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Home arrow Issues/Politics arrow Letters from Iraq: Home's terrific, and a great place to plan for next year
Letters from Iraq: Home's terrific, and a great place to plan for next year Print E-mail
By Marc Thayer, Special to the Beacon   
Posted July 28 -- I arrived back in St. Louis from Iraq on Wednesday night (July 23) after three flights and a stopover in Vienna, and the gray skies and rain in Missouri never looked so good.

My last few days in Erbil were fun and full of teaching from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. or later at my own choice. Teacher-training classes were full and sometimes turned into gripe sessions, with teachers complaining about all the problems they face with their administrators.

Lots of farewells

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Photos provided by Marc Thayer

The folks from Basra said students couldn’t start to play until they’re 18 years old. Others said their managers expected concerts after a month or two of classes. Others still said that they are only able to teach music for a few weeks each year, and the administrators can’t understand why that doesn’t produce results. We continually compared this to learning a new language and how effective a similar structure would be. We face similar problems in the U.S. with a lack of understanding of how successful learning works.

New students came from southern Iraq, so with the addition of these Arabic folks, we had to have two translators for everything, when we were able to find translators at all.  So everything we said took twice as long to repeat and very often everyone would end up talking at the same time and they’d continue the conversation or class in another language and we’d have to ask what everyone was talking about.  Or one of the musicians would correct one of the translators. 

Sometimes I wished we could all just speak English. And at other times it was an interesting exercise for me to teach without translators through examples and non-verbal communication, often more successful.

I had only one such violin lesson with Hersh, a 20-something fellow from Dohuk who didn’t play very well. He was a very quiet, shy, serious student and didn’t speak much English at all. We were working on his bow technique and sound production and he looked at me and said, “You’re very nice.”  Later in the day he gave me a photo of himself because he had nothing else to give me before I left.  I believe they’re used to teachers who only criticize and yell.  Other students gave me little mementos such as some pens, a paperweight with a photo of Erbil’s Citadel, a metal violin that is also a lighter (very funny), some prayer beads, a pin of the Kurdish and American flags connected, CDs of Kurdish music, a music box made in China, all very meaningful because of who gave them to me.

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 Monday night, my last night, I invited a handful of the students I knew the most to have dinner with me at the hotel.  We sat outside and enjoyed the cool air and good food.  It was hard for them to let me pay for it; it is not customary for guests in their country to pay. But I explained it was very much a tradition for us with students, and I invited them, which makes all the difference in their society.  No such thing as going Dutch there.

Tuesday morning, I taught violin lessons from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., which means 20-30 minutes with each of the 5 or 6 people who wanted to play something for me, or wanted fingerings for a new piece they had justphotocopied.  I gave new strings and the remaining music books donated by people in St. Louis to some deserving students.  Then from 11 am to 1 p.m., my colleague James Nacy ran the first part of the orchestra rehearsal and I did the second half. 

John Ferguson, head of the American Voices program that sponsors the music classes in Iraq and elsewhere, paid me in cash, in U.S. dollars, since there is no real banking system and funds can’t be transferred from Iraq to the United States.  I hope they’re real.  No wonder it is so easy for money to disappear and slip into people’s pockets.  There’s lots of money in Iraq, but much is unaccounted for and hard to track. 

Learn More

Read more of Marc Thayer's letters from Iraq

The break in the rehearsal turned into picture time once again, with one after another student, or two at a time, four at a time, some I hadn’t seen before, standing next to me, saying just one more, one with me, please.  Then came well wishes, hugs, very kind statements of appreciation from some of the older gentlemen, pictures of families, email addresses, requests to come back and so forth.  And as I left in a van, three of my students jumped in to ride along. 

At the airport, cars can only go to a parking lot about a quarter of a mile from the terminal.  Passengers have to go through security, metal detectors and luggage X-rays at this point, and then get on a shuttle to the terminal.  At the entrance are another set of metal detectors and X-ray machines for everyone, then to the check-in counter.  Later, you get frisked again and have your passport checked about 4 times at different points. At the gate for Austrian Air, various American and Austrian men are checking documents and baggage again.  No problems, just real security, made me feel good to see it, wish I saw more of it in the U.S.

On the way to the airport Alan Salih called me from Suleimanya to tell me that a political organization there had agreed to provide Zana and him with plane tickets to New York sometime between Aug. 5-10.  That is a relief, and it won’t be hard to get them here from New York.  Knowing they’re coming soon eases my separation sadness. 

The flights all went smoothly, my luggage arrived, and the overnight in Vienna was a welcome respite.  I can’t believe how cool it was in Vienna and also now in St. Louis, of course not typical of the past few weeks here.  Everything is so lush and colorful and covered with flowers.  Nice to see the green, but the memories of daily difficulties in Iraq have already faded. 

As usual, the lingering memories will be of wonderful people and beautiful music that will make me smile for the next few days and weeks.  My thanks to the St. Louis Beacon for passing on my thoughts and observations. 

I hope all of you can meet Alan and Zana over the next year and hear them play.  Now it is time to start planning for next year.

To reach Marc Thayer, contact Beacon associate editor Robert Duffy.

 

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