Baghdad Diary \ January 18th.

I was feeling so bad when I wrote this for the Diary Project


Hi,
This is a new day and I thank God I’m still breathing and alive. In Iraq, especially Baghdad, people thank God every moment for being alive because we don’t know what we might face in the next moment which can cause our death. You could be walking down the street and get a bullet in your head out of a sudden. This bullet can be either directed to you or it’s just one of those so many gunshots we hear everyday.

Or maybe you could be standing in a long line waiting to sign up your name in the military or police to serve your country and help building it, and somebody comes out of nowhere to blow up himself and cause the death of all who are waiting inline, including you. This kind of explosion will tear your corpse into pieces and nobody will be able to gather them because they are mixed with the other corpses’ pieces! Dark, ha?! The truth is even darker than this, and living in such circumstances is a real hell on earth.

I am a young girl in my twenties, and I have the future in front of me, and life is calling for me to enjoy and live every single moment of it. But how am I going to do this when I’m living no life? How can I enjoy when I see young people dying every day in my country? I can only think that I could be the next!

I woke up early at seven o’clock this morning because Mom was leaving to Dubai on a vacation for two weeks. This is her second time she travels for some country on a vacation. The first time was also to Dubai last summer.

She had to get to the airport early even though her flight was at 11 A.M. the road leading to the airport is very dangerous and filled with Iraqi and American checkpoints. No one can get to the airport by his car or taxicab, there are certain taxicabs assigned to get the travelers from anywhere in Baghdad right to the airport. The cost of hiring one of those taxis is quite expensive because there are limited drivers who are assigned to do this job and allowed to drive in the airport’s street which is dangerous. But there is no other way to get there except for this street.

It was supposed that the plane take off at 11 o’clock, but as everything here can be changed at anytime, the flight was delayed until 3 P.M., she reached Dubai after about three to four hours and she called us from Dubai Airport to say that she landed safely.

I spent the night listening to the radio as usual, and I discovered that there is a new Iraqi radio station starting to broadcast every day.


Morbido!