Wade in Iraq: Week 33 - My Week In Iraq

Greetings from Umm Qasr! (Umm Qasr, which I believe is Arabic for “Iraq and Kuwait continually fight over who we belong to…. Iraq: ‘They belong to YOU!...’ Kuwait: ‘NO! - they belong to YOU!....’ “)

Alrighty then….I didn’t plan it this way, but this week is going to be a lot of discussion about the “kids” in the southern part of Iraq. Also, I am going to be showing photos of some of the lousy conditions – so there will be a lot of photos this week…. so let’s start out with last week – where I mentioned little “Noor” and her baby brother “Ridda”..

This is Ridda – approx. 3 months old….

Ridda was born shortly after his dad, Mohandis (engineer) Amjad came to work for me. No matter how I tried, I could not convince Mom and Dad to name him “Wade”….Ridda is the name of one of the Imams…. (BTW, Wade is the name of one of the guys with a really cool hat….)

Ridda also has two older sisters – one is Noor, who is pictured below and Zahra (means flower) who is two years old (and I don’t have a photo of)

This is Noor – she is 6 years old and she is getting to go to her first day of School – in Basrah. Note – look closely - Grandma doesn’t want to be photographed - but she is keeping a sharp eye on Noor…..(btw, Grandma makes EXCELLENT buriani….)

This is just outside of Noor’s school. Remember how I told you it finally rained here? Well, you can see the puddles of water in front of the school.

Here are some boys playing football (soccer) in the field nearby – most of them play barefoot or in sandals

And here is the entrance to Noor’s school. Note the teacher has the door open – and they have cleared the area in front of the school.

Here is another view (of a road close by) after the rain.

Here are some kids playing outside and enjoying the wet weather….

Also, I have been holding on to some clothes (and goodies) that various people have sent to me. The local interpreters handed them out for me here in Umm Qasr – they said it was a great time – because the schools have started up again – now that the weather broke….

You can see….she is thinking – maybe if I look cute, they will give me more. (a few minutes later, she took the Frisbee from her little brother – he got it back – but boy, was he crying hard…).

Well, the interpreter started handing out to the girl’s school…..at first, there were not a lot of takers – but then word got out that this was good “American” stuff (not the Chinese stuff…) and he quickly became overwhelmed

I’ll keep this photo big – so you can see all of the smiles on these young girl’s faces. Luckily a few minutes later, the interpreter got some assistance from one of the men who work at the mosque – so it didn’t get out of hand….well…too much out of hand.

The “girls” all comparing the stuff they received. One of the problems here is that there is so much cheap stuff that China “dumps” in Iraq – that they don’t get a lot of quality clothing…..so this was a nice thing.

So….I hope you enjoyed that little slide show….in case you were wondering – no – I am not requesting clothes or anything – as I will be rotating out by the end of the year – either to another job – or home – so I won’t be here. I have told the interpreters that anything that gets shipped to me, they can just hand out….so if you do send something – it will be given to the local children – there just won’t be any photos….

However, I think this is an interesting look at how bad the kids here have it (and remember, they DON’T have electrical power – except for about 8 hours a day or so) – so video games, computers, television – they are all luxuries that most of them don’t have access to – and if they do, the power is not on long enough to enjoy it….

When I came back from Afghanistan in 2004, one of the hardest things for me to deal with – was walking through a mall – and hearing the spoiled rotten kids crying and whining cause they couldn’t get the $200 shoes vs. the $100 shoes – or not being able to get a tattoo – or the latest $75 video game…oh how I wish they had invented a “teleporter” so I could have taken the “little darlings” back to Afghanistan so that they could see how good they really have it….(of course, I imagine my parents said the same thing about me when I was a kid…..). But it was very hard to adjust to these kids having so much – after seeing so many kids being content with so little.

Anyrate, so…..let’s move onto another subject…... Raheem and the wedding…. Last time I left you, we were waiting for the parents of Zainab to give Raheem’s family “the verdict” on their “background investigation.”

