Today we had a small, informal, all-English chat with the Iraqi guests. It was an odd experience. Dr. W is obviously in such pain from what her country is going through and what she has been through personally. Fadi, perhaps because he is a man or younger or his personality is different, doesn’t seem to let the emotions come through as much. We all started the talk by asking questions about the history of Iraq—who was in power before Saddam, is it worse under Saddam, what do you think of the current government, are the police going to be able to function without American support, etc. Fadi was answering the questions to the best of his ability (considering he is a linguist and not a politician) but Dr. W became very upset and said that the past doesn’t matter. She said it doesn’t matter what happened before, because she would never choose to go back to life under Saddam’s regime, but she also wouldn’t choose life under the American occupation. Comparing the two is a pointless exercise because they are both bad. What we should be doing is working to improve the current situation, focus on today and tomorrow and not look back. At first all the GET Teachers were irritated because we wanted to learn about the past. And I admit that I still want to learn about the history of Iraq, just so I am a better educated human being. But the more I think about it the more I understand Dr. W’s point—talking about the past, or Saddam, or what America could have done differently won’t help the people who are currently suffering in Iraq. Natalie asked her what we could do to help, because we all feel helpless. We come from nations that don’t listen to the protests of their people. We have no real power to stop the American occupation, anymore than we did trying to stop a war that we didn’t agree with. That is a much more difficult question though and not easily answered by anyone. Dr. W said that she came here so we would understand the situation in Iraq better, what the people are actually going through and so that we would see them as people. Form a human connection with people from Iraq. If you have met people and made friends with them it is harder to go to war with that country and harder to stand by and watch horrible things happen to them. But even having made that connection now I don’t know how I can help them on a personal level. It is frustrating to be helpless.