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Songs start to resound in Tripoli school

20 September 2011 01:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. "Libya, Libya, my country!" Nearly 30 children, aged from five to twelve, are singing concertedly Monday one of the patriotic songs they lately learned in their classroom, located in a school close to the center of Libya’s capital of Tripoli, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The new semester started Sunday in Libya. Many of Tripoli’s primary schools have reopened, after almost half a year of suspense due to the outbreak of domestic rift, which has resulted in chaos and casualties across the country.

Secondary schools are scheduled to reopen next week. But students will return to school gradually, since some have moved out of the city during the war time.

The school, with about 600 students, was originally named " Stars and Flowers School" by the fallen leader Muammar Gaddafi. But one of the teachers, who identified herself as Waria, said they are reluctant to go on with the old name, although it was symbolically good.

As no new textbooks are immediately available, teachers shift the focus of classroom time to music. The songs, mainly composed of encouraging slogans for the shaping of a better and stronger nation, can be heard easily even outside the classroom -- partly because of the penetrating childish treble, while partly of the broken windows left unfixed.

According to the teachers, part of the school was burned or hit by light weapons last month during the fierce fighting between the troops of Gaddafi and those of the National Transitional Council. Nuwal, 12, is the one who leads the chorus as she is the class monitor. When singing the patriotic songs, she always has her right hand over her heart. What is equally impressive is her endearing eye expression, which is pure, sorrowful but firm. It seems that she understands the hardship that the country is facing and that she has faith in the future of the country. The girl said she has been really looking forward to the new semester and the new textbooks. The headmaster Milud Essad has promised to his students that the new books, on a variety of subjects including geography, history and English, will arrive next month.

"I am especially expecting to hear them reading," said Essad, a man in his early sixties.

"My hope is that the situation in Libya could calm down as soon as possible, so that teachers can be real teachers, and students can be real students, unaffected by anything."