This post is from Thana, an Iraqi colleague who has shared in several training programs run by Simmons. She is currently in Chennai (formerly called Madras), India on a six-week training program. She writes:

…my Ministry nominated me to share in some training to be held in India /Chennai ?.the course name is Modern Library and will start on 20 Oct. and last until 12 Dec.

Annam Tahaa is an Iraqi librarian working in the Islamic education office – she is also sharing in this training – we are the only two from Iraq here. As I heard so many librarians will join us from different countries… that will be so exciting for me to know more librarians in the world.

The Indian embassy booked our flight for us (a transit flight) from Baghdad to Dubai and then from Dubai to Chennai. Our problem was waiting between these 2 flights for more than 24 hours. We reached Dubai Wednesday evening on 15 October and our flight did not leave until early morning Friday 17 October. We spent a very long and trying day at airport… we must hold our bags with us and sleep on the chairs. The airport in Dubai is an excellent place and I spent nice time discovering it and shopping… but we felt exhausted from waiting so long a time.

Our flight to Chennai was on Emirates Airways – hmmm, we found it like a dream. I am hearing my favorites songs, the airplane is amazing, it was happy and exciting 4 hours for me – a wonderful flight. We reached Chennai early morning Friday.

The training will be in the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research. There is a dorm in the same building in this institute. When a nice Indian man (Sankar) lead us to our room, we were shocked when we saw this small room with 2 beds and so simple furniture. The weather is hot and damp and the air-conditioner seems not doing anything.

When we start to have our 1st meal I found myself and my colleague couldn?t eat anything. The man who served the food is nice man but food was spicy and the place is not clean enough to eat in. I hope we can find good restaurant to end food problem.

I hope the training will be useful to forget other not important things like food and room. I will do my best to be happy and enjoy my time here discovering a new city and learning more about library science.

I will tell u more in next diary, Inshallah.

Thana