Blackboards

Kurdish teachers Said and Reeboir roam Iranian villages near Iraqi border during war. Said guides displaced men, marries widow Halaleh. Reeboir joins child smugglers. Amid danger, they try teaching nomadic students while soldiers patrol. Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>