Sometimes a certain situation brings back a memory you didn’t even know that it still existed in the depths of your mind.
This is what happened to me a few days ago, when my daughter asked me about adult education in Iraq, a program in the seventies for the eradication of illiteracy, she read about. She told me that the program reduced female illiteracy in Iraq from 70% to 30% within just a few years.
Wow, the last time I read, heard or thought about the campaign to eradicate illiteracy in Iraq must have been about 30 years ago. I didn’t really know that it was such a big success. Talking with my daughter about it brought back a memory of my time in the kindergarten in Baghdad. And after so many years, the purpose of one of my favorite activities in kindergarten was clear for me.
When I was 5 going to 6, I visited Al-Mansour al-Tasisia kindergarten in Baghdad. Part of our kg program was playing short sketches in class. I loved getting dressed up and I wanted so much to get the chance to wear these miniature traditional Iraqi clothes. The white dress and head cover (dishdasha and yashmagh) for the men or the black body cover (abaya) for the women. Unfortunately I never got to play the role of an adult. In the two times I participated, I played the daughter and this role didn’t need a custom. Anyway, the teacher used to pick five or four of us and train them on the role, while the rest of the children drew or played. Then they started to act and we all watched.
I remember two stories that we played, the first was about illiteracy and the second was about children vaccinations.
This is the one we played about illiteracy:
An illiterate woman, wearing the black abaya, is sitting at home while her husband is at work and her child is at school. The bell rings and she opens the door. The postman gives her an envelope and leaves. She opens the envelope to find a paper with red text written on it. She starts to talk to herself: „Oh my God. Something bad must have happened. Why is the text in red? It must be something really bad.“ She holds the paper, looking at the red letters and starts crying. „Oh, God help me. I hope my child and my husband are safe. Why is it red? Maybe my husband had an accident at work. Maybe he is in the hospital.“
For those of us who were watching the play, this was the funniest part. We laughed with tears, looking at her holding the paper and crying.
Then her daughter or son (depending on the actor) comes home from school and finds her/his mother crying and shouting: „What happened? Oh my God, what happened?“
She/he takes the paper and reads: „Electricity bill for December 1979“
The mother stops crying and looks embarrassed. In that moment the father comes home and the daughter/son tells him what happened. The father turns to his wife and tells her: „You see my wife, reading is important to everyone. Not only for those who work. I will take you tomorrow to register you in the literacy center.“
The wife replies: „Yes, I must go to school and learn how to read. Reading and writing is very important and I don’t want to cry again because of an electricity bill.“
The daughter/son gets very excited and says: „My mother will go to school and learn, just like me.“
When the play ended and we clapped for the cast, the teacher started questioning around: „Who has someone illiterate in his family?“
Then she would ask those who raised their hands, who the illiterate person they knew was. Some said it was their mother or father but mostly it was their grandmother. The teacher then told them to go home and tell their parents or grandparents to register at one of the literacy centers, “because reading and writing is very important for everyone.”
I was always sad because we had no illiterate person in our family so I couldn’t raise my hand nor get the mission to tell someone in my family to go to the literacy center.