Crowded with Voices: Thirteen Years in the Middle East - Softcover

Katherine Chaudhri

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1615391517 ISBN 13: 9781615391516

Publisher: Litho Printers, 2009

Synopsis

In 1976, Kay Chaudhri left a small town in Missouri and traveled halfway around the world to teach. She knew little of the Middle East when she arrived in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain.

Crowded with Voices; recounts her experiences and impressions as she discussed culture, religion and social problems with students, their parents, and her neighbors. Exploration of marriage customs, the changing role of women, and the often uneasy relationship between the sects of Islam provide understanding seldom availble to those who are not able to experience the Arab world themselves. The impact of the Khomeini Revolutoin in nearby Iran and the Iran-Iraq War foreshadow recent problems.

More than thirty years after she arrived, she returned in 2006 and 2009 to explore changes and to discuss with former students, now in leadership positions, the challenges they face and their plans for the future.

About this title

About the Author:

Katherine (Kay) Chaudhri grew up in northern Ohio and southern Illinois before entering Culver-Stockton College in Canton,Missouri. Marriage to a classmate, Kenneth Robb, and the birth of four children delayed her graduation, but she obtained her BA in chemistry from Culver-Stockton in 1959. In 1964, she received her MA in history from Central Missouri State College, and the next year began teaching in Leeton, and later Knob Noster, Missouri.

The Knob Noster schools served Whiteman Air force Base and student accounts of their overseas experiences inspired her to travel with a son and daughter to Europe in 1974. Teaching Contemporary Issues at a time when containment of Communism dominated American foreign policy prompted the desire to see the Soviet Union. In 1975 she and another son drove from Luxembourg to Moscow, south to Kiev, and back to Vienna, Austria, stopping at designated camp sites each night.

Intrigued by what she was learning about the world, Kay applied to teach in the Department of Defense overseas schools, and was offered a position in Bahrain. By this time, two of her sons were married and her youngest son and daughter were in college, so she felt free to begin what she expected to be a brief adventure exploring another culture. Instead, she stayed to teach at Bahrain School for thirteen years. During the years in the Middle East, she traveled multiple times to Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and India.

In 1989, she was offered the position administering a program to supplement science courses in the overseas system with a Science, Technology, and Society focus. Writing materials, coordinating with other teachers in the program, offering workshops, and distributing materials required a move to Bad Kreuznach, Germany. In 1994, she returned to Missouri, settling in Springfield.

Review:

Kay Chaudhri's book,Crowded with Voices: Thirteen Years in the Middle East, is a personal look at life in Bahrain between 1976 and 1989.

Because her time in Bahrain coincided with the Khomeini Revolution in nearby Iran, the book also reflects on that historic event and its impact on the region. A recent visit to Bahrain and Iran, just two months before the Iranian election, added some more contemporary reflections.

The book offers a look at the Middle East through the eyes of an American woman. Her chapters on religion--including the uniquely Shiite observance of Ashura--mourning rituals, and marriage are fascinating and informative.

As a Christian woman from the West in a Muslim country in the Middle East, Chaudhri has a unique perspective that will speak to her American readers.

Crowded with Voices is a way that Americans can learn about the Middle East, a part of the world that has an increasing significance for the United States and the whole world. --Springfield News-Leader

At a time when anxiety and fear slant opinons regarding the Middle East, it is refreshing to read about the ordinary, everyday lives of a culture very different from our own. Kay Chaudhri shares how her teaching experiences taught her to know and love these people, to embrace our similarities, and to better understand and accept our differences. --Pat Simmons

About this edition

• Publisher: Litho Printers
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1615391517
• ISBN 13: 9781615391516
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302
• Editor: Na
• Illustrator: Na