School, Can You Make It There? HW: 33

Alive in Baghdad is a video website devoted to exposing the hardships in Bagdad through updated podcast. The video I just watched was Challenges at a Girls School in Baghdad - 05.21.2007, a short series of interviews with teachers and student at an all girls school in Baghdad. The students and teachers both agreed that the conditions are tough and the showing of girls dwindles each day because of wide spread violence. One student explains how her parents want her to drop out of school because the danger of traveling to school each day over powers the benefit of attending. The school its self is comparable to the old mills that I grew up next to that had broken windows and cracked foundations. The interior of the classroom was bland with not much on the walls except for dirt stains and broken concrete. The teachers insist on keeping the school in session despite the regular raids and occasional blasts nearby. What stuck me the most about the vide was the fact that they can find teachers willing to show up everyday never knowing if they will be shot at or bombed, and for what. So that they can teach the 10 students or so that could make to class today but might not be there for the next week because there family is arrested and she is abandon. I have only seen war footage of Iraq but I can imagine that the rest of the town where the school is located is badly beaten. This video can teach us that we should be ecstatic to use 2005 software for our computers because the schools in Iraq have chalk for recent technology.

Link: http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad/

Tribal not Terrible HW: 32

I chose to summarize the topic of “Tribes and Cousins.” The whole marital situation in Iraq is puzzling to most, mainly because of interfamily marriages. Basically in some parts of Iraq the only people that are eligible to marry are you cousins. This is because in some parts the area could be inhabited by 4 to 5 major tribes and that’s it. So unless you want to marry your aunt and uncle or parents then the cousins are the only choice (Riverbend 87). So in reality it isn’t a big deal for cousins to marry because it is the way of life in those tribes and that is how the youth is taught as they grow up. Much too popular belief these tribes we speak of aren’t always the camel top dessert goers that people think they are. In fact many of the tribe members are wealthy well educated. “They drive around in Mercedes and live in sprawling villas fully furnished with Victorian furniture, Persian carpets, oil paintings, and air conditioners (Riverbend 88).” Most of the tribe members aren’t big fans of US involvement in Iraq. One of the most prominent members of sheikhs lost 18 family members form a missile fired upon him by US troops. Another lost 8 tribe members the same way. The American Gov. Wont let them participate in any matter having to do with the war; they just boss them around like children. The tribe members are pissed because they aren’t tyrant rebels who want to corrupt Iraq. Unfortunately the US troops do not have the ability to tell who is bad and who isn’t.(Riverbend 90, 91)