Poor Kids

    During the last week I had the chance to stay at home to live the hidden misery that the Iraqi families suffer from. I had a seven day holiday indoors which I supposed to spend outside Baghdad , but something happened that made me postpone that trip for another time.

I usually spend most of the day at work and sometimes I spend one or two nights there to do the over night shift . For the first time since 2003, I spent seven days at home .I just wanted to have a space of time to relax.

In fact I hadn't got the time and place to do that .On the contrary , I had seen so many things which I know and hear about it ,but I was trying in myself to forget or pretend to forget.

  I usually wake up at half past six in the morning to go to work coming back before dark ,but all these things change on holidays. I started waking up between 9 and 10 am . I was away of the efforts done inside the house during my absence . My father wakes up at dawn to fill one of the tanks over the roof we have to store water in it , when there is power supply or by using the generator . Otherwise , he should fill the other tank at the garden  with water to be used during the day for everything  needed but drinking .Then, my sister in law would be awake to make breakfast for the family members including her husband before going to work and the only son they have who is only 30 months old .She would ask my brother to bring gasoline for one of the generators as it was operating the whole night. We had two generators at home one needs gasoline to operate  with while the second one needs diesel fuel . We made that decision last year to overcome the long shortage period of electricity and to make them operate in rotation.

  Also my sister in law asked her husband to bring the daily grocery stuff besides some additional stuff including fish as we would receive guests for lunch .On my side, I did something . I was the baby sitter for my nephew who was so happy to have me for one week. I spent most of my time with him . He had breakfast , lunch and dinner with me. He played soccer with me having my room as a field. All his toys were in my room. Also I had my pens and note books to teach how to write and draw with the use of some charts and booklets.

  The hard time is between 12 till 5 pm when heat reaches its peak . Power supply is off mostly and we can feel the weather by the sweat even indoors if the fans or for wealthy people air coolers and air conditioners (AC)are off for few minutes . So we had to operate the big generator to soothe the hot weather and to be human beings.

  Hot weather needs cool water and the latter needs fridges which need more amperes to be operated . Each day we need five liters of gasoline and ten other liters of diesel .So the two generators need about 7 dollars per day for fuel without any maintenance.

  Also I found out that the children suffer more than their parents who prevent them playing outside using the security and hot weather as excuses. We had received our expected guests at lunch who were having three kids of 14 , 11 and 7 years old. For me as a teacher I found myself spending the time with the children forgetting my relative with his family who came from Basra to Baghdad to have few days with his relatives and friends . Feeling their sadness , I used my computer to show them Tom and Jerry cartoons on DVDs and the Paint program to teach them painting . I believe that they had some joy which compensate them being indoors and orders of not doings things as they are guests who are not allowed to do something which is allowed in their house.

  At night I used watch the Euro 2008 championship matches but that thing was interrupted by the little nephew who like to spend as much as possible of his time with the uncle who is most of the time as his father away of him.

  In brief I realized in that short holiday that children are the great losers in Iraq though that their families are trying hard to make the suffering less than it be.

Comments

[Sherry]

Thank you for your story. I link to you nearly twice a week and try to get your story out as best I can. Trust that many of us here in America do our very best to change this awful administration and elect someone who can return your country to you, albeit broken badly by our unthinking and unconscionable behavior.

[Judith]

A visitor to my house just told me that her art class (first to fourth grade) sent pictures of the area we live in (north of Albany, NY) to a friend stationed in Iraq to give to Iraqi students. He was not allowed to give them to Iraqi children because they had the American children's names on them, and no American names can be given to Iraqis. Also, it was considered too dangerous for children to have American drawings at home.

If we can't connect at this basic level, how will we ever have peace?

[Jeanie]

I think of the children in iraq all the time and wish there was some way I could help them. There are so many without parents now. What a large price has been paid for this war in human lives. As an American I feel responsible for some of it even though I have never fired a shot nor would I. I wish there was some way to let the Iraq people know that we do care. We bleed when they bleed. We cry when they cry. And we pray when they pray. I wish peace for all of iraq.