Samee Rashid and Hozan Noori, two UW-Madison students who arrived in Madison three weeks ago from Kurdistan, jumped up on a tractor Sunday during an event for international students on a family farm here.
The men are taking classes in English as a second language and hope to pursue master’s degrees in law. They are from Erbil, the fourth largest Iraqi city, and the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Rashid, 28, wanted to make sure Americans know that farms in Kurdistan are more beautiful than in Wisconsin.
“It’s one of the best areas for wheat,” he said.
Rashid and Noori, 26, were among about 140 international students to visit the farm of Steve and Martha Querin-Schultz, who for the third year in a row opened their third-generation farm to the students. Five international students from Madison Area Technical College also took part in the event.
Martha Querin-Schultz is office manager for the UW-Madison’s International Student Services, and her husband, Steve, who regularly attends university events with her, thought it would be a good idea to get the students out to their farm.
“I have always felt that the international students at UW feel isolated in the sense that they are in an urban area and never really get outside the city,” Martha Querin-Schultz said. “This was just an opportunity to get students off the Isthmus, off campus, and out into the country.”
Students and their families took horse-drawn wagon rides, learned to drive a tractor, toured the family’s home and surrounding land, played outdoor games, ate lunch courtesy of the Cottage Grove Historical Society and listened to a bluegrass group.
The event took nearly 50 volunteers to put on.
The 250-acre farm used to be a dairy and cattle farm. Now they raise corn and soybeans.
Farhana Raja, 29, from Malaysia, who is studying agriculture, said she was particularly interested in seeing a working Wisconsin farm.
Raja said farming is similar in her country, but that the crops are different.
“In Malaysia there is less soybeans,” she said. “We use a lot of palm oil instead of vegetable oil.”
Steve Querin-Schultz said the yearly farm visits give the students a rural experience.
“Most of these kids are from the city and they live in Madison so they don’t get a chance to see the rural lifestyle,” he said.
Noori said he’s already homesick and misses everything about his country, but was glad he came out to the farm.
“I think I’ll get used to living here,” he said. “Wisconsin is beautiful and very friendly.”
Source: Madison News
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