Chooku Maaku

I'm settling into a rhythm of Amman, and I actually feel comfortable doing this, which is a pleasant surprise.

I've begun to take the next step in my project. Now that I know these folks, I can actually talk to them and learn about their situation in Iraq, Jordan, and the diaspora. Many of my students were soldiers in their younger years. One of them, was rejected for refugee status because he was a soldier in Iraq's army in Kurdistan when Saddam was committing atrocities there in the 90s. Now his family is headed to the states, but he has nowhere to go. So what should I see him as: the possible perpetrator of atrocities or a jovial, energetic student and father of a 7 year-old daughter who learned the Our Father in English to impress the American in the church?

Another student fled because her husband, a linguistics professor, was being threatened because some of his students worked for the Baath party.

What I'm learning goes beyond the religious side of the Chaldeans; I'm seeing the lives that have been turned upside down in the last six years and I'm beginning to understand the complexities of Iraq.

(note on the title: "chooku maaku" is the "what's up, man?" of Iraq, with the "ch" sound that is foreign to Arabic but present in Iraqi colloquial. In Jordan, it becomes the smoother "shoofi maafi")