Hi all colleagues & friends …
This is Khairi, Abdulateef Hashim - I’ll talk here about the arrival to Boston. After a very tiring trip and lots of suffering, we arrived to Boston. When we arrived to Boston airport (as I have said before), & finished some small paperwork & passport check, we went to the main incoming passenger’s hall & there was something very nice to see, the wonderful Michele Cloonan, the Dean and Professor in GSLIS at Simmons College & her husband Dr. Sidney Berger. When we saw them, all the tiredness & the suffering was just gone & disappeared. When she saw us coming, she just jumped in the air expressing her happiness. In that moment, my tears almost fall down… it was a very special moment to me! This moment made me think about all the difficulties in getting to Boston, but it is best to forget these now.
As I said, it was a very heart warming to see that view. We got out of the Airport & it was my first time that I saw the snow… I have a curiosity to touch it, & I did, because it was just looks like something almost unbelievable to me.
We went to Michele & Sid’s house, where we spent our 1st night there. Their house was very nice & warm, & there we met Sid’s son “Rafe” who is a very nice young man.
In the next morning, Mr. Sid offered us to taste some pancakes that he made. They were very delicious and I said to him “Aashat Eidak,” as we say in Arabic word (or in Iraqi accent actually), which means “long live for your hand.” That is what we say for someone who does something very good. We found that Michele & lots of nice people at Simmons College had brought lots of things & gifts that we might need here, such as blankets, kitchen stuffs, & some other things, which were waiting for us in Michele’s house for a long time …
Next, we went to the Simmons College student’s dorm, where we received the keys for our rooms. We put our luggage in the rooms & went with Michele & Sid to buy some other things that we might need. Later, we got back to the dorms to unpacked our things, & started to explore our new place.
For my colleagues in Iraq & the others who have not been here, I’ll try to describe the dorms for you. Our dorm is a nice building in 4 floors, containing a main sitting room in the 1st floor (which my room is there on this floor) and one group of bathrooms & showers for each floor. The rooms in the dorm are a little small, about 2.10x3.00 M, & contain a bed, a clothes cabinet, a small wardrobe, a reading table & a chair. It has a small window & central heating. It may be a small room, but I think that it is enough. The building that we are in is co-ed (co-educational as they say it here - which means that it contain men & women in the same building). In the basement there is a small computer lab (4 computers) & one printer (connected by network), with internet lines, & it is free for the students here. There is one kitchen for the hall building, & a laundry room containing 6 machines in it (3 washers & 3 dryers). Laundry is not free, you have to put $1.50 in each one to make it work, or you can use your ID which you can put some money on, & it will work like the electronic account cards inside all Simmons College buildings (& also outside in some clothes shops & restaurants in the neighborhood).
The dorm contains also a TV room with TV channels, CD, DVD player & of course some furniture. There is a small reading room too, containing reading tables & chairs. All the lights here ( in the basement) are switched on electronically as you go into the room & are switched off when everybody leaves the room - that is a nice thing, don’t you think!
There is a small restaurant between these buildings which is supposed to serve food for all students here, but it did not open yet, & we have been told that it well be open on the 20th of this month. There is a big sports center here, & a health center too.
There are too many things that we have mentioned here, & I’d like to tell you about it, but I’ll try to talk about it later, because this Blog has become too long already, & I don’t won’t to make you tired or boring here…
So maybe I’ll tell it to you latter, in other Blog “Insha Allah”. For all the people who read these Blogs, & for my colleagues there in Baghdad & Iraq, I say… thanks for all your nice, warm, encouraging messages, & God bless you all, & I asked God to keep all my good colleagues & friends safe, & not forgetting to pray to God for make my 2 families safe, the one which contains my wife, daughter, siblings & mother, & the other which contains the good people in all Iraq, & in the whole world, & to stop all the bad thing that happened there… “Amen”.
Yours truly;
Khairi, Abdulateef Hashim