American University
Beirut, Syria
May 1, 1933Dear Miss Turner,
I think this is the real thing. Yesterday was a crowded Sunday and a little unsatisfactory as a day for catching up, but today has been smiling and crowded.
We are getting there. We have folks "coming" in only a year. Two of our supervisors who swore they wouldn't teach, have swung around. One is taking her pavilion's course, medical nursing. The other asked me for a couple of hours with the nurses to tell them a "few things[.]" It came by lying low and letting them have time to realize we are fundamentally anxious to use the best methods. I've been playing with next year's courses. We have a curriculum of 600 class hours lined up compared with 187, the required number in Palestinian schools.
And I'm chairman of a committee to work out minimum requirements for the nurses' courses [for the] mission hospitals. It happened at a conference in Damascus where we held our tongues & kept our tempers under a rain of adverse comments. On the committee will be one nurse from each hospital. 1) Aleppo - a private hospital, 2) Deir es Zoa (spelling?) on the Euphrates 3) Tripoli - Presbyterian Board 4) Nebk - Danish mission 5) Brumanna - Friends mission 6) Damascus - English mission, 7) A. U. B. ourselves.
It is a liberal education, knowing these folks.
Besides, I like it.
You must come and see us.
Having a home is 9/10ths of the fun. I went out in the kitchen and made brownies this evening.
Tomorrow nothing special is planned. Wednesday I'll be doing German with an Austrian girl who is a good friend and an Armenian boy who works under her in the hospital. Thursday we play bridge at Janet Ingholt's. Friday is unplanned. Saturday nights two of us have a game with the Nullers - dean of medical school - who live next door. My game is getting quite good.
I have a partly made dress to finish up. There is swimming around the edges.
Next year I'm doing the Anatomy & Physiology course along with Principles & Practice, Drugs & Solutions, etc. I've connected up with the school of pharmacy for some demonstrations in the last named & am formulating an attack on the Anatomy department for laboratory help for the first named. Bacteriology is giving us a lab. course for the first time next year. We are beginning in a small way on Public Health course.
We had a revealing trip to Palestine. The health projects took so much time we never got inside the mosque of Omar, but we did see the Dead Sea and we did eat a meal as guests of a Moslem village in the shoolmaster's house in an upper room. It was according to the story books. The sheep came in whole on a big copper tray with herbs in his mouth and a stuffing of rice and spices in his middle. We ate with our fingers and gazed fascinated at the series of platters that constantly poured in & were placed at our feet. Then we lay back on the divans - floor high and watched the cloud shadows sweeping across the rough gray hills of Judea.
I couldn't begin to tell of the squalor and degradation of life in that village. Gray stone hovels, and dirt and downtrodden women and squalid children. The conference that followed was about a health program to be launched under the Near East Foundation. Continue to send that dime if it is the N.E.F. you were interested in.
The only sound attack in such a place would be a Public Health Nurse. The only one I verily believe. Until the women come up from the mud - the Arabian Palestinian is out of luck. The Zionist movement is O.K. in theory, but one's sympathies are all with the Arab. If England stepped out there would be bedlam.
As for our own Syria, I've gone Anglo Saxon completely living under the French. The preparations for war are everywhere, implied or actual. On every highway out of this city are big camps. Men of military importance are being called to France. The German situation is causing consternation. You can feel the advance of some crisis and it gives you the creeps.
It is beautiful.
Color and sunshine - plenty of both. And an interesting job. I've been reading our class letters & again & again I wonder how one could put over on paper the charm of a situation. Incidentally I can't imagine that anyone in the class has had the breaks that I have. The Newfoundland story is something I read about once. Now and then a gray rock or a big splashing sea brings it a little nearer.
I must go to bed, for the classes will go roughly if I don't sleep long. The classroom is a treasure and will be easy to work in next year. I'm to have a recent graduate as assistant. I want one of our Jewesses but will probably have the best Syrian, as a matter of policy. It will be fun if I can teach her something about teaching, nicht wahr.
Please come to see me. You'd love it. We have an extra room & you can do anything you want for as long as you want & we'll go on about the day's work.
I'll practice up on breadmaking & feed you Parker House Rolls. So far I can make Brownies, omelette[s] and baking powder biscuit. My housekeeping week is much enjoyed they say. So are the other two weeks!
Love as ever,
Katy Lyman