In The Elections Day

Hello everyone,

So it happened. Many Iraqi people went to vote today, the process ended at 5 P.M. The day was somewhat peaceful. The news reported some explosions inside the Green Zone and other places in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. All the Iraqi channels are broadcasting live from voting centers in all over Iraq. It's showing people well dressed up as if going to a festival and walking down the streets, all happy.

Last night, while I was still online at 2 A.M., the phone rang but I didn't want to answer at first. It kept ringing so I decided to see who was calling us in that time. The phone machine showed my Grandparents' phone number so I freaked out and regretted that I didn't answer the call from the begining. It was my Grandmother's voice on the phone, I asked her what was up and she told me that the mosques are calling people not to drink water from the water-pipes cuz it's poisoned in all over Baghdad!! I knew they wouldn't let the day pass peacefully!!

I ended the call and ran upstairs to Mom who was sleeping. I was bare-footed, and I felt that my feet wouldn't move as fast as it could. Lots of images came to my mind in that moment. Images of dead people poisoned cuz of the water, scenes like the ones we all saw of Halabcha Massacre, people falling on the ground. I was saying to myself that the Secret of Life has turned to a deadly beast in Baghdad. I called my Mother and told her the news, she ran down stairs with me to call my aunts and tell them the news. It was 2:30 when the news spreaded all over Baghdad. We kept receiving phone calls one after the other, and the mosques kept calling and warning people not drink from the water pipes.

I went to bed after 3 o'clock but I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking of what might happen in the next day and how many people would die cuz of this. Then heavy gunshots started near home and it lasted for a long time, and American helicopters came after a while. The sky was up all night.

In the midest of that nightmare, I was very hungry!! I tried to remember when was the last time I drank water, but I couldn't remember.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning, and I saw an SMS from Blueman telling me about the news. And he also informed me that T.V. channels say it's a lie!! The water is not poisonous. My father went out to the supermarket to get us some water bottoles. All the bottoles were sold out! My grandmother said that their neighbor who is a shop keeper got out in the middle of the night and opened his shop cuz many people asked him to do this so that they buy bottoles of waters from him before they vanish from the markets in the next morning! And so it happened, all water bottoles vanished before 8 o'clock in the morning. Dad had to buy us Pepsi and Miranda instead of water!!

The Minister of Health announced that water is all fine and it has no poisons at all, and no cases were reported in Baghdad's hospitals. People started to use the water normally, but I couldn't drink water since yesterday. I grew scared of it now! I even faced difficulty when I brushed my teeth in the morning! I thought that water would eat up my face.

Some people say that it was a rumor to distract people from the elections, and some others say that members of a family in a certain area in Baghdad were poisoned cuz of something they ate or drank, and they thought that it was cuz of the water. So the mosques started to warn the residents of that region and the news got all over Baghdad. It all happened in less that one hour!!

My family and I went out at 11 o'clock in the morning to vote. All my neighbors were heading to the same place. My region is somewhat small, so there is only one voting center in it. I could see almost everyone there, I saw some of my old teachers in primary and secondary schools. Some of them were very old and could hardly walk. I also saw some girls whom I rememberd their faces as they were with me at school as well. I didn't know them personally but I could remember them. I saw two elderly couples walking out of the center, they were helping each other to walk among the masses. They were very old that they both had walking sticks to help them walking steadily. I looked at them and I was amazed to see such old people coming to vote, it must have been hard on them to get out of home and walk for long distance to cast their votes, but they did it.

After that, we went to my Grandparents house and has lunch there. The channels were all talking and showing scenes about the elections in Iraq. I came back home, took a photo for my finger with the ink.

Now the process is over, and there is another stage we have to go through, which is to wait and see who is going to win.

Much peace for all