Eventually he rose to chief engineer/program manager of the city of San Diego’s wastewater operation and worked closely with the city manager’s office. Not wanting to disappoint his father, he studied engineering, focusing on the water and waste infrastructure desperately needed in the refugee camps.Ī newly minted civil engineer, Jamal arrived in San Diego about 1982 to start a job in the city’s public works department. His father wanted Jamal to become an engineer, likely his own thwarted ambition, while the son was more inclined toward political science and writing, interests he pursued successfully in later years. His father and elder brothers arranged to send Jamal, the third child, to Baghdad to finish his final year of high school and later, in 1977, to Texas and college for an engineering degree. With an eye to their family’s future, his parents were determined to ensure that their seven children, six boys and a girl, received an education, despite the limited opportunities in the refugee camp and persistent strife in the region. His father worked initially as a manual and farm laborer around the camp and later as an ambulance driver for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, while his mother labored to run the household, hauling water and gathering firewood for cooking, heating and washing clothes. Neither of Jamal’s parents went to school. (Kristian Carreon / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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