certification

Friday 28 February: Day 232

A few months ago, Kalar started requiring people to pay for parking near the bazaar.  They have young men on every street corner collecting parking tickets and fining people if they stay there too long, placing little yellow slips on the windshields of cars that have been parked for too long.

I was walking home today and saw a recently ripped up yellow slip on the sidewalk.  Pretty much sums up the spirit of Kalar.

سزا – sza – fine/penalty

Saturday 29 February: Day 233

The government is ordering all businesses to close and is forbidding all public gatherings because of the coronavirus.  That means that schools are closing indefinitely, businesses must shut their doors, the bazaar is once again quiet at night and the teashops and food stands are comically wrapping cellophane around their stalls in a bid to stop the spread of the disease.

The EAI is still open, if only for now.  We’re stopping construction on the school because we don’t want to draw more attention to ourselves, so the upstairs room is just this dusty pile of rubble.  We can’t really afford to close classes now but its starting to look like the police will knock on our door any day and tell us all to go home.  Half of our students want us to call off classes and continue after Ramadan.  The other half want us to rush through and finish sooner, before the virus spreads further.

Time will tell.

نەخۆش – najoshy – sick

Sunday 1 March: Day 234

“Substantially?” – mostly, importantly, greatly.  The death of the journalist substantially contributed to paranoia in the region.

“Promiscuous?” – more than necessary.  We usually use ‘promiscuous’ to talk about people who have a lot of extra-marital sex.  Also, when someone is being arrogant or gaudy, we can say that they are promiscuous.

“Pageantry?” – do you know “beauty pageants?” (proceed to mime a catwalk gait).  ‘Pageantry’ is all the stuff the government does instead of making any substantial changes.

Great words, Chaman.

وشە – wsha – word

Monday 2 March: Day 235

My 3-5 Level 3 class asked to give short presentations about various topics at the start of classes.  Today’s topic was about education in Hanaqin.

Hanaqin is that city to the south of Kalar that I talked about a few weeks ago – historically Kurdish, wrought by ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure, demographically Arabic after generations of forced migrations.  I learned that “Hanaqin” means “willow tree” in Akkadian – a language dating back to 3000 BCE.  There’s a bridge in Hanaqin that is either made of or was destroyed by sheep skulls (not totally clear, but I have to include that tidbit.  Very Iraqi).  

In the 1970s, Saddam outlawed spoken Kurdish and began forcing schools to teach in Arabic.  The new curriculum was ethnocentric to a tee, removing any mention of Kurdishness and teaching a false history about the history of the town.  He forcibly resettled thousands of Arabs in to Hanaqin to change the demographic makeup of the region – and bolster the government’s claim to the city’s vast oil reserves.

Today, Kurds want their city back. My students debated about the subject for almost an hour.  The three students from Hanaqin passionately argued that Kurdish needed to be reintroduced immediately, while other students said that Arabic was a more useful language for students to learning that Kurdish was still being spoken in the home.  Why not teach both?

That conversation was the longest and most sustained conversation we’ve had in English, but it was also one of the first times any of these students have had the opportunity to have a measured, respectful discussion about such a contentious topic.  Proud teacher.

مشتومڕ – meshtmr – debate

Tuesday 3 March: Day 236

“Teacher, I want to speak my mind.  I mean no disrespect…”

Preparatory blink.  “Of course.  What’s up?”

Gulp.  “Can Catholic priests get married?”  His eyes are jetting from side to side.  His face turns red.  I know where this is going.

“We’re not Catholic.  You are not being rude.  Don’t worry.  And no, priests can’t get married.”

He gets ready for the big question – he shifts his weight, like he’s about to get punched in the jaw.

“Is that why they do those things with children?”

We’ve had students ask us questions about sexual abuse before, but this was easily the most direct question yet.

“Yeah, I think so.  I really don’t know.  But it is a huge problem, and the Church isn’t doing enough to fix it.”

He seemed satisfied with the answer, as satisfied as anyone could be.

پرسيار – prsyar – question

Wednesday 4 March: Day 237

I can see the scene play out in the playground between our two apartment blocks.  Three girls and a boy, all younger than 10, are running around the swings.  A mother wearing a flow black abba comes out of her building, looks around, and almost jumps when she sees her son.  She marches over and starts slapping him in front of the girls, their turquoise and pink hijabs turning to hide winces or laughs, I can’t quite tell.  The boy protests and tries to run away but the mother is ready – her right hand grabs his flailing arm and her left hand pinches his ear and she practically lifts the kid like a bag of garbage with this move that would impress any cop.  She leads him away from the girls whose laughs I can clearly hear from three stories up and the boy is floating like a bag of garbage about to get dumped down the chute.  He’s still looking back at the girls.  Good luck kid.

كوڕ – kur – boy