Let not your heart be troubled...
Read this and feel good....
Iraqi School Year Off to Rocky Start
Wed Oct 1, 8:27 AM ET
By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - At the western end of Baghdad, clapping Iraqi children usher in the start of a new school year with the help of donated American supplies. Downtown, an elementary school principal holds her head in despair — the promised textbooks never arrived and she has nothing to offer her 300 pupils.
The contrast underscores the difficulties in rebuilding a long neglected education system, as Iraq (news - web sites)'s schoolrooms opened their doors Wednesday for a new term.
As elsewhere in this fractured country, the struggles are daunting. There are still pressing infrastructure needs and security concerns for the schools, and the process of eradicating Saddam's ideology is yet in early stages.
Iraqi teachers are miserably paid. Under Saddam, teachers earned the equivalent of $5 to $13 a month, according to Charles Heatley, a coalition spokesman. The new administration has made an effort to change that, with monthly wages between $67 and $335.
Coalition officials also had hoped to purge references to the ousted Iraqi leader from textbooks in time for the new school year. The United Nations (news - web sites) educational agency arranged for the printing of 72 million textbooks with references to Saddam removed.
Yet Iraqi officials say most of them have not arrived. At the Ministry of Education's warehouse in southern Baghdad, Hussein Ali Abid showed off a handful of high school math and literature textbooks — all with Saddam's picture on the first page. "I wish I could provide the new books, but look, this is all I have," he said.
Still, it was all smiles and cheers Wednesday in the al-Furat neighborhood — once a Baath Party stronghold across the road from the Baghdad International Airport — as pupils showed up for registration and orientation. Classes resume Saturday.
Resounding booms of leftover explosives being detonated nearby did not seem to bother the 1,000 children or their mothers, proudly watching the opening ceremony at the Dufaf al-Neil school.
Outside, security was enforced by two American tanks, nine Humvees and barbed wire on the road up to the school.
The damage to the school in the citywide looting after Saddam's ouster five months ago has been largely repaired. However, many of the surrounding homes, where the worst of fighting for the Iraqi capital occurred, still bear the scars.
Inside the refurbished school, portraits of Saddam no longer hang over the blackboards. Children are no longer forced to stand up and chant "Long Live Saddam" when a visitor walks in. Instead, they giggled in the squeaky new desks.
His eyes sparkling, Shamal Siman, 9, watched as soldiers from the 1st Armored Division unloaded truckloads of new crayons, magic markers and watercolors, donated by U.S. military families back home.
"They will also give us brand new bags," the third-grader said.
Principal Jabar Al-Amri said it made "his heart sing" to see the schoolchildren — his "sons and daughters" — so happy.
Iraqi police Gen. Mahmud Al-Jaburi sang America's praises. "No one else helped us, only the Americans. I want to say thank you to so many people across an ocean. We shall take good care of this school."
But amid the celebrations, history teacher Rabha, who would only give her first name, said she was still very worried.
"God willing, things will be better," she said. "But I live far away from here and the streets are not safe."
Things weren't so good at the al-Karkh primary school, located in central Baghdad near the bombed-out Foreign Ministry.
Principal Fahria Whayeb, 60, was worried because neither the furniture nor the promised textbooks had arrived. Workers were still busy clearing out the debris.
"My staff can clean up and make this look decent but we can't supply the new books" for the school's 300 students, she said.
Mothers with children trickled in slowly. Wesam, 24, clutched the hand of her eldest daughter Nebe, 6, concerned over recent kidnapping reports. In al-Karkh's schoolyard, gardener Abdul Rezak was busy laying palm seedlings into dugout holes.
"Our children deserve some beauty," he said, lapsing into a tirade against the American occupation troops. "When there was Saddam, there was some law and order. Now who will protect us from these Americans shooting at us all the time?"
Look past the doom and gloom that the media thrives on and see the good things that are happening. GWB, or not, we need some positive news for a change.
