COLUMN: Lab school helps kids in Iraq
Hello family and friends,
Operation School Supply was a wonderful success! On a sunny Sunday the six boxes of school supplies gathered by students at Edith Bowen Elementary School were loaded into the back of a Humvee. The Ba’qubah area director of schools escorted me and seven other soldiers and a linguist across town to a cinder-block girls primary school, educating grades one through five. Upon arriving at the school we were greeted by an excited headmistress (principal), anxious to show us her students and grateful for the needed supplies.
The lack of material and supplies was everywhere evident – bare walls and rooms void of colorful pin-ups or teaching aids like you would find in an American classroom. The classrooms contained benches, desks and a blackboard. Period. But the heart and soul of a school was beating strong with dedicated teachers and eager students. The headmistress ushered us from classroom to classroom where proud teachers called the students to attention and the students chanted a salutary, “Good morning!” In some classes the teachers called one or two pupils to the front to recite some rhyme or saying in English or Arabic.
The precious little girl students – most dressed in a black jumper and white blouse uniform, some wearing colorful head scarves – looked in wide-eyed wonder as Americans came to visit their school, and with goodies to give as well!
Once we greeted the students in each classroom we off-loaded the supplies and formed a line to distribute the supplies to the students. The teachers kept order and helped give each of the 200 students eight pencils, one pen, one large eraser, one small eraser and a candy cane. I wondered at how some of the younger girls could hold so many items in such small hands.
The art teacher was given crayons, markers, colored pencils, and construction paper for her classroom. The other teachers were given scissors, tape, glue, chalk, pencil sharpeners, staplers, notebooks and reams of paper for their classrooms. We finished passing out the supplies, said our goodbyes and drove away feeling good about what we’d done.
The American school liaison officer said the need is great for such supplies as there is a shortage of everything, even pencils and paper. He said it is easier to receive funds to build a new school than receive funds to supply a school. “Good hob,” he said as we drove away.
A big thank you to Ginny DiRaimo for suggesting and organizing the sending of the supplies and to the students at Edith Bowen for generously giving the supplies to help school children in need half a world away. You did a good job!
God Bless,
Chris
Christopher Keeley is a graduate student at USU and was working as a staff assistant in Extension conference services when he was called to active duty. He is from Hyrum, Utah, and is a member of the Utah National Guard specializing in counterintelligence and is a Korean linguist.