Baghdad To Amman

Some of you know that I’ve been following Treasure in Baghdad, the blog of an Iraqi who has been living in a Sunni-dominated part of Baghdad despite not being Sunni.  He has been blogging about his life there, about the dangers, and about lost friends and neighbors, and I worry when he is silent, though I’ve never met him or spoken to him.

His recent posts indicate that he has now fled Baghdad to Amman and I feel his sadness but I must admit that I am relieved for him.  I feel that my prayers at least were answered, though I wish that it hadn’t had to come to this.

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.  [“Back to Life”]

To read about other Iraqis who’ve fled to Amman, check out these blogs:

• Morbid Smile’s From Me With Love!
• Zeyad’s Healing Iraq
• Nabil’s Blog

Tags: Iraq, blogs, Baghdad, Amman