January, Then Carey, Pasha and Nigar sat with me last week to set-up the books for AUI-S. This week, the whole staff has been entering in historical data, and we were able to create our very first set of financial statements for the fiscal year of 2006, the year AUI-S was established. What joy!!! Nigar is very creative and has volunteered to create AUI-S specific forms such as bills to be sent to students for tuition, donor receipts, and other necessary forms. We are in the process of training each staff member, one-on-one, to use QuickBooks, and it really is exciting to see these good people take to this new opportunity.
See pictures: Wrya with Carey, Nigar and Shno, me working with Zinya.







In every good educational experience, learning goes both ways. In working with this very competent staff, I have learned so much about the Kurdish way of business. I will walk away from the assignment at AUI-S feeling not only good about what I was able to share with the students, but also what I was able to do to help the administration of the university.