Baghdad-Diary \ January, 14th.

Greetings,

I feel bored today because I have nothing to do! I want to go out and meet my friends but I can’t because any place would be unsafe for girls to be alone, and we wouldn’t have fun if there were some elder people from our families with us! I am independent but I can’t practice my independence here. I sometimes see girls walking down the streets by themselves and I get surprised at this. Not because it’s unusual to see a girl going out alone, but it’s because I have missed this scene since the war started. I wish to go out alone but I’m afraid to do so.

I can spend my time reading books or watching T.V., but it would be boring after sometime. I thank God that at least I have a good access to books to read, otherwise I would die! I like novels, so I collect and read them. Last year, an American woman helped me to get some books that couldn’t be found in Iraq and mailed them to me all the way from the U.S.A. to Iraq.

I miss my friends and wish to meet them soon. We used to be six girls when we were at college; we met there when we were at our first grade. We all have the same specialization which is English literature, and we all like this domain so much. We used to go out for lunch when we became in second grade, we had a great friendship and we also used to spend some time in each others houses. It was so fun to do this.

The war took place when we were in second grade. We thought that college would be canceled for that year, but it was resumed in May, that is two months after the war. We had our final exams in July, the hottest month of the year in Iraq. The circumstances under which we had our exams were horrible; we couldn’t even breathe well inside our examination’s halls. Everything was messy and we were not used to the helicopters’ sounds over our heads all the time. It was very frustrating to so many of us. But now if you ask me I say to you that I don’t hear the planes sounds anymore because I got used to them very much that I don’t hear anything anymore!

One of my six friends had to leave the country six months after the war. She went to live in another country with her family. I felt very sad for her leave but I knew that it was for her better because things were not showing any good signs at that time, and it was true as everything started to get worse day after day.

The six girls at college became five. Our friendship grew stronger and we became all in one class after being split in two classes. We kept on our goings out for lunch even though it was dangerous. It was fun to do risky things sometimes! We reached the fourth and last year of college and we were filled with hope that we would graduate and get good jobs. We graduated, and some of us applied for the higher studies and the others started to search for a job in their field of study. The higher studies results came out but none of us were accepted! We were not sad for this because we knew it. My friends kept searching for jobs, and when they didn’t find one in their major, they started to search for other jobs that are not in their domains. Two of them succeeded in finding jobs, but they salary wasn’t good at all. They took the job because they didn’t want to stay at home. They left the job after some months because the region where their workplace located was dangerous. One of those two girls left Baghdad and moved to a City in north of Iraq with her family because they couldn’t stand it here anymore.

The five girls became four! Another one of my friends was searching for a job all summer time, and she was about to get one at the Green Zone but she changed her mind when two translators were killed there, and she preferred to work as a saleswoman with a poor salary. My last friend in the group is still searching for a job till this moment. And me, it’s obvious! I got the scholarship I was dreaming of.


Morbido!