I usually enjoy these types of books- memoirs of people living or working in foreign lands, but this one just did pull me into the story. I took to skimming (sorry) just to get through it. I've read better accounts of working in the middle east. I am sure it will be find it's audience, though.

Daring to Do!

An unusual story set in Northern Iraq where divorced teacher, Theresa Turner takes on a stint of teaching in a ultra conservative school, the International Academy of Kurdistan, for the upper echelon in the far reaches of Kurdistan in 2010.
Somewhere between a novel and a memoir, I was fascinated by Theresa's purchase of a bike and steps towards exploring the culture she was working within. Her developing relationships with the women of the village is a jewel. Her entree into their hopes and dreams, their disappointments and the rules they live by is eye opening. Her brief moments of journeying with these women is wonderful.
What's not so precious is the showing up of the teacher she's replaced with a somewhat sinister aura. That played into sinister shadows of disgruntled converts, something I didn't like and didn't think was necessary. And why didn't Theresa just toss the guy's mysterious package he'd left in her apartment out? Then there's the educational and employment practices of the school and the treatment of the teachers who become somewhat trapped in the system.
But returning to the women. By sharing their joys and problems, Theresa becomes a conduit for the reader into a world we know nothing of. I become unsure as to whether it's rewarding or condescending. I want it to be the former.
The education practices of the school, the teaching conditions and the traps for unwary players are less likable. Certainly there's a note of beware what you get yourself into for all those thinking about going to more conservative countries for employment. Theresa's first impressions of the educational compound do not bode well. "My new home is more like a military barracks, a bastion of something as yet unclear." That clarity comes with hooks not before discernable.
Despite this I keep coming back to the romantic idea of the immense privilege that is Theresa's when she takes chances and is accepted by the women into their homes and culture, all on the wing and promise of a bike! However whether Theresa returns that respect is sometimes moot. I'm still conflicted.

An Alesa Lightbourne ARC via NetGalley

This read like a memoir, no surprise as it is based on a true story. I found it especially interesting as I have also taught abroad, and can relate to some of the issues faced by Theresa and the other staff. The setting is Iraq, amongst Kurds, and the school is near a village in which Theresa befriends local women. The book covers interesting cultural aspects of Kurdish village life, and does not shy away from contentious issues such as the women's lack of education, lack of freedom in many respects, but also covers the horrific topic of female genital mutilation. I thought the personal background of Theresa did not add much, that is, about her awful ex-husband and the subsequent debts she had to pay.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

The main reason I asked for this book was to compare it with "Guests of the Sheik", a fantastic non-fiction book from 1965 (reissued 2010) that I first read around 1989. I expected that this new book would be an annoying story of a closeted missionary, but that wasn't the case at all. Ms Lightbourne really is a teacher and her book is about her experiences working at a school.

Ms Lightbourne's stint in KRI ended a decade before I got there and the economy and it's upward trend changed, especially after the oil crisis and the disastrous 2017 independence referendum. Even though the book is structured as a novel, I think I recognize the places she talks about – maybe not the exact place, but sort of. I picture her in Algosh, on the Mosul side of Duhok that was devastated by the ISIS war, although it was more likely to have been up near Akre. It doesn't matter, really, the site is a composite.

Ms Lightbourne arrives in Kurdistan on a short teaching contract at a very odd high school. To keep from going stir crazy she buys a bike and rides around the countryside (with no mention of landmines). As in "Guests of the Sheik", Ms Lightbourne found her most warm and human experiences with the women of the villages she visits. Her students are her escorts.

As in "Guests" love and sex are important parts of women's lives. There is a lot of discussion of FGM in this book, a practice has been banned in KRI for over a decade. I found the mother's story of her daughter being captured during the war and sold into sexual slavery very poignant. The mother was comforted by the knowledge that because she was cut, the prostituted daughter was never shamed by lust.

(My sources of info on FGM today were limited. One male friend said that besides being against the law, FGM was being touted as an "Arab" custom, not a Kurdish one, and that the strong antipathy of the Kurds for anything Arab was effective in suppressing it. I didn't have any good medical or female sources to ask.)

Unlike "Guests", Ms Lightbourne is a teacher, not an anthropologist, and her stay in Iraq was short. She has pulled her experiences into an enjoyable short novel that provides a glimpse into a particular place at a particular time and makes no claim to much ethnography. I enjoyed the book very much.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This should be an engaging story of an older teacher that accepts a job in the wilds of Kurdistan, teaching at an English-language school. I found it confusing that this was obviously based on the author's personal experiences, but marketed as a novel, and think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been more clearly written using a personal perspective.

There were way too many cultural themes that were touched upon, but only partially developed. Some of the plot points were just plain loopy, e.g. her naiveté in dealing with the fallout from her ex-husband, the way the mentally unhinged former teacher kept turning up, even to the point of having a key to his old apartment, which the author was now living in - oh, and the very strange drug-taking episode toward the end.

All in all interesting, but not enough, and not coherent enough, to really leave me satisfied after reading.