Before I tell you the results – let me explain about the living situations here. You see, Haleem and Raheem still live at home (it is not unusual here in Iraq for multiple generations to live together – matter of fact – at least here in the south – it is pretty normal). Well, the family lives in a five-bedroom house – a large one – and “mom and dad” live in one bedroom. Haleem, his wife (Entasar) and 3 kids live in another bedroom. Raheem was going to take one bedroom – and there are two remaining bedrooms – one for the rest of the boys and one for the rest of the girls. It is a big, spacious house. The other interesting thing here is that houses here are expensive to buy. They are very cheap to rent – roughly, a good sized house is about $300 a month to rent (again, this is just so you have an idea – that is not their exact rent) – but it would cost about $100,000 to buy – AND here – you don’t buy a house through the mortgage company. You typically pay cash…. (again, that is not what I read/hear – but what I am told – by several sources).

Okay – so with that discussion – Zainab’s parents came back. They told Raheem that they would only allow him to marry their daughter if they moved into their own house. Raheem – still being relatively young, does not want to do that until he can be reasonably assured that he could afford their own place – and that is not right for him at this time….. so, Raheem tried to discuss with the parents – but as in most cases in Iraq, it quickly deteriorated – so…..no bride for Raheem….at least at this point. Now, there is a family – who has a sister – and I believe Raheem and his mom are going to meet her soon – but she does not have any parents (just siblings). So we will have to wait and see.

One more interesting fact. If Raheem does not get married by around the 15^th of November – he will not be able to get married for at least 40 days. The reason is – Ashura. (I know – sometimes you need a program to keep up with the various holidays and religious things going on…)….so here is some info on Ashura….

Ashura is when the Shia Muslims recognize the martyrdom of Imam Husayn – he was the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Any rate, Ashura is “commemorated” by NOT celebrating. It is a time of mourning – and sorrow – so – no parties, no celebrations, no weddings, no TV watching, no applauding or doing anything that would be considered “fun” (before you criticize, in America, we do have something similar – it is called “the in-laws coming to visit…”…)….yep……… I crack…me…up.

Okay – back to being serious. But the Shia take this time to be very reflective and sorrowful – to show their respect to their prophet. Now, why forty days? In this case – it has little to do with the Quoran – it was because after the prophet was martyred, the story tells that a female relative (not sure if it was his wife or his mother or his sister – I get conflicting reports) ….but the relative was in a period of sorrow and one day (which just happened to be forty days out…) she saw a bug trying to move some food and the piece of food was so large – the bug’s feet were slipping and the food wasn’t moving. This sight brought a slight smile to her face –and all of the family noticed - so the period of “mourning” was officially over. And THAT is why they are sorrowful for 40 days.

This is also the time when you see some of people whipping themselves (eww….) and cutting themselves – to show sorrow for the loss of the prophet. So even though I don’t agree with them doing that to themselves – I understand (some of) the reason they are doing it…

So the bottom line is Raheem will have to wait until after Ashura to get married if he doesn’t find a wife before then. I will keep you up to date if I hear any news.

This week, we are also celebrating Eid (there are other Eids per year – Eid Ramadan – which is what is celebrated at the end of Ramadan) and Eid –alathahee. Basically, think of Eid as some type of party or holiday – but with religious connotations. The bottom line is, there is partying and celebrations happening (and lots of food) during this past week. And it is good timing – as pretty soon, Ashura will be upon us – and all that partying will cease.

Okay, since I rambled on about some other stuff – I won’t update you on the waste water treatment plant this week… (there is a joke in there somewhere about “no movement” …..but I think I used up my quota of corny jokes on the “in-laws visiting”….so I will let that one go.)

So for now, I will bid you “ashoofak bayaden” (a – shoe – fawk – buy – a - den) which means “I will see you later”. As always, you are all in my thoughts and prayers. And even though I miss you all, I know the deep sorrow I feel at being away from you – will be greatly surpassed by the extreme joy I will feel when I next see you again. In the meantime…..

God Bless America

Mr. Wide

مهندس واد بروير

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