My Last Visit To Baghdad
By Nesreen Melek
06 October, 2013
Countercurrents.org
September 06, 2013
It was the fourth time to visit Baghdad after I left in the late seventies. There were no direct flights from Toronto to Baghdad; I chose flying through Dubai as it was the cheapest price. I had to spend the night in Dubai before flying to Baghdad.
I arrived in Dubai in the evening. I didn’t want to spend my evening in a hotel room, so I decided to go to one of the big malls in Dubai to buy Arabic books as buying Arabic books on line from Toronto is very expensive. I bought a few Arabic books and one of them was “In the Presence of Absence” by Mahmoud Darwish.
The flight was planned to leave Dubai around noon time the next say and I knew there will be Americans with me on the plane. They will be going back to the country which they claimed before invading it that democracy will be flourishing, but instead of the democracy the death toll reached over one million since the invasion. The infra-structure of the country is destroyed and Iraqis are suffering on a daily basis.
While I was in the plane, I started reading Mahmoud Darwish’s book, as I wanted to avoid looking at the passengers’ faces that would be with me on the plane.
Darwish’s book was about life and death, home and exile and it was written in a poetic way. It was about longing for Palestine, history, friendship and family. The more I was reading the more I felt that Iraqis and Palestinians are similar in so many ways. I kept asking myself while I was reading the book whether there is fairness in this world or not.
I wiped tears often, cried for my country and other countries in the Middle east.
I chose en aisle seat in the plane, continued reading my book. I noticed there was a man who was seated beside an American man, he looked Iraqi but one of his legs was amputated. A few seconds after he was seated he asked the hostess to change his seat and I wondered if this man lost his leg because of the American bombing or did he have another story. He was seated beside in a seat close to me, wanted to ask him his story, but changed my mind.
The closer I was to Baghdad, the happier I felt.
September 09, 2013
The third night in Baghdad and there were eight explosions in different parts of the city. My cousin was a few meters away from where one of the explosions took place. She called to inform us while she was driving that she was fine and was checking on other family members if we heard from them, we told her that they were all safe and thankfully they were. Each family member was checking on their loved ones. People are living in fear from what each second could bring them but they still care and love each other even though they inhale air and fear daily.
Baghdad became a city of death, a city where people count their deaths daily. Things hadn't changed much from my last visit two years ago but pigeons are still singing in the mornings, the sound of the athan wakes me up and a cup of a black Iraqi tea is what I smell in the morning to start my day with.
September 10, 2013
I had a few errands in the city. My cousin drove me around. While we were driving, Fairuz was singing one of her best songs about Baghdad. Baghdad the city of "Salam" (Peace) as it used to be called turned to be the city of horror, the city of pain and suffering, the city of mayhem and anguish.
While we were passing through a checkpoint, cars were jammed. I looked at the cars beside me and thought what would happen there is a suicide bomber in one of these cars, who would protect me. I thought of my boys but at the same time felt that I would be with others, and wondered if the pain will be lessened when I am among my own people? And why do people intensity fear all over the world while Iraqis live with fear and it is part of their lives. Iraqis inhale death and horror every day.
Between the cars a seven years old kid was selling Kleenex. He came close to our car, I looked at his face which face was tanned from the hot sun. He had black eyes and his hair was shaved. He could be my grandson if my son married a few years ago. I felt guilty sitting in an air conditioned car while this kid is outside. He showed me the pack of Kleenex he was carrying and murmured something. I opened the window and gave him whatever change I had, and told him to sell the pack of Kleenex to someone else, he threw it on me and said: Khala (auntie) please take it, I want to go home.
I turned my face and started crying, this kid is going home despite the horror and I have been looking for a place to call home since I left Iraq in the late seventies. The countries I lived in were safe, Canada my last station where I live now gave me what my country didn't give me, in terms of safety and security but I am still looking for a place to call home.
I thought of all the Iraqis who are a scattered all around the planet, each year a wave of Iraqis would leave because of political reasons. Iraqi kids are growing up on a hope that they will leave one day. All my young relatives have a dream of continuing their education and leaving their country with one way ticket somewhere in this planet. Who would be left in Iraq? Killers and thieves will be left in Iraq.
What happened in Iraq is happening in Syria now, and the leader who was nominated for the Nobel Prize might launch a war based on a lie on Syria soon. Damascus will turn into another Baghdad, and I wondered would a Syrian kid be forced to sell Kleenex in the streets of Damascus like the Iraqi kid I saw this morning.
Would Damascus, beautiful Damascus turn the way Baghdad turned if the American
Decide to launch a war on it. What will happen to the jasmine in Damascus?
It is prayer time, the mouatheen is calling to pray and to praise the God. I wondered if He had forgotten about the kid who was begging in the streets of Baghdad, the street of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the city which was destroyed because of a big lie. I talked to him and asked Him to save all Syrian kids and not to let them pass through what the Iraqi kid is passing through now. Begging in the streets and fetching for food in the garbage.
Yet the palm trees stand and high as slim women, carrying fresh dates and resisting the horror and the pain. Is their a resemblance between Iraqi women who wear Abbaya and the palm trees?
September 13, 2013
I decided to visit a church but didn’t tell my relatives where I was going because they would stop me from going if they knew because they would be worried about me.
I took a cap and asked him to drive me to a church which was in the neighbourhood I lived for a long time I was living in Baghdad in the late seventies. I entered in the church, there was a small garden in the front, the plants were watered and the smell of the Iraqi soil struck me. The dews were still on some of the roses. I was in a rush to go inside the church and leave quickly.
I promised two dear friends to light a candle for them. I went inside, Jesus faced me, he was crucified and Mother Mary was opening her hands wide. I sat in the pew, covered my face and started looking at them. I started crying, I cried for the daily Iraqi suffering, for the country that is being destroyed, for the state the country is in and what will happen in the future. . A women behind me, touched my shoulder lightly and told me
“ May She helps you with your pain” I looked at her and told her, “It is not just my pain, it is our pain.” I had to leave, couldn’t stay longer.
September 14, 2013:
My cousin was sitting on a kitchen table and trays of dates were in front of her. She was mixing the dates with special spices and placing it in plastic bags. She looked at me and told me that she was making this dates for me to take. I chocked when I heard her saying that. An Iraqi date in the cold winter days in Canada will be good for my soul and spirit
September 20, 2013
Back to Toronto, my house is quiet. I could hear my voice hitting the walls. Yo Yo Ma is playing one of Bach’s sonatas. A pink rose is budding from a small plant I bought before leaving to Baghdad, a cup of tea and a small plate with Iraqi dates on the table. A heart of an Iraqi woman is full with longing to a country she had just left and a hope for something to sooth her pain from what she witnessed a while ago.
Nesreen Melek lives in Canada but with an abiding love and devotion to her homeland, Iraq. She can be contacted at: [email protected]
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