We started the day at the Ministry of Education and then went to Raparin University. Afterwards we went to a boys' high school where we had a Q&A session with students of that school and a nearby girls' school. The students were all very intelligent and engaged. I was most impressed by the amount of work they seem to put into studying. Many of them spend their summers preparing academically for the next year or studying language. Many of the students had very good English and, in addition to Kurdish, spoke one or two other languages such as Arabic, Persian, Korean, or German. After the boys' school we went to the girls' where they had prepared a very nice fesival for us. All the girls wore traditional Kurdish clothing and they had a mock wedding celebration complete with food and dancing. I was really struck again with the amount of time and effort put into everything.
The last stop of the day before dinner was the sports complex. There are several branches of the complex located throuighout the city and the one we visited had volleyball courts and soccer fields. Another of the complexes has training facilities for martial arts and weightlifting. All of the facilities are free to use. Fletcher and I jumped in on a practice game of volleyball that was underway with what we were told is the second best womens' team in Iraq. Women and girls have only been allowed to come and use the sports complex for the last few years but have developed strong, competitive weightlifting, volleyball, and basketball teams in that time. As of now, all the teams, both mens's and womens,' are only able to play in Iraq but there is a desire to play with teams from the region as well. A scheduled men's soccer game with Iranian Kurds was recently prevented by the Iranian government.
In our stops this morning we were asked again and again what we, as Americans, can do to help. I am beginning to see some of the problems that can arise when NGO's simply come to a place and start dumping funds and resources into a place. There seems to be an attitude among some people that we are just here to "fix" things.
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