Iraqi teenagers forge friendships in Seattle visit

They were like any other group of teenagers Sunday, screaming their way through water rides at Wild Waves theme park in Federal Way.

High-school students from across Iraq and Kurdistan, they've been living for the past 12 days with families in the Seattle area and hanging out with local teens.

They toured Microsoft's Redmond campus, awed by technology's reach; they made an animated film with Reel Grrls, a Seattle media-production group; and took a Ride the Ducks tour, an entertaining history lesson on wheels that rumbles through the streets of Seattle before rolling into Lake Union.

First time in U.S.

The six high-school students came to the U.S. — all for the first time — as part of a program of leadership and cultural enrichment sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

They are among 70 from their country spending a month in cities across the U.S. to develop leadership skills, build cross-cultural friendships and challenge stereotypes.

Twenty-five U.S. students, including four from Seattle, also participated in the program by World Learning.

"The people we met here ... didn't put differences between us and them," said Tebeen, a 16-year-old from a city in Kurdistan. "It was really about the things that we share in common; the similarities."

The Iraqis, none of whom were teenagers when the U.S. war in Iraq began in 2003, brought with them their own ideas about Americans borne mostly of the images they see on TV.

Samer, a 17-year-old high-school junior from Baghdad, where armed soldiers and vehicles are the ever-present images of the conflict, said his participation in the program help him clarify the differences between the American people and its government.

"We came here and met American people — not the American government," he said.

The students all said their families supported their involvement in the program and encouraged them to come to the U.S.

But they were concerned Americans might hold them at a distance — that attitudes shaped by the negative images of Iraqis seen on television would lead many to assume all Iraqis were bad.

"I thought people would be fearful of us," said Hayder, 17, from Babylon. "I didn't find that."

They were surprised by the openness of people, the similarities they had with other teenagers and the diversity they saw on the street.

Largely because of religion, they said, two men walking down the street and holding hands is unheard of anywhere in Iraq.

"It was great to see different types of people," Hayder said.

Basma, a 17-year-old from Babylon, who has finished high school and will attend college in the fall, said she hopes to be able to transfer to a university in the U.S.

She's missed the food from home, she said.

All 70 students were selected from among a pool of 500 across the country based on their leadership potential and interest in volunteering in their home countries.

World Learning requested their last names and photos not be included in this report out of concern for their safety in Iraq.

First top in Vermont

The students spent their first week in Vermont forming new friendships with American students, learning about U.S. values and picking ideas that could prove useful to them in creating volunteer programs back home.

They fly to Washington, D.C., on Monday for a week to discuss their experiences before wrapping up the program and heading home to Iraq and Kurdistan.

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com