Dear Colleagues – I had asked Abdul Latif Khairy if he would blog again this year, and his first entry appears below. Abdul Latif is a very bright, hard-working and caring librarian and LIS faculty member. His English is excellent, though as you’ll see below he speaks better than he writes (though he makes his points very well).
Im will pass along any other blogs he sends, if he can get to writing them. As he points out, life in Iraq is tragic and dangerous every day! Harvey Varnet
July 21, 2006
Hi every one again, This is Khairy, Abdul latif.
I think that some of you knew me from last summer,
It’s an honor for me to represent my Iraqi colleagues by Bloging to you … & through my dear friend Mr. Harvey again. I want to thank him very much for what he has done for us, as I do to the other teaching team members ( Michele, Cynthia, Harvey, Ian, David, Michael, Carla, Pat, William & Sid ) who kindly try to give us what ever they have from the latest developments & changes in our field ( LIS ) , & they gave us the lessons, & took us in number of field trips, which helped us to improve our skills & try to give us information about the latest developments in our field.
I would like here to share with you some thoughts about what happened before, in & after we finished the training course in UAE, but, there is too many things to talk about, so, I will to tell you about it in 3 different Blogs, & here ( if you do not mind ) I will try to tell you about what happened before.
In Iraq, we are in the worst circumstances that you can imagine, too many Electricity power shut down, so is the water, too many main streets are blocked, & too many other things that you may know or hear of it, in the same time we are thinking of what can be done for the sake of preservation and reconstruction of Iraqi libraries, this through some of the thoughts that we have already have, & these we have got from the last summer training courses in Amman.
I want to tell you something new that I have already told my friend Mr. Harvey & some of the teaching team. we have new thing here, which we can call it “Professors Assassinate”, & it happens here too many times, as example, in our college, we have lost number of professors, & in 2 days, we lost 2 of them, & in the third day, in the morning, we did not say “good morning” but we asked “who dies today?”
So, you can imagine now our circumstances before we gone to UAE, & for sure, it will stay the same thing after we get back…
Ok, let us talk about the courses, because we have got the invitations for it, but the Visas was too late, & because of that we have lost our reservations for flights many times, & have a very big problem with get another one in the right time, but thanks for god (( Al hamdo le Allah – as we say )) we have got some, but in different days & flight companies, for me, I was in the last group that arrived to UAE, we were 5 persons, me & 4 women’s, & we stuck in Iraqi airport from 10 AM to 11 PM !!!, & we arrived to Dubai in 1:10 AM, we call Mr. David, who tell us that there is a driver waiting for us there, & (( Al hamdo le Allah )) we found him, & he have took us to our hostel’s which we arrived to it in 3:10 AM …
We were very eager & heart warm to meet all the good people who arranged the training course & who we met (( many of them )) last summer tomorrow in the first morning …
… to be continued …
I hope that I did not bother you with my long Blog, & I will be pleased to let you know whatever you want — feel free to ask me.
God bless you all.
yours;
Khairy, Abdul latif
Baghdad, Iraq
[email protected]