I never thought that one day I will restore my real youth smile. I didn't know that there is still hope of living normally even if it is away from my own country. I gave up hoping that my beloved country may be safe and normal again.
My life has changed now. I can breath, walk, laugh, joke, cry, run, have fun, and meet with friends and relatives. I missed these things for years. For the last three years, I was like a robot. Living and working for the sake of work and nothing else. No kind of life was represented in my previous life. Fear was my companion. Wherever I go I feel worried and whatever I do I feel cautious. I thought about each step I walked in Baghdad several times before I took its risk.
Tears, lots of tears bid farewell to Baghdad. When I was leaving, I felt my tears were falling like rain on the shoulders of my mother, father, sister, aunt and friends. We were all crying. My parents were crying of happiness because finally I am going to be safe. But where can I get the feeling of peace from while they are still there in the middle of killings and explosions?
Since I arrived in Amman, I felt that I am still alive. WOW! I am still alive. I don't know how, I don't know why but I am alive and breathing. "Back to life" became my slogan. Yes, I was dead for the last three years. Death does not necessarily mean you die physically.
I have lots of friends and relatives in Amman. However, I didn’t stay with anyone of them. I shared an apartment with a friend of mine whom we both pay for its rent.
Iraqis are everywhere in Amman. Maybe it's funny if I say that there are Jordanians in Amman now! Wherever I turn my face, I see an Iraqi. They invaded Jordan as Zeyad said in his Amman posts. Few months ago, one of my best friends who works in the ministry of displaced and migration said that there are more than a million and a half Iraqis in Amman alone. Add to this the number of millions of other Iraqis who fled to Syria, Egypt, Dubai, and other European countries. Sometimes I don't feel I am a stranger from another country because even most of those who come to the internet café I go to are Iraqis. Each Iraqi I talk to says life became impossible in Iraq under the failure of everything there.
Iraqis here are not the poor ones or the uneducated. Most of them are the educated and well raised young men and women who feel their dreams were being killed slowly in a country run by vulgar people and extremists. Most of those I saw and met were graduates of the best colleges and universities in Iraq who most of them were threatened to death if they continue their progress in rebuilding their destroyed country. If not them, their parents and relatives were threatened to death. Even the Iraqi satellite channels started interviewing Iraqi intellectuals, authors and scientists in Amman or other Arab or foreign countries. None of the good people are left in Iraq. Militias formed of Shiite hateful avenging backwards people and Sunni insurgents are the ones whom Iraq is left for. They took it by force like Saddam.
To carry out my new slogan, I decided to make my new life becomes normal as I wanted it to be. I started doing what I couldn't do for the last three years and sometimes do what I couldn't do under Saddam. Meeting with friends was one of the things I most wanted to have done. By nature, I am social. I love meeting new people and friends. Maybe being a reporter in Baghdad made me lucky in a way in meeting with people more than other Iraqis in my age whose companion is home and work only.
Few days ago, I mentioned that have met with my Iraqi bloggers for the first time. Yesterday, I met them again in one of the greatest picnics I ever had since the picnics I had with my friends at the University before the war. Ten young men and women, all in their twenties, gathered again in hope of making our clean heart and ambitious mind become the common bond. Morbid Smile, Micho, Attawi and her sister, Zeyad, Nabil, 24 Steps, Anarki 13 and his friend and of course I met again in al-Hussein Gardens in Amman. Attawi brought her guitar. However, Nabil played some of the best songs we ever listened to and enjoyed. When Nabil got the guitar, I sang the famous Phoebe [of F.R.I.E.N.D.S] song, "Smelly Cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you?". We all laughed out loud making our young laughs soar high after they were imprisoned inside us for years. Within myself, I said yes, I am still alive. I can sing, laugh and joke now.
On the sidewalk, all of us sat down. Nabil's amazing fingers started playing "Hotel California". We all sang it joyfully and happily while children were running and playing next to us. Iraqi old songs were not far from being remembered. "You and I were young," was one of the most beautiful and romantic song sang by one of the greatest Iraqi female singer, Sita Hagobian. The song took me back to Baghdad and its old days. "On the bank [of the river], we sat together at nights…", reminded me with the Tigris that never felt peace. Our beautiful female friends did not miss anything. They brought Lays Chips, Swiss Roll candies, Iraqis favorite picnic nuts and of course, Pepsi Cola. "The last time I had such a beautiful picnic with friends was with college friends before the war," I told the gang. They said they didn't have the same thing since then as well.
Now that I have restored my life back, I still feel sad for my friends whom I left in Baghdad. They are still dead and have no meaning of life. Sometimes, I feel guilty because I had the chance to get my life back while they didn't. I wish I could take all of them with me and let them breathe again.
My life has changed now. I can breath, walk, laugh, joke, cry, run, have fun, and meet with friends and relatives. I missed these things for years. For the last three years, I was like a robot. Living and working for the sake of work and nothing else. No kind of life was represented in my previous life. Fear was my companion. Wherever I go I feel worried and whatever I do I feel cautious. I thought about each step I walked in Baghdad several times before I took its risk.
Tears, lots of tears bid farewell to Baghdad. When I was leaving, I felt my tears were falling like rain on the shoulders of my mother, father, sister, aunt and friends. We were all crying. My parents were crying of happiness because finally I am going to be safe. But where can I get the feeling of peace from while they are still there in the middle of killings and explosions?
Since I arrived in Amman, I felt that I am still alive. WOW! I am still alive. I don't know how, I don't know why but I am alive and breathing. "Back to life" became my slogan. Yes, I was dead for the last three years. Death does not necessarily mean you die physically.
I have lots of friends and relatives in Amman. However, I didn’t stay with anyone of them. I shared an apartment with a friend of mine whom we both pay for its rent.
Iraqis are everywhere in Amman. Maybe it's funny if I say that there are Jordanians in Amman now! Wherever I turn my face, I see an Iraqi. They invaded Jordan as Zeyad said in his Amman posts. Few months ago, one of my best friends who works in the ministry of displaced and migration said that there are more than a million and a half Iraqis in Amman alone. Add to this the number of millions of other Iraqis who fled to Syria, Egypt, Dubai, and other European countries. Sometimes I don't feel I am a stranger from another country because even most of those who come to the internet café I go to are Iraqis. Each Iraqi I talk to says life became impossible in Iraq under the failure of everything there.
Iraqis here are not the poor ones or the uneducated. Most of them are the educated and well raised young men and women who feel their dreams were being killed slowly in a country run by vulgar people and extremists. Most of those I saw and met were graduates of the best colleges and universities in Iraq who most of them were threatened to death if they continue their progress in rebuilding their destroyed country. If not them, their parents and relatives were threatened to death. Even the Iraqi satellite channels started interviewing Iraqi intellectuals, authors and scientists in Amman or other Arab or foreign countries. None of the good people are left in Iraq. Militias formed of Shiite hateful avenging backwards people and Sunni insurgents are the ones whom Iraq is left for. They took it by force like Saddam.
To carry out my new slogan, I decided to make my new life becomes normal as I wanted it to be. I started doing what I couldn't do for the last three years and sometimes do what I couldn't do under Saddam. Meeting with friends was one of the things I most wanted to have done. By nature, I am social. I love meeting new people and friends. Maybe being a reporter in Baghdad made me lucky in a way in meeting with people more than other Iraqis in my age whose companion is home and work only.
Few days ago, I mentioned that have met with my Iraqi bloggers for the first time. Yesterday, I met them again in one of the greatest picnics I ever had since the picnics I had with my friends at the University before the war. Ten young men and women, all in their twenties, gathered again in hope of making our clean heart and ambitious mind become the common bond. Morbid Smile, Micho, Attawi and her sister, Zeyad, Nabil, 24 Steps, Anarki 13 and his friend and of course I met again in al-Hussein Gardens in Amman. Attawi brought her guitar. However, Nabil played some of the best songs we ever listened to and enjoyed. When Nabil got the guitar, I sang the famous Phoebe [of F.R.I.E.N.D.S] song, "Smelly Cat, smelly cat. What are they feeding you?". We all laughed out loud making our young laughs soar high after they were imprisoned inside us for years. Within myself, I said yes, I am still alive. I can sing, laugh and joke now.
On the sidewalk, all of us sat down. Nabil's amazing fingers started playing "Hotel California". We all sang it joyfully and happily while children were running and playing next to us. Iraqi old songs were not far from being remembered. "You and I were young," was one of the most beautiful and romantic song sang by one of the greatest Iraqi female singer, Sita Hagobian. The song took me back to Baghdad and its old days. "On the bank [of the river], we sat together at nights…", reminded me with the Tigris that never felt peace. Our beautiful female friends did not miss anything. They brought Lays Chips, Swiss Roll candies, Iraqis favorite picnic nuts and of course, Pepsi Cola. "The last time I had such a beautiful picnic with friends was with college friends before the war," I told the gang. They said they didn't have the same thing since then as well.
Now that I have restored my life back, I still feel sad for my friends whom I left in Baghdad. They are still dead and have no meaning of life. Sometimes, I feel guilty because I had the chance to get my life back while they didn't. I wish I could take all of them with me and let them breathe again.
