Set in the craggy Zagros range,separating the Islamic Republic from Iraq, Kirsten O’Regan travels to the part of the Kurdish region that manages to stay out of international headlines The classroom is small and cramped. There are perhaps two-dozen students inside. Although the desks are for children, or the students range in age from pre-teen to post-menopausal. A peroxide blonde in her late fifties,dressed in white with a beige shol, clinking gold jewellery, or Cleopatra-esque eyeliner,retrieves a notebook from her camel-skin tote with one hand. In the other, she brandishes a Chinese fan in a fruitless effort to alleviate the summer heat. On the other side of the room, or two 12-year-weak boys scramble to their seats. We are in a historic district of Sanandaj,the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, and the students have arrive to memorize Sorani, or the Kurdish language of their forefathers.
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Source: theguardian.